Album: Lost in Jail
Artist: La Décadence des Étoiles (BRTHRM + Apocalypse
Sounds)
Label: Manninen Henki Records
Catalogue no: Not known
Tracklist:
1. First
day
2. Blurred
Images of Could I’ve and Should I’ve
3. Last
Day
BRTHRM describe
themselves as an experimental noise project inaugurated in 2018, and Apocalypse
Sounds is Arnaud Chatelard, one of whose recordings I reviewed some while back
(Promised Land on Spain’s Hamfuggi
Records) and this collaboration takes us into a hybrid
darkambient/noise/experimental territory, a brooding, malignant, desolate place
that appears to be perpetually shrouded in mist, where dimly-seen shapes take
on sinister and dangerous significances. This is an area less-travelled,
probably unmapped, and not for the faint of heart.
‘First Day’ dawns with
plangent, mournful drones, united in dirge-like lamentation, and are soon
joined by a rasping oscillation accompanied by even higher-pitched howls. We
stand at the border of this uncharted land, the sounds emanating from those
thick fogs constituting an alarm and a warning: this place isn’t one full of
wonders and marvels, but of travails and disasters. There are no paths, and
there’s nothing to guide us on our way. A blast of abrading wind sweeps over us
just as we step over the line, to await whatever is hiding in those blankets of
obscuring fog.
‘Blurred Images of Could
I’ve and Should I’ve’ opens with the same slow oscillating croak, accompanied
by drips and stuttering footsteps, but whether they’re ours or those of some
other unseen denizens can’t be discerned. Strange keenings swirl out of hidden
nooks and crevices, creating an unsettling impression that we’re being observed
by mysterious eyes, and that our every move is being watched and monitored.
Bells resonate from all sides, their sources indiscernible through the curtain
of haze forever surrounding us. Only slight tremors and subtle breaths shift
the still air, and these are only witnessed by the minute whorls and eddies
breaking out in the otherwise blank, monotonous texture of the persistent mist.
The oppressive lack of light, or even recognisable shapes of any terrain,
combine to create a dissonance and disequilibrium that only worsens the deeper
we go into this blighted, elusive land. It’s an environment in which we
simultaneously feel isolated and alone, and also surrounded by beasts and
figures whose intent appears to be to hinder us or to do us harm in some way.
The very fact that they’re not doing anything is a psychological weapon in
itself, pushing our nerves to their very limits, and could break our minds at
any time. On the other hand, perhaps there is
nothing and no one there at all, and the only thing that will kill us will
be our own minds and imaginations.
Finally, we get to track
three, ‘Last Day’. Does it hold out any hope of salvation, or rescue? Or are we
destined to remain lost wanderers, unable to find our way home. Will we conquer
our fears to discover the truth of this landscape that we’ve been stumbling
through, or will it claim us before we step outside the boundaries of its borders?
The air here does appear to be clearer, and the way more open, but it occurs to
me that even if we find ourselves under blue skies the dark path behind us will
have left its mark on our psyches, and that as a result we will never be the
same again. Hints of those psychological shadows abound here; ghostly howls and
cries, reverberating endlessly, accompany subterranean tremors that appear to
stalk us as if sentient. They seem to be unwilling to let us forget them, that
a part of them has been left behind buried within the deepest recesses of our
minds, yet in places where we’re constantly reminded of their presences. In
some respects, we have just fought an inner battle, which has left us more
deeply affected and changed than we realise. Just like the soldier who returns
home from an atrocious battle, an experience that has irrevocably changed him,
a species of brutalisation and mental distortion which will perpetually colour
his life henceforward. Now his (and by extension our) war has been
internalised, and will be fought against himself.
This is a seamless
collaboration, one that plays and preys on our deepest darkest fears through
clever manipulation of sound and subtle use of oppressive atmospherics and
textures. Full of dankness and darkness, created without veering into dirge or
cliché, almost as if the unseen entities inhabiting this mythical and malignant
landscape have actually been brought into manifestation and have somehow been
infused into the music itself. It’s an intense experience, one that appears to
seep into one’s bones, its icy fingers clutching at our hearts and minds. A
mature and mesmerising work that will repay countless visits – although don’t
forget to bring a map with you next time or leave markers.
Available in digital
format only from:
or:
Psymon Marshall 2019.
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