Album: Earth Diver
Artist: Deus Ex Charta
Label: Sombre Soniks
Catalogue no: SomSon138
Tracklist:
1. Our
Kind of Hell
2. Thanatorgasm
3. Earth
Diver
Sombre Soniks this month
brings us another two new releases, both of which are side projects. The first
of these is Deus Ex Charta, which is another incarnation of Serbian artist
Timur Iskandarov, better known as Tamerlan. Here, the thesis and impetus behind
the creation of this work is one that seems to be gaining ground in many
quarters – the feeling that the way society has developed is inimical to
humanity as a whole and that it’s failing both the people and the natural world
it’s meant to protect. Add on to that conceptions of what ‘normality’ is
defined as and its attendant strictures and regulations (whether legislated or
otherwise) and slowly a large proportion of the Western world’s inhabitants are
beginning to think that we must have gone wrong somewhere.
Indeed, if one looks back
into our recent past, that feeling has always been there on the margins, and generally
rejected by mainstream society. However, in the 21st century it
appears to be breaking through those barriers and filtering through to the kinds
of people who would never think of themselves as either rebels or protesters, leading
them to opt out of ‘the rat race’ to live simpler, more satisfying lives away
from the mad press of cities. And what Deus Ex Charta (which translates as ‘One
Map’ –a particularly telling title if ever there was one) has done here is to
simply boil down those feelings and intangibles of the whys and wherefores, and
transposed them into a musical idiom.
Let’s start at the
beginning with ‘Our Kind of Hell’, a chaotic mishmash of sounds and effects,
none lasting more than a few seconds it appears, backed up by a constant but fractured
beat. This is a pinpoint and accurate description of the state of civilisation
in the 21st century – a turgid mass of endless communications,
mobile phones, electronic devices, ninety-million channels on TV, the
zombie-like hordes staring at screens all day, fast food, instant
gratification, incels, 24hr media, mass travel, environment-disrupting
industry, and our inane celebrity-worshipping culture. We’ve lost our
connections to what’s actually important – the earth around us, people and
community, the simpler facets of life. What we’ve created, in our inexorable
march of ‘progress’, is indeed a species of Hell.
‘Thanatorgasm’ is our
runaway consumption and embrace of this insipid and culturally-bankrupt
culture, and doing so without batting an eyelid or thinking about consequences
as long as it gives us a high. We’re faced with a high-pitched machine whine
accompanied by rattles and a voice buried deep in the mix, but that voice
doesn’t quite filter through, perhaps indicative of the lone voices of reason
getting drowned out by the unheeding morass of humanity. It’s a thankless task
trying to spread the truth to those who refuse to listen, or those who refuse
to give up their toys.
The third track, ‘Earth
Diver’, delineates what our response as a mature species should be – turn away,
and look with new eyes at the bounties of nature, which are far more precious
and less ephemeral than the trinkets that society tempts us with. Beginning
with what sounds like a machine that’s been put out of commission, which is
then superseded by a shining sustained guitar power-chord that sounds exactly
like a horn announcing the coming of a new paradigm and dispensation, that the
old is being replaced with a brand new relationship and understanding with
Gaia. The sound rumbles on endlessly, its motion once started completely
unstoppable, all the while building strength and power the longer it resounds.
It’s a blanket of sound and energy, strong and wide enough to cover the entire
world. It’s also transformative, just like a high tidal wave that cleanses the
shoreline which leaves clean unblemished smooth sand once it’s retreated.
There’s hope here in those soaring notes, and we should grab that hope, plant
it, and watch it grow.
Sombre Soniks once again
releases a thought-provoking set of music, one that perhaps is tinged with a
certain urgency that impels action. I am continually astonished at P23’s
ability to entice artists to produce such consistently high-quality work all
the while releasing at least two downloads a month. But it also bears to be
reminded that there’s a great deal of music out there by many obscure musicians
who would be ignored by the mainstream taste arbiters of what we should be
buying and listening to, and if not for the existence of such labels as Sombre
Soniks this music would probably only remain circulated amongst friends and
acquaintances. I suppose, then, that this is the supreme irony – the very
machines of an errant society being used to disseminate the work of
subversively creative and committed musicians who have essential things to say
and shout about.
Excellent work!
Available as a download
and stream from Sombre Sonik’s Bandcamp page:
Psymon Marshall 2019
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