Album: Symphony of Dying
Artist: Sádon & Treha Sektori
Label: Cyclic Law
Catalogue no: 146th Cycle
Tracklist:
1. Sádon
– Shadow
2. Sádon
& Treha Sektori – Elimination
3. Sádon
& Treha Sektori – Wolf’s Day
4. Sádon
& Treha Sektori – Spear Over our Heads
5. Sádon
– Aegeus
There are times when I
feel that the word ‘gothic’ is bandied around too much, especially when it
comes to describing something dark or melancholic, whether it be a painting, a
book, or music, as in this case. Even though gothic originated as an architectural
term to describe a style of cathedral built during medieval times, gothic only
really achieved its apotheosis during the Victorian era, with its overwrought
architectural flourishes and attitude to death and dying. And, listening now to
this stark beauty of a release, it is very much reminiscent of the Victorian
gothic revival, deeply melancholic and possessing a sense of sweeping grandiose
tragedy. Imagine, then, a Victorian-style painting, picturing a lone widow
standing by a freshly dug grave clutching her shawl about her throat, her young
child clinging desperately and sadly to her skirts, the sky above an oppressive
blanket of heavy black clouds, while a chill, uncaring wind whips her clothing
around her body. This is exactly the atmosphere this five-tracker elicits, drawing
a powerful picture of both sadness and melancholy as well as poesy and beauty.
The cortege begins its
slow progress in ‘Shadow’, a wind-borne lamentation for the dead, a voice
wailing into the lowering clouds above. Those clouds are pregnant with rain,
and every second they threaten to give birth to a downpour. When the rain does
come, will they be tears for the departed soul, or for the mourners?
‘Elimination’ continues the mood, plangent guitar notes overlying a string-like
drone, the same voice from before again crying to the air, its timbres and
tones flying to the heavens, perhaps like a dove ascending to seek the sun.
Notes of anguish intrude as the track progresses, another song of mourning for
what has been lost and will never return. Do we weep for the dead, or for
ourselves?
‘Wolf’s Day’ opens with
majestic string strains, accompanied by voices far in the distance, an
ancestral calling inviting us to enter the wildwood, to return to the ways our
forebears once held dear, a way of bringing us back into the fold. One can
easily imagine being wilfully lost in a vast forest, a temple of trees, their
trunks the columns holding up the roof of the sky, and rarely glimpsed wolves
acting as the guardians protecting it from the profane. We are always aware of
the sanctity of this place and its sacred nature, and that we must not defile
it. ‘Spear over our Heads’ is a mournful but simultaneously reassuring elegy, a
pointer perhaps to the guardian deities protecting our bodies and souls.
Lilting strings wrap us in warmth and love, while sustained drones glide around
us and coalesce into a kind of protective spiritual armour. It may appear to be
something of a melancholic piece, which it is, but it is also a signal that the
strength of our ancestors is still there for us to rely on, and that the glory
of nature is both our shelter and inspiration. Having embraced it once again,
it is ours forever, and more than that, our connection to it has been firmly
re-established.
‘Aegeus’ closes out
proceedings, swirling in with more strings, droning darkly in the lower
register. Aegeus is a mythological figure appearing in the founding myth of
Athens, a goat-man who, along with his brothers, retook Athens from the
usurping Metionids. He was the father of Theseus (of Minotaur fame), who also
was one of the founder-heroes of the foremost Greek cities. The grandiose
sweeping nature of this track befits the epic stature of the man known as
Aegeus, portraying him as a steadfast, strong, and implacable hero. The music
itself feels as if its roots belong not to the now, but to the ancient past, a
past that is only now reaching out to us via Sàdon.
One cannot help but make
a comparison here with the style and sound of the output of 4AD Records, of
Dead Can Dance in particular. This is not meant as an insult – rather it is a
compliment, the grandiosity and sweep of the music absolutely pitched perfectly
and without any pomposity or grandstanding. Even though it’s a short album,
there’s so much going on here, so much emotion compacted into each piece, that
its effectiveness is a marvel to behold and a joy to listen to. One can easily
imagine listening to this on a winter’s evening, looking through a window on
which rain spatters, and each droplet of water trickling down the pane under
its own weight. We watch with
fascination as individual drops head inexorably downward, a notion which
inevitably makes us wonder about our own track through this thing called life.
That is the beauty of
this album – its ability to seep into our very fibre, to spark musings and
ponderings about ourselves and our place in the scheme of things. Admittedly, normally
I am not one to lean toward gothic melancholia, but this wormed its way into my
cells, and made me listen and think. It made me think of my own mortality and,
in a strangely morbid moment, about how real worms will one day burrow into my
skin and return me to the earth. Bizarrely perhaps, I found some comfort in
that – that I am part of a cycle of life.
Highly recommended.
Available from Cyclic
Law’s Bandcamp page, in a limited edition CD of 500 in 6-panel Matte Laminated
Digisleeve, a limited edition of 300 black vinyl LP in Matte cover with printed
inner sleeve, and a digital download:
It can also be purchased
from Cyclic Law’s official website:
Psymon Marshall 2020.
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