Bastion, God help them, are a formidable outfit. Norwegian label Interregnum have a reputation for being particularly surprising, or at least revealing the potential for surprise in the more experimental overlaps between drone and black metal, so I shouldn’t be awfully surprised at this landing on my desk in the beautiful, fucked-up form that it is, but I was particularly blown away by the ability of this release to change the atmosphere of my room.

The setting need not be live, in some loud concrete acoustic that embellishes this kind of racket, because that sense of vastness and power is immediate enough on record. I've blasted this opus through terrible speakers, a decent system with a fair bit of bass, and headphones, and I think the recording quality is analogue or lo-fi enough that it transcends the interpretation of the machinery, which is notably different from the standard of these types of efforts. As much as there is to be said in favor of micro-focused sound design, I have a great affinity for musicians that can work a sound that is primarily operative on a macro level. Ultimately, most of the pieces on this Bastion release have the intention on being fat, verging on overweight in their tackling of certain sonorities.

All this said, I have a distinctive reaction to Bastion being made up, partially, of Jukka Reverberi, guitarist for “post-rock” group Giardini di Miro. It surprises me greatly that this set of lo-fi and occasionally power electronics drones come from a musician better known for a sensitivity of tone. What is perhaps more remarkable is that his partner in this project is Valerio Cosi, a saxophonist who is professed to be more focused in psychedelic rock and free jazz. The combinations of free jazz saxophone with noise and its proponents has a well documented history, but the treatment throughout this release is particularly jarring, rather than being a obviously powerful force - being buried, needing to violently negotiate a number of layers to make itself known.

This doubles as being both penetrating and meandering. The greatest moments occur in certain sections of “Rad Star”, which opens up with an utterly unbelievable, soft-toned manipulation of the tenor saxophone, and blossoms into a huge mess of sound. There are always moments through the release, hoewver, that seem extraneous, small corridors of material between seemingly more important moments. This is an issue with much music of this calibre, and is perhaps a trade-off for the brilliance that its jam-like feel has the potential to construct. In either case, Bastion is powerful, mostly refraining from drowning in its own, cultish weirdness, and finding a musical location that is astounding to listen to.