Have you ever been driving down a road flanked on one side by a park or heavily wooded area, and flanked on the other side by buildings, traffic and streetlights? Well, White Rainbow is the one man band to ride that road until the end.
Somewhere between pleasant natural ambiance and completely synthetic pulsing keyboards, Mr. Adam Forkner, a scruffy lookin’ dude from Portland, is the man behind White Rainbow.
On the song “Tribe of Thugz”, steady African bongos and the digitally altered sounds of crickets lay the groundwork for a steady groove for a few minutes. Every once in a while you’re hit with what seems to be a few random sounds that Forkner made up himself, and the result is the kind of music you’d hear in your head if you were lost in the Amazon without a machete.
Similarly, in the song “Awakening”, a song that begins with haunting synths and rippling cymbals, and steadily builds into, well, more swelling, you get that whole feeling of being watched thing
White Rainbow’s music stays on the constant pretty much, with little to offer in the way of exciting changes or transitions. If a change does come, it’s extremely subtle and takes a long while to build up and slowly works its way back out, like someone who walking in the door and saying “oops, wrong room number.” All in all, not exactly music for patient people. If you’re relaxing and unwinding with a nice cup of chai tea or maybe just chewin’ on some bamboo shoots, then you’ve got yourself a group.
While White Rainbow’s music is comprised of a lot of very natural sounds and subtle keys ‘n’ things, there is also a very unsettling quality to it. In the manic “7pianosshakers…” dueling keyboards fight for the bugged-out gold medal with twitchy licks overlapping until the whole thing just seems like one sound. The whole effect is an Oakenfoldian nightmare, a musical nervous tic. It all makes for a really interesting balance, constantly see-sawing you emotionally from soothed to freaked out.
All in all, I give White Rainbow the big thumbs up for your next Blair Witch Hunting expedition.
Make sure to leave the camera at home. 
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