Onixonst – “Moon In Sorrows” – Carving a path through the usual electronic music
Law student and music producer, Onixonst, from Newcastle, England has dropped another 12 track electronic gem, entitled “Moon In Sorrows”, which is the follow up to “Analogue Dreams” project. The featured tracks were selected from 230 songs made during the year so far. “This is a personal concept album and explores a lot of different emotional abstractions,” explained Onixonst, “what they are though, is down to the listener. This is darker and more personal than anything I have ever made.”
The latest release from the prolific Onixonst finds the producer moving away from the approaches he had been dabbling in on recent work, turning up the heat on his electronic twists, and bringing them from a simmer to a turbulent boil. The music on “Moon In Sorrows” takes hard turns and shape-shifts with the frequency that we’ve come to expect from Onixonst. But his firm hand at the controls is just as accurate as always.
Onixonst is an artist as exciting as he is enigmatic. Carving a path through the usual electronic music, he is known for his ability to fluctuate, altering his musical identity entirely from record to record. The album begins with “Emergency Exit”, an intricate and calculated track in which Onixonst layers sharp drum rhythms across snaking synth riffs and sporadic hand-claps.
The musical arrangements present on this album represents some of the finest and most varied to be found across any of Onixonst’s projects; packed with ideas, the album seamlessly sways between primal aggression, anarchic peaks, and moments of introspective melancholy.
You can find almost all of the aforementioned elements in “Autumn Moon (We’re Tired)” and “All Loversglow” alone. In fact, through its intricacy and supposed single-mindedness, the album takes a sharp left turn on “Manus In Mano” which is dominated by shimmering guitar motifs.
The track Everything, Sentimental again changes the pace and style interspersing its rumbling percussion with looping synthesizers. “Rainbow Road” is an open invitation into a world abundant in sound, and creative and fractious thought.
As we move forward through the slow burn of “Panic Disorder”, the percussive kick of “Your Hope Is In My Hands” and the ominous darkness of “Ghost Nocturne”, it is obvious that “Moon In Sorrows” isn’t meant to be over accessible per se, but it is a release which perfectly reflects the finest elements of Onixonst’s oeuvre.
It is a record liberated from convention, focused on its message and confident in its depth. In short, it is classic Onixonst: challenging and cavernous. “Shelter Valley” leans heavily on its intricate and intense drum programming. “What Lies Beneath” has a spacious and airy arrangement, as it distinctly relies on minimal instrumentation and a head-nodding groove.
Onixonst closes the set down with “Significant Other” which steadily works itself up into a dance-floor sweat. In the end, “Moon In Sorrows” feels like another reminder to never sleep on Onixonst. Here he produces a surprising work of dark deconstruction mixing melodic patterns with dissonant ideas.
Onixonst is both a technical and compositional craftsman, which makes his music more palatable. This is an album of sumptuous electronica, crammed with ideas and fueled by a twitchy darkness. It heralds a series of tracks that may seem dense and impenetrable at first, but uncover themselves after repeated listens.
OFFICIAL LINKS: SOUNDCLOUD – TWITCH – BANDCAMP
