Album Review: High Seer // An Unmastered Life/ Loops Vol. 1

Self-released

4 stars out of 5

Jeremy Yamma is driven to create. A gifted artist and printmaker with a virtuoso eye for detail, he's also a talented multi-instrumentalist. Like his fine art, Yamma's music is able to blend technical craftsmanship with a feeling of the surreal that leaves you with something hauntingly twisted yet ineffably familiar. Categorically speaking, both volumes of An Unmastered Life/Loops are filled to the brim with short instrumental works (made via a series of repeated loops, as the title implies). Vol. 1 contains 31 individual cuts ranging from "Woodpecker" at just under one minute to "light crack as positive form," the 11-minute take that serves as the album's final act. Both editions of An Unmastered Life cover a span of time from 2015 to 2017, with the former being made up of the first two years. There are several times where Yamma's tracks feel illustratively cinematic (check out "slide rumination on ruination"). There are moments seemingly born out of celebration, like the penultimate "middle finger fuckers," that provide some favorite moments, drums growing in intensity as the album closes. Whether or not the album's sequence was defined by tone or by chronology, it works. Though this is essentially an album of snippets, it flows together extremely well.

Listen and purchase on Bandcamp at highseer.bandcamp.com