I’d planned to write about this song yesterday but it didn’t happen. I think I ran out of time and so was unable to start. I think that writing about it now wasn’t the best idea as I’m pretty tired but I managed to get something across.

This was written over one listen which was fine as the flow of the song allowed a good deal of time to write. However, I think I may have focused too much on describing the flow rather than drawing enough out of what was happening.

Eduard Artemyev’s (Эдуард Артемьев) “Stalker – Meditation” is part of the soundtrack for Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker (Сталкер). It appears as though the soundtrack (or at least part of it) has been featured as part of compilations more than on its own, such as on Solaris, The Mirror, Stalker, a release combining pieces from the three films that form the compilation’s title.

I hope you enjoy.

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It begins with silence. The silence holds until a bright humming approaches. It strengthens and weakens in cycles whilst various sounds form a fractured melody. Calls outward and stringed instrumentation cut in and out, and woodwind comes from those calls and it thickly flicks and wafts. It is comforting, but it is also unknowable and perhaps uncomfortable.

The woodwind seems to grow louder and more intense, but it also pulls back and relaxes. There is mystery carried upon it and it seems to harmonise and clash with the hum, as well as an electronic wave that appears among the sounds. The hum from earlier seems to move in and out more and there is something that could be unknowable among it all.

Harshness scrapes against gentleness and there is a moment to work it all out and work out what was just experienced. There is a calm, but there is no clarity, but there is realisation and it sinks in and holds fast, and it stays as the sounds fade out into silence at the song’s end.