The dark, Victorian aura of duality. Its pall is heavy and foreboding; it leaves little room for sunlight to break through. Yet, somehow there are heroes in our world — those that make us happy and feel human, even when others seem to troll us from the deepest depths of their own hellish plane. Though Mike Adams has long been a Dr. Jekyll, a scientist with keen observation into the sunny side of life, he has given us hints of his sinister Mr. Hyde before. It’s no surprise the man behind Casino Drone and a fixation on a similar thread of adventurous field recordings scooped up in the likes of Forced Exposure could have a true drone moment within him. But, then you’d be admitting that maybe our plucky hero also has a dark side. Come listen for yourselves as Mike Adams transforms into Golden Braid, and hear the pounding static and penetrating loops of his self-titled concoction. Yet Adams, in all his 19th century doom, doesn’t completely abandon the man of many good deeds. He does adopt Golden Braid as his moniker, and it feels more like a call back to Rapunzel letting down her hair rather than someone going mad in a lab trying to find a monster in a bottle. And though Adams is asking to climb his sturdy locks, it’s a trip up to a lair of a twisted genius; a person poisoning his own well of good intentions — if only for a moment — to see what his inner beast entails. Even the two images of innocence and tranquility of the Golden Braid cover create an air of intensity in their juxtaposition. But seeing as how I like to occasionally dig deep into my own Mr. Hyde, I can’t fault the spectacular results of Adams’ experimentation. When you decide to grab a chunk of hair and climb the tower, you’re really being lowered into the depth; Mike Adams replaced with a vile Phantom haunting this ebon chamber.
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