This past summer I clued you in to Makan Negahban’s solo project Hippo Campus and the album “Glass”, which I reviewed here. I’m here to let you know that there is new music on the way. The new album, entitled “Nausea/Cherries”, is completed and awaiting final mastering as we speak. The release puts another near hour of music under his belt and he was gracious enough to provide me with a sampling.

The track, “Cherries”, is similar in style to works found on “Glass” with a haunting and disconcerting repeated pattern that slowly gives way to a gradual unfolding and development of material with other sounds coming and going in the distance. The persistent “whirring” present at the beginning of the track serves to provide us with some atmospherics, though the tracks is far from ambient in nature. A thump of bass adds some depth to the work, as well as strength to the pulse. More clearly pitched and articulated sounds come in just before a break from the descending keyboard pattern just after the halfway point and continue after its return. The vocals here are a bit more clear than those that appear on Glass, though they are still shrouded in echo. Despite the vocals being almost indecipherable there are hints of words that poke through, and the melodic line that it traces interacts with the ostinato in interesting ways.

Take a listen to the track below and keep an eye out for the album. Check out Hippo Campus on the Rack and Ruin site and at Myspace.

[audio:http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/cherries.mp3|titles=Hippo Campus – “Cherries”]