Weekly album: The Flashbulb - Arboreal

The Flashbulb - Arboreal

2010/ IDM

1. Undiscovered Colors

2. Dragging Afloat

3. The Trees In Russia

4. We, The Dispelled

5. Meadow Crush

6. A Raw Understanding

7. Dread, Etched In Snow

8. A Million Dotted Lines

9. Once Weekly

10. Springtime In Distance

11. Dreaming Renewal

12. The Great Pumpkin Tapes

13. Lines Between Us

14. Burning The Black And White

15. Telescopic Memorial

16. Skeletons

17. Tomorrow Untrodden

Orostider: After figuring out there's a lot more than metal music out there, I've been trying to find all kinds of different music. My journey to the wonderful world of electronic music started from french house and other more approachable forms of the genre about five or six years ago. Through this particular album, I found my way deeper into electronic music and ended up falling in love with idm's wide array of different elements.

Using idm (abbreviation for intelligent dance music) to describe an album is useless in the same way as describing an album with only 'metal.' 'Arboreal' could be categorized under drum n' bass / ambient / jazz fused idm. Those are the three major elements of this album, but in addition to them there's a quite large variety of minor elements and influences. Because of the wide array of different elements and sounds, two songs out of this album may sound entirely different. 'Burning the Black and White' verges Boards of Canada's ambient / idm sound , 'Undiscovered Colors' follows the glitchy drum n'bass pattern and 'Dreaming Renewal' incorporates more jazz elements than the aforementioned songs.

'Arboreal' works quite well as a gateway album to idm, but it shouldn't be treated as one. This isn't really an easy album for people unaware of idm, but it should offer an interesting trip to a colourful variety of feelings and sounds. The songs mainly evoke kind of longing feelings and the album as a whole is a calming and solid experience. 'Undiscovered colors' works as a slow paced introduction to these colourful feelings and after a wild ride, 'Tomorrow Untrodden' acts as a serene closure for the album. Picking a favourite track is quite difficult, but 'The Trees in Russia' is the high point of the album for me.   

tp5170: “What a pleasant surprise”, I thought when I had gotten past the halfway of the album as I had no idea what to expect. Unfortunately that was also the point after which the album stopped throwing surprises at me. The atmosphere in the tracks is rather chill and relaxing and that’s something I can truly appreciate given that I don’t usually come across this kind of atmosphere with the kind of stuff I usually consume, but the general feel/flow of the songs started to get pretty repetitive towards the end of the album. All together there were only two or three tracks I didn’t really like which would not be much of a issue since there are as many as 16(?) tracks on Arboreal, but it’s just that all of the tracks felt more or less the same. This of course might be something that stops being an issue if you listen to the album more than once.

Arboreal is not a bad album by any means and I think it simply overstays its welcome, it being an hour long and all.  In any case it was definitely an interesting experience and who knows, I might even return to Arboreal at some point.

btcarey: Aside from an awkward, short-lived, dubstep phase (during my early college years), electronic music has never really done it for me. Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate songs with electronic elements (and there is nothing better than a good beat), but electronic music as a stand-alone genre just doesn’t appeal to my musical taste. That being said, by the end of my first listen it was evident that “Arboreal” was a solid album nonetheless. The musical quality is far above average and I very impressed to find that “The Flashbulb” is a one-man project.

The main selling point for me was diversity of musical elements. The album features guitar, drums, piano, vocals, orchestra instruments, and traditional electronic programming. My favorite of the aforementioned instruments was by far the jazzy drums, showcased perfectly on the song “Springtime in Distance”.

Some of the songs on the album are clearly better than others and with a run time of about an hour I was left feeling bored for moderate portion of the album (probably stemming from my lack of knowledge and appreciation for the style). Overall, this is a good album and anyone interested in electronic music should check it out.

Favorite Song: We, The Dispelled

Kattroll: When I first met Orostider about five years ago, it was made clear to me that even though he has long hair and wears metal band's t-shirt, his taste in music is wide. Like really wide. This time he told me he had two candidates, both being electronic at least to some point. The first option was said to be an album I've heard before and the second option was something none of us have never heard before. Surprisingly, he picked the latter. 

The first song was beautiful, but the next one's vocals didn't really do it for me. The songs feel disjointed and they are probably meant to be that, because there's a unique artwork for every song. Because the album didn't really feel meaningful to me, partly because of an unfamiliar genre, I decided to leave the album rolling on the background while cleaning. During the ninth song, 'Once Weekly', them music struck my feelings a bit too hard and I decided not to continue listening to the album, even though it was only half way done. I don't know if the music itself was too melancholic and sad for me or why, but I just felt like covering myself with a blanket and weeping. At the moment, I'm just incapable to listen to this kind of music.