A few weeks ago I had never hear of Somnambulant Corpse. But now things have changed. After Tugend and Bestia Centauri, Axone is already the third new force in the dark ambient field to be released by this new label from Seattle. ‘Casus Belli’ is a mini cdr in 3″ format, which is not used a lot anymore, nice to see again.
It contains over 20 minutes of soundscapes and dark ambient. The first piece, ‘manifest destiny’ is rather tranquil and contains many speech samples. As the song evolves it is getting darker and at the same time weirder. I like the sound of this track, though it’s a little monotonous. Then follows ‘psychogenetic terror’, I don’t know precisely what that is, but it sounds not very pleasant. The track starts very minimal, after which strange sounds and samples build up a little tense atmosphere, which lasts a bit too long though. The title track, ‘casus belli’, is the most interesting in my opinion. It contains deep dark drones some occasional heavy percussion and a few noisy outbursts. There is some fierce shouting in the background, and at times a low scary voice. A magnificent piece of dark ambient.
“Refusing to flinch in the face of the terrible reality of life and of history, taking in the dark as well as the light,a nd embracing all without reservation. For better or for worse, the abyss is there. (…) The sound of Axone adheres to an internal logic oblivious to the external world.”
There appears to be more philosophy behind these soundscapes than you would have guessed at first listening…
