‘A handful of dust’ is the last part of Cynfeirdds E4E series. The closure of the label’s limited (all releases on E4E are limited to 141 copies) series is the Polish act Horologium. A fairly new project, with lots of upcoming material such as the release ‘The Fire Sermon’ on the French Divine Comedy records, scheduled for a release in September, and a mini-cd ‘Opium’ on Void records.
Horologium is hard to place in a corner and put a name-tag on. It is influenced clearly by martial industrial. In almost each track there are whipping and pounding rhythms present. No techno(ise) rhythms, but more industrial ones. Most percussion tends to last quite long in the same direction. The repetition has a nice effect because of the mantra, trance-like feeling it evokes. Repetitive piano melodies and dreamy organs take the listener along this landscape. Horologium presents clear melody structures and tight rhythms. Dark brooding atmospheres are lurking in the background.
One gets the feeling of participating in a long walk trough a pre-christian, desert like area. Passing along nomad-clans, Romans and leper-tribes. The soundscapes are ridden with countless spoken-word samples and environmental sounds that really fit into this very same atmosphere.
‘A handful of dust’ is in no way ‘dark-ambient’ or standard ‘dark-industrial’. Horologium’s Grzegorz Siedlecki has managed to create a very personal style. Inspired by T.S. Eliot’s poem ‘The Wasteland’ (1922) we can hear voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells….
