Album: Dark Skies
Artist: Syrinx
Label: Sombre Soniks
Catalogue no: SomSon 141
Tracklist:
1. Dark
Fields
2. Glacier
Once again, I find myself
in the universe of sounds promulgated by the Sombre Soniks label, this time
courtesy of Syrinx. This project has already released two albums on the same
label, but this is my first encounter with them. In contrast to many dark
ambient acts this is a two tracker, for a combined total running time of over
an hour. In many ways (and this is betraying my roots in the ‘alternative’
music genres) I find that longer tracks are much more conducive to allowing the
artist to explore and expand on all the possibilities inherent in the themes
they’re expounding, further allowing ideas and nuances to play bigger roles in
enhancing and deepening the music.
‘Dark Fields’ is our
entry point on this one, a distant drone hoving into view and slowly smothering
the light, darkening the day, and stifling all colour and detail. Perhaps the
sunset depicted on the cover provides a clue – within a short time these
vibrant colours will have been extinguished and subsumed into the hues of
night, the part of the daily cycle where all is hidden and obscured. Shimmering
and ringing drones greet us as the sun goes down, perhaps leaving noctilucent
clouds shining eerily high up in the atmosphere, their pale light not enough to
illuminate anything but themselves. Soon colour has drained away completely,
and mournful cello-like notes precipitate the appearance of fleetingly seen
silhouettes, and shadows deeper than night itself flit rapidly between
unfathomable pools of darkness. The stars appear dim tonight, their light
lacking confidence, or perhaps it’s because they’re afraid of what they might
witness and thereby tarnish themselves.
Night is a separation from
the comforts of daylight, a time when vulnerabilities become sharper and more
pronounced, and more keenly felt. It is the time of phantoms and ghosts, the
time when, in the small hours, memories of our pasts often come unbidden, to
haunt us like spectres of our fears and insecurities made manifest, to worry
the edges of our consciousness and to pluck our nerve-strings. It is a time
when all becomes magnified, when reason is sometimes overwhelmed by absurdity
and insanity. At these moments we are most defenceless and open to outside
influence – once the light returns, however, the phantoms fade away, leaving us
wondering with incredulity at how we could have been taken in.
Saying that, ghosts do
indeed walk abroad in this light-forsaken land – ragged spectral figures looking
to attach themselves to any vulnerable person open to their malign intent. Their
whispers and icy-cold fingers tap the nerves with chill purpose, sending
tingles of alarm broadcasting through our systems. Those tiny trills attach
themselves limpet-limpet to any perceived fear or vulnerability, no matter how
small or insignificant. Then, it’s simply a matter of enlarging the fear out of
all proportion to any kind of reality.
‘Glacier’ is chillier but
still speaks of personal isolation and separation, mentally, physically, and
spiritually. Here we’ve been deposited in the midst of a vast ice-field
surrounded by sheer-faced glaciers, the ground at our feet extending on all
sides to the roots of those massive glacial barriers nothing a blanket of white,
its surface made into an unblemished sheet by the constant winds and daring us
to besmirch its perfect banality. Up above, a startling azure sky, perfect in
its clarity and lack of clouds, is outlined by the rim of the glaciers and
arches overhead like an upturned china bowl. More than the fact that everywhere
we look it’s exactly the same so that we are left unsure as to which direction
to head in (if indeed there is
anywhere to go) is the confusion as to how we got here in the first place – one
minute it was all rosy and purposeful but when we looked up we discovered that
the illusion had somehow been shattered and was replaced by the truth of
things. It is only now that it dawns on us just how truly lonely we are.
Two long pieces, based
around ideas on the themes of isolation and separation, and exploring every
facet of what those two words mean. It’s a densely oppressive album, weighty in
its explication of those terms, two relatively small words that carry such
immense meaning. And to some out there, those meanings are not only felt but
lived, ingrained into every fibre of their lives and being. If you’ve never
experienced these feelings, then Syrinx’s Dark
Skies will go a long way in bringing the listener a virtual recreation, a
truly mood-suppressing vision of what it really feels like. As dark ambient
goes, this truly is a black hole, mining the most numbing of human conditions
and extracting its ores, and smelting them into something quite powerful. This
is as black as it gets.
Available as a download
from the Sombre Soniks Bandcamp page:
Psymon Marshall 2019.
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