Stratocaster in hand, Michael Vallera sought to create a blanketed, grey world. Back in 2023 he plugged his guitar into a minimal effects chain (which subsequently “fed into a small solid state amplifier”) and conjured his world. The Chicago guitarist and sound artist created music that reminded him of charcoal drawings, monochromatic pieces that thrum and drone like apocalyptic landscapes void of life. The Other World is as named: a photo negative to a bustling city with colour and vibrancy; a dingy inside space absent of direct sunlight; a place of repose that becomes unnerving and slightly haunting if sat in too long.
Like with his previous album Window In, the limitation of just a guitar and small effects pedal at hand is what makes The Other World so intriguing. Vallera makes guitar music that would be impossible to identify as such; the sounds on his records far beyond anything recognisable from its source point. The Other World is no different. “Flood” lurches and groans like some supernatural beast calling from unimaginable depths while the latter half of “Peaceful Room” heaves like some age-old mammoth tree creaking high above in the wind. Every so often what sounds like a chord might emerge, but it’s more akin to the sound of a string ensemble slowed down 400 times as opposed to any familiar figure you would find in a musical theory book.
Vallera took some time away from the recordings after creating them back in 2023, and it speaks to one of the album’s better qualities. This isn’t immediately striking music, nor was it intended to be. As Vallera says, “it’s a space for contemplation… a monochromatic expression of a deeply interior place.” This is gloomy ambience that requires a little time and ideally a fitting setting (decent headphones make a difference here). Vallera cut the high end tone of the guitar pre-amplifier, so the low end rumbles ominously here, like an incoming storm that’s too close to escape. “Unlit” sways like a woozy dirge playing from the other side of an abandoned theatre. The first half of “Peaceful Room” is like dust settling or some colossal mythical creature emerging from an unnervingly still sea. In the right hands this could be the soundtrack to a silent horror movie.
The Other World does need that right setting though, a quiet place to let it swallow you, much like the pitch black darkness surrounding the flame on the simple but effective album cover. The yawning 14-minute opening title track lures you in with a Tim Hecker-like sense of hymnal drone, shimmering through its murky exterior. Perhaps the most melodic piece here, it’s like light trying to find its way to you but meeting a dead end at every turn. It’s a long entrance though, an increasingly long hall before the album starts plunging some depths and becoming more interesting.
That the four tracks here were completed in a single take and without editing or further manipulation is perhaps the album’s other impressive quality. In other hands this kind of music would be fussed over for months to create the texture Vallera summons with what feels like fascinating ease. The Other World is a snapshot of a productive recording session, a fascinating sound world and unsettling place to inhabit for just over half an hour. Ideally there would be a little more variety in texture, some contrasting tones and gradients to give the album something of a more immediate hook. Or even for it to have gone deeper, harder, and darker. It’s a cavern that Vallera creates here with his Stratocaster, but it aches and pines to plunge deeper into the darkness, to let the pitch black swallow the greys completely.
