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

Dark Ambient Review: Mørketsland

Review By Casey Douglass

The technological progress of the modern world is amazing, but it can also feel oh so feeble. Our days are filled with the tedious “Marimba” of iPhones and the steady beep-beep of drip-fed pseudo approval from strangers. When held up against the heady, tangible world that the Vikings lived in, the present day appears to be little more than the cellophane wrapper on some tasty roasted boar meat that’s about to be offered to the Nordic gods. Mørketsland is a dark ambient album from ProtoU & Oljus, one that tears through the cellophane with its teeth.

Mørketsland contains echoing ritual drum beats, deep drones and eerie spirit-laced echoes that seem to bounce around a harsh, weather-swept landscape. Wind howls and swells, rain patters and drips, and distant thunder rumbles ominously in a pleasing, distant way. Every track of Mørketsland is a darkness-bathed, drum-fuelled homage to the Vikings, with the rites and chants being enacted by the voices almost certainly finding their way to the gods that they hope are listening.

I think that Spirits of the Water is probably my favourite of the seven tracks on the album. It begins with a low, slightly vibrating drone. A bell-like chime agitates the soundscape and a low chant begins. A slow echoing drumbeat is there also, and some strange little bird-like tweets. What sounds like distant thunder cracks in the distance, a ghostly vocal insinuating itself shortly after. Later, there are impressions of wind and waves, strange intonations, and as the drumbeat intensifies, a very deep vibrating tone. For me, this track felt like it was depicting a longboat out on open water, a moonlit fog enshrouding everything except the immediate blackness of the waves.

Wall of Thorns (ft Ager Sonus) is another track that really got my attention. It opens with low echoing drumbeats in a howling airy soundscape, the scratchy pattering of rain filling the ears with threat. There are rustles and creaks, and these are soon joined by a plucked melody and morose pipe notes. The soundscape slowly ratchets up into increasingly booming drum beats and ever busier howls, cries and swells of wind. The plucked melody, taken with the other elements of the track, gave me Witcher 3 or Game of Thrones flashbacks, which is a fun thing to return to.

All of the tracks of Mørketsland transport the listener into dark primal soundscapes, the kind of space in which the ritual drumbeats lend a trance-like energy to the swirling chaos and hardness of the landscapes hinted at. If you like your dark ambient to give you the impression of sitting in the firelight while the ever darkening shadows beyond its limits press every inwards, you might want to check out this album.

Visit the Mørketsland page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also check out the Spirits of the Water video below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Mørketsland

Album Artist: ProtoU & Oljus

Label: Cryo Chamber

Released: May 2, 2023

Dark Ambient Review: Lost Loops Collection

Review By Casey Douglass

Mount Shrine was a dark ambient artist who was known for his soothing rainy dreamy droning creations. Sadly, Cesar passed away from Covid in the Spring of 2021, a fact that still makes me feel sad. Lost Loops Collection is a compilation of all of his currently known underground albums, EPs and singles, and was put out by the Cryo Chamber label earlier this year.

If you’ve yet to listen to Mount Shrine, I’ve always felt that the best way to describe his music is as a cosy “sitting by a rain speckled window, hearing the muted sounds of the surrounding environment” type experience. The sounds of the raindrops hits the ear like soft static, and the distant sounds of thunder, nature or civilization, are far enough away to feel safe yet interesting. Lulling might be another word that could aptly be thrown into the mix. Lost Loops Collection is FULL of this sentiment, with four hours of relaxing cosiness.

That being said, I'll be a bit perverse and say that my favourite track is something a little bit different: Grey Witch. This track is a dark, brooding track, one that feels ripe with occult energies and malignant presences. It opens with howling wind and low, smooth swells of drone. A vibratory edge swells and roams, with juddering pulses creating a kind of pressure wave feeling. There is a crumping, rasping atmosphere, and a general feeling of awakened evil seeping through a woodland at night. This is probably the darkest that I’ve heard Mount Shrine delve, and I love it.

Ghostly is another ominous track, but one that is lighter than Grey Witch. It opens with popping crackling static and swells of drone. What sounds like cars passing on a rain-drenched street splashes by as the pattering of rain on a glass window pane crystallises. Higher tones seem to roam from ear to ear as the track continues, with odd scraping sounds grabbing the attention at times. For me, this track brought to mind a haunted room overlooking a normal busy street, the objects being nudged by the poltergeist moving around unobserved by the modern world.

Staying with the theme of the otherworldly nestling against the normal world, the final track that I wanted to mention also fits this mould. The After Glow begins with a soothing downpour accompanied by thunder and an ethereal drone. As the track progresses, the drips and drops of rain begin to sound like they are hitting something metallic, and there is the sound of distant cars passing, wrapped up or muffled in the wind and rain. What this track suggested to me was a landed UFO squatting near a fairly busy road, but masked from view by a thin woodland. I don’t know why my mind went to this imagery but there is something in the music that hinted at the fortean again with me.

The tracks contained on Lost Loops Collection are all well worth listening to, and they all embody Mount Shrine’s way of creating beautiful soundscapes. If you enjoy relaxing rain and soothing atmospheres, you really can’t go wrong with four hours of Mount Shrine. Visit the link to Bandcamp below for more info. You might also like to read my interview with Cesar if you’d like to learn a little more about him. 

Visit the Lost Loops Collection page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also check out the Ghostly track below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Lost Loops Collection

Album Artist: Mount Shrine

Label: Cryo Chamber

Released: May 30, 2023

Dark Ambient Review: Tsathoggua

Review By Casey Douglass

Any H.P Lovecraft fan will likely have marked the annual Cryo Chamber collaboration, released in his honour, on the calender. Or maybe on a piece of ancient paper, one that gives off sinister crackles of green light when it feels a pen’s embrace. Tsathoggua is the newest entry to the Cryo Chamber Lovecraftian catalogue, paying its dues to the toad-like Old One.

As in previous Cryo Chamber Lovecraftian collabs, Tsathoggua consists of two tracks, each just under an hour long. In the broadest of strokes, I’d describe the soundscapes as made up of buzzing, vibrating tones, with lots of little scuffling echoes and insect-like ululations. The drones are supported by a variety of ritual drumbeats, juddery string notes, and shrill pipings, with occasional deep crumping impacts that rumble through the environment. With the toad-like god in mind, Tsathoggua tends to feel wet, close, swampy and at times, cavernous.

One of the highlights for me was around the 34 minute mark of track one. There is something about the five minutes or so that comes next, that I felt pleasantly dragged my mind out from the misty subterranean mire and that hinted at Lovecraft’s world rubbing up against our own, much like Randolph Carter and his dream wanderings in search of Kadath. Where Carter might have heard hoof-beats and anvils (if he heard anything at all), our world seems to impinge at this moment with a number of technological beeps, squeals and tones. This sequence begins with some clattering swells and what I noted as “corrupt organ music” so if you check out the album, listen out for it.

Tsathoggua isn’t all unrelenting gloom however, there are some sequences where things lighten a little, with high tones and drones shining like a pure crystal in the darkness. There are impressions of wind, rain and a static that serves as a kind of balm to the listener’s mind. I was really struck by this at the end of track one when the soundscape had a feeling of “the ordeal is over”. I’d like to add that I mean this with regards to an imaginary protagonist who has traipsed through the strange twisted world hinted at by the music, not that listening to the music is an ordeal! This feeling also made the commencement of the second track a “lets go back in” kind of notion, with unfinished business threatening the delicate tranquillity just recently found.

Highlights of the second track were, around the 7 minute mark, a segment that felt like a small nod to Lovecraft’s The Beast in the Cave. An ape-like hoo-haa-haa sound signals a stretch of track that is a veritable storm-swell of sound. There is a drumbeat, bouncing elastic swells and a windy creaking feeling. The synth, when it appears, gave me that Silent Hill, “sunlight through mist” feeling, the distant cries and candyfloss crackles hinting at a funfair that you might not ever want to visit. At around the 30 minute mark, there is also a section that I noted down as “The Prowling Abyss”, which is a lovely, hollow, dripping environment to let seep into your mind.

Tsathoggua is a remarkable Lovecraftian slab of audio-meat to feast your dark ambient chops upon. Even though I very much enjoyed the previous Cryo Chamber collabs, for me, Tsathoggua is up there with Azathoth and Cthulhu, which are my two absolute favourites. If you follow Cryo Chamber’s dark ambient music output, the chances are that you already have this album and none of this is news to you. Good on you! If you aren’t this person however, let my words kindle a spark of interest in your soul and go and check out Tsathoggua.

Visit the Tsathoggua page on Bandcamp for more information.

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Tsathoggua

Album Artist: Cryo Chamber Collaboration

Label: Cryo Chamber

Released: 27 Dec, 2022

Dark Ambient Review: Dissolving into Solitary Landscapes

Review By Casey Douglass

Humans being forced to live underground due to some catastrophic event is always an intriguing theme; the experience of being held in a kind of artificial cosiness by the miles of rock around them and the technology that supports them. A notion that often goes hand in hand with it though, is the idea of someone wanting to return to the surface, even if it means suffering, misery and certain death. Dronny Darko and G. M. Slater’s dark ambient album Dissolving into Solitary Landscapes is rooted in just such a desire.

As is becoming a habit with me and Cryo Chamber releases, I can’t help but gawp at the album artwork before even mentioning the music itself. A blocky, angular black megastructure stretches into the murky depths, the only splash of colour the smeared white glass of what seem to be viewing pods or some kind of airlock. According to the album description, the weak light cast from somewhere above appears to be purely artificial, so any thoughts of glimpsing natural light through a cracked fissure on high seem to be quite mute. A moody and monochrome scene, but I have to admit, I’d happily go on a tour around such a location, as long as I could leave at some point. For me, this sets up a pleasing kinship with the hinted at protagonist of the album.

Below, I’ve looked at three of the tracks that stood out to me the most:

The opening track, The Infinity Bell Part 1, sets the scene nicely. It opens with a slow, sonorous chiming, one that’s framed by the sound of muted distant impacts, or the clunking of some kind of mechanism. There is a sigh-like flow of air and a warm, chant-like element. A raspy shimmer emerges, with a metallic scything sweep high in the air. Around the track’s midpoint, quiet radio-tones squeak and rustle in a nest of bubbling echoes. It ends with a lighter, windy feeling, suggesting a bit more space, or even the reaching of the surface. For me, this track conveyed the oppressive feeling of being deep underground. It felt both mechanical and vast, yet also hinted at a distant busyness or industry. Maybe the protagonist finds out what it’s like above ground by the end?

The next track is The Slow March of Extinction, and it carries the windy ending from the first, forward into new territory. This is a bleak, wind-blasted track, with a growing drone and bell-chiming tone soon joined by echoing footsteps on a stone floor. This feels like a ghostly track, the string-like swells, and the strange vocal calls, pushing their way through the ruined walls and windows of an abandoned civilization. If the protagonist does find any kind of breathable, liveable world on the surface, I think that this track provides a kind of reverse history lesson, helping the wanderer see what their future above ground might hold.

The final track, Dissolving Into Solitary Landscapes, rounds things off with a rainy, dripping echoing space. A low drone pulses and throbs, and there is a distant, rasping quality to the air, a little like a prolonged snarl. There is the feeling of static building, with boinging metallic plucks and chimes. As the track continues, a soft synth tone begins, with distant impacts pushing gently into awareness once more. After the midpoint, there are moments of a “flapping plastic build-up” and dispersal, joined by a stronger, wavering synth. This is another beautiful track of ruin and desolation.

The soundscapes contained on Dissolving into Solitary Landscapes include a mixture of drones, field recordings and gentle synth tones, all served up in a way that simultaneously seems to soothe and chill at the same time. There are muted or muffled crumps and impacts, sonorous chimes that throb in the air, and atmospheres at times, that seem sentient and watchful. There is a feeling of ruin and of menace, of sadness and of relief, and it’s a fantastic album to delve into on a cold winter night.

Visit the Dissolving into Solitary Landscapes page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also check out The Infinity Bell Part 1 below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Dissolving into Solitary Landscapes

Album Artist: Dronny Darko & G M Slater

Label: Cryo Chamber

Released: 5 July 2022

Dark Ambient Review: Colossus

Review By Casey Douglass

Depth is something that seems to be all too fleeting in recent times, with both the important issues, and the less important, mangled by the machines of rhetoric and sophistry. I can’t speak for anyone else, but it often brings me to the point of ceasing to give a fuck about any of it. When I’m feeling this way, rather than merely sticking my head in the proverbial sand, I switch off, and delve into a far deeper experience, losing myself in some rich dark ambient soundscapes. Atrium Carceri and Kammarheit’s Colossus is an album that’s more than suited for leaving “all of this” behind for awhile.

As is becoming a habit when I review a Cryo Chamber release, I feel that I want to spend some time on the album cover art, as they always set the mood so wonderfully. Here, a lone figure stands between two decaying structures, a small bright light on the end of their staff providing a meagre illumination of the dark cavernous space. What I like about this is how it brings to mind the way that, once we’re used to low light conditions, even the smallest glimmer of an LED can seem to light a whole bedroom. Well, it does mine at least. When you “quiet the noise of the every day” whether by turning away from the 24/7 news churn or literally shutting out the daylight, who knows what else you might discover. I also appreciate that the figure in the album art seems to be standing contentedly at rest, feet side by side, calmly experiencing the scene that surrounds them. I guess they strike me as a figure that is alone, but likely not at all lonely, and as someone who really doesn’t want to be anywhere else.

The Colossus album description gives us a number of ways that the notion of depth manifests in the album’s theme. It reveals that it is set deep underground, which for me, always brings to mind a kind of “sinking into the Earth” feeling. It aligns this with the notion of exploring forgotten civilizations, which does a wonderful job of unlocking the doorway of time, therefore conjuring ideas and dreams of long epochs stretching back into unknowable temporal dimensions. As with anything of a great age, things tend to degrade and decay, and the soundscapes reflect this in a kind of “found footage” way, with “dirty tape reels”, crackles, buzzing, and other signs of degradation.

Opening track Subpulse is a great example of the above. It begins with a low pulsing drone, and quiet rattles and crackles. A slow, multi-element beat begins to build, one that’s cosseted by choral vocals, and wet buzzings and flappings. The imagery that came to mind was of an ancient altar, one populated by a fossilized insectoid creature that’s slowly shedding the mineral deposits from its carapace, coming to twitching life. This is a track full of crackling echoes, soothing static and a kind of throbbing, wave-building atmosphere. It’s relaxing and yet energizing at the same time.

Title track Colossus is a different beast. It opens with an undulating drone, seemingly backed by a horn-like sound that I’d describe as similar to the lowing of cattle. A shimmering high tone emerges, the audio equivalent, for me, of “fairies flickering around an ancient statue in a dark place”. An occasional thumping beat sounds, and is joined by some male choral chanting. An echoing, tapping beat proper soon appears, with things in general turning more raspy and juddery after the midpoint. This track feels both shamanic and also sacral, yet the “cow lowing” sound seems to anchor it firmly into the earth. I enjoy how these elements sit in a soundscape that seems to balance the forces that it’s depicting, with everything hanging in a pleasingly tense space.

The next track, Interwoven, is another that serves up something slightly different. It starts with a muffled, watery drone, with a hint of a distant chant and high tone. There are notions of thunder, warm swells and glugging water. The lower tones feel church organ-like. The higher tones, string-like. At times, the soundscape seems to sigh and flow, and at others, there are what could be hints of chugging machinery or circular-saw-like metallic squeals. As the track progresses, things warp and twist and blare a little more. The imagery that came to mind for this track was the explorer in the album art coming across ancient technology, but tech that mirrors some of our own, showing that we aren’t nearly as different or as advanced as we might think that we are, both civilizations seemingly ‘interwoven’ in space and time.

Colossus is a dark ambient album that contains a softly throbbing, ancient darkness, one that doesn’t feel hostile or dangerous. If it is inhabited by a spirit, it might feel ancient, sad and forgotten, but it has no acidic bitterness towards events or the people involved. It just is and it just watches and waits. If you like your dark ambient music to warmly smother you with the weight of years and the echoes of antiquity, while plucking you from the modern world and setting your mental wanderings in the depths of the Earth, you should check out Colossus.

Visit the Colossus page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also check out the track Colossus below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Colossus

Album Artist: Atrium Carceri & Kammarheit

Label: Cryo Chamber

Released: 15 Feb 2022

Dark Ambient Review: Memory Alpha

Review By Casey Douglass

The simulation hypothesis, the notion that we are actually living in a Matrix-style simulation, is one of the most intriguing ideas in philosophy and science fiction. As our own ability to create intricate virtual worlds has increased massively since the days of Pong, who knows what we’ll be able to achieve in another fifty years? If we are indeed living in a simulation, maybe we can even find the CTRL-ALT-DELETE equivalent and somehow gain some admin privileges! ProtoU’s dark ambient album Memory Alpha, seems to be infused with the audio-exploration equivalent of prodding the nature of this reality, and maybe even revealing the world in which the simulation is running!

The album artwork seems to reveal an enigmatic glimpse of what might be happening. Some kind of spherical technological construction squats in a dark industrial room, power or data connections snaking away from its base into the shadows. What little light there is seeps in through a possibly window-shaped aperture, with the top of the sphere illuminated by some kind of spotlight. The sphere itself looks like a computer covered with boxy electronic components, but when you zoom in, it’s hard not to see the lines and patterns between them as pathways or roads. With this in mind, you might wonder if you are actually looking at buildings rather than components. The scene is set.

When it comes to the music (I got to the music eventually!), you’ll find harsher industrial sounds wrapped in a cosy floating warmth that anyone familiar with ProtoU’s music will be pleasingly at home with. Sasha creates some wonderfully balanced soundscapes in which darkness and light seem to be friends rather than adversaries. I might describe it as the audio equivalent of the darkness pushing you over, and the light moving a comfy mattress behind, for you to land on. Memory Alpha’s sounds include metallic clinkings, mechanical whirrings, beeps, and rumbling drones, with muffling warm-water distortions, uplifting harmonies and delicate chimes. I also felt that the more mechanical, darker tracks were set in the harsh world that is running the “simulation” mentioned above, but the lighter, airier ones were depicting the kinder conditions inside the simulation itself.

One of my favourite tracks is Capsule of Decaying Dreams. It begins with a metallic impact and the deep whirring of something spinning up. A high whine sits in the background, wet buzzes, plastic crackles and popping beeps hinting at technological activity. Things shift and throb, with distant echoes and energy pulses creating a gritty soundscape that seems to boil and then fall away into a ghostly whisper-infested space. If this track is set “in the real”, to borrow a Matrix term, the next, Memory Alpha, feels like it might be inside the simulation. It starts with a light swirl flecked with floating high tones. It feels crystalline, with a hint of wind and a feeling of “ahhh”. After the midpoint, the track deepens and string-like tones are joined by faint rustling or dripping sounds. This is a warm track, and seems to suggest how it might feel to rise from a deathly slumber, finding yourself beneath the dappled sunlight of a great tree, the sound of the natural world and the golden light all slowly bringing you up from the depths that you’ve left behind.

The last track that I wanted to talk about is Waves of Coma. This a track that opens with a muffled, watery feeling, in pressure rather than wetness. An unsteady hollow vibration begins, a trickling or rattling sound joining it. Distorted voices bleed through, small beeps and strange echoes making the soundscape feel juddery and tenuous. Around the midpoint, whispers lick your ear, joined by a distortion that makes them seem like they are being washed down the drain. Towards the end of the track, there are some sad buzzing tones, with things becoming fuzzier before they dial down. I particularly liked the buzzing tones as they seemed similar to those in the last track on one of ProtoU’s previous albums Echoes of the Future, the track in question called Vessels of God. Echoes of the Future was about humanity leaving the Earth. Maybe the simulation, if there is one, is actually running on a spaceship sat in the deepest part of space? It’s a fun thought, and a pleasing possible link between two great albums.

Memory Alpha is a dark ambient album that seems to take the listener on a gentle tour of a museum. Instead of stuffed dead creatures and crumbling parchments, this museum is one that is full of life, light and memory. The outside might seem cold, industrial and barren, but when you’re inside, that all falls away into perpetual summer afternoons and sunlight-spackled green spaces, populated by the people who were living much happier lives. You know it’s all fake, merely a simulation, but that doesn’t stop you wanting to escape there.

Visit the Memory Alpha page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also checkout the track Waves of Coma below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Memory Alpha

Album Artist: ProtoU

Label: Cryo Chamber

Released: 1 March 2022

Dark Ambient Review: Dagon

Review By Casey Douglass

Something that always cuts through the bullshit of Xmas and New Years is the yearly Cryo Chamber Lovecraftian collaboration. This year’s offering is themed around Dagon, and as you might imagine, this means that the soundscapes emitted by its two, hour-long tracks, have a decidedly nautical, briny feeling.

From the very first second of track one, the sounds of waves, drones and horns fill the ear. There is a low heartbeat-like beat, a jittering chittering, whispers, and the impression of vast forces being mobilised. Your journey into submersion and the subterranean has begun, each area opening up and deepening into the feeling of vast underground places. Gaping water-filled caverns reflect back strange echoes from their walls. Trundling rasping sounds fill the mind with notions of strange machinery. Sinister vocals roam, from low distorted words to more melodic, siren-song snippets of mournful summoning.

One of my favourite moments of the album is around the six minute mark on track one. The cavernous soundscape sparkles and rasps with whispers, accompanied by muffled impacts rumbling in the distance. A drone fills the ear and laughter-like scuffling sounds pull the attention to the fringes. Strange whirring high tones seem to hint at strange creatures flocking in the dark recesses of the unseen rocky roof. It’s a pregnant atmosphere, pent up and ready to birth something horrible.

Another great section is around the fourteen and a half minute mark. The soundscape quietens and a strange female mewling vocal beckons. Water drips and trickles, and a buffeting sound ruffles the ears, much like wind blowing against noise-cancelling headphones. Twisting, smoothed notes pluck and echo away into blares of drone, the soundscape creating a feeling of being on the edge of something momentous.

Track two also has its fair share of succulent dark ambient to feast on. Eleven minutes in, a sustained drone is joined by a wet ‘thrashing around’, echoes, rumbles and airy tones, which create a fine impression of some strange creature wending its way across a shore in the dark abyss. As time passes, things feel more hollow, like a greater space has opened up, with the distant high calls of some kind of strange creature. The listener then breaks into a breath-infused space of threat and at times, what seems to be laughter.

Another moment in track two that I particularly enjoyed occurs at around minute twenty two. A roving undulating deep tone fills the ear, with high tones squeezing through the oppressive atmosphere. Again, there is an impression of breathing or the breath, and a little later, a ghostly hum. This section of the track feels dark but meditative, the lows and highs dancing around each other and setting off a shimmering, haunted, echoing space.

Dagon is another fine slice of eldritch dark ambient from Cryo Chamber. Going in, I wondered how it might compare to 2014 release Cthulhu, both being “of the sea”. If Cthulhu depicts what it might be like to be in a dark water abyss deep under the earth, Dagon, for me, is more a tale of what sitting on that dark shore might feel like, rather than being crushed by the water itself. If that makes sense. Both are fantastic albums in my opinion; I just wanted to describe how they both differed in how I felt when listening to them. If you love your dark ambient Lovecraftian, as always, you can’t go wrong with a Cryo Chamber collaboration.

Visit the Dagon page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also listen to the album below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Dagon

Album Artist: Cryo Chamber Collaboration

Label: Cryo Chamber

Released: 28 Dec 2021

Dark Ambient Review: Creation of a Star

Review By Casey Douglass

Creation of a Star is a dark space ambient album from Planet Supreme, his first release on the Cryo Chamber label. The album and artist names both embody a very apt sense of vastness, as this is also aligned with the feelings evoked by the music itself. Warm sci-fi tones, sweeps, and drones, create impressions of large expanses, gigantic mega-structures, and technology sculpting the worlds it reaches.

An example of said technology and vast feelings is described well by one of my favourite tracks: Scanners. The track opens with the impression of a big, rotating thing, one perforated by the squeals and flares of electronic signals. Things settle into a gently droning space, deeper swells of tone nestling into a machine-like hum. For me, this track brought to mind a space-based vista, maybe a planet looking out on an asteroid belt being mined by gigantic refineries. It’s a little melancholy with the distance it contains, and the latter part of the track seems to have low tones that put me in mind of an old man grumbling. Maybe he’s a miner who lost his job to the bright, new, automated future.

Speaking of robots and automation, another track that stood out for me was Machina, a track that seemed rife with android-based gurgles and growls. A faint shimmer joins them, and a gentle throb that shoots into the distance at times. High tones sit above a low vibrating buzzing, with steadily climbing electronic tones offsetting the shimmer. There is an ah-like feeling around the midpoint of the track, a gentle state of affairs agitated by an irritated tone, and a whooshing, pulsing soundscape. This could be the junk yard where the obsolete models of robot end their “lives”, even our successors getting to experience the pain of being surpassed.

Genetic Cargo is another track that served up some pleasing imagery, something that I noted down as “egg-shell ambience”. It opens with a low drone and dripping, rain-like crackling echoes. Small electronic warbles and tones judder, with longer, deeper tones soon joining. A warm tone takes up residence in the soundscape, a low rhythm and synth notes coming along for the ride. This track felt like it depicted some kind of wet, moist, likely smelly, cargo hold, one with who knows what living in the containers in the shadows. The crackles of this track, and the two tracks that follow, put me a little in mind of the ways that artists Mount Shrine and Proto U sometimes treat rain or wind field-recordings too, so if you enjoy either of those musicians, you should take a closer listen.

Creation of a Star is a chilled, yet warm slice of space ambience. It’s the kind of album that’s an ideal accompaniment for relaxation, as there is little here that jars or agitates the mind. My mind at least. If you are looking out for some space-based sci-fi ambience, you should head over to the Bandcamp page below to check it out.

Visit the Creation of a Star page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also check out the track Scanners below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Creation of a Star

Album Artist: Planet Supreme

Label: Cryo Chamber

Released: 31 August 2021

Dark Ambient Review: Mithra

Review By Casey Douglass

It’s a real pity that we can’t hop in, on, or don our own time machine and flit back in time to the periods that interest us. Actually, knowing humans, it’s probably a damn good thing that we can’t. We always seem to want to rewrite history in a purely mental fashion, the damage we’d cause if we could actually go back would probably be apocalyptic. Music is safer. Ager Sonus’ Mithra is a dark ambient, atmospheric journey back to the time of Rome, and to the time of the Cult of Mithras.

Mithra is an album that is very strong on the instrumental front. There are piano notes, strings and horns, to name but a few. There are also plenty of instances of environmental sounds and drones, delicate plucked string notes often sitting easily with the sound of the wind, or the quietly echoing dripping of water. The eight tracks of the album are all pretty smooth and chilled. Mithra feels like the quintessential album to listen to by cosy firelight.

Beneath is one of the tracks that most appealed to me. It opens with a low drone and a vocal-like resonance. The soundscape has the dripping, echoing aesthetic of a cave, with new tones and quiet pipe-like notes emerging as the track progresses. There are swells of pulsing tone, and at some points, a kind of “laughing” feeling suggested itself to me, like something malignant in the atmosphere chuckling at the audacity of humans. This felt like a lovely dark track to me, one of delving into the earth and into a different realm.

Ritual is another track that evoked similar feelings. This track starts with an echoing chiming and what sounds like distant, ghostly vocals. There are string notes, shimmering cymbals and a deep, slow drumbeat. This track felt like it was full of chittering shadows. It’s the kind of track that would accompany someone as they walk into a dark cavern, flaming torch held aloft, strange air currents carrying the distant scent of incense and dark workings to the explorer. Exploration and darkness is a heady mixture.

Mithra wasn’t all darkness and creepiness though. Dawn is a much lighter track, and one that I enjoyed for different reasons. It begins with low string tones and a relaxed piano melody. There is the sound of the wind and a bird chirping. There are footsteps lightly crunching through grass or leaves, a warbling, horn-like tone and a sparkling quality to the soundscape. This, unsurprisingly, felt like seeing the golden sunlight of dawn bathing a peaceful landscape in warm, soft light. The soundscape does have undercurrents of things twisting later on, notes and tones that create a feeling of things not being as idyllic as they appear. I enjoyed this track for this very reason, as things are never wholly good or bad, lucky or unlucky, in my opinion at least.

Mithra is a peaceful dark ambient album, one that takes the listener into landscapes and scenes of yore, mixing in the light and the dark elements in a pleasing ratio and manner. It has a dream-like, magical quality, and also the feeling of antiquity. On a personal note, I also enjoyed that it led my mind to pondering the concepts of Stoic philosophy, Marcus Aurelius etc. as this would also have been around at about the same period as the Cult of Mithras, as far as I’m aware. A very fine album.

Visit the Mithra page on Bandcamp for more information. You can check out the track Ritual below: 

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Mithra

Album Artist: Ager Sonus

Label: Cryo Chamber

Released: 26 March 2019

Dark Ambient Review: Submersion

Review By Casey Douglass

I think that almost any time I review a deep underwater dark ambient album, I come away with a fresh appreciation for how dense and abyssal the depths of the ocean can be. Gdanian’s Submersion is another collection of tracks that helped me to remember this impression. It does so by creating glugging, eerie and technological soundscapes, where the listener feels like they are approaching and exploring a strange alien installation, one that sits in the pitch darkness, fathoms below the surface of the sea.

The opening track, Submersion, sets the tone very nicely. A high echoing pulsing tone is met with bassy impacts, strange creature calls and glugs of water. Floating long string notes sweep through the dense-feeling soundscape, a low electronic rhythm hinting at motion and movement. A distorted male voice begins to speak, maybe through a radio-link. This track feels like it places the listener in a vast space, an impression accentuated by the long string notes and booming impacts. I could quite vividly imagine what it might feel like to be the driver of the tiny submersible in the album art, its tiny beams of light barely puncturing the murk around it.

One of my favourite tracks was Strange Forms, as this seemed to hint at the curious lifeforms that might be down there, swimming around in the darkness. The track begins with muted low swells of tone, swells that ring at their edges and meld with a groaning bass sound that seems to ape the rhythm of deep breathing. Brass-like wind notes warble, and a low electronic rhythm echoes along. At times, there are frog-like croaks and the sound of bubbling water. For me, the bass sound in this track was of some unseen leviathan breathing leagues away. The track had a feeling of trespassing, breaching something else’s domain and wondering if it will even notice you.

From track five onwards, it seems that the submersible has entered the larger structure depicted in the album art. There are crackling sparks, the feeling of being enclosed in larger metallic corridors and rooms, and a sense of exploring something new. The track Paradox is another favourite, and for me, it brought an extra dose of sci-fi strangeness. It starts with a low rumbling drone, an echoing electronic beat and a hollow whistling. A vibrating rhythm is joined by tentatively plucked notes and delicate high tones. A rushing sound swells behind them, like the waves of the sea coming and going. This feels somehow, like a whimsical track. The title, when combined with the soundscape, had me thinking about a hollow sphere of energy in a laboratory, flowing sea-waves swirling around and around in its interior. Either that, or a room where the ceiling is covered in rippling water that somehow doesn’t even drip onto the floor. A fun track.

Submersion is a pulsing, flowing, bubbling trip into the depths. Its electronic tones and pulsing throbs seem to ping off into dark, sci-fi, watery places. The suggestive sounds that, for me, hinted at other life-forms, only serve to increase that feeling of the alien or the unknown. Submersion is also a smooth listen, and I think that it’s a great dark ambient album for you to close the curtains, flake out on your bed and nap with.

Visit the Submersion page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also check out the first track below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Submersion

Album Artist: Gdanian

Label: Cryo Chamber

Released: 10 August 2021

Dark Ambient Review: Necropolis

Review By Casey Douglass

Sometimes, I get review copies of dark ambient albums, fully intending to review them, but for reasons of health or other life things getting in the way, they slip down in my mind. I do have periods where I go back and try to get to some of them however, and Ager Sonus’ 2018, Egyptian-themed Necropolis, is the target for this review.

The album description of Necropolis sets the scene of someone having awoken in darkness, the ceiling and walls feeling far too close for comfort. The air is lacking, the only sound more than likely the person’s pulse in their ears, and there is a feeling of being buried deep underground. As a reality, that would be scary as hell, but as the mental daydream of someone looking for some peace and quiet, it sounds like just the ticket!

The first track, Buried, cements the scene. There is a rumbling swell of distant sound, framed by falling pebbles that click and pop in the oppressive atmosphere. A drone and a deep slow beat emerge, metallic echoes and clattering sounds birthing a variety of higher tones. Later are piped notes and scuffling sounds, a sense of gritty particles and a hint of whispering and voices. This is a track of shifting earth and claustrophobia, but also of other things moving around in the darkness.

Necropolis is a track where this sense of other things moving comes to fruition. It begins slow and low, a faint rumbling, pulsing sound joined by the sound of a distant beat and a high shimmering tone. As before, some of the tones give a hint of a vocal, but hear them again and they sound like they’re just a tone once more. There are sounds of sliding and scuffling, along with the odd rasping sound. Pipe notes begin around the midpoint, before the track deepens and darkens to a rumbling conclusion. For me, this track described being in a tomb where the long dead are starting to stir and to edge back to life.

I think that my favourite track is probably Of Ashes and Dust. I think that this is partly due to how the swells of malice and the bubbling echoes not only continued the Egyptian burial theme, but also brought to mind some of the elements of the score of Alien. There is an impression of sand sliding through cracked stonework, and in some instances, the sound of dragging and chains. This is a quiet and insidious track, the tones low and relaxed, backed by a howling wind or draught. There is a peaceful male chanting vocal, and a slithering in the shadows. It’s great fun to ponder what is really going on here.

Necropolis is a dark ambient album that takes the listener on a journey deep into an Egyptian tomb. The instruments used evoke a great sense of place, and the field-recordings and rumblings create a dense, dark and soothing series of soundscapes to mentally explore. It’s funny how locations and themes that bring the dead closer to mind can be some of the most relaxing, if you are anything like me that is.

Visit the Necropolis page on Bandcamp for more information. You can check out the track Of Ashes and Dust below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Necropolis

Album Artist: Ager Sonus

Label: Cryo Chamber

Released: 20 Feb 2018

Dark Ambient Review: Fifth Nature

Review By Casey Douglass

One of the main consequences of social media and its “instant stardom for extreme view holders” is that thinking in shades of grey is sadly a rare thing to see. Everything boils down to a “with us or against us” standpoint, with the nuance and complexity of an issue banished to the side-lines. Fifth Nature is a cinematic dark ambient album from Skrika, one that contains a narrative featuring two sides of just such an issue.

Fifth Nature’s album description explains that the events that it depicts are happening in the distant future, that the Earth is fucked, and that the remaining people are split into two different camps: The Lemmites and the Atom Priesthood. The former think that even more technological intervention is the answer, the latter, that nature should be left alone and not meddled with. This sets the scene for sometimes mechanical, sometimes biological, sometimes ritual soundscapes, with chants and field recordings of the natural elements brushing up against sci-fi electronic tones.

My favourite track is Apokrytein. It begins with a deep droning chant and an ear to ear rushing sound. A male vocal begins to sing, a sighing quality in the soundscape behind it at times. When the singing stops, the soundscape fills with hushed whispers and more sensations of flowing air. A deeper sacral chanting begins, and shortly after, a floating high tone. A guttural throat gurgle insinuates itself from the shadows just before a choral vocal starts, the same guttural sound seeming to laugh a short time later. For me, this track felt like a temple peppered with flickering candle-flames, a sermon and the faithful gathered for solace and guidance, with a strange, mutated and unknown visitor chuckling as it peeps through a gap in the wall from the outside.

Another track that really stood out for me was Mechanics of Desolation. This is a rumbling track, with hints of wind that has a faint howling quality. There is a hollow, echoing beat and a bat-like chittering in response, followed by slow, chiming beats. This track feels like it’s “of the junk-yard”, metallic knocks and tones that all come together to create a rhythmic soundscape. There is a roulette-wheel clicking, a gas-like hiss and a grinding stone scraping. It has a feel of rattling bones too, and many of the elements come together at times to create the impression of a doomsday clock ticking away in some dark cathedral.

Seventh Extinction is also a track that I particularly enjoyed. It starts with a low drone and an electronic growl nestled amidst the sound of wind. String-like notes weave in the air and a breathless scuffling can be heard in the soundscape. Higher tones emerge later, along with an organ-like feel to things. This track felt like some kind of angry android trying to perform a task but getting bogged down by the rot and decay that it finds itself in.

Fifth Nature is a journey into a bleak future, one where technology and faith clash together on the battlefield of a ruined Earth. The two main characters mentioned in the album description do reconcile, but apparently, far too late to save the planet. It’s a multi-layered, dark album, one that presents the various elements at play in an accomplished and satisfying way. I look forward to hearing more of Skrika’s creations on Cryo Chamber.

Visit the Fifth Nature page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also check out the track Apokrytein below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Fifth Nature

Album Artist: Skrika

Label: Cryo Chamber

Released: 20 July 2021

Dark Ambient Review: The Night and Other Sunken Dreams

Review By Casey Douglass

The Night and Other Sunken Dreams is an album from Underwater Sleep Orchestra, a music project that sees dark ambient alumni Pär Boström & Bruce Moallem come together to create some dream-based aural explorations.

The album is described as portraying two dreams from a single night, each with different moods and levels of menace. The music makes use of a variety of analogue processing and sound acquisition techniques, the synthesizer tones and field recordings are accompanied, and altered by, various cassette tape and VHS tinkerings.

My favourite track was Dreamt Within the Belly of a Deer. It opens with a rainy static and a high resonant tone, with hints of wind howling and flowing. Wooden knocking sounds begin a short time in, and a tone wavers and buzzes in the soundscape. This track felt “of the woods” to me, which when twinned with the deer mentioned in the title, led to mental images of rain soaked gloomy woodland, a damp that seeps deep into the bones, and a deer of course. A peaceful track, but also one with a heaviness or uneasiness. It does end with a lighter bit of melody however.

The Mechanical Hour is another track that I enjoyed, partly because it has a regularity that put me in mind of some kind of dark clock. It begins with a bouncy low tone, swiftly followed by a small echoing click, seemingly in response to the low tone’s activities. A deep bass rumbling grows, creating a feeling of being buffeted by the atmosphere. A distant buzzing drone looms nearer, a higher tone dancing around it like two insects trying to mate. A pigeon coos, there is the hint of rain or static, and a slow chiming melody begins. For me, this track felt like abandoned industry, derelict buildings and grey concrete, with nature pressing in from all sides, maybe trying to reclaim it or simply to make use of it.

Finally, A Dock of Departing Ships gets a nod from me as a track that created a great feeling of space and distance. It quietly opens with a high, warbling, two-tone melody, one that is soon joined by another smoother echo. A low tone gently sweeps underneath, a bass tone sitting below. This track has a slow, peacefully pulsing soundscape, the kind of soundscape that beautifully lends itself to imagining a quiet cove at sunset, a calm sea, and white-sailed ships almost floating out of the harbour on a mirror-like sea.

The Night and Other Sunken Dreams is a dark ambient album of peace and calm. I found myself most liking the tracks that gave me strong mental impressions, as is often the case, but even the ones that didn’t or were more abstract, provided some textured, blanketing, dream-like tones that were certainly pleasant to listen to. If you like your dark ambient ethereal, warm and echoing, you should take a listen to The Night and Other Sunken Dreams.

Visit the The Night and Other Sunken Dreams page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also check out the first part of the album below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: The Night and Other Sunken Dreams

Album Artist: Underwater Sleep Orchestra (Pär Boström & Bruce Moallem)

Label: Cryo Chamber

Released: 29 June 2021

Dark Ambient Review: The Last Resort

Review By Casey Douglass

I’ve always liked fictional dystopias where there is some last bastion of comfort or normalcy for people to enjoy. Maybe a fully working pub in a settlement surrounded by zombies, or a video-game arcade still working in a deep fallout shelter that’s on its last legs. Beyond the Ghost’s The Last Resort is a dark ambient album themed around just such a place, a place where fleeting pleasures might just be found.

The album description describes a world covered in disease, poverty and tension, although in 2060 Berlin rather than 2021. The Last Resort is one of the last places that is still open, a refuge for the world weary; for the suicides delaying the tightening of the noose or the downing of the pills by just one more day. The album art above certainly paints the club as a welcoming place, its golden manna-from-heaven glow neatly reflecting back from the ugly metal pipes across the rain-slicked street.

The sounds that the album contains feel like surreptitious snatches of melody or tone. The drumbeats are slow and rattling, and the other traditional instruments, such as the trumpet tones and piano notes, echo away into soundscapes that convey a melancholy and a lack of hope. Think of the feeling you might get when you go to one of your favourite venues, one that you’ve heard is closing soon. Add some dark red drapes that hang from floor to ceiling, a miasma of smoke and halogen light bulbs, and the fear that you won’t see it again, and you are almost at the mood that The Last Resort creates.

The track Late Night at The Last Resort is my favourite track, as I felt that it best created the aforementioned sense of “the last good times” ending. It begins with low, twisting plucked notes that bend down into the depths. A whiny metallic sound grinds and pulls in the air, and the soundscape throbs with a tired tension. The falling tones made me think of the race to the bottom, the mournful notes maybe depicting the illicit stuff that goes on in the The Last Resort club. This is the space where sex is sold, where mind altering metal filings are plunged into watered-down drinks, and where murders are planned. Towards the end of the track, a distorted voice crackles on a distant radio or speaker, a pregnant high tone whining in the background.

Another great track is A Transient Shelter. This track also features tones that seem to sink down into the depths, brass notes in this case. They sit against a buzzing hum and an airy high tone. Around the midpoint a tinny, tiny insect-like whine appears, like a midge flying around your head. The midge whine and the plummeting notes for me, created a great feeling of tension and threat. There are smoother elements too, such as a relaxed drumbeat and slowly plucked notes. These sit in the ominous soundscape as a great counterbalance, to stop it going too far into despair.

The Sadness of All Things is a track that opens with the sound of rain and the plinking of metal creaking. There is a howling wind and a gentle blare of tone before thumping, echoey piano notes begin to depict a melody. Some of the higher tones in this track create an almost “cat meow” like impression, maybe hinting at an alleyway full of detritus, whether discarded items or discarded people. From the midpoint onwards, a distant yell or cry-like sound rises above the other elements, someone, somewhere in despair. Another bleak but great track.

Finally, Red Curtains is the last track that I will mention. A pulsing airy tone is joined by squeaking echoes, like some strange sonar of despair. Small knocks or impacts sound, soaring tones soon being joined by a church-organ-like aesthetic. I couldn’t help wondering if this was some kind of melancholy strip-club room, everything rusted and out of service, yet people still sitting in the shadows, wisps of smoke the vehicles for their thoughts of happier times.

The Last Resort is a dark ambient album of morose places populated by the phantoms of remembered pleasures. Framed by a near future dystopia, one that, if you look at current circumstances, could very easily grow from our current trials and tribulations as a species. A great album to dip into a bleak future, to then return to the present day and enjoy what you’ve got, while you’ve still got it.

Visit the The Last Resort page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also check out the track: Late Night at The Last Resort below: 

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: The Last Resort

Album Artist: Beyond the Ghost

Label: Cryo Chamber

Released: 26 Jan 2021

Dark Ambient Review: The Umbra Report

Review By Casey Douglass

When it comes to fiction or the imagination, I’m a fan of strange rooms. These rooms are often the kinds of space that might once have been a lounge or a dining room, but that have since been converted or adapted for peculiar experiments. Maybe a room has been cleared so that a séance can take place. Maybe the room is untouched and scientific equipment has been added to monitor something unseen. I just like this mixture of the mundane and the bizarre. Cities Last Broadcast’s The Umbra Report is a dark ambient album that embodies this feeling in audio form.

My favourite track is Disembodied. It begins with a rumbling drone, one populated with scratchy higher tones and static. This feels like a trembling soundscape, like everything is a quiver with strange energy. The image that came to mind to describe this track is a group of fairy beings, e.g. pixies, elves, etc. Said beings are coming down from a magic mushroom high, sprawled about on the floor of a dilapidated mouldy squat. A purer tone sprinkles a sense of sadness over things, and the overall impression that I got was that of someone being out of their usual place and time, disconnected, but not necessarily in a healthy way. It felt very dark to me.

Stares Back is another track that stood out for me. It starts with a raspy, sigh-like sound, a deeper tone soon quietly blooming into life. An airy drone sits behind things, a humming and resonant tone soon follow. The rasping sound twists into a sense of tortured strings and squeals, and faint impacts can be heard thudding at various times. This track felt like what might be going on in someone’s mind as they stare into a mirror, playing a game of “who is the real person” with the reflection. I dare say that in this case, when they turn away, they don’t see the reflection still staring daggers at their back. Just how it should be.

Wherever the Heart Goes is another rich and atmospheric track. Beyond the windy-feeling and rustling, beyond the hints of breathing and static, there emerges what sounds like heavy stone objects sliding. I couldn’t shake the mental impressions gathered from watching many films in which stone temple walls slide, sink or rotate, and with the track title in mind, I fancied I was listening to some strange, dark oubliette of the heart, a soundscape of shifting exploration and deeper ensnarements. It was very cool to listen to.

The Umbra Report is a scratchy, static-filled album, its soundscapes populated by distorted voices, strange throbbing atmospheres, and drones that cloak the whole in a warm, breathing darkness. There are hints and impressions of musical melodies and singing, but they are soon claimed by the more esoteric elements and shredded into a strange, otherworldly waiting-room ambience. The album description hints at the depicted events as being a possible depression, séance or exorcism, but whatever is actually occurring, its certainly creepy and fun to listen to.

See also: Black Stage of Night and The Humming Tapes for more rich, occult-atmospheres.

Visit the The Umbra Report page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also check out Disembodied below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: The Umbra Report

Album Artist: Cities Last Broadcast

Label: Cryo Chamber

Released: June 1 2021

Dark Ambient Review: Back to Beyond

Review By Casey Douglass

Back to Beyond is a dark, space ambient album from Alphaxone and ProtoU, and is the follow up to their 2017 album Stardust. The album description tells tale of a long journey into the vastness of space, mysterious black-hole-emitted golden dust causing the protagonist some consternation. There is also the issue of the protagonist’s cat performing zero-G acrobatics as it tries to feed.

Quantum Zero is one of the tracks that I enjoyed the most. It begins with small ticks or clicks, a sound that put me in mind of hot metal that is slowly cooling. There is a whining noise and the muffled feel of static, and then, a tone a little like a distant train whistle. An airy drone rumbles through the soundscape, the clicks beginning to echo into a larger space. There is a pulsing tone and a little later, deeper vibrations. Towards the end of the track, beeps and radio frequency sweeps can be heard, and what sounds like paper being scuffed. For me, Quantum Zero felt like it described a vast reactor or engine room, one that has recently fallen silent and is in the process of simmering down.

Dreams of Solace is another track that stood out for me. It opens with chuffing air movements and an “air blowing down a ribbed plastic tube” vibration. A rushing sound roams the soundscape, and what might be doors hissing open and closed. Electronic warbles and a long sweeping tone manifest, small trills and whistles in the distance joining them. Towards the end of the track, the sounds of movement through a metal vent seem to be heard. I felt like this track was the best match for the cover art of the album above, the pipes etc. It also, for some reason, brought to mind a scene in the film Brazil, where Robert De Niro turns up and messes with the pipes and tubing in the wall.

Finally, The Edge of Perception is a track that I enjoyed because it felt “watery” to me. That’s not to say literally water-filled, but there are elements to the audio that seemed to impose a distortion to things, a little like how water muffles and warps sound. It starts with a low, airy drone, a distant dripping, and a closer echoing knocking joins things. There is a low, voice-like call or groan, and a deeper rumbling fuzz. There is also a persistent high “ahh” vocal that sits uneasily above things. This is an echoing, flowing track with swells and the sounds of impacts in long corridors. For all of that, it is a warm track, the flowing melodies that come in near the midpoint setting a lovely contrast with the rasping hisses and echoes. Maybe this track is the sci-fi equivalent of a lonely alien minotaur at the heart of a labyrinth made out of cold metal.

Back to Beyond was, for me, the soundtrack to being on a long space journey. Many of the tracks feature metallic vibrations, muted clicks and beeps, and the hisses of atmosphere escaping from pressurised containment. For the most part, it seemed an album of smooth tones, small sounds and mechanical objects buzzing into the void. The darkness it displays is tempered by the warmth it also contains. It’s a bit like the difference between seeing zombies on your lawn in the light of the full moon, compared to seeing them in golden sunlight, while dew is still dangling from spiderwebs and birds are chirping their morning chorus. Both scenes could be horrifying, but the second has its own beauty.

Visit the Back to Beyond page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also check out the track Quantum Zero below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Back to Beyond

Album Artists: Alphaxone & ProtoU

Label: Cryo Chamber

Released: 4 May 2021