Reviews: ambient

This is the first release on Cyclic Law, a promising label from Montreal. Their mission statement: “We will strive to release obscure quality music and will also emphasize on unconventional packaging.” Well, this debut album is directly succeeded. Instincts / Bustum is a collaboration of Instincts, a dark ambient project of Frédéric Arbour, and visual artist Yvan Arseneault, aka Bustum…

The new Canadian label Cyclic Law (“providers of dark soundscapes”) has not made a modest start. After an album by Instincts/Bustum, this compilation is their second release. And again it is a remarkable item. The music is of very high quality, delivered by five promising acts in the dark ambient field…

This Russian dark ambient act really attracted my attention with some fine contributions to samplers, like “Heilige Feuer”. They also released a very nice 7″ on Albin Julius’ Hau Ruck! label, called Reutraum III…

An impressive album, this debut from the French act Land. It has been in my stereo quite often the last few weeks. Which is a compliment, because many new releases move to an anonymous place in my collection after 2 or 3 listening turns. Earlier Land released a 10″ called “Idi i Smotri”, which I haven’t heard, but I read some good things about it…

When Joy becomes Saddness is one of the many projects of Clint Listing, who I mostly know for As All Die. That act showed a somewhat folky and martial style on the rather nice album “Times of war and Conflict”. On this release we have an experimental dark ambient sound though, with a prominent role for whispered vocals…

The seventh album of Claudio Dondo’s dark ambient project Runes Order. The album combines ’70 horror movies atmospheres (Goblin, Frizzi, Simonetti) with ’80 industrial sounds and is inspired by the cult movie “The House with Windows that Laught” by Pupi Avati. Most of the tracks on the album are rather atmospherical…

My first acquaintance with Rasthof Dachau, a project from Austria, was when I saw their “Blut und Boden” boxset for a huge amount of money on that well-known online marketplace. I decided to download this album to save “some” money and was pleasantly surprised by the majority of tracks on the album…

I first listened to this latest piece of work by Brian Williams late at night, after I had just been wandering at a abandoned factory area in Eastern Germany. That really put me in the right mood for this music. It stimulated my fantasy to think of what scenes would be happening behind these deserted factory walls at night…..

Wilt is a dark ambient project from the USA. Mastermind behind this act is James Keeler. “Amidst a spacious fabric” is the third full length album by Wilt, besides numerous cdr releases. It is my first acquaintance though with this project, and it is a pleasing one. Wilt weaves a fine tapestry of dark ambient sounds on this album…

It is not a modest release, this “Radio 1940”, the fourth album by Wilt. A double cd with 122 minutes of music. Packaged in a luxuriously looking digipack, with great graphics by Ben Didier. And furthermore a distinct concept: “Radio 1940” strives to recreate a feeling of the 1940’s…

An American musician, David Sullivan, on a French label. A newcomer to me, but apparently his second album. Magwheels creates very good instrumental ambient music, which is rather diverse and experimental. Electronics and acoustic elements (guitar!) seem to be mixed. Harsh chaotic passages are alternated with emotional moments…

I only knew this act from the Outsider compilation (see earlier review), now they have released their debut cdr in a nice looking dvd box. Post Scriptvm from Brooklyn creates a dark ambient landscape. A dark soundscape with diabolical laughter and twisted choirs immediately gives you an uneasy feel…

This production is a collaboration between Dutch poet Ingmar Heytze and musician Lilian Hak. Ingmar Heytze has already gained recognition as a poet in the Netherlands due to the publications of two volumes of poems and his live performances with and without musicians. Icarus is a selection of his poems written between 1997 and 2001 that are put to music…

‘An aural channeling of H.P.Lovecraft’ is the undertitle of this compilation. Lovecraft is of course a very grateful subject for a dark music project. He is one of the best known American writers of weird and fantastic fiction, after Edgar Allen Poe perhaps. On this ‘tribute’ 9 different artists pay hommage to the grand author. Most of the projects involved are active in the dark ambient field…

That SDF has potential is something I already knew through their previous cdr “Quench”. This album, also released through mp3.com, was reviewed by me earlier. On this new release, ‘Sound organized in time”, SDF again manages to create an original sounding, diverse album of electronica. Most songs are rather soft, with an ambient sound…

After the very energetic and rhyhmic industrial from Detritus, this is the second release I hear from the young label Fleshmadeword Records. But this time a completely other course is on the menu. No harsh dancefloor attacks, but one long track, a tranquil dark ambient composition. The track is entitled ‘Maelstrom’ and lasts for 21 minutes…

One of my favourite albums of the last two years must be the debut cd from Apoptose. Nordland is an icy trip to the northern regions, which can also be understood as a synonym for the darker side of nature. Apoptose is a one man project, which makes instrumental, mostly electronic music, with great depth and variety. The music on Nordland really has a arctic, barren atmosphere…

A collaboration of two nice projects. In my review archive you will more reviews of Arbre Noir, Polygon and their Polymorph label. The packaging is stunning, as always. In theory it’s an interesting combination: the soundscapes with space atmospheres of Polygon and the natural ambient with tribal elements from Arbre Noir. The album contains 6 long tracks, which are mostly rather tranquil…

From a relatively unknown Czech label comes this compilation with an interesting line-up. Horus Cyclic Daemon has also released material by This Morn’ Omina before. This Belgian ritual/industrial band is also present on this Chaos compilation. The album has a conceptual theme: ‘The project explores magickal & scientifick patterns of Chaos’…

Like I am used from the German Polymorph label, a lot of attention has been given to both the sound and the visual quality of this release. This cd from Abre Noir comes in a nice digipack with good graphics. It is the third release from Arbre Noir on Polymorph, earlier they made the album “Beyond” and a collaboartion with Polygon, entitled “Traveller”…