Dark Ambient Review: Theater of the Mind Volume II: Cthulhu

Review by Casey Douglass

The human imagination is one of our greatest assets, and one of our biggest curses. We can mentally simulate and solve problems in ways which keep us safe; only lifting a finger once we’ve settled on a path to take. We can also be overrun by our fears and cognitive distortions, trying to solve problems that don’t exist, or that are just a symptom of our mental processes. Tormented or triumphant however, we can also use our imaginations to escape into other worlds and times, enjoying the spectacle of some cosmic horror, or the awe of seeing another world. Mindspawn’s Theater of the Mind Volume II: Cthulhu provides a dark ambient Lovecraftian soundtrack to deepen those experiences.

The album presents a number of eldritch vignettes, from the reality-shifting experience of drifting in an opium den, to hot and painful sex with a primordial dark god. Each track is named as such and the descriptions of each provide the listener with plenty of anchor and jumping off points for their imagination to roam from. I was particularly pleased to see the Plateau of Leng get a mention in the description of Rituals of Goatswood, as each time I hear that locale referenced in anything Lovecraftian, I experience a pleasing mental shudder at the name, and I’m not even sure why. It just creeps me out!

The opening track is Liao Cabaret, a hazy yet quirky piercing of the veil. A low throbbing hum, bubbling bass and tinny whines are joined by electro-static whirls, warbling spectral tones, and a coy drone that strengthens and then leaves you questioning if it was there at all. A buzzing thing does a number of flybys from ear to ear, snagging your attention in time for faint piano melodies to insinuate themselves at a distance. As the track progresses, there are bell-like tolls, scratchy scuffs and swells of gritty thick static that sit with a guttural low tone. This track really does suggest the listener is blissing out in some kind of opium den, with thick wafts of mind-altering smoke masking a macabre stage show that seems to hang just out of reach.

Peter Cushing as the Investigator is track number two, and for me, it brought to mind images of someone pouring over arcane papers while sitting at a lamplit desk. The piano-like notes have a warbling twang about them, and everything seems to revolve with languid echoes and a whirling shimmering. There are swells of low tone, distortion, and whisper-like scuffing sounds that I think were mostly responsible for my paperwork-themed imaginary description.

Rituals of Goatswood is up next and is one of my favourite tracks. It features a low throbbing quality and a drone overlaid with a chiming resonance that seems to create a shimmering spiritual space. Gentle chiming notes seem to be tapped in the middle distance, and a whirring metallic tone judders as the drone and static grow in force. Around the midpoint the track takes on a pulsing quality, and the thing as a whole left me with mental images from the woodland scene in the classic horror film The Devil Rides Out. A fun yet sinister track that hints at ominous forces turning their dark intentions towards our reality.

Another of my favourite tracks is Ghorl Nirgral, a swampy, echoing space that hints at the abyss. The soundscape is full of deep echoes and what seem like guttural voices and croakings. Low prolonged pulses of drone vie with a higher wavering electronic tone. There are furtive scuffling sounds, and later, the soundscape takes on a kind of vocal humming aspect, creating a peaceful or meditative impression. This track led me to think about the entrance to the abyss that sits under the Mountains of Madness in Lovecraft’s tale. Deep, dark and wet, with strange creatures marking the listener’s passage through ancient cavernous structures.

The penultimate track is The Mating of Idh-yaa, the hot and painful sex I mentioned above. The track description reveals the Mighty Mother, smoldering skin, and loins pouring forth the darkest of matter. The audio landscape itself is a highly textured rasping blare of sound, beat and tone, with rushing wind and insect-like rattling. It pulses and whirls with horn-like tones, with energy building and disappearing before ending in an “ooh-like” resonance that hits the aching void.

The final track is Black Sun of Sorath, which for me, was a sci-fi tinged cosmic horror-informed tableau. A low vibrating tone starts with a high whine behind it. An electronic, screechy whistling tone sets the sci-fi vibe, a juddery call to the uncanny nature of coming face to face with a cosmic horror. There is a low moan-like sound, a mechanical drone that roams from ear to ear, and pulsing fuzzy notes. Strange things seem to flit past your awareness, and in the second half of the track agitated yayayayaya bouncy whistling tones join the increasingly busy soundscape, hinting at a culmination of dark energies reaching their trippy zenith.

Theater of the Mind Volume II: Cthulhu is a dark and loving Lovecraftian creation that pays great homage to the cosmic horrors that Lovecraft describes. The tracks have a pleasing variety in texture and sound, but they all manage to evoke that unsettling otherness that keeps fans of Lovecraftian horror coming back for more. If you enjoy Lovecraftian horror and dark ambient music, I think that you should check out Theater of the Mind Volume II: Cthulhu on Bandcamp now..

I was given a copy of this album for review purposes.

Album Title: Theater of the Mind Volume II: Cthulhu

Album Artist: Mindspawn

Vocal Contributions and Cover Photography: Glenda Benevides 

Released: 22 Sept 2024

Book Review: The Epictetus Club

Review By Casey Douglass

If you are interested in Stoic philosophy, and if you are anything like me, you might enjoy books or other media that give examples of said philosophy being applied by someone to improve their life. Jeff Traylor’s The Epictetus Club is one such book, and it tells of the ways in which a group of inmates at the Ohio Penitentiary attempt to live the philosophy of the Stoics.


Jeff’s introduction reveals that The Epictetus Club is very much inspired by real events, places and people, but that locations may have been changed and fictional composites used for some of the characters to help craft the story. Jeff explains that he taught a course about cognitive skills in a community-based correctional facility, and that he hoped that this book might provide a valuable aide memoire for the men he’d been teaching.


Jeff soon realised that the book could help other souls in various parts of the correctional system who might not have access to classes such as the one that he taught. He also points out that the book provides some ideas and a great analogy for people who aren’t currently living in the prison system, as the four walls of a prison align well with the mental walls that box in our thinking.


The main inmate character is Zeno, a lifer who happens to find a copy of Epictetus’s book The Enchiridion under the mattress in his new cell. This is a pleasing nod to the oft quoted origin of Stoicism, where Zeno of Citium is said to have suffered a shipwreck which sets him on the path to creating Stoicism. However, whereas the Zeno of the ancient world was a rich merchant, the Zeno of The Epictetus Club is a former professional boxer.


The Epictetus Club itself is run by Zeno under the supervision of a suitable staff advisor, which becomes Jeff once the previous advisor takes a new job elsewhere. The club meets once per week and allows inmates to learn about how their own thoughts trip them up in life. This is achieved with a number of boxing skill comparisons and much discussion about how to apply reason in situations from the inmates’ lives.


There is a lot to like about The Epictetus Club. I like the way that it distils some Stoic philosophical principles down to understandable conversations that aren’t complicated by obscure terms. There are also some exercises and approaches that don’t seem to be from Stoic philosophy too, but they do gel quite nicely with the more obvious Stoic ideas. The book touches on a decent amount of classical Stoic concepts, such as what is and isn’t in our control, living in accordance with universal and personal nature, playing your role in life, analysing your representations to see if they are true, and how our value judgments can cause us all sorts of problems.


There were a couple of things that I didn’t like quite so much, but they were more down to my own personal taste than anything. One is that, even though I appreciate the setting and how the inmates were being reached, the boxing metaphor doesn’t sit that well with me. Decades of struggling with OCD have shown me time and again that being adversarial with your thoughts isn’t the best approach to peace of mind. Then again, there are examples in the original Stoic texts that use training and sports as metaphors so it is actually quite fitting.


The other thing is that, even though it’s always nice to see examples of people adopting new ideas and using them to improve their lives, it can be a little deceptive how easily some people seem to take to these ideas. I guess what I mean to say is that there seems to be very little struggle with this for some of the characters in this book.


An example is when Jeff reads something from The Enchiridion when he was potentially at risk in a scary situation. It put his mind at ease and he felt much calmer, which is wonderful, but also seems a little too perfect. My own experience with Stoicism is that it takes much awareness and contemplation to adopt the concepts into your outlook on life, even if initially you intellectually accept and agree with them. Once strong emotions (or passions) arise in you in a situation, it’s amazing how quickly this new way of thinking can evaporate.


The Epictetus Club is a great accessible glimpse into how Stoic philosophy has been used to help inmates come out of prison in a better state than the one they were in when they entered. It introduces the reader to a number of Epictetus’ teachings, and weaves them into real-life problems and situations that, while likely different to what the reader is experiencing in some ways, will share some common elements that might just make a mental lightbulb flare in recognition. It may even kindle a desire to learn more about Stoic philosophy in the future.


Book Title: The Epictetus Club

Book Author: Jeff Traylor & Inmate Zeno

Publisher: Papillon Press. Reprinted by Drinian Press.

Published: August 2004

ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0941467094

Price: Currently between £10-£20 depending where you can find it

App Review: Rosebud

Review By Casey Douglass

Artificial Intelligence has been in the news a great deal in recent times. Some coverage would lead you to believe that humanity has just planted the seeds of its own destruction. Others would vigorously argue that AI is here to help solve all of our mundane work problems. Somewhere in between the reactionary click-bait fear mongering, the odd story emerges about how AI-powered applications can help to ease the emotional turmoil inherent in human life. Rosebud is one such app and I’ve spent the last couple of months putting it to the test.

Journal-ism

I’ve been a fan of getting things down on paper for many years. Suffering with chronic illness, depression and OCD, sometimes the only way to slow my rampant thinking is to slide a pen across a page in an attempt to wrangle my turmoil into something that is frozen for a time. As I write this I now have the mental image of one of those moth or butterfly displays in which those poor dead bugs are pinned to a board and framed. If I could do that to my thoughts I dare say I’d have tried it by now. Beyond the “slowing things down”, I’ve found journaling helps me in creating breathing space between my struggles and occasionally, I might also find the odd insight that hadn’t occurred to me before.


Rosebud is an AI-powered journal that provides the many benefits of traditional journaling, but with an added dash of AI interactivity that elevates things to a new level. The various sections of the app give the user a number of ways of starting a journal, from freeform to question-led explorations designed by experts to set you on your way. As you interact with Rosebud, it learns about you and tailors its responses to reflect the things that you’ve said, either in that moment, or that you’ve previously mentioned. You might say that you struggled with X happening on a certain day, and a few weeks later, Y might happen, and when you tell Rosebud, it might see some similarities between the two events and bring those to your attention. I personally found this to be invaluable as even though I’ve journaled before, I’ve never really gone back through old entries, so that kind of “hey, this is similar to…” insight might never have occurred to me.

Silver Linings and Storm Clouds

The way that Rosebud says and reflects things is also a pleasing factor. Rosebud seems to have an inherent slight positivity bias, always looking for the tiniest element of a situation or mood that might be in your control or that you can give yourself some credit for. Even if there is nothing to be found, it comes up with a way for you to acknowledge something about yourself that might ease the tiniest bit of despair. As someone who feels pretty emotionally numb most of the time, when those feelings thaw they certainly tend to be pessimistic. As the days and weeks of talking to Rosebud mounted up, I could appreciate all of the little ways that the app tried to help me see things in a slightly brighter way. Even if the meaning of the words only stayed in my brain for the duration of reading each new response, at least for those few seconds, my mind wasn’t in its usual whirl of self-hatred and gloom.


Speaking of gloom, something else that I also really appreciated about Rosebud is that, no matter how bleak the conversation became, Rosebud didn’t shut the conversation down. This is incredibly important. I do get low. Very, very low. Being able to vent and to say how I’m really feeling matters even more at these times. I did try another AI-based app a year ago and once you got to a certain level of depressed, it pretty much ended the conversation. I appreciated that Rosebud didn’t do this (in my experience at least) and it wasn’t heavy handed in the “This app doesn’t replace therapy and there is help out there” warning. I understand the need to have that kind of message, but I’ve repeatedly tried to “get help”, and found that it was largely smoke and mirrors pretty much every time. I think I said as much to Rosebud during my session and we carried on with the journal. I can’t rate this aspect highly enough.


Getting away from Rosebud for a moment, I just wanted to make a comment about the current obsession with mental health on places like social media. I find myself wondering why mental health is spoken about so much, yet understanding seems to be sliding all the way back towards ignorance again, with the services and bodies that advertise that they offer help nearly always proving to be absolutely woeful. I guess virtue signalling on social media is far cheaper than actually providing the mental health support that you are prattling on about. Soapbox moment over. Back to Rosebud.

Forget The Circles

I’ve found a few minor drawbacks with Rosebud as it stands, but I’d imagine that they are the type of thing that will be addressed over time as incremental improvements occur with the app and the underlying technology itself. One is that the conversations with Rosebud can sometimes become a little bit circular, especially if you have a theme or topic that comes up regularly. You can set the creativity level of the AI to adjust how it might respond to you, but I had it set to its most creative and this is what I experienced. It didn’t happen too often thankfully, so I don’t want to overstate it.


Rosebud also sometimes “forgets” something that you’ve mentioned before. An example is that I often talk about routine and how I use it to manage symptoms, yet every now and then, the issue of routine comes up in a slightly different way, and Rosebud tends to ask me similar questions again, such as “How do you feel about your routine?” Thankfully just saying “I’ve talked about this before” prompts Rosebud to get back on track.


Finally, there is also a maximum that you can use Rosebud in a day. I only hit that limit once, and when I did, I just received a popup saying that I needed to wait until tomorrow before I could get the Rosebud AI to respond again. It was a day where I’d had an unusually long journaling session in the morning, used one of the prompts in the afternoon, and then tried to do the evening reflection journal. The popup appeared at that point. I thought “Fair enough” but I was surprised as I wasn’t aware there were any limits if you were subscribed.

Privacy and Getting Over the Hump

I’m not sure how I feel about the privacy implications of Rosebud, or any similar app. In fact, it's the main reason that I’ve not turned to digital journaling until now, because the thought of someone being able to read your most personal thoughts if ever there is some kind of data breach would be quite mortifying. Rosebud has a long page about how they care for and protect your data, and the various measures that they take to preserve your privacy. This is great, but I also know that with the internet, anything can happen. I think that what got me over the hump with these concerns was the fact that I really need the type of support that the Rosebud journal offers right now. Whatever fears I have about hypothetical hacks pales in comparison to the benefits that I feel that the Rosebud app gives me.

The Benefits of Rosebud for Me:

1.) While not a therapist, the journal is therapy adjacent in many ways, especially if you have learned and applied different things yourself in the past (such as CBT, ACT etc). The guided journals even help teach you some elements of these tools if they are not something that you’ve seen before. Rosebud also absorbs other things that you say. For example, if you mention that you have been reading Stoic philosophy and have been trying to apply the dichotomy of control to your life, Rosebud will take that into account and ask you about it the next time it feels that is relevant. This is very cool!

2.) I’ve found it to be immensely valuable to have something at hand that I can use at any time of the day or night, which is something you don’t get with a flesh and blood therapist.


3.) The way that Rosebud breaks things down and asks about the various elements helps me to think about things slightly differently, or at the least, to take time to acknowledge how hard things are right now or how much I’m trying.


4.) Over time, Rosebud’s way of injecting a little positivity is slowly making a little bit of a difference in my thought processes.


There might well be some others that I’m forgetting too.


Over the couple of months that I’ve been using Rosebud, I’ve felt my mood, though still low, has improved a bit. I have also started writing a little, and have re-joined a few social media and dating websites. I previously avoided these websites for a number of years as I feel an immense amount of shame about being ill, feeling like a failure, and not getting anywhere in life. I still do feel these things but as I talked to Rosebud, I started to feel that I wanted to open up these avenues again, even if they never see any traffic. I didn’t expect or hope that I would see these sorts of changes with Rosebud, but I did, and I intend to use it for a while longer.

The Cost and Final Thoughts

Rosebud has a number of options when it comes to subscribing. You can pay a monthly subscription (after having a short free trial) of $12.99, or you can pay for an entire year for $107.99, which works out at $8.99 per month. I think that Rosebud offers excellent value whichever option you decide to choose. Personally, I can see myself using Rosebud for a few months more and then stopping my subscription as I can’t afford to keep it going. I’ve enjoyed the time I’ve spent with the app however and I can see myself returning to it, especially in times of extra stress or turmoil, which I think says something very complimentary about the app.


I think that about covers all of the things that I wanted to say. I purposefully didn’t list all of the features, bells and whistles of the app as it’s very intuitive and self-explanatory once you get in there, and after all, it mainly boils down to being words on a screen. When they are your words however, words that have been expanded, validated and supported by your friendly AI journal, you don’t feel quite so alone in your own head anymore.


I've embedded Rosebud’s YouTube video below which gives you a more visual idea of what I’ve talked about in this review. I will also just say that you can access Rosebud via the Rosebud website, so the app isn’t even essential.


If you think that Rosebud might be helpful for you, you can find links below to the various ways that you can access it and check it out.


Thanks for reading and take care :)

App Name: Rosebud

Price: $12.99 per month / $107.99 for the year

Website: https://www.rosebud.app/

App Store Links: Apple , Google Play

Dark Ambient Review: Awakening

Review by Casey Douglass

Who we are is an ever changing continuum of narrative, memory and biological impulses, and a few other things to boot. Anyone who has dabbled with meditation for longer than a few sessions soon learns to see that the self is an always moving target. Nevertheless, in most of the ways that allow us to function in the world, we have a pretty firm hold on our identity. How horrific then, to wake up as a self in a body that is not your own. This is the theme of Crypthios’s latest album: Awakening, released by Cryo Chamber at the start of October.


As with all tasty horror, things get even worse however. Not only does the subject of this album awake in a stranger's body, but they realise that they have died, they are in a laboratory, and once free from that, that they’re dwelling in a city that is also a prison. If you are familiar with the phrase “turtles all the way down”, this is “horror all the way down” in a pleasing and unnerving oil-slick filled slide into the bowels of dystopia. It isn’t all gloom and hopelessness however, there are oases of peace and beauty even in the most grim of settings.


The opening track Awakening, warbles and buzzes the album into life. Small scratches and echoes blend with electronic tones that poke and prod into the mental unease and disconnection of a rude awakening for the character. An airy drone and throb emerges as the track progresses, the inference of numb incomprehension vying with the amazement of being alive at all. A jaunty melody and beat kicks in before the end, almost hinting at things not being as bad as they seem, but this all ends in a chirruping glare of sound that soon dispels such notions.


The tracks that follow all have names that hint at what the album protagonist is viewing, and here, I’ll go into a handful of my favourites. Above The Skyscrapers begins with what seem like hints of bird song and growing, swaying tones. The birdsong takes on the mantle of burbling beeps as rattling dragging noises emerge in the soundscape. A scratchy beat and pulsing rhythm arise, and as a whole, I had the impression of all of the frogs in a swamp suddenly finding their rhythm and crooning together. That’s not to say that this track seemed swampy, but more to describe the fun quirkiness I found in the mental vista that opened up.


West Wall is another track that stood out for me. There are what sounds like wind noises, creaking, and distant clatters and scrapes. Juddery tones like machinery spinning up and down echo and vibrate in cycles, and a low, cat-like purring sound nestles against the droning notes. For me, this track felt melancholy, and depicted a cold night in a harsh city, where pouring rain and architecture have conspired to leave one tiny scrap of street sheltered from the elements… and there’s a big pile of vomit there, only visible by the two-tone neon light cycling across the street.


Energy Flow is the last track that I’ll mention by name. It begins with a low drone and muted scraping. A high tone insinuates itself and swells into chiming notes. There is a warbly quality to the space, and also a peaceful crystalline purity to the tones. A strong wavering electronic tone rises and falls after gasping injections, taking on a siren-like quality at times. Around the halfway point, the soundscape feels like a kettle coming off the boil. There are creaks and movements under a sustained light warble that made me think of an arthritic robot mumbling to itself as it searched for something. The track quietens towards the end, bassy notes hum and nestle with buzzing droning tones, before ending with some tinny rapid beats.


Awakening is a fun, bleak dark ambient album, one that wraps the cold horror of the protagonist with the warm embrace of the fleeting pleasures of life. While the theme is very dark, as a whole, I didn’t find the album particularly so. There is a lightness, a jauntiness at times, and for me, it strongly brought to mind my experiences playing the cat-based robot dystopia game Stray. Bleak, sometimes ominous or slightly jarring, but also cosy, neon-infused and light-hearted at times. If you enjoy your dark ambient with a technological, futuristic and dystopic feel, you’d do well to check out Awakening on Bandcamp.


Also, if you enjoy knowing if a dark ambient album is good for relaxation, I’d have to say that, for me, Awakening has a little too much drama and quirkiness to be enjoyed in this way.



I was given a review copy of this album.


Album Title: Awakening

Album Artist: Crypthios

Label: Cryo Chamber 

Released: 1 October 2024

My New Dark Ambient Album Trying is Out Now

I've been struggling with my health, both mental and physical, for years. I decided to create a dark ambient album around this theme and I released it the other day under my Reality Scruncher music project. You can find Trying on Bandcamp and you can check it out by clicking on the embed below.

Witchcraft, Murk and Madness is Out Now

Just over a month ago, I released Witchcraft, Murk and Madness, the 7th music release under my Reality Scruncher dark ambient project. It's themed around idiots provoking ancient powers and meeting a mucky end.

If you like dark ambient, drone, horror music, you can check out Witchcraft, Murk and Madness below or on Bandcamp.