The aptly titled Nomad, fifth album from South Korean/Japanese new age act TENGGER, moves with measured pace. There is something of the Tuareg guitar style in its hypnotic repetition; an inexorable march in which its short phrases loop relentlessly above a thick drone, like footsteps across an infinite plane. High-decay synths intermingle with lush vocal elements to provide a unique soundscape. The only sufficient description is ‘ringtones of angels’.
Nomad welcomes the UK in the midst of a purging rain. This shredding of the stolid air provides a perfect backdrop for Nomad’s release. As suggested by its cover, the album brings a sense of expiation from above—a spiritual drenching. On ‘Water’, the album’s third track, sequenced synth blips fall with the messy musicality of raindrops. Synth work is so adept, and concepts so fully realised, that flow and movement fill every second of Nomad.
That TENGGER have been compared to Popol Vuh—as well as some less obvious touchstones like Neu—shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s easy to hear why. Nomad produces the sublime thrill of Aguirre’s men descending from cloud to valley in Herzog’s Popol Vuh-scored masterpiece, Aguirre, The Wrath of God. It’s the soundtrack to an utterly unfamiliar landscape; too abstract, too alien, to be lumped into that dreadful category: ‘world music’. Aguirre’s mountains topped the caps of clouds, from above which you could be in any country. This is celestial music, in which worldly affairs have sense not to meddle.
In fact, ‘Eurasia’, the only track on Nomad with a geographical (rather than conceptual) title, is markedly different to its peers. It’s grander and broader, with hyper-metallic synthesised brass—but comes too with a rigid and artificial quality. It’s the only track on Nomad to feature a drum beat—a bold thing to introduce half-way through an album—and instrumentation percolates amongst itself less, with taut bass and an expansive mix. ‘Eurasia’ is no less hypnotic for these qualities, and shakes Nomad up at just the right time. It’s a shame that it comes at the expense of such delicately-constructed ambience.
‘Flow’ reprises the melody of ‘Water’—with a rich and sonorous downshift in pitch—for a strong finale to the album. We slip in and out of the trickle and rush of a stream. This fading and fluidity represents new age music at its best; inducing a feeling of dispersal, and disintegration of boundaries. If you follow Nomad, you will arrive somewhere unmapped, far from home with a beautiful view and miles of clean, quiet space.
Nomad is available for pre-order here (releasing Jun 12th).
Words: Andrew O’Keefe