Under the name Heavy Cloud, Cornwall-based Ryan Hooper creates sounds inspired by memory and internal and external landscapes, often in tandem with collage-based artworks and textual explorations.
Befitting the project’s name, “Eternal Return of the Same” by Heavy Cloud crashes into existence like a horrible storm suddenly travelling across the horizon before landing directly on top of your home. A pummelling and endlessly rolling wave of percussion leads the siege, like Chris Corsano at his most consistent or Jon Mueller at the height of a performance. But within seconds, a lush guitar drone that harkens back to the lap steel of Country & Western’s heyday layers over the top of the percussive clatter, transforming the entire soundscape into something more akin to a warm, enveloping blanket. And its in this mode that the track rages on, with drum and cymbal crashes being forced into your ears as a quickly evolving drone soothes the pain and an ever-present sense of foreboding slowly lurks to the foreground.
On paper, the composition behind “Eternal Return” may seem simple: just absolutely fucking rage on drums and layer in some droney guitar bits for almost 5 minutes then call it a day. But the interplay between these two instruments provides more than enough detail and nuance to last a piece four times that length. With every passing moment, the storm system at the centre of the recording rotates by just a few degrees, revealing another set of sonic details that did not exist before but were waiting to emerge all the same: frequencies buried and revealed, new twists in the self-defeating sense of rhythm, and the occasional moment of random alignment introduce themselves with each repeated listen. In this sense, the track is extremely kaleidoscopic in nature, producing complex patterns out of the simplest of materials. And while the track feels specifically designed to leave you wanting more, there’s still more than enough to chew on and discover throughout this compact work.
Check out Heavy CLoud’s Forthcoming tape release ‘Recordatio’ coming to Grisaille soon:
Bandcamp: heavycloud.bandcamp.com
- X: @heavycloudhaze
- Instagram:@heavycloudhaze
- Bluesky: @heavycloud.bsky.social
- Mastodon: @heavycloud@mastodonapp.uk
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz-dQ6ouKLbvNkDP4GE7-Zw
- Lapsus memoriae show on CAMP radio: www.mixcloud.com/heavycloud/playlists/lapsus-memoriae
- Substack: heavycloud.substack.com
Peter J. Woods
MEANS 