I have made no secret of how much I am a fan of Deep Dive Species across even just the few singles I have written about. But then, all the best bands get you like that. It’s like falling in love except with a sonic presence rather than a physical entity. (Which you could argue is a purer and less complicated affair.) So, to see the full-length album, Habitat tumble onto my review pile really made my day.
Describing what Deep Dive Species does is not easy, and their sonic moods seem to shift constantly, not just between one album and the next (this is their second) but track to track and occasionally even changing their musical form and focus within a few bars or beats.
There is always an ambient and filmic quality to their music, tracks such as “Consequence” being more of a drifting soundscape reminiscent of recordings from the bottom of the deepest oceans or, considering the strange electronic inclusions towards the end, deep space white noise. At the other end of the spectrum, the recent single “Salt & Water is much more like the instrumental part of an indie song, albeit the work of a relatively progressive one.
Similarly, for all the experimental, avant-gardening and strange sonic sculpting of “Green Mist”, you get a chilled, scintillating dance tunes such as “Arizonan.” The scope is broad and interesting here.
This contrast between the totally exploratory and the more focused grooves proves one important thing. Deep Dive Species is able to write tracks that meet listener expectations and sound slightly like what has gone before. It’s just that quite often, they just feel like doing something else, something very different, something very cutting edge and forward thinking. And that is where the fun lies, not to mention the broadening of sonic horizons for music in general.
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