In a second glimpse of the forthcoming album Headwater (out 26th June), Room40’s Helen Svoboda now shares the sparse and mystical ‘Void of Space’. The song begins with a stark vocal, before close harmonies and pizzicato strings lurch the song into something more quizzical, full of wonder and uncertainty.
The distinctive sonic world of Headwater weaves sixteen threads or ‘earworms’ built around two double basses, two voices, and electronics; heard as singular and combinatory bodies of material. The album forms an abstracted picture of self, rooted in a devolved song form. It can be experienced as a tapestry that blurs the edges of identity; strange, beautiful, evaporative, and fluid, like memory itself.
About the track, Helen says, “’Void of Space’ exists in the in-between, in a daydream, where thoughts evaporate into one another. The lyrics paint this picture, where a stream of thought "climbs up a cloud, but falls through", in a never-ending abstract void of space.”
Filmmaker Angus Kirby adds, “This video is a trip from the vaguely familiar to the unknown. Besides a literal interpretation of the title, ‘Void of Space’ has a celestial quality in its silences and sense of scale. To listen to it is it float through an eerie vacuum. I figured the video should reflect that with experiments with light and empty locations we’re used to seeing populated. Gradually we become untethered until we find ourselves in the titular void."”
AA
Photo credit: Celeste de Clario
Aural Aggravation 