Harbwr Du by Harbwr Du

The self-titled debut recording from Cardiff based group Harbwr Du (“Black Harbour”) presents eleven unsettling, dreamlike and spontaneous tracks inspired by experimental electronic music, film/TV scores and the unreconciled nature of city living.

Pieced together over a two-year period the album was produced at home and draws from ambient, drone, minimal, kosmische music, sound design, as well as touching on other styles and atmospheres, through improvisation and accident.

The track Pocket Signal is mainly a wordless vocal recorded on a stairwell at work and then altered into a seeming transmission call from a haunted landscape. The following track, Lix Step, began as something else entirely before transforming into what has been described as sounding like a panic attack in an abandoned warehouse.

Scatter Patter, a slight anomaly amongst the overall collection, has the ‘machines have turned themselves on, but won’t turn off’ feel, with its repetitive drum machine/bass synth jam, giving way to a found sound rant from a unknown person. Heath Park Time Out is a rare moment of woodland percussive calm, urging you to cast off, get outside and go to a peaceful, natural environment.

Closing track Underpass Exp was recorded in the titular pathway, acting as a dispossession, a chance to emit noise without feeling self-conscious and using the sound reflection quality of this particular space.

The overall impression is of an alternate city experience that can be uncanny, impulsive and jarring.

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