Dark Ambient Review: Graveyard Orbit
Review by Casey Douglass
I’ve been in a very
sci-fi mood lately, so when a dark ambient album designed to evoke
images of obsolete or damaged spacecraft slowly disintegrating in
orbit, fell into my inbox, my interest was easily piqued. In
Afnimaran’s Graveyard Orbit, each
track is named after a starship or space-station, which I think is a
great way to frame the music that each contains. As far as the tracks
themselves, they feed the listener suitably sci-fi sounding
beeps and radio-frequency fluctuations, but among the other tones and
notes, are also ritual elements. When you hear an eerie chant break
out in a remote soundscape, it certainly boosts the feelings of
desolation and despair.
One of the tracks that
I really enjoyed was Nostromo. It’s a dark and brooding track, but
with a howling, trilling effect that comes and goes. There are also
instances of echoing, plucked guitar notes, which boost the feelings
of threat and remoteness nicely. For me, it was basically the dark
ambient equivalent of what planet LV-426 sounds like in Alien. The
track conjures up the murk, the wind and the threat until you can
almost feel the seeping cold and sand-blasting fury of the planet. The
second half of the track is more discordant, with a distorted,
alarm-like blaring and some of that ritual chant that nearly always
seems to carry some kind of impending doom.
Another track that I
particularly enjoyed was BC-304. The main reason for this was that it
carried the feel of an abandoned spaceship that might be slowly slipping
into a black-hole. There is a sound that could well be the tones of
the creaking superstructure of the ship, slowly being teased and
pulled apart. There is also a whining, with whispers, chant and
juddery strings that all create a lovely feeling of inevitability and
resignation. I may be a freak, but the thought of being on an
abandoned spaceship that is only hours away from destruction, with
nothing to do or to be done... I find that a profoundly relaxing space
to be in.
All of the tracks have
their own flavour, from the more prominent chant elements in the
latter ones, such as Solaris Station, to the ‘whistle-like’ tones
in Enterprise-D. What unites them all is the feeling of isolation,
obsolescence and looming destruction. Some of the soundscapes are
relatively smooth, others become discordant or more jarring, which is
also a nice touch. Spaceships, as people, all meet their end in their
own special way. Where one might gently break apart, another might
scream and strain until the very end. As you can tell, I enjoyed the
concept of Graveyard Orbit, and it’s a concept that the album
fulfills tremendously.
Visit Graveyard Orbit page
on Bandcamp for more information.
I was given a review
copy of this album.
Album Title:
Graveyard Orbit
Album Artist:
Afnimaran
Label:
Kalpamantra
Released: 20
June, 2020
