Wednesday, July 26, 2023

Entry 519 - Sangam & Diamondstein - Oceans Between Us

 


I've always thought that Sangam's best work is when he is paired up with other artists. His repetitive sorrow filled style can be good in limited doses. Many of his albums run together for me. When he is in collaboration with another artist, the music is injected with new life and it elevates it.

Diamondstein is another artist that I consume in small quantities. His discography is not as repetitive as Sangam, but he has never created anything that captures me for an entire album. It's a shame because he's capable of creating incredible music.

So what do you get when you mix the two of them together? You get the sombreness and reflection of Sangam's rain filled tracks interjected with a sense of urgency and life from the more dynamic styling of Diamonstein. I dare to say that the resulting album is better than almost any of their individual efforts.

A song like Orbital is an excellent example of this. It starts off like most Sangam songs. Slow repeating keyboards over a rain filled background. The slow melody repeats for nearly a minute. Out of nowhere a beat slowly fades in accompanied by brighter synths that compliment established melody. This is Diamondstien's contribution to the track.

As the song continues to evolve the original melody never leaves, but the beats and complimenting melodies do evolve. This is a prime example of why Sangam's style works best with other artists. If this was a solo track, we would have the original melody for four minutes and then the song would fade out. With the contribution of Diamonstein the song is elevated to greater heights than it ever could have been on its own.

This is seen over and over again through the album. Finding Peace Where There Isn't is a more upbeat track that more reminiscent of Diamondstein, that is transformed into a more sombre tone by the addition of dour synths. Their styles work so well together, I'm going to have to revisit their other album in short order.

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