Album: The Bridge of Dark Existence
Artist: Santolo Marotta
Label: Lake Label
Catalogue no: N/A
Tracklist:
1. Kierkegaard
2. Atmosphere
3. Atmosphere
– Part II
4. Ghost
(Interlude)
5. Horror
6. Anaphase
Dark ambient often
seems to exist in the liminal zone between existence and non-existence, a
twilight realm where everything is seen in a half-light of shifting shadows and
blurred movements. A dimension where what is glimpsed may not be what it seems,
an intersection between reality and quantum reality where the stuff of matter
is fluid and liable to flow between shapes. Perhaps, then, this also applies to
everyday reality: if so, then what we experience may be just a consensual
hallucination, a state of existence that we’ve all somehow managed to agree
upon.
The above is a
roundabout way of introducing my reactions to this new(ish) album from Italian
musician Santolo Marotti – and his namechecking of Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (the
father of existentialist philosophy) in the title of the first track sparked
off all manner of thoughts, including the notion that this could be termed
existential dark ambient. Let’s just say that, whilst I have been aware of the
name Kierkegaard for most of my life I couldn’t tell you anything about what
his philosophical outlook is, much less understand it. What follows is based
entirely on a personal philosophy of life and existence – but I could never be
mistaken for a real philosopher (an
ersatz philosopher of the coffee-house perhaps).
That first track
‘Kierkegaard’ essays, with sustained hollow ringing tones, a darkness that
perhaps best describes the relationship that humankind often has between his
existence and the outer reality, as they often come into conflict. There’s an
inherent tension between what one wants/desires and what one is able to get,
fortified by the idea that the acquisition of the former instantly equals
happiness. In the end, it boils down to how one adapts to the reality that
ultimately offsets the internal tension between the two.
‘Atmosphere’ and
‘Atmosphere – Part II’ can be regarded as a single track for the purposes of
this review. In contrast to the album opener, one is instantly enveloped by
lush orchestral drone sweeps that, for all the feelings of flying and soaring
they evoke, also delineate a kind of melancholy, as if of dark grey clouds
scooting overhead with only the occasional sunbeam poking through gaps to sweep
across the landscape like searchlights. The mood is sombre and elegiac, a
mournful refrain, the quiet after a deluge of rain. This is serenely beautiful
in all its solemn glory.
‘Ghost
(Interlude)’ is a short, flimsy, gauzy piece, an ephemeral and elusive sighting
of something that may have been there, or may not have been. Its very
unobtrusiveness and smoky essence escapes full materialisation, a phantom that,
for all its apparent substantiality, cannot be grasped, and disappears before
we’ve registered its reality. ‘Horror’ is next, and this is perhaps the point
to which this album has been converging – a pulsing bass figure over which a
calliope refrain plays, reminding me of old black and white horror films – some
of which, especially of the likes of Vampyr
(1932), Haxan (1922), Nosferatu (1922), and Faust (1926), were nightmares in
themselves. It elicits unease and disquiet, a species of monochromatic nervousness
that prompts anxieties about what awaits us at the end of life - a short but
effective exercise in creating agitation.
‘Anaphase’ is a
biological term, defined thusly by The Free Dictionary as “…the stage of
mitosis and meiosis in which the chromosomes move to opposite ends of the
nuclear spindle…’ (mitosis = cell division and meiosis = germ cell division).
With reference to The Bridge of Dark
Existence’s final track, perhaps this is a metaphor for the endlessly
repeating cycles of birth, life, and death that all beings go through.
Furthermore, that we are doomed to experience the same problems, the same
thoughts, questions, and anxieties as our forebears had without coming any
closer to solutions. This is death ambient, a cold dark wind blowing across the
River Styx, a slow black stream of water winding its way through dripping
sub-subterranean tunnels where light is an unknown quality and hope is barred
from entry. This is our ultimate destination after all, whichever path in life
we choose to take, and it is perhaps best to recognise that fact now.
A very lucid suite of compositions,
inflected with veins of darkness and despair, yet simultaneously subtle in its
evocation of such conditions. This is an inward journey, a road-trip of the
mind to the places that we don’t want to be reminded of while living, those
nethermost regions where the stars no longer shine and where shadows become
real. These pieces of music possess weightiness and solidity, a hanging slab of
darkness that suppresses and oppresses. Saying that, it also everything into
sharp relief, a blade edged with ennui and hopelessness. As a debut album, this
is a magnificent effort.
Available as a download and as a CD
from the link below:
I also suggest you check out Lake
Label’s other releases while you’re there.
Psymon Marshall 2019.
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