Dark Music Review – Walpurgis
Review by Casey Douglass
Walpurgis, or ‘witches
night’, is a brilliant idea to create some dark ambient around.
Ruairi O'Baoighill, a dark ambient/drone artist based in Ireland, has
done just that, and it’s certainly a riveting listening experience.
There is a starkness to
Ruairi’s tracks on Walpurgis, often seemingly just a few
elements interacting or alternating with each other to create dark
soundscapes that clutch the mind. He makes great use of vocals,
whether in the form of guttural gut-clenching chants or rhythmic
invocations to who knows what. He also uses drones and lone drumbeats
to puncture the dark bubble that his music conjures, in my mind at
least. Throughout the whole of Walpurgis, any mental images
that came to me revolved around a small fire, a robed figure nearby
and an immense and crushing darkness filling every other part of the
space. The effect might be a bit like looking at a photo of the Moon
in space, but zooming out until it’s the size of your thumb on the
screen. I’m strange, I know.
Walpurgis
contains five tracks, each titled with a simple Roman numeral. They
all gravitate to around five minutes in length, give or take, saving
track five which reaches seven and a half minutes. I felt that each
told its own stage of a tale, or rather suggested one.
Track I seemed to very
much be an invocation, the pacey vocals and guttural sounds seeming
to interact in some kind of battle, the speaker entering into occult
conversation with a dark entity at the fringe of the small fire.
Track II seems to be
full of whispers and gong-like sounds, maybe containing the aether’s
response to the ritual, the performer gaining the attention of the
keepers at the gate?
If track II is the
response, track III seems to be a reversal of some kind, the
banishing of the thing that was called forth. Single bashed-drumbeats
and what sounds like shattering metal is joined by ghostly cries and screeches. I saw the fire spitting sparks into the
blackness above, and heard a guttural chuntering that hinted at the
banishment hurting the thing that is lurking unseen.
Track IV seemed to be a
period of respite, the starting drone joining with shimmering notes
that rise and vanish again and again. Maybe the caster is waiting to
see just what the result of the rite will be.
The last track starts
with a warped gong and a muted rumbling, a bit like you might hear
underwater during an earthquake. A guttural chant reveals the thing
is still there. Ghostly sounds meet with guttural tones (how many
times have I said guttural in this review!) as if building to an
unleashing of the wrath of something that shouldn't have been called.
The more rhythmic invocation begins again near the end, the robed
figure trying once more to control the uncontrollable. At this point,
you could happily loop back to track one and listen to the whole thing again, seeing it as the figure's second attempt, an attempt doomed to follow the same course. Or maybe
we are joining the events mid-loop, the figure and adversary already locked in
a sinister struggle for millennia. I don’t know, but I like the
thought of it.
I enjoyed the time I
spent listening to Walpurgis. I found its various elements
conspired to create a surprisingly dark soundscape that grew stronger
as time progressed, the twists and variations of these elements
seeming to reinforce the feelings of dark energies and abyssal
meddlings. Great stuff indeed.
Walpurgis was
originally self-released by Ruairi in 2012. This version is a
re-mastered release being put out by Cursed Monk Records and comes
complete with new artwork. It comes ahead of Ruairi’s new album To
See Without Eyes. Visit the Walpurgis page on Bandcamp at this
link for more info and be sure to give Track II a listen below:
I was given a free copy
of this album for review purposes.
Album Title:
Walpurgis
Album Artist:
Ruairi O'Baoighill
Label: Cursed
Monk Records
Released: March
15, 2017
