It feels like the cosmos sings to you as you float meditatively through the torrents of ambient and dreamy soundscapes emerging as emotional streams from the deep layers of Remaining Warmths’ sonics.
Or it may be more down-to-earth as on the first track, immersed in the floating sounds of melodic Ambient, children are laughing and playing, making it an upbeat opening of the album. Setting an optimistic tone. The artist behind this one-man band, Andrey Novozhilov known for his bands/projects TRNA, Olhava, and Reverb on Repeat, has used children´s play before to add an extra layer to his captivating and melodic music. He did it with great impact on the track “Башни” on the album Жить released last year. Novozhilov continues his exploration with his guitars and beats to blend his background in Blackgaze with Ambient and Dreamgaze effects. And he does it with great skill, carefully developing themes that float through your inner universe. Even when the music tightens with low-end drums mixed with blast beats, the expansive sounds of the atmospheric music are enthralling. The beats just add a welcome layer.
The next track, ”When the Dreams and Love End”, soars and expands, widening the celestial sense that seeps. The ethereal sensation the music gives is contrasted by the rumbling and blasting beats. In the hands of other artists, the beats might disturb the musical drift, but here, they give depth and an interesting counterpoint, intensifying the flow which tightens and intensifies through the beats until a subtle change loosens the tensions, until a new surging melodic crescendo. Novozhilov is creating a similar effect with the contrasting drums as Tangerine Dream did on the track “Fly and Collision of Comas Sola” on the album Alpha Centauri (from 1971). Thus, he brings both - tension and release - into the swelling sonics.
On the third track, ” Afterlight”, Novozhilov is joined by Pavel Kolosov from the bands APRS, Alles Wird in Flammen Stehen, Volkota, and Artem Selyugin (Show Me a Dinosaur, Somn, hopeyouwell). A successful collaboration that opens with the sounds of a bonfire and a strumming acoustic guitar playing a melody below soaring and bright ambient sounds. It might be right before nightfall, meditating by the bonfire, waiting for the universe to show us the glimmering stars. As the music swells, the low-end blast drums intensify the sense of calm one might feel staring into space. Sitting there staring and remembering a couple of lines from Donovan´s ”Cosmic Wheel”: “God is playing marbles / With his planets and his stars / Creating havoc through my life”. Above the intense blast beats, the Ambient sounds soar with melodic lines crossing each other, up to the point when it simmers down with calming longing sonics and an acoustic guitar. It rises again with an engaging, upliftingly yearning sound in the mids. The track comprises Ambient that creates a delightful emotional journey through inner and outer cosmos. Or both. Either way, one is not untouched by it.
The closing track, ”Before the Years”, is fast-paced with relentless blasting drums underneath it all, and swelling above with crossing melodic streams. It is intense and engaging before it lightens up with captivating, unruly rhythms at the foundation that are pushing the crossing melodic ambient sonics forward. The rhythm falls into line again and helps the crescendo to swell and soar until fading out into an event horizon.
Novozhilov’s debut under his new moniker, Remaining Warmth, is another exquisite Blackgaze-infused Ambient musical effort. It might be more intense than his other Ambient project due to the mighty use of drums and beats, but it is just as torrential and melodious as the others. Maybe another line from Donovan can sum it up: “I should be rolling down the skyway / On my cosmic wheels”?
