Bola ‎– Gnayse

A very dark album, Gnayse lives up to its cover art. The textures and melodies contained herein depict a shadowy, obscured world of fossilized aliens entombed in the depths of a distant planet. The only shafts of light appear to come in the form of the excellent "Vhieneray," a track that strongly recalls the best moments of Autechre circa 1997. But even there the light is fleeting, as the darkness returns permanently on the last tracks. "Effaninor," is a good track in the tradition of extended dark pieces that close his albums.

Though there aren't many standout tracks, Gnayse is a consistent work that fits well into the Bola cannon.

The first track, "Eluus", alone is worth this entire album, and the rest of the tracks herein are just as great! Overall, a very thematic and emotionally moving album. This progressive work is a perfect blend of dark and soothing atmospheres interspersed with driving, glitched out beats and funked-out rhythms that I've always attributed to Bola. There are a lot more ambient moments than I've heard in Fitton's other works; I'll even go as far as to say that this is his darkest album to date.
"Eluus" still comes back to me as the most memorable track on this album, and is my favorite Bola track of all time. Especially unforgettable is are the emotive violins that come in and back the segment from 3:30 to 6:02.

I wondered how the Bolaman would follow his two previous albums 'Soup' and 'Fyuti'.Each now has their distinguished place in outstanding electronica but I genuinely believed that any third album would prompt the comment 'more of the same'.Thankfully my irritating pessimism was deftly crushed upon my first listen.
This is an album which is in every sense perfectly crafted.Where the melodies of Soup and to a greater extent Fyuti have a more climaxic nature and a greater sense of finality to them,those on 'Gnayse' manage to echo a feeling of continuity,even in the absense of the listener whilst also maintaining perfectly fluid course - something which until the release of this album I feel has only truly been achieved by Boards Of Canada.It's like reaching out into time and space and grasping a small piece of existance which has its own unique and mystifying eternity.
Absolute atmospheric brilliance.Instant admission to my top five albums of all time.

After the haunting melodies in of his previous albums "Fyuti" and "Soap", "Gnayse" clears the fact that Fitton is the 2004's Dracula or something :-)
"Gnayse" is full of mechanics and strings and ghosts and shadows and machines that make it so lovely! :)

Bola's third album on the Skam imprint is probably his darkest yet. Gnayse has many of the same traits as Fyuti: crunchy beats, weird percussion, bleepy noises, dsp effects, and his trademark ambient soundscapes. The album starts off with "Eluus", the orchestral synths adding a touch of menace to create quite a mournful sounding track. "Sirasancerre" continues in a similar vein, with the swirling synths creating a hypnotic effect. Next up is "Heirairerr", which sounds much like the piano tracks from his previous album as Jello. "Effanajor" is without doubt one of Bola's best tracks ever. It starts with metallic percussion, bleeps, and blurps, as an amazingly beautiful soundscape emerges, and takes over at the end of the track. Lovely stuff. The next four tracks continue in the same style; blissful ambience and a melodic sensibility which is second to none. "Papnwea" begins with an incredibly eerie soundscape, with piano and a female vocal sample emerging in the middle of the track. The album finishes with "Effaninor", which uses the soundscape from the seed pod screen on the Skam website. A 4/4 beat is used in combination with the dsp effected percussion and bassy blurps to drive to the track towards it's conclusion, where the synths are left to hang over the last three gorgeous minutes of the track.

As was the case with Soup and Fyuti, Michael England provided the artwork for Gnayse, and it compliments the creepy nature of the music perfectly.

Unfortunately, Dennis Bourne does not make an appearance on Gnayse, and there's no track that matches the brilliance of "Pae Paoe". For me, Gnayse is not as much of a classic as Fyuti was, but the quality of this album is supreme, and makes most IDM being released at the moment sound pathetic by comparison. A definite contender for album of the year. 5/5

Gnayse is some of the most masterful Ambient music that has been released in a long time. Bola’s organic melody structure mixed with classic piano riffs and crunchy beats makes this release so much different than his previous albums. Cut from the same cloth as Fyuti, disjointed and sometimes hard to follow beats preside, but without loss of feeling. Darrell Fitton has minimized his style for Gnayse farther than ever, and wouldn’t be distinguishable if a listener has only heard Soup. If you’re looking for another track similar to Pae Paoe you won’t find it here, sorry to say. Bola’s collaboration with Dennis Bourne (?) was an impressive use of experimentation on his side but wouldn’t find its place on an album like Gnayse. Like many others I downloaded the advanced MP3s from soulseek but this shouldn’t discourage someone, now that this option has arisen, from buying an original copy of the album. I most certainly will buy one to support the artist and the label, and I suggest everyone else does too.