The year is 2014, Berlin. I am in this tiny, weird WG with 4 other people who I can't seem to connect with, no matter what I try. It is cold, gray, and I sleep on a mattress. Earlier that morning, I discovered a 16-minute-long track by a German band called Daturah called "Shoal". Now I sit by the window looking at Warschauer Straße and soak in this dark yet alluring experience. That discovery changed my life and taste in music, and the memory of it was abruptly evoked the moment I heard VOLNA's new album THRESHOLD and its opening track, "Awakening".
VOLNA is the creative moniker of Sydney-based artist Andrey Fedoseev. Inspired by artists like Sigur Rós, Hammock, and Helios, Andrey creates what can be best described as a cosmic whirl of ambient and post-rock music. A sound that inhabits the liminal space between light and dark, melancholy and enlightenment. I deliberately used the word liminal here - it comes from the Latin limen, meaning threshold. It describes a transitional state, space, or moment between two distinct conditions. And you would be right in guessing that the album's name is of significant meaning to VOLNA.
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As soon as "Awakening" caught my attention, I was eager to hear what would follow. Enter "Departure", the first (and only) single released ahead of the album's official arrival. The track envelops the listener in a sense of cathartic grace, finding a beautiful balance between calm and exhilaration. Last night I watched Everest: The Other Side - a documentary about the lives of mountaineers Jim Morrison and Hilaree Nelson and this feels like the soundtrack to it. There's a quiet intensity to it, like finally letting go, taking a deep breath, and surrendering to the unknown.
"This is my first experimental ambient music album - film music for an imaginary film, resonating and drifting between presence and absence, exploring emotion through textures, colours, harmonies and static, reverberating in liminal spaces where dusk becomes night, with a fragile hope of finding light," Andrey shares.
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The album's title track, "Threshold" is where things truly start to shape with me, and that's when Andrey introduces a very electronic-heavy way of building sonic worlds. If you like Boards of Canada or Kiasmos, this would feel like home. The track spans across 9 minutes, and it carefully builds an experience which feels transcendental.
The 9 building blocks (songs) of THRESHOLD ebb and flow between post-rock and ambient, and their creation (and curation) feels very intentional. While the album tends to span across X minutes and I've no doubt would put any genre fan in awe, I think it is that mindful diversity that makes it perfect for people who might not be traditionally listening to ambient or post-rock music.
I absolutely loved the premise of "Time", which during my first listen of the record felt like a pivotal song. This was the first song I played on repeat. Not sure why, but it feels soothing, which I need right now. Cosmic, yet very grounded, if this makes sense.
By this point, it probably won't come as a surprise that I consider this album a masterpiece. As the final track, "(A)drift", slowly began to unfold, I was overcome by a strange sense of sadness. Not because of the mood or essence of the music itself, but because I realised that my first-ever journey through this album was coming to an end. That feeling of wishing you could experience something beautiful for the very first time all over again. And if that's not a testament to the emotional impact of VOLNA's music, I'm not sure what is.
Listening to the album reminded me of another band in the ambient post-rock space I love dearly - Jacob. This kind of music awakens a longing for a calm yet exciting adventure into lands so unfamiliar I can't even begin to picture them. A desire to hike, wander, explore, and lose myself somewhere far away from the grey concrete world I currently inhabit. Kind of poetic, I know, but honestly - this music is life. Characterized by improvisation, VOLNA's music feels both warm, hazy, and beautifully introspective. If you seek a moment of solitude and clarity, THRESHOLD is your gateway to a better you.
This is the soundtrack for those who like to wander, both physically and mentally.
