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’. Another project that followed this direction is Inade, who just recently had their beautiful ‘Colliding dimensions’ box-set released. There must be tons of bands and projects that tried to capture the essence of the cosmic in their music.
Two quite new projects from the German Loki Foundation family, that follow the same musical and conceptual route, are Ionosphere and Land:Fire. Ionosphere links the music more to the ‘inner space’ with track titles such as ‘Gravitation of the mind’ and ‘Ocean of thoughts’. It may come to mind, but it is in no way akin to the emotional ambient of Raison d’ être. The drones are chilling, dark and endlessly droning. Devoid of any emotion, it pictures lifeless desolation. The whispering in most tracks gives the music a more earthly touch (‘There are no answers, only choices’), and in track three the bell-like, reverbing percussion is sublime.
Land:Fire is presented here with the long and final track ‘Space interferometry mission’, according to the supplemented text on the sleeve, it deals with the aspects of the black hole. It is very similar to Ionosphere, long drones, high-pitched ones floating around in a bed of deeper and lower ones. Strange interruptions of noises come up slowly and disappear in the distant nothingness. ‘Of mind and of abyss’ brings nothing new or original, but the kind of ambient it harbours, is damned good. And who needs originality when an existing theme isn’t worn out yet?
