Villain, Carmen: Memoria (clear vinyl) LP

 "Memoria" begins like an opened valve; exhaling flute chords slowly fill a vast sonic landscape as an invitation for the listener to slow down and enter a state of deep listening. It's an introduction that guides expertly into an album of decelerated, spectral dub, which shimmers, growls and decays across the narratively ordered seven tracks. In this regard, "Memoria" picks up where Villain left off with 2022's "Only Love From Now On", though the new album's focus is sound as memory - and memories as morphing, non-static imperfections. Repetition functions as memory retold; processing degrades and reshapes sound, and abstraction allows a kind of freedom from linearity. Inspired by Pauline Oliveros' writings on internally recalled sounds inaudible to others, as well as Apichatpong Weerasethakul's 2021 film "Memoria", Villain approaches memory as both a cognitive faculty and a form of composition, moulding samples from her own archive into a cosmic introspection - albeit one that is the opposite of solipsistic. The album’s inward gaze takes its inspiration from deep listening as form of empathy, connecting us simultaneously with ourselves and our environment.