US composer and musician CHVAD SB is perhaps best known for the bands he either leads or is a member of: Things Outside the Skin, Tongue Muzzle, Controlled Bleeding, The Qualia. He has been making outside of these bands as well, and has a career in music that goes back a quarter of a century. The EP “Outside the Shadow of an Aliquot Tree” dates back to 2015, and was released by US label Silber Records as part of their ongoing 5×5 series of experimental productions featuring 5 tracks with a total playtime of 5 minutes.

Chvad SB’s contribution are five brief forays into sounds and landscapes with a firm, hard core. Sharp echoing guitars and keyboard textures combining, menacing machine-like sounds paired off with cold, ethereal guitar details, echoing post-rock style ethereal guitar details on top of a dark menacing drone or merely cold, sharp light toned guitars backed by effects. Music with a cosmic, lost in space feel to them more often than not, cold and forlorn in the biting chill of outer space. While brief these 5 snippets of sound and atmosphere are alluring, at least as long as you enjoy mood pieces of this nature.

Echoing guitar details and drones flavored carefully with effects is what Chvad SB supplies us with on this production. Machine-like sounds and cold, biting details that for me at least brings forth associations towards outer space in general and being lost in it in particular. A production easy to recommend for those who enjoy atmospheres of this specific nature.

My rating: 80/100