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Balloon

Rooms Without Doors

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Don’t you hate it when mysterious figures come in your room and transform your body into a latex balloon, and in a state of confusion and helplessness the tension swells until you burst?

Smdh.

As vivid as that plot is, so is the sonic experience of “Balloon” by Rooms Without Doors. In 6 tracks, the process is completed in an unsettling and sensory inducing fantasy.

The album starts abruptly with a nightmarish drone of “Beginning (Before),” quickly cutting to a dreadful silence. The only sounds left are the subtle creaks of movement unidentified in the room. The real start, “Body (Bile),” churns with the sounds of stomach gurgling, thick in your ears to create a heady sensation of bloating that’s all encompassing. Its squirming underbelly occasionally releases with the reverberations of bells. The bodily is infused into the audial, creating a fascinating soundscape that’s musically engaging.

“Breath (Bond)” creates an airy harmony that’s punctured by the tension of latex squelching under its movement. Slowly a beat comes in to settle into a blissful track that moves restless under its soundscape. The acoustic and rubbery “Bitch (Balloon)” follows. A heartbeat rhythm pulses softly as ethereal chords play into an expanding tear that dives into the nightmarish on the next song. 

“Beast (Beaten)” shifts the vibes into a gnarled, clamoring antagonism. Its background echoes with gnashed breathing. Halfway through it stops into a drone, plastic gurgles shivering down each channel. The transformation begins to ramp up into a sickening state of powerlessness and awe.

The final track, “Becoming (Bursting),” opens with the ominous drums of tight latex, swelled to create a hollow space for noise to echo inside. A dreary hum washes under the mix that builds up into an overwhelming drone. The track tightens further as the seams begin to swell into a cacophony of bloating rubber, hissing with the final aired pumps until the pop releases all tension.

Rooms Without Doors’ “Balloon,” is an experience. Its sensory inducing churns and squelches are carried into the evocatively metaphysical through the power of its music. The ecstasy and horror of helplessness create a dynamic listening experience that captures the complexity of fantasy, both nightmare and dream. It is not only acute to a specific balloon tf, but could easily be carried into the experience of being transformed in any way. The curdling changes that progress in each track create an unsettling, tactile, terrifying and euphoric listen. 

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