Reviews: ambient

(ambient / soundscapes / ritual / drones)

Oophoi & Louisa John-Krol – I hear the water dreaming

I Hear The Water Dreaming is a very psychedelic title. The music is equally psychedelic, even shamanistic. The electronic textures of the songs are accompanied with subtle sounds effects, nature sounds and samples. This album thus creates a dreamlike setting through the intimate sound of the songs…

Raison d`être – Reflections from the time of opening

This is yet another release of old Raison D’être material. Even though the music is (as always) very good, it is still a little cheap to release more previously unreleased tracks. Reflections From The Time Of Opening features material from before the first album (Prospectus I), two remixes of tracks from that album and a few tracks from compilations…

Inade – Colliding Dimensions

It is virtually impossible to write a review which does justice to this impressive release. No less than 4 cd’s at a time of one of the best dark ambient acts around, which has always stood more for quality than quantity…

Shinkiro – Deep blue

I have this album on the not so productive Athanor label for a few months now and I have played it several times. Nevertheless I could not bring myself to write a review about it sooner. Often that’s not a good sign, but in this case I find it simply hard to describe this intriguing debut release by Shinkiro adequately…

Shinjuku Thief – Sacred Fury

After some harsh noises and subtle sounds Shinjuku Thief is back with an album full of dark and horrific cinematic music. On Sacred Fury are sixteen short pieces of soundtrack music. The music ranges from haunting gothic orchestral pieces (‘Voitive Offerings’ and ‘Balm’) to dark bombastic marches (‘Sacred Fury’ and ‘Firejar Hell’)…

Coph Nia / Mindspawn – Erotomechaniks

The well known Coph Nia and the to me little known Mindspawn have together created an extremely dark sound sculpture. Erotomechaniks is nothing less then a sound sculpture. In the background industrial machine sounds form the basis of the tracks on top of which dark sounds are placed. Lustmord is never far away. The music has the same grotesque feeling as Paradise Disowned…

Aidan Baker & Matt Borghi – Undercurrents

In the liner notes of Brian Eno’s ‘Music for airports’, Eno comes to a description of ambient music. He states: ‘Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular. (…) Ambient Music is intended to induce calm and a space to think…

V/A – AL – 100th Anniversary

Already the third special compilation released by the Czech label Horus CyclicDaemon. After the relatively modest “Chaos” and the luxurious “Lust from the Underworld”, this time it’s another spectacular compilation: “AL”, dedicated to the 100 year old “Liber AL vel legis” the Book of the Law)”, the classic esoteric work by the enigmatic Aleister Crowley…

Squaremeter – The Frozen Spark

After having heard The Frozen Spark you will be either totally left stunned or fast asleep. If you like dark ambient music this is one of the best records since a long time and also one of the best recent releases from Ant-Zen. It is very simple, if you are interested in the dark world of sounds of Lustmord you will love this record…

New Risen Throne / Cruel Harvest – Shadows Over Humanity

A storm welcomes the listener, voices shouting from afar, not to be understood, but to create a vision. A vision of people desperately trying to finish whatever it is they are doing in this weather, craving to go home, but not able to, trapped. This storm lasts 11 minutes and sets the mood for the whole split-cd. New Risen Throne opens up with three tracks…

Tore Honoré Bøe – Suave siesta

‘(…) so I started letting the minidisk [and the dat] roll (…). I left them recording when going for a coffee, when finding a good soundspot outdoors or stumbling across those low and gentle electrical hums and hisses. None of the sounds were played.’ ‘Suave Siesta’ is a release with environmental recordings from Agadir (Morocco) and Arguineguin and San Fernando (Spain)…

Novy Svet / His Divine Grace – Nachtfang

Treue um Treue / Reue um Reue is the new minimal electronics / post-industrial label run by Wermut. This release is the first on the post-industrial branch of the label (R.u.R.). Nachtfang is a true collaboration between Novy Svet and His Divine Grace so no split release, but music made together by the musicians…

Aeoga – COAV

Aeoga is a somewhat mysterious project with a definite talent for creating dark ambient-ritual atmospheres…

Ionosphere & Land:Fire – Of mind and of abyss

A rather obvious theme for dark cinematic music would be the void above us, the cosmic, the deep, the unknown. Music fitting the journey of stars travelling in a liveless darkness thousands light-years from here. Tangerine Dream did this for instance, also Lustmord. I recall ‘The place where the black stars hang’ or ‘Strange attractor’…

Beyond Sensory Experience – Pursuit Of Pleasure

This cd opens with a haunting and spooky ambient track with a sampled voice, a piano melody and some dark electronic background sounds. A very unpleasant feeling is created and this feeling is present during the whole listening experience of this record. Beyond Sensory Experience takes the listener on a trip through dark musical landscapes, nightmares and scary experiences…

Desiderii Marginis – The ever green three

With three albums on Cold Meat, Desiderii Marginis built up a solid reputation as a dark ambient act. Now and then the project of Johan Levin from Sweden also releases material on smaller labels, like this current vinyl mini lp on the obscure French Kaosthetik label. It contains 5 exclusive tracks and a rare older piece, in total almost 40 minutes of music…

Oöphoi and Tau Ceti – Subterranea

Outside the temperature is tropical, inside I keep the curtains closed. I try to stay as calm as possible to avoid overdosis of sweat pouring out. Therefore I need relaxing music to keep my head cool. A very suited album for this purpose is this collaboration by Oöphoi and Tau Ceti from Italy…

Omenya – Ancient Rites

Omenya, a project of Mark Davis from the USA, first came to my attention with an excellent album on Tantric Harmonies about a year or two ago. He also made an album for Klanggalerie. This time his work is released by Purple Soil, an unknown label for me from Prague. The title ‘Ancient rites’ betrays a little in which direction we are heading…

Orchestramaxfieldparrish – Tears

Well, here we have quite an oldie, since it was already released in 2002, but ‘Tears’ by the formation Orchestramaxfieldparrish is a record one mustn’t skip. ‘Tears’ is an evocative and dynamic blend of all sorts of instruments (listed separately beneath each track in the cd-booklet) as electric guitars, drums, piano, synthesizers and acoustic guitars…

Sigillum Dei – Dominus Maleficarum

Monkeyhouse Recordings is building up a solid output of dark ambient releases. Without any concessions they offer obscure soundscapes in which virtually no rays of light are allowed to enter. This time they came up with an album by Sigillum Dei, behind which monicker you can find Gaendaal, who also released on Monkeyhouse as LVTHN and Leviatan in the past…