---

---

Black Box

Rooms Without Doors

---

Imagine the word, “liminal,” was not flattened into a catch all aesthetic. Instead, peel back to the origins, “in-between.” Now it is a good description for Rooms Without Doors. 

The side project of artist HTCAT, Rooms Without Doors is restless and mutable, forming itself different in every release. “Black Box” is an album that exists between electronic and industrial ambient. Plunderphonics that builds its own sonic reality. Every track is in a state of fluctuation, to the point where a sudden turn becomes exciting. In its patient construction of space, letting each song build its own room, the album creates a liminal setting worth spending time in.

 “Demonstration 9” acts as a quiet opening. Soft static hums over the sounds of digital clicks and descents, as if someone is playing retro video games nearby. It’s washed out and soft, letting the album start at a point of stillness. Punctured by a glitched wall break and scream into the following track.

“Identity is a sham” is a gigantic production that fills your headphones. Its thick bass rips through a melodic reverberation, quieting down to only blare through again in rebuild. Each time layering itself in some new way. It’s a track to float your body and bob your head along to. The album follows with the slow chirping build of, “The heavens must love me.” Percussive acoustics are combined with digital assets to create a soft build to a club beat switch, reaching a fantastic state of hype.

“Fuck you fuck your self fuck” begins with its distorted vocals, slowed to a state of obscured uncanny. Vapored to an off-putting echo until it slams down hard with a creeping beat. An unexpected and nasty pivot that only deteriorates further into metallic mastication. Till it stops, and comes in slowly with a more rounded texture post climax.

“Angels 18” is a digital breakdown, in which the pitch shifted harmonies get tossed around as they jam like a video game crashing. Further tearing itself apart as the track continues, combining the sonically pleasant and discordant to create an unnerving yet absorbing song.

The most traditional song on “Black Box” may be “Eighteen Plus,” but that’s not to discount it in the slightest. Its sedated production is expertly used to create a clouded psychedelia. An acoustic guitar navigates the murky depths of its churning vocals, bubbling water, and steam exhausts. The song is a journey from front to back and makes for an incredible listening experience to fall into.

“I Make Bad Decisions,” works in tandem with “Eighteen Plus,” holding on to a chill beat that gradually fractures like a degrading tape. Effects scream out in the penultimate track that climbs up into the final, “Black Box Humanity Is Beautiful You Were Meant For This,” a nightmarish collapsing of its sampled dialogue, recontextualized to become an industrial thriller. The audio of a (fictional) plane crash records the ending of “Black Box,” before its own ejection and escape, continuing onwards in a sustained drone. 

Throughout its runtime, “Black Box,” creates its own vibe. Both melancholic and rapturous, tearing apart between the two. Rooms Without Doors’ fantastic production work makes this album an experience, and a great one at that. One that you can sink into as you exist inside your mind in a new sonic space.

Highlights: Demonstration 9, Identity is a sham, Fuck you fuck your self fuck, Eighteen Plus

---