Album Review: Vik Ho – At The Shore

Hamburg-based Hungarian musician Vik Ho looks beyond borders and genres on the expansive arrangements of his new EP, At The Shore. 

Vorticity sets out a great vision for the instrumental EP, with sombre electronic nightscapes giving sonic and emotional weight to the cosmic lightness of the guitar melody. In that guitar, you can find Eastern melodies – of Europe and further afield – so much so that for all the urban-leaning foundation of the track, it also directs us to a pastoral mystery beyond.

That mystery and magic is continued on The Weight of the Horizon, though the guitar has a greater European folk influence. The percussion, by contrast, utilises complex time signatures, the sounds of the past finding themselves perfectly synchronised with experimental adventures. At points, the percussion is dispensed with entirely, with cello and guitar in a romantic embrace.

Luminous Particles is firmly rooted in the present: cascading flows of time and warm textures surround you with movement, the unceasing drive of the city broken down into wordless descriptions of constancy and life being lived.

The final track on the EP, Further North, opens with a more primal quality, the melody shamanistic, and the tone of the track almost liquid, flowing gently forward. If Vorticity is the dusk, then Further North is the dawn, and the four songs are part of an unending cycle of light and dark.

Vik Ho hasn’t described the progressive instrumentalism of At The Shore as a concept EP, but that allowed me to find my own magic in the music – and that is a great gift to any listener. At The Shore is out now and streaming on Bandcamp and Shttps://open.spotify.com/album/4QlCGoSMW6jkWp0qRkrqHrpotify.