Dark Ambient Review: Birds of Naukan

Dark Ambient Review: Birds of Naukan

Review by Casey Douglass

I often like to listen to some dark ambient that has a shamanistic or ritualistic element, so when the opportunity to listen to Creation VI and Ugasanie’s Birds of Naukan fell into my inbox, I was easily intrigued. Birds of Naukan is a re-issue of an album originally released in limited form back in 2015. It’s a collaboration between the two artists and is dedicated to some of the sacred places of Chukotka, the northernmost region of Russia, with spectacular tundra scenery and history.

As you might expect from an album that is focussed on that kind of landscape, the music is laden with field-recordings, tribal sounds, chants and a feeling of cold exposure. The opening track: Nuneangan is a great case in point. It begins with the sounds of birdsong and trickling water, a bit of thunder and an echoing quality that seems to hint at being in the mouth of a cave. It isn’t long before other notes and tones emerge, from one that sounds like the shushing of a boiling kettle, to horns and a kind of guttural gurgling. It’s a texture-laden opening track, and I particularly liked how the soundscape darkens as it progresses.

Track two is Yttygran, a track that has a quite ominous quality, with scraping and rustling sounds, playing along with the boing-boing sound of a mouth-harp. This track felt like it was a slow build-up of forces, the sounds taking on the nature of the wind inhaling before it screams. Near the midpoint, footsteps can be heard making their way through the landscape, walking the listener into a different space of high shimmering resonant sounds and an insect-like swarming buzz.

Track three is Souls of Whales, and it begins with a deep, whispering rustling, and a sound similar to someone running a finger-nail along a plastic comb’s teeth. About one third of the way in, drum-beat and bone sounds make way for the sound of the sea, crashing waves and piped notes. Things turn a little more ominous towards the end as some of the calls and cries that can be heard take on a wolf-howl aspect, to me at least.

Next up is Pegtymel, the longest track on the album. Something about this track hinted at a “fever dream” like quality, the dog-like barks and pleasing mouth-harp tune sitting amongst a drumbeat and voices that take on the element of screams as the track plays out. A track with quite a ghostly feel to it.

The final track is The Keepers, the shortest track at just over five minutes, and one that eases the listener back to the real world by way of more mouth-harp, the rise and fall of drone, and a furtive ethereal quality that is chased away by hints of birdsong at the end.

Birds of Naukan is a pleasing album, probably containing the most mouth-harp of anything I’ve ever listened to, but that’s no bad thing. The instruments and field-recordings used in each track really do create a feeling of an ancient culture in an even more ancient land. I also think it’s a great antidote to the mind-numbing Xmas music that is plaguing much of the Western world right now. Who needs a fat git in a red costume squeezing down your chimney when you can have the stark beauty of the Russian tundra filled with the voices of the ghosts who once lived there. There’s no comparison as far as I’m concerned.

Visit the Birds of Naukan page on Bandcamp, and check out Yttygran below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Birds of Naukan

Album Artists: Creation VI & Ugasanie

Labels: ΠΑΝΘΕΟΝ & NEBOSVOD

Released: November 21, 2019

Dark Ambient Review: Beringia

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

My Top Dark Ambient Relaxation Albums

My Top Dark Ambient Relaxation Albums

By Casey Douglass

It occurred to me the other day, that the selection of dark ambient albums I carry around with me on my smartphone really have become mainstays of my ambient listening. While I enjoy the more jagged variety of dark ambient, those albums that contains clanks, bangs and screeches from the netherworld, they aren’t the most conducive to relaxation. Relaxation is one of the main purposes that my music listening serves, which is possibly why dark ambient, as a genre, has even begun to push heavy metal down my pecking order. The albums listed below are all dark ambient albums that have been mainstays for me, many of them for years.

Azathoth – Cryo Chamber Collaboration - When Azathoth came out, I was a tiny bit “It’s not as good as Cthulhu”. Little did I know that over the years, Azathoth would slowly supplant Cthulhu as my most listened to dark ambient album. In a large part, it’s my “go to” depression album. That’s not to say that it depresses me, but that there is something about the soundscapes on Azathoth that really suck me in and spit me out feeling a little bit better. In one particularly bad spell, I remember it was winter, but sunny outside. Naturally I closed my curtains. I got into bed under the covers and laid a variety of pillows across my body and face, leaving just the smallest of gaps for my nose to take in fresher air. I had my headphones on and Azathoth playing.

The opening swirls of Azathoth are like an inky blackness that just pull the listener down. For me, it’s the audio equivalent of burrowing through the earth, sliding down to dwell where the dark gods live. Rusty chains swing from caves that are seen for only an instant, nebulous mists billow and waver and the very air tastes ancient and yet sustaining. If I drop off to sleep, and I often have, I am woken by the swells of sound at the end of track two, swells and sways that make me feel like a lost ship buffeted on a roiling sea. I genuinely feel renewed after its two hours of darkness, so it easily goes at the top of this list. One thing I will say though, as a warning, is that some way intro track two, there is a segment of what sounds like a pebble being thrown hard at a cave wall. It happens a few times and, if I am half asleep, occasionally it does jolt me with adrenaline.

Cthulhu – Cryo Chamber Collaboration - Cthulhu was my previous number one... but we are still on good terms. If you always wondered what it would be like to listen to Cthulhu rising from the deeps, this is the album for you. Wet feet patter on stone, water glugs and leviathans moan as the listener delves deep into the sea. I think one of my favourite parts is when the soundscape begins to warp and judder, like a strange distortion has settled over things, twisting sounds and muffling the various bassy rumblings. I often doze off after that part hits me, maybe it does something to my brain. As with Azathoth, there is a part that sometimes jars me. A voice begins to intone the well-known Cthulhu R’lyeh prayer at one point, and that often stirs me to wake up. On the plus side, this means that I get to hear the sirens and screams that sound near the end, just as Cthulhu rises and scares the crap out of people.

The Edge of Architecture - Proto U – To be honest, I could have picked a number of albums by Proto U to add to this list, but I think The Edge of Architecture edges it. Ha! The first track is a little ‘harsh’ to relax to, featuring the chatter of air traffic controllers as it does, but the tracks that come after are smoother. One features the audio effect of notes popping like soap bubbles, another contains the clever use of radio static. Others feature some kind of field-recording that adds a pleasing layer to the tones and drones that stitch everything together. I find The Edge of Architecture a very peaceful album, and this is why I think I listen to it as much as I do. Another album that is also well worth looking at is Earth Songs, one in which Proto U teamed up with Dronny Darko to give us an album that follows the evolution of our planet. Earth Songs has dark soundscapes, but also ones alive with the bustle of birds and nature, and it’s a very pleasing ‘chillaxing’ album.

Myth About Flat World – Creation VI – Myth About Flat World is a more shamanic-feeling album to me, especially with regard to some of the rattlings and beats it contains. It has meditative, whimsical soundscapes, ones that conjure the images of myth and legend, the shamanic tree of life, chanting, sighs and whispers. It’s a rhythmic foray into more primal themes and archetypes, and an album that I find enraptures my mind. It feels a bit like going on a holiday, but the kind of holiday where you get stuff done and aren’t just lazing around by a swimming-pool, watching tourists' fat backsides chewing on overly tight swimming costumes. The kind of holiday I mean is where you explore, go off the well-trodden paths, and learn something about yourself along the way.

Ghosts on Broken Pavement – Mount Shrine – Ghosts on Broken Pavement is the most recent album on my list, but one that has quickly established itself in my permanent listening habits. If you find rain relaxing, take a listen to this album. Mount Shrine does stuff to rain that makes it sound even better! In my opinion of course. Each track on Ghosts on Broken Pavement seems to take you on a slow stroll, from the inner city and out into nature, the wind and traffic giving way to a lonely train-station and the mountains beyond. The field-recordings that pop up are soothing and scene-setting, from a "wind blowing around a courtyard" to the gentle ting-ting-ting of said train-station's bells. It just feels very soothing, and again, like a pleasant stroll away from the cares of everyday life.

***

There we have it. Scanning back, I see I wrote the most about Azathoth, by some distance, but I feel I gave a good accounting of why I like each album that I’ve listed. I genuinely listen to most of these albums at least once per week, and considering some have been out for four or five years... that’s quite something. There are plenty of other albums that I’ve reviewed and thoroughly enjoyed, but it’s not always easy to guess which ones will end up in my continuous listening pile. These ones have, and here I stand, shouting about their virtues to all who’ll listen.

Thanks for reading. If you have any other dark ambient albums that you find particularly relaxing, please feel free to let me know what they are called and why they appeal to you. You can do this below in the comments or by finding me on social media :).

Dark Ambient News: Cryo Chamber Field Recording Sale

Dark Ambient News: Cryo Chamber Field Recording Sale

I nearly always love dark ambient music that features plenty of field recording, whether it's the sound of the wind rustling leaves in a forest, or the rumble of traffic on a rainy day, it just deepens the soundscape so much.

Cryo Chamber has just shaved 50% off four albums that are field recording heavy: Eximia - Visitors, Creation VI - Deus Sive Natura, ProtoU - Khmaoch and SiJ & Textere Oris - Reflections under the Sky. As they are all albums that I've previously reviewed, the links are to said reviews.

If you want to take advantage of these offers, head to Cryo Chamber's Bandcamp page here.

Dark Music Review – Deus Sive Natura

Dark Music Review – Deus Sive Natura

Review Written By Casey Douglass

Drone veteran Creation VI (Russia) presents us with his debut album on Cryo Chamber.

The cold wind howls outside the warm yurt, the shaman inside prepares the pipe. The inhale is deep. With the exhale he starts throat singing. The smoke dances between drums and bells raised by the rest of the tribe. Sweaty face sway and glazed eyes blink in rhythm with the beat.

This album is a journey of us humans moving through the ages in our universe. Trying to figure out our place within it as we forge myths and philosophies. Build megaliths and temples. Send our prayers into space and bide our time waiting for the miracle.

Recorded on old tapes for a fuzzy warmth. This album uses a lot of acoustic instruments like blockflute, chinese flute (hulusi), shruti-box, harmonica, ocarina, kazoo, bells, chimes, seeds & seedpods. Tribal drums make you feel like you are in the middle of a hypnotic ritual. Recommended for you who enjoy Ugasanie and Paleowolf and field recordings.

I first encountered Creation VI’s work when I reviewed his Myth about Flat World album last year. It was one of the most peaceful dark ambient albums that I had listened to, and it regularly lulled me to sleep (in a good way, that wasn’t a way of saying it was dull, far from it). When I saw Deus Sive Natura (god or nature) appear on Cryo Chamber, I was extremely interested in hearing what he’d created this time. What I found was an album that made use of the kind of shamanic beat and chants that helped me remember how I first began looking for darker, grittier music.

I used to buy CDs from New World Music, and yes, it really is as new agey as it sounds. This was long before I even had Internet access, so dark ambient was totally unknown to me at this point. I purchased Phil Thornton’s Shaman album though, and was blown away to hear something that wasn’t all pan-pipes (I am now violently allergic to pan pipes) and angel music. This was animal and dark and hypnotic, in the way any good shamanic album, in my opinion, should be. Well, after listening to Deus Sive Natura, I now remember why I love this kind of album. That isn’t to say that Deus Sive Natura is new agey, I was just roaming down memory lane, kicking a few stones as I wandered. Oh, and I’ve tried to find out what some of the track names mean via trusty old Google; I’ve used brackets after the titles to indicate what I found.

Ancestral Voice is the opening track of Deus Sive Natura, and features a soundscape that I really fell in love with. The sound of seed pods, a rhythmic chant and an infectious drum beat really creates a space that is trance inducing. I’ve been known to trance journey, and I could feel myself being lulled and pulled by this track. The rhythm feels just perfect and I found it hard to keep my head still as I listened, the pressure building to rock gently forward and back. Ancestral Voice also features some field-recordings: bird chirps, twigs and leaves crackling beneath the feet, and a few floating voices, the titular ancestors maybe. I particularly liked the moment when I realised that the bird chirping had become its own rhythmic beat, and that I couldn’t really recall when it had happened. As I listened, I was a little concerned that I might have found my favourite track straight away. That did turn out to be the case, but there were others that I very much enjoyed too.

Deus Otiosus (“idle god”) follows Ancestral Voice, a track that I felt began with the audio equivalent of a white fog. If the journeying shaman of the first track is now between worlds, Deus Otiosus very much put me in mind of some of kind of shadowy spirit realm. There is a lovely detail sound of what sounded like ankle-bells, setting up the impression of someone steadily walking through the low visibility landscape, the bells themselves maybe employed to scare away evil spirits. I felt that the fog turned pretty black as the track continued, maybe the mind of the shaman shedding its attachment to form as he/she goes deeper.

Deeper in, Cycles of Life is the next soundscape that develops around the listener's ears. A sustained “Ahh” chant-like sound gets us going, a rumbling drum beat its accompaniment. The chants turn more animal-like as the track progresses, the drums becoming a little subdued, field-recordings of snapping undergrowth emerging again. The mental images conjured by this track were of being stalked, maybe even death stalking life. The drum later takes on the aspect of a slow heart beat, chants and a buzzing noise arising as time progresses. The final image this track left me with was of a cracked light bulb with all kinds of flying insects flying towards it, the falling bodies of their incinerated companions adding yet more light to the scene, even as the death toll rises.

Divine Intervention follows Cycles of Life, a track that features what I’d call a shimmering drone-chant interplay that builds into a subtle prolonged “fanfare” , the kind of accompaniment that you might watch solar flares slowly erupting from the surface of the sun to. At around the four minute mark, I thought I heard other vocals in the pleasing wall of sound but that could have just been the way a mind hunts for things. They might have been there, they might not. It was nice none the less. The soundscape does change as the track continues, female singing/chanting adding a lovely dose of flavour and sound to the various rattling, buzzing and wind instrument notes.

The final track is Natura Renovatur (nature renewed, I think), an epic 23 minute finale that revisits a good number of the sounds and styles of the other tracks. Beginning with the gentle sound of wind, a drone soon grows from nothingness, airy movements and subtle chants hanging in the space around the other field-recordings that make an appearance, from bird chirps, to a kind of whimsical squeaking sound. At one point the dominant sound becomes a kind of siren, a kind of blaring sound although that word is too harsh to describe what is a pleasing effect. Natura Renovatur also contains a rhythmic drumbeat that adopts a number of different beats. A satisfying track to listen to.

There we have it. Deus Sive Natura is a stunning shamanic dark ambient album, the swaying drum beats and natural sounds mingling and hooking into the primal depths of the psyche, dragging that little wisp of essence that we believe to be “us” into another plane of existence.

Visit the Deus Sive Natura page on Bandcamp here for more information, and be sure to check out Ancestral Voice below.

I was given a free copy of this album to review.

Album Title: Deus Sive Natura

Artist: Creation VI

Label: Cryo Chamber

Released: June 13, 2017

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Dark Music Review – Myth About Flat World

Dark Music Review – Myth About Flat World

Review Written By Casey Douglass

In one or another form, Myth about flat world existed from time immemorial in every civilization culture, from India to Scandinavia, always intertwined with other ideas about World.[...] All of this makes the picture of Flat World surprisingly vivid and able to tell everything about secrets of the Universe, inspiring the search of analogies, bringing new vision of familiar fairytales and well-known legends. Creating this album, we wanted to reflect this myth's magic in sound, make it alive, able to induce imagination, finding new connections and meanings - to inspire the listener in creation of its own art... Let this music become a mirrored water surface for you, where one can see the shapes of something long forgotten, but at the same time very cognate and familiar.

I found Myth About Flat World to be an introspective album, the way some of the tracks gently build and fade, along with the apparent simplicity of the sounds lending it a meditative quality that at once supports the listener, but also doesn't get in the way. I used the phrase “apparent simplicity” quite carefully a few words ago, as closer listening reveals layers and variations of texture that at times, seem quite hypnotic.

Take the first track: The Flat World, as an example. After a gentle start, a thrumming drone fills the soundscape, the backing of air-like vocals forming an ongoing “ahhh” as delicate chime-like tinklings jostle for the attention. The general takeaway sound of this track for me was the impression of what sand flowing down a glass tube might sound like, in no small part due to the static-like movements at intervals in this track. Yes, there are wind instruments and rattling bone-like sounds too, but this track so perfectly made me think about a desert with a low golden sun hanging just above the horizon, it was quite lovely. This image informed the rest of the impressions that arose in my mind, so I think I likely strayed from the theme expounded in the album blurb above.

Track two: Ancient Wind, saw me delve into a partially hidden temple (I might just have watched Stargate SG-1 or The Mummy too many times). This track starts with a subdued drone that undulates and flows, before being joined by airy swellings and sighs, as if the dark cool space inside the temple is haunted by unseen ghosts moving beyond sight. A little later, trilling whistles and finger-nail drumbeats add another layer of texture, hinting at things beginning to unfold.

The next track: Mountain Roots, features gentle drumming too, strangely warped chime-like notes starting things off before a whispering female voice insinuates itself into the ear, wind-notes and heavier drum beats give the whole thing a ritualistic feeling. As the track progresses, a male vocal chant can be heard, along with a vibrating electro-thrum that seems to charge the soundscape with energy. This track gave me the impression of going deeper into the Earth, a trippy languid stroll amongst the rocks.

Track four is Keepers of Existence, an echoing resonance-filled soundscape that seems to sparkle and shimmer like a swarm of golden fireflies, if such things can live deep underground. This track gives the impression of space and furtive movements, sighs and wind currents hinted at later on, with some tasty undertone chanting thrown in for good measure. Maybe the listener has come to the attention of the titular “keepers”.

The last track is Beside The Tree of Life, a track that begins with a repeating note and mid-range drone that creates a background of thrumming sound, maybe hinting at strange forces becoming mobilised. Other sounds such as chanting and more wind-like static emerge as the track continues, before it heads to a quieter ending featuring the crackling of a small fire. As far as my mental images go, maybe the character in the tale wakes up beside his cosy campfire outside the temple, night having fallen and everything seeming to be back to normal.

Myth About Flat World is a thoroughly enjoyable dark ambient album, one in which the textures and mixture of sounds seem very peaceful, to me at least. On a number of occasions I actually fell asleep while listening to it, so it has become one of the rare albums that I can rely on to lull me into a relaxed state (another notable one being Earth Songs if this application interests you). Myth About Flat World has a great knack for evoking an otherworldly, exotic sensation, one that lets the listener scent and experience strange or exotic places, weaving a feeling of the spiritual or mythological into the impressions of stone, space and darkness. I give it 5/5, an album well worth checking out.

Visit the Myth About Flat World page on Bandcamp here for more information.

I was given a free copy of this album to review.

Album Title: Myth About Flat World

Artist: Creation VI

Label : Black Mara

Released: June 2, 2016

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