VIDEO PREMIERE: Von Spar - Omónia [Altin Village & Mine]
Omonia, by a German band Von Spar, feels like taking a wrong turn and unexpectedly finding yourself in a vast dark room. You see nothing and feel disoriented, but start hearing the sound of floorboards creaking. Other occasional ambient noises pierce the room and, as your eyes and brain adjust, suddenly, things... strange things... start emerging from the darkness. You find yourself focusing on the sounds and starting to move. Slowly, at first, unsure of what's happening, but as this strange and trippy ambience starts seeping into your being and starts tickling your pleasure centers, you start feeling better and more secure..."Dance" - a Siri-like voice comes through in the distance. "Why the hell not?" - you think to yourself and bust a rusty move. After a few failed attempts, you finally start feeling it! Now it's a carnival and you are its center. The whirlwind is around you; the colors are bright and pulsating; the sounds are swirling, bumping and grinding against you as you climb to the top of the world....and then you black out and it's over. Just like that. The room is dark and empty; your head hurts and it feels like a hangover.
Unlike blacking out in a strange room, "Omonia" gives you no hangover. In fact, the lingering feeling after the track practically evaporates into silence, is that of a surprise and a certain degree of "wtf". "Did I just go through all THAT in 6 minutes?!" Of course, you go back and listen to it again: yep, the ambiguous beginning full of dark shades... syncopation... the emergence of rhythm and a pick up in intensity... "A screaming comes across the sky"… check! Voices... check! Now Siri is here, commanding me to dance... here comes the whirlwind of synthesizers and the explosion of color... BOOM... done... gone... wtf?! Yet again! Rewind and play. Yet again! And again... You can't stop listening, can you?!