- For his 2016 book, The Dead Saints Chronicles: A Zen Journey Through the Christian Afterlife, David Solomon examined 5,000 accounts of near-death experiences (NDEs) for insights about what happens when we pass over to the other side. There are comparisons to be drawn with Burnt Friedman's own efforts to "revive pieces from his archive of DAT tapes." (The EP is the latest in a series of archival releases from the German veteran.) But perhaps just as applicable is the book's subtitle. Solomon, an American Christian minister, spent 15 years apprenticing to the mystic Paul Solomon, who combined pan-global spirituality with Baptist teachings. Friedman, likewise, draws on global knowledge to loosen up Western tradition—above all in the realm of rhythm.
Dead Saints Chronicles is defined by those rhythms: hypnotic 11- or 15-beat loops played on elegant live-sounding drums, confounding to 4/4-attuned ears but also graceful and natural-feeling. On the opener, "Near Life," rhythms are deployed playfully, while its staccato synths hint at digidub and its organ licks give a whiff of the blues. The rest of the EP is harder to pin down, its sounds oblique and its moods ambiguous, even by Friedman's stony-faced standards. "Acroagnosis" is a teasing dust cloud of pitter-patter drums, delicate synth and wafting pads. The head-nodding "Languish" stumbles between different swing settings, while shimmering Wurlitzer chords whisper jazz fusion. "Grace"'s guitar swoons suggest an affinity with the uncanny vistas of '90s post-rock.
The intensity jumps with "Wentletrap," whose straighter triplet groove seems headed for a climax (the title, the name of a sea snail with an extraordinary twisting shell, means "spiral staircase" in Dutch). But after a couple of minutes the track dissolves back into the gloom, and Friedman plays us out with "Repentance," a mirage of gongs and other percussion caught between this world and the next.
TracklistA1 Near Life
A2 Acroagnosis
A3 Languish
B1 Grace
B2 Wentletrap
B3 Repentance