Much like Lava‘s first single ‘Hubble’ evoked the ink-black expanses of outer space, second single ‘Cousteau’ casts its searchlight beneath the ocean. The track’s slow, majestic burn is a thing to behold, and further proof of Mehr’s mastery of dynamic drone. Bubbles of fizzy static gradually fade into view before a haunting backwards melody is introduced and then subsumed by liquiform particles and aching synths. The track builds in pressure until the elements fall away, leaving the backwards melody to sing anew before the process begins again, with a renewed feeling of heartbreaking intensity. The track’s black-hole magnetism grows as it pulls in all around it, with the resultant build erupting into giant, arcing, electric tendrils.
Mehr’s oft collaborator, visual artist Stefanie Sixt (Sixt Sense), has created an incredibly rich and layered widescreen visual accompaniment to ‘Cousteau’. Sixt’s work traverses film, performance and animation, and has won her several key visual arts awards in Germany.
Directed and produced by Stefanie Sixt, Sixt Sense (2010)
http://sixt-sense.de
Underwater footage shot by Charles Finkbeiner