New Risen Throne - The Outside.

Album: The Outside

Artist: New Risen Throne

Label: Cyclic Law/Old Europa Café

Catalogue no: 133^rd Cycle/OECD 276

Tracklist:

      1.      The Outside (I): Sunrise

      2.      What We have Seen

      3.      The Outside (II): Facing the Void

      4.      Corrosion of Pillars

      5.      The Outside (II): Structure

      6.      The Outside (IV): Bodies Float Silently

      7.      Birth of a New Disciple (II)

      8.      A Vision of the Hidden (Sysselmann Remix)

      9.      Echoes from the Loss (Visions Remix)

    10.  Breath of Growing Structures (Taphephobia Remix)

    11.  Humani Nihil (Phantom Ship Remix)

    12.  Sad Silent Prostration Before the Monolith (Vestigial Remix)

    13.  Sigh of the Soul (Apocryphos Remix)

    14.  Signs of the Approaching Wastefulness (II) (New Risen Throne Remix)

    15.  Withered Regions (TeHÔM Remix)

New Risen Throne, aka Gabriele Panci, has been a purveyor of some of the finest dark ambient textures for a long while now, and this latest opus is a follow-up to 2011’s Loneliness of Hidden Structures (Cyclic Law – 38^th Cycle). As a quick glance at the tracklist will verify, it comprises seven new tracks and a further eight remixes created by some of the premier dark ambient acts working in the field today. As it’s such an epic aural tome I shall curtail my waffling and get straight into it.

As with most of NRT’s previous output, we are immediately beset with cold, dark, sweeping atmospherics on ‘The Outside (I): Sunrise’, perhaps at the coldest point just before the sun shows its face, yet ultimately one detects a streak of cosmic evanescence swirling throughout its length. Weaving in amongst the dankness are voices, ultimately overwhelmed by gargantuan tsunamis of oppressive, heavy drones. If I were to place this in any kind of geographical context, albeit a spiritual one, this would be Purgatory, a dimension suspended somewhere between the vaguely enlightened and the absolute damned, a piece of otherworldly real estate hovering between bright skies and an industrial wasteland of decay and filth, leaning heavily towards the latter though. Perhaps this is what the title refers to: a purgatorial realm where those on the outside are forever goaded and taunted by visions of the heavenly, knowing that they will never reach those heights. That is terrifying.

Next is ‘What We have Seen’, a slowly-pulsing, stealthy miasmic cloud of suffocation, an intangible and diffuse but sentient phenomenon that yet has a destabilising and destructive effect, perhaps like the slow onset of plague, feeling out the vulnerable and the doomed with its icy searching fingers. It starts off quietly, almost imperceptibly but, by turns, it gains a solidity and deadly weight that crushes both people and the light. A woman’s voice interrupts, perhaps a supplication to whatever saviour she believes in, until resonant tones like bells emerge out of the gloom – but what do they portend? Do they bring the promise of being saved or the harbinger of inevitable death in the wake of an immovable force? Choir-like voices only reinforce that notion, giving way to a massive wave of orchestral-style drones that threaten to subsume all before its onslaught. ‘The Outside (II): Facing the Void’ doesn’t give us any respite, wailing tones and drones blowing coldly across a barren landscape, that once was fertile and lush, yet now is nothing more than a paean to desolation. The only things that grow here are diseased and misshapen, perverted sculptures displayed in homage to a twisted vision of Nature. Not even high-flying orchestral sweeps manage to dispel the oppressive stuffiness, instead only suffusing the atmosphere with something monolithic and indestructible, demonic even.

‘Corrosion of Pillars’, track 4, is an exercise in lulling one into a false sense of security, beginning as it does with plangent, almost soothing tones, before a breath-like drone rips into the fabric of this reality wherever it may be located, dragging with it darkness and infection. It’s seemingly anchored in a foetid solidity, a slow-creeping flesh-rust, eating the body of materiality from the inside, sundering its very cells and constituents, corrupting and necrotising. The next track, ‘The Outside (III): Structure’, doesn’t pretend to offer us any shelter either, a dank, claustrophobic dungeon dripping with stagnation and ichor, replete with mysterious voicings echoing up from secret subterranean places. All we can do here is to shiver against bare stone walls, and attempt to find warmth and solace where we can. Almost as if closing a circle comes ‘The Outside (IV): Bodies Float Silently’, the final iteration of the cycle (but not the final track on CD1): the endpoint, when the ghost in the machine becomes a literal machine, an engine of de-evolution that ultimately sends us (and the world) back to a primitive state, or even to time of endless death. Light is very much in short supply here, but not altogether extinguished – hiding in some chasm somewhere, away from the clutches of darkness, biding its time for the right conditions for it to re-emerge. The hints are there, albeit extremely faint.

To round off CD1 we have ‘Birth of a New Disciple (II)’, a track suffused with occult meanings and invested with a deep spirituality, even if it is itself wrapped in a kind of darkness as if to hide itself from the world. It soars and sweeps, occasionally creating sparks and clashing bolts of power and light, swooping to the ground only to veer upwards at the last moment. It is power personified, self-contained and confident in itself, knowing that it has ultimate control, and that its boundaries are limitless. Its worshippers know that too, and seek propitiation and appeasement, hoping to win its friendship in a bid for survival.

I won’t dwell too much on the remix disc as, although these tracks are ‘new’ in the sense of new interpretations of selected pieces of NRT’s previous output, this is a bonus adjunct to the new material. Nevertheless, I think they deserve a little time to be listened to and appraised.

Norway’s Sysselmann (Thomas Narverud) gives ‘A Vision of the Hidden’ even more of a sense of the occult streams behind everyday appearances, injecting some cosmic expansiveness into proceedings. Frédèric Arbour’s Visions project reinvents ‘Echoes from the Loss’ and transforms it into something etheric and deeply seismic. Taphephobia (Ketil Søraker) takes on ‘Breath of Growing Structures’ and reimagines and reshapes it into something uplifting, poetic, and mesmerising, a call from the depths of time, space, and dimension – a soundtrack perhaps to accompany the cooling of the universe and the subsequent coalescence of all matter into familiarity. Definitely a highlight.

Roberto Faloci, aka Phantom Ship, drags ‘Humani Nihil’ into the deep realms of some bottomless ocean, where it appears there are wonders to behold. Droning chords swirl effervescently, light appears to dance even at these watery depths, and colours and alien shapes cavort in profusion. This one is another highlight, and left me with a smile on my face. Vestigial’s reinterpretation of ‘Sad Silent Prostration before the Monolith’ is subterranean, burrowing deep into the strata of earth to reach the primordial chasms and caverns below our feet. Rumbling drones do a magnificent job of stirring the lizard brain right here. ‘Sigh of the Soul’, remixed by Apocryphon, delves even deeper if it’s possible, assailing us with deep bass drones that appear to echo endlessly around the bowels of the earth. Whatever lives down here wishes to remain there, and to be left alone.

No we’re on the home straight with the last two tracks. First is ‘Signs of the Approaching Wastefulness (II)’ remixed by New Risen Throne himself, and what we’re treated to is a masterful essay in creating disturbing, unsettling atmospheres, without resorting to overwhelming noise or drone. A barely audible distorted voice, placed against scratchings and disembodied noises, plus the occasional swelling and strategically-placed drone, are enough to create a vivid picture. Many would do well to study this. Finally, TeHÔM take the honours of rounding the set off, with ‘Withered Regions’. A lone bell, treated and distorted, accompanies a male voice, a ritual being enacted in some dark and secret place that isn’t anchored in any particular time or place, a sourceless Everywhere that somehow pervades all of existence but yet is not part of it. This is an incantation to manifest isolation, separation, distance, and ultimately, detachment from all that is material and earthy.

It seems highly appropriate that I am currently reviewing this whilst much of the world is in lockdown to guard against a contagion: although where I am people are still free to go wherever and to mingle with whomever they please, this album somehow gives a foretaste of a deserted world, where the streets are empty, and the human voice and spirit has been stilled. It almost seems as if this album and its release form a kind of focal point, a nexus, wherein all the fears and hopes of mankind have converged. Perhaps it’s even a tad prophetic – even if it ultimately isn’t, it’s a magnificent album. Was it worth waiting nine years for? That’s for you to decide, but it’s arrived at a very propitious moment.

Available as a 2xCD in an edition of 500 in an 8-panel digipak and as a digital stream from here:

https://cycliclaw.bandcamp.com/album/the-outside

And also from the Cyclic Law and Old Europa Cafè websites:

https://www.cycliclaw.com/releases/new-risen-throne-the-outside-2cd-133rd-cycle

https://www.oldeuropacafe.com/catalog/category/the-outside.html

Psymon Marshall 2020.

Sádon & Treha Sektori - Symphony of Dying

Album: Symphony of Dying

Artist: Sádon & Treha Sektori

Label: Cyclic Law

Catalogue no: 146^th 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:

https://cycliclaw.bandcamp.com/album/symphony-of-dying

It can also be purchased from Cyclic Law’s official website:

https://www.cycliclaw.com/releases/sdon-amp-treha-sektori-symphony-of-dying-cdlp-146th-cycle

Psymon Marshall 2020. 

Psymon Marshall - Top 10 2019.

PSYMON’S TOP TEN FOR 2019

It’s that time of year when I attempt to whittle down the hundreds, nay thousands, of worthy records released this year to form my top ten. It’s a thankless task in many ways – it has to be noted that the quality of the material I have listened to, on both a ‘professional’ and personal level, has been, quite frankly, astonishing. I am loathe to leave anything out, but if I did that this would become unwieldy. I could be wrong, but I think that technology and its democratisation is responsible for shining a figurative light into the hidden corners of the underground scene, thereby allowing artists who were once constrained by perpetual obscurity to showcase their material to a broader and receptive audience, as well as allowing them to target those audiences more effectively and at a fraction of the cost. Certainly, when l was involved in the burgeoning scene in the late 80s/early 90s this fantastic virtual arena was unimaginable, and the only way to hear of artists was through the rare occasion a mainstream magazine happened to feature an article on this weird musical scene, or through the pages of an underground ‘zine, or the artists themselves contacting one directly. Now with the plethora of sites like Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Facebook, personal websites and blogs such as this one, obscurity is a mostly a choice.

My only rule for this top ten is that I have reviewed all these records within the last twelve months (or, rather, since I’ve been writing for 1208 North Fuller Ave, Apt 1) and my write-up was published on the blog. There was far too much good material to choose from and, please be assured that, even if a particular record doesn’t appear here, it doesn’t mean I didn’t like it – it’s just that ten is an awfully small number and there are thousands of releases per year. In no particular order then, here’s my selection:

1 – Neraterrae The Substance of Perception (Cyclic Law)

The debut record of the year without any shadow of a doubt, Alessio Antoni brought us a stunningly mature work that normally would be characteristic of an artist’s career peak, rather than one which represents their first release on a major label. Furthermore, the quality is doubly emphasised by the presence of major underground alumni such as Northaunt, Treha Sektori, Taphephobia, Infinexhuma, and Ugasanie amongst others lending their considerable talents to the mix. My reasoning is that they also must have recognised Antoni’s innate talents to have even considered contributing. Seven tracks of haunting, deeply mystical, seismic, and chthonic atmospherics brought forth from the deep time present at the world’s creation, this is an album that deserves its place in any fan of dark ambient’s sound library.

2 – Monocube Substratum (Cyclic Law/MalignantRecords)

A deep dive into nihilistic dystopian nightmares and disaster-fuelled dreams, this is one of those projects that refuses to let any light dilute their dank and foetid vision of a diminished future humanity and the denuded world they’ll find themselves living in. In my original review I described it as Lovecraftian in atmospheric tone but, some months later while I am writing this, it’s gone beyond that and the whole takes on a tinge of having foreshadowed the current state of our world, Definitely one to listen to while the social fabric and order of civilisation collapses around you.

3 Michael Bonaventure In Tenebris Ratione Organi (Eighth TowerRecords)

Here’s a release that takes something that all of us are familiar with (the church organ) and makes it sound otherworldly, creating and devising textures, voices, and tones one wouldn’t normally associate with the venerable instrument. This is a thought-provoking work, in that it blows away ingrained perceptions and assumptions, and shines the spotlight on a new creation that is at once familiar and alien. This nine track album successfully posits the notion that synthesisers have in fact been around for hundreds of years, not mere decades.

4 Llyn a Cwn – Twll Du (Cold Spring)

I could have quite easily chosen a top ten consisting solely of Cold Spring releases such is the continued quality of output from this long-established label. Instead, I chose Llyn a Cwn’s Twll Du that, apart from being a release of well-crafted atmospheric ambient pieces, also locked into a particularly Celtic ambience that I have experienced personally. Each of the seven compositions is based around feelings and reactions to specific areas within Snowdonia, North Wales, a region which is heavily invested with myth and magic. I’m from South Wales, which has its own similar patches of mystery (the Preseli Mountains, home of the bluestones of Stonehenge) and parts of which are associated with the Mabinogion (an epic of Welsh literature), and so I found myself buying into the mystical and doomy atmospherics with ease. One can very easily glean the nature of the places described herein.

5 DR – The Tea Sessions Kalamine Records

Now for something completely different: a quartet of ambient drone pieces based around tea. It’s a novel approach, one that reaps huge benefits, and that has the effect of being both interesting and intensely calming, allowing the listener to ride waves of bliss. Think of it as an antidote to the stresses of modern-day living, so I can recommend sitting back in your favourite armchair, sipping on a freshly made cup of one (or all) of the teas mentioned in the composition titles, and let yourself just drift away into oceans of infinity.

6 Cordis Cincti Serpente I (30th Anniversary Edition) (IndustrialÖlocaust Recordings)

This was originally ‘released’ way back in 1989 as a limited edition of just 31 tapes, none of which were on general sale but instead given to the artist’s friends. Thankfully, then, the fine folks at Industrial Ölocaust Recordings saw fit to re-release this masterpiece in remastered form (by Raffaele Pezzella of Sonologyst), in a signed edition of 93. Massively occult and deeply seismic in nature, these are all rituals meant to open up the vast underground currents streaming through the bowels of the earth, both physically and spiritually. A timeless set, not at all dated, and in some ways deeply resonant with our present times – in other words, essential listening.

7 Coil Stolen & Contminated Songs (ColdSpring)

Another (and very welcome) reissue and remaster from the UK’s premier underground label. Apart from being a seminal band from the early industrial music scene of the eighties and nineties, the one aspect of the band that this shows off to perfection is the sheer breadth of vision and musicality that Jhonn Balance and Peter Christopherson possessed, and this emphasises just how successful and far reaching their musical collaboration was. The twelve songs (or thirteen if you have the CD version) are essentially outtakes and experiments gleaned from the recording sessions that ultimately gave us the Love’s Secret Domain album, and as such it adds to the latter release, demonstrating the evolution and thinking processes behind LSD (and the band’s MO). It not only reminds us of the loss of the genius of both Balance and Christopherson (may both RIP) but it will also serve to introduce new fans to this titan of a project of the British industrial scene.

8 Caulbearer Diseased Imaginings (Peacock WindowRecordings)

I shall reiterate my description in my original review: ‘This is a BEAST of an album…’. Featuring not only the original six tracks recorded by Caulbearer but also the same tracks with enhancements added by luminaries such as Black Mountain Transmitter, Gruntsplatter, Wilt + Gnaw Their Tongues, Steel Hook Prostheses, The Vomit Arsonist, and Fire in the Head. These are gargantuan behemoths, both original and enhanced, a soundtrack for the end-times, and for a dying and decaying world. Get your doom on!

9 Stigmate Aiwass (Self-Released)

There are hundreds of self-released albums put out each year, and this particular one made it to this list simply because of its holistic approach to the subject and its maturity of expression. Based around your favourite occultist uncle, Aleister Crowley, this takes as its inspiration the birth of Thelema and its subsequent evolution plus its promulgation by Crowley (which was inevitably intertwined with his larger than life character). It’s a serious release, and a seriously good one at that, swerving away from both Crowleyan aggrandisement and tabloid sensationalism, as well as treating the subject seriously. Nicola Locci, the man behind the project, appears to have been working on this for a long time, and in the process gave it a lot of thought, which shines through every note on here. Quite a cerebral release, and well worth your time in listening to.

10 Sysselmann Ritual of the Aurora Noir EP (Winter-Light)

Four tracks, yet all magnificently sweeping in their cold and frozen glory, this is a sonic study of glacial ambience at its peak of perfection (in human terms anyway). Icy landscapes and skies filled with the crystalline and sharp beauty of the stars, planets, and faint nebulae comprising the band of the Milky Way Galaxy, this lifts the listener bodily skywards and deposits us right in the midst of the polar regions of the earth. I can readily envisage lying in a glass igloo looking up at the pristine vault of the heavens whilst being cocooned in these blankets of sound, my spirit able to feel and to touch those stars, planets, and faint nebulae. Glorious and breathtaking: that’s all you need to know about this fine release.

So that’s it! I hope you like my selection, and apologies to any whose output didn’t make it here. 2019 was the year I rediscovered my love of off-the-wall and non-mainstream music, and I feel richer for having listened to just about everything I’ve been sent (and I will finally get around to reviewing the ones I received in December). If this last year was anything to go by, then 2020 should be another bumper year – buckle up!

Psymon Marshall 2019. 

CLAVICVLA - Sepulchral Blessing

Album: Sepulchral Blessing

Artist: CLAVICVLA

Label: Cyclic Law

Catalogue no: 144^th Cycle

Tracklist:

      1.      Demonic Integration

      2.      Insorcist Will

      3.      Tiamat Skin

      4.      Angra Mainyu

      5.      Apocryphal Truth

      6.      Sepulchral Blessing

Without fear of exaggeration on my part, I can honestly say that ever since I returned to reviewing I’ve been very impressed with the quality and consistency of Fredric Arbour’s Cyclic Law label. Arbour, it appears, has a unique ability to zone in on industrial ambient acts that offer such music that goes beyond the normal run of the mill. And this latest release from Italy’s CLAVICVLA, available to pre-order now on the label website and Bandcamp (see links below), digs deeply into a wellspring of unwholesome inspiration and returns with some black ambient that truly uncovers the darkness dwelling in the hearts of both the world and mankind. The archaeology of civilisation has unearthed the ugly truth of humanity, and the earth has also yielded the monsters that once walked upon its surface – somehow, one feels there’s a link there, fanciful perhaps, but from what did we inherit our DNA in the first place?

‘Demonic Integration’ opens the account, and brings forth deep drones lifted from the very bowels of the earth, perhaps creatures or entities excavated from the musty pages of age-old grimoires, conjured by those who wish only the return of unmanifest chaos and darkness. Seismic rumbles and quakes accompany the arrival of archetypes made real, as howlings torn from the deeps swirl in sympathy at the disruption of nature. ‘Insorcist Will’, growls and mutters from within the darkness of the Evocation Chamber, as forms materialise out of the base matter of blood, mutilated sacrificial flesh, crushed bone, and impure motivations, and are given life by the essences of rare incenses. It is here that the pitch black takes on movement, barely seen or heard but keenly felt, as sharp and acridly pungent as the charnel house.

And perhaps what has been manifested is a creature from legend, the personification of primordial chaos, a beast of fearsome reputation, Tiamat herself. In ‘Tiamat Skin’ we come face to face with her, a terrifying apparition scaled in impenetrable hide, impervious to the weapons of man, immune to the entreaties of mere humans, and for whom mercy is a weakness. She is chaos incarnate, an agent of subversion, and destruction. The world crumbles as she wreaks havoc, laying low the mighty and lowly simultaneously, caring not for the light, only the darkness. Her growls and snarls shake the very foundations of the reality we have built around ourselves. Moreover, it means nothing to her.

Accompanying her is ‘Angra Mainyu’, the Zororastrian (Persian) spirit of utter destruction, the principle of carnage and extermination, whose home is night and maleficence, and whose polar opposite is day and enlightenment. Rumbles and growls, deep subterranean drones, and voices tinged with evil and antipathy, roil and coil around each other, combining their strengths and their malice and resentment. ‘Apocryphal Truth’ perhaps alludes to the real truth behind reality in general, and humanity in particular, as it is our base natures that define us after all – a fact that many are only too willing to shy away from. We are not, perhaps, creatures of light struggling to better ourselves or to ascend to our true spiritual place, but instead we are forever destined to remain mired in matter and material evil. That’s the lie that’s been told to us ever since we achieved self-consciousness, and this is the ugly truth being revealed.

‘Sepulchral Blessings’ is, figuratively and literally, the end of our journey. Figuratively, because it signals that death has embraced us and taken us into the folds of its voluminous robes, and that it has released us from the pain and fear of untimely destruction, and literally, because this is the last track on the album, a summation of all that has gone on before. It begins quietly enough, with an empty place where we seem to be floating, no longer engaged in the cares and concerns of life: over time it transforms, the seeming peace metamorphosing into a less salubrious state, one where the stirrings of an unhallowed existence begin to allow themselves to be felt and heard. Sheets of turbulent nuclear static, the stuff of the stars themselves, searingly hot and ever-moving, tear and rend without cease. This is the nightmare of humanity, the place we have called Hades, Sheol, Hell, or any number of other names in our history, but it is far more terrible than anything we could have imagined. This is our ultimate destiny, the destination we were always meant to go to from the very beginning.

This is a mighty debut, if debut it is – a thoroughly dark, miserable, and pitch black set of hymns to the baser nature of the universe, of all who reside in it, and the reality in which we find ourselves. It couldn’t be blacker if it tried – perhaps it would be better if we called it, to coin a phrase, ‘Blacker than Black’. Black is the absence of light – this is the absence of everything. This is an infinite void, completely devoid of light, hope, or a shred of matter; an abyss that, if it stared back at you, would mean instant annihilation.

Available in three versions: CD (500 copies), 12” black vinyl (300 copies), and digital download. Pre-order your copy from:

https://www.cycliclaw.com/releases/clavicvla-sepulchral-blessing-cdlp-144th-cycle

or:

https://cycliclaw.bandcamp.com/album/sepulchral-blessing

Psymon Marshall 2019. 

Black Earth - Gnarled Ritual of Self-Annihilation

Album: Gnarled Ritual of Self-Annihilation

Artist: Black Earth

Label: Cyclic Law

Catalogue no: 134^th Cycle

Tracklist:

     1.      Doctrines of Dissociation

     2.      Abject Practises Beyond the Threshold

     3.      Behold the Serpent

     4.      The Sharp Blade that Mutilates the Void

     5.      Drowned under Seas of Coagulation

     6.      Lurking Hounds Stagger in the Deep

     7.      The Mourning Waters where Fire never Dwells

Imagine waking up one morning to find that the world has gone dark, and that the sky is an overarching canopy of black clouds that restlessly roil and churn. Somehow, between the evening of the previous day and the next morning, something hitherto thought impossible has happened: the machines we built to serve us have attained sentience, and are now on a death-march to trample and destroy their former masters. What had been a bright daydream of colour and lustre, has become a blackened, rotting nightmare of mechanical insanity, an oil- and blood-stained hallucination, a steel-bladed vision of horror and mass extinction.

This is the scenario that Spanish dark ambient/death industrial/death ambient/noise project Black Earth outline for us on this, their second full-length, after 2015’s cassette release A Cryptic Howl of Morbid Truth on Graceless Recordings (and subsequently released on vinyl on Silent Ruin Laboratories and Bestiarie in 2018). This isn’t simply a barrage of undifferentiated noise and static: if you listen carefully there’s a narrative thread running through it, a horrible, nasty, genocidal, and apocalytic end-time prophecy, written on the ripped skin of bloodied corpses and the skeletal frameworks of buildings that once stood proud and tall. Both nature and artifice lie in ruins, smoke rising up and hanging like mourners in a cortege, overlooking a funeral for mankind.

In spite of seven tracks being listed, this is in essence a diptych, one single composition in two parts, in line with this release not only appearing on the CD format but also on 12” vinyl. Side one details the machines’ initial assault, the massed armies of steel, iron, and silicon steamrollering their way through the fortifications and habitations of the human race with nary an effective defence arrayed against them. The weighty sweep of innumerable instruments of destruction and desecration roars, drowning everything out and flattening all before them, and from the moment it starts in the first few seconds of ‘Doctrines of Dissociation’ until the fading away of track four, ‘The Sharp Blade that Mutilates the Void’, it’s a raging torrent of jet-powered floods of pure machine noise, a cascade of howling, whirring, and unrelenting pandemonium, an unstoppable barrage of acidic effluvia and sludge, and a downpour of caustic, diseased rain. Structures which have stood for centuries, millennia in some cases, quail and capitulate under the tide of mechanised onslaught.

But it doesn’t end there – not by a long shot, because then follows the second sweep, the chasing down of any remnants of resistance. Side two is the aftermath, the desolation, the deracination, the elimination of anything that might possibly represent opposition, and the sweeping up of suspected rebellion. Earth has become a ruined, blasted, forsaken place, adorned with nothing more than burnt-out shells of what were once cities, some buildings still reaching up to Heaven with stretched fingers as if vainly beseeching divine intervention. The entirety of the land has been scorched of green, leaving behind thick carpets of soot and ash. The world and those it carried with it on its journey around the sun are now nothing more than memories, lost to time, and lost to the universe.

While the second tranche of pieces maybe quieter in volume, this in no way means that the horror has abated or lessened in any way. The planet is still smouldering, fires are still burning, and the land will forever be scarred, twisted into unrecognisability by animated hunks of metal with machine intelligence and lacking any form of compassion. Blood has been spilled, perhaps to fertilise the ground so that new life sprouts eventually, but the cycle may be repeated many times before stopping when the machines themselves begin breaking down and grinding to a halt.

Gnarled Ritual of Self-Annihilation is an apt title for this sophomore effort: after all, we built the machines ourselves, created computers capable of thinking and learning, and then we took our eyes off the ball. The sound created here is stiflingly heavy and oppressive, and whatever light there may be left has no way of getting through. The narrative can be taken in two ways: as a warning, telling us that we’re on the road to destruction by our own hands, or as a prediction, that this is the grim future that awaits us whatever we do, because we’ve come too far down this rocky road to be able to turn back and correct our mistakes.

A bleak but perfectly executed album, blisteringly dark in the musical, philosophical, and metaphysical senses. The prognosis presented here is bleak, but it’s also indicative of the blindness and arrogance inherent in our species’ genetic make-up. I shall be looking out for more of this outfit’s work in the future: for now, this certainly fits my mood in these current, trying times, and provides a startling reflection of the inadequacies of those we put in power.

Gnarled Ritual of Self-Annihilation will be released on 27^th September 2019, as a download, a limited edition 12” of 100 copies in clear and black spattered vinyl, a standard black vinyl 12” in an edition of 200, and a CD. Pre-order now from either the Cyclic Law website:

https://www.cycliclaw.com/releases/black-earth-gnarled-ritual-of-self-annihilation-cdlp-134th-cycle

or via the Cyclic Law Bandcamp page:

https://cycliclaw.bandcamp.com/album/gnarled-ritual-of-self-annihilation

Psymon Marshall 2019. 

PETER BJÄRGÖ - Structures and Downfall.

Album: Structures and Downfall

Artist: Peter Bjärgö

Label: Cyclic Law

Catalogue no: 141^st Cycle

Tracklist:

     1.      Inner Cathedral

     2.      Into Eternity

     3.      Anemoia & Onism

     4.      When Thoughts Become your Enemy

     5.      Structures and Downfall

     6.      Dreaming of some Purpose

     7.      Disintegration of the Mind

     8.      Winter Song

These days I am not one for traditional song-based music (ie lyrics and definite structures), preferring instead freeform abstraction simply because it allows my mind free rein to imagine and become absorbed. That is not to say that I dislike songs – there are still some acts (Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance particularly come to mind in this context) that use traditional forms that I regularly listen to. And on this, Peter Bjärgö’s (Arcana) fourth solo album, I find myself being drawn into a mysterious ice- and snow-bound world, filled with tall conifers and rushing crystal-clear streams, all under a sky of the purest blue.

It’s a mesmerising mix of dark ambient soundscapes, ringing bell-like guitar with notes as sharp as icicles, tribal/martial percussion, and voice. In my mind’s eye I see myself as a raptor gliding through steep-sided valleys, the snow barely clinging on to rocky escarpments and outcrops. Further down I see ranks of trees marching down to the bank of a river, the water’s surface occasionally disturbed by small ripples and whitewater foam. It’s an ancient landscape, one that has very rarely seen the footprints of mankind: human habitation, if any, is scarce and camouflaged to be as unobtrusive as possible. Here you’re more likely to see brown bears and elk, Arctic foxes and sea eagles, than you are of anything resembling a man.

There’s no doubt in my mind that this is a deeply serene series of pictures, painted in sound, of an untouched wilderness. Let me give you some examples. ‘Inner Cathedral’ speaks volumes about the wide-open spaces, the huge stretches of sky between horizons. To be a bird or animal here is unfettered freedom. ‘Structures and Downfall’ is a standout track for me, evoking as it does the majesty of the peaks, valleys, and forests where, under that sky, everything stands out with a startling clarity. If the title track represents the daylight spectacle, then ‘Dreaming of Some Purpose’ transforms the landscape into the night-time world, a starlit dome of tiny pinpricks of light suffusing the panorama, the blanket of snow gently glowing in the celestial illumination. The moon hangs placidly overlooking the nocturnal world, its face only obscured by the odd wisp of cloud dawdling its way across the sky on a night-time jaunt. Rarely, that same snow is adorned with the shifting colours of the aurora, a lightshow of melting colours and indefinable shapes and movements.

As beautiful as this vista and environment are, it also has its melancholic moments, as evinced by ‘Disintegration of the Mind’, a song of the unearthly isolation often met with in such places. It takes a peculiar cast of mind and temperament to want to live out here, let alone survive it, even in the summer months. Without the company of fellow humans, the mind almost closes down, reverting to a state of primitive instincts in order to survive.

I declare myself somewhat surprised and delighted by this album: against my expectations this album propelled me on an Arctic flight, letting me see the pristine landscapes and feel the biting cold. In particular, the use of such precise and bright guitar tones lifted this one out of the gravity of the land and launched me into the firmament. Midway between Heaven and Earth, this is the perfect viewpoint to appreciate the wondrous beauty both above and below. I shall be visiting this one again, perhaps on a clear winter’s evening, the lights off, and the only illumination a single candle. Absolutely magical.

This will be available from September 20^th as a digital download, a CD in a 6-panel digipak in an edition of 500, a limited black vinyl 12” in an edition of 200, and also as a clear vinyl 12” in an edition of 100. Pre-order from either Cyclic Law:

https://www.cycliclaw.com/releases/peter-bjrg-structures-and-downfall-cdlp-141st-cycle

Or from the Cyclic Law Bandcamp page:

https://cycliclaw.bandcamp.com/album/structures-and-downfall

Psymon Marshall 2019.