Cluster & Eno (studio album) by Cluster & Eno

From Repo 05/17/2017 03:07

THE TROUBLE WITH DESIRE

Somewhere else in the universe - exactly where I do not know - there is a planet and civilization not unlike our own. They’re busy with jobs and making ends meet mostly. But they are also vastly curious about life and various philosophical questions. Chiefly, they ponder whether they are all alone is this vast universe. Whether the entire universe exists just for them.

So just like us, they also built a space program. But this being science fiction and all, there’s is a bit more advanced than ours. And they built and coded this amazing android. It is capable of learning how to create any and all languages, dialects & tongues. Given enough time it would be able to communicate with any creature in the entire world. No matter how big or small. How complex or simple. Insects, humanoids, birds, amoebas, you name it. Essentially, if a life form, or even another droid, can communicate, this droid will learn how to communicate with it. The people on this planet - let’s call them Clusterferians just for fun - were naturally quite proud of their creation. And they built a moderate sized space vessel such that their droid could comb the universe looking for any sign of life to communicate with. And then report back to them.

To give the mission the best chance of success, the Clusterferians something new. Something they had never encoded into a robot before. A strong message that this mission was critical. Vital. In a word they gave it Desire.

Time passes. Millions of years. The droid performs its tasks and tries to carry out its mission. Sending out signals. And waiting for a response. Sending out more signals. Trying to communicate. To connect. To anything. It creates endless variations of sounds. But nothing ever comes back. Just the vast emptiness of space. And him.

And then the unthinkable happens. The unimaginable. He develops feelings. After eons and eons of trying and trying and trying to fulfill its mission with that strong desire encoded in him, he starts to grow sad. This desire to connect to something, ANYTHING, overwhelms him. The years of sending and sending, trying and trying and getting nothing back in return changes him. He becomes what we would call depressed. He preservers on with his mission of course. He’s a robot after all. But a shade of loneliness, of mourning now pervades the sounds he creates. A lament. The lament of being lonely. Of being human.

Grade A+: Cluster makes sounds better than anyone. Eno enhances sounds better than anyone. So together this is a dream team. And they amply fulfill the promise such a collaboration would suggest. This is one of the greatest dark ambient albums of all time. Considering its pedigree, I’m quite surprised it’s bit undiscovered. Don’t let it stay lonely anymore! Seek out and connect with this major ambient gem. There’s a lonely robot just waiting to hear from you. And this LP hurdles through space all the way to number 11.