The highly productive Peter Pettersson strikes again with this mini cd, that contains three untitled tracks. As always the visual side of the release is well taken care of, it comes in a splendid digipack. On the back of the sleeve the themes of this release are explained: at first Peter wanted to create music around the psychological aspects of a well-known painting by Goya, entitled ‘Saturn devouring his son’. Later his interest in psychology led Pettersson to a different source of inspiration: a book by one Edward M. Podvoll, with the title ‘The Seduction of madness’, which this cd is named after. The book treats psychotic disorders, and how you can recover from them. In the booklet that comes with the cd you can read some information about disorders and their different forms.
Despite this thematical content, the cd sounds like you can expect from Sophia. Three bombastic industrial tracks, perhaps a bit less heavy than the album “Spite”, but still very powerful, with overwhelming orchestral music and pounding drums. There is more variation between calmer passages and epic outbursts, more in line of the album “Herbstwerk”. I have the feeling that this cd has somewhat of a ritual character, perhaps to excorcise the internal demons. There are nice choir elements in the music, which gives it a religious, hymnlike feel at times. Though there are three different tracks, I more experience them as a whole. I like this mcd a lot, I think it will appeal to both fans of Sophia and Arcana.
