Dark Ambient Review: Beringia
Review by Casey Douglass
I’m often up for
music that takes me on a bit of a journey. Whether explicitly with
characters actually delivering dialogue, or more subtly, it’s a
nice feeling to open your eyes again and feel you’ve gone from
“there” to “here” in the hour or so you’ve been listening.
Creation VI’s Beringia is a dark ambient album that falls
into the latter category, a shamanic-styled journey of drones,
rattles and drumbeats, that lull the mind and lead it into potent
spaces.
The soundscapes on
Beringia are textured and often rhythmic, with piping and
clacking going hand in hand with anything from field-recordings of
water to the twang of a jaw harp. That’s not even mentioning the
drones and didgeridoo. The tracks carry themselves along in their own
rhythm, the main drone or beat gaining flourishes or extra detail
sounds around it but largely following a rhythmic, trance-like
predictability.
I think my favourite
track is Haunted Shore, a soundscape that really brought to mind a
dripping, misty shore, with the sound of muted things knocking in the
distance and a strange little repeating tone that seemed to hint at
the unease of the location. It also features a sound that I liken to
“insect gloop” and the kind of rain that sounds like it is
hitting a plastic bag. A drone rises at the midpoint that lends the
whole thing an added feeling of menace or threat, a bassy beat
fleshing out the edges.
I did really enjoy the
final track, Conversation of Elements too, another track that opens
with the sound of water, but languidly builds up to feed the listener
gusts of wind and later, the crackle of fire. There are rattling
wooden wind chimes, exhalations and sounds of snuffly activity, that
might just hint at being underground at one point. I guess that’s
all of the usual elements covered, earth, wind, fire, air and water.
If you include spirit in the mix, that would be the people making the
journey, in my humble opinion. Or the listener, if you want to get a
bit meta about it.
In Beringia, Creation
VI has made another fine album, one that uses rhythm and
shamanic/tribal sounds to create a space that is a refuge from the
mundane world. Gone are the annoying chimes of social media
notifications and outrage-fueled news. They get smothered and
muffled by the warming drones, energised drum rhythms and insect-like
buzzes that remind the listener of the more primal parts of the human
psyche.
Visit the Beringia
page on Bandcamp, and check out the track Haunted Shore below:
I was given a review copy of this album.
Album Title:
Beringia
Album Artist:
Creation VI
Label: Cryo
Chamber
Released:
September 17, 2019
