Album: ᛉᛦ - Algir; eller Algir i Merkstave
Artist: Trepanerungsritualen
Label: Cold Spring
Catalogue no: CSR275CD
Tracklist:
1.
ᛉ
2.
ᛦ
The only problem with
waiting in anticipation for a release is that it could end up being something of a disappointment and leave a bitter
taste behind. In my case, this new release by Thomas Ekelund’s death/occult/ritual
ambient Trepanerungsritualen project has been on my radar ever since it was
first announced, and I’ve been checking my email every day to see if it’s
finally dropped. And lo, it hath arrived and is currently haunting my (very)
inadequate laptop speakers.
I needn’t have been so
querulous about what it would be like – this is classic occult/ritual ambient,
deeply embedded with esoteric streams of power and cold, marrow-freezing winds
and atmospherics. These are the invocations practised in the darkest chthonic
regions, in the cold wastes of the north, where night reigns over us much of
the time and the cold stealthily steals warmth. Here is where malignity and
enmity lie, jealous of light and fecundity, colour and profusion.
‘ᛉ’ is the commencement, the alpha point of the
invocation, annunciated by a crashing crunch of metal. Then there follows a
stream of abstruse flutings along with a reverberating bell, a subterranean
appeal to the creative spirits of the undercurrents that inhabit the bottomless
chasms and abysses of the world, to lend succour and strength to the celebrant.
These streams flow darkly and unheedingly, eternally wafting and wailing
through dismal hollows, nothing more than deep breaths of foetid air oozing out
of places where entities inimical to life have concealed themselves since
matter accreted into what would become the Earth, waiting for the time when
darkness engulfs all and the old gods return.
If ‘ᛉ’ is the darkness incarnate, then ‘ᛦ’ is its opposite, the essential counterbalance
of light. This quality also infuses itself into every molecule of matter in
existence, whether it’s as a constituent photon of the light of a billion stars
whirling within a galaxy, or the shimmering undulations of bioluminescent
creatures crawling at the bottom of the nethermost watery abyss. With its
manifestation comes the lifting of the veil of illusion to reveal the deepest
secrets and mysteries of the Earth and its hidden presiding genius, the intelligence
that keeps the positive and negative in balance. A slow exhalation attunes us
to the living energy that permeates and animates all, that effervescence which
is deeply embedded within everything observable, as we too are made of the
star-stuff from which that intelligence emerged aeons ago. Through the deep
miasmic effluvium that occupies these fathomless regions, a species of insight
sparks off both the light of reason and understanding, the undeniable truth that
the light and the dark are one and the same thing, their only difference being
that one reveals the exoteric and the other conceals the esoteric. True wisdom
is attained through a balance and an alliance of the two, and a reconciliation
of their qualities.
This ploughs a totally different furrow than was evident on, say, Perfection & Permanence: this speaks
to a deeper strain of mysticism, an ancient path that has been with us since
the first men divided existence into this world and the other/underworld. It was
seen as the perfected version of this world, attainable only through dying and
passing on in this world. Death was
viewed differently to how it is now: it wasn’t a bad thing, and the dead would
receive honour and riches in that next world.
This is quieter, and definitely more occult, than the death
industrial/death ambient I was expecting. There’s more power here too, a
coherent gathering of and communion with outside forces, both ‘good’ and ‘bad’,
and its effect is to bring into being a power that transcends any artificial
(and ultimately absurd) notions of black and white, good and evil, or of any
oppositional dichotomy that we have invented. Humans love to pigeonhole and
compartmentalise, but almost inevitably the truth lies somewhere in between, or
in the philosophy that opposites must eventually be reconciled before that
truth can be discerned.
A step in a different direction (and yet very much a logical evolution),
with the very faint shades of Ekelund’s Dead Letters Spell Dead Words hanging
around it, and one that deserves two things: your utmost attention and a good
sound system (or headphones) to play it through.
Due to be released 9th September 2019 as a CD in 6-panel
digipak, and a 500 copy limited edition 180g black vinyl disc with printed inner
sleeve and reverse board outer sleeve.
Also available from the release date will be a digital download:
Psymon Marshall 2019
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