Dark Music Review – Insomnia

Written By Casey Douglass

Brass, piano and various other textures are delicately woven into filmic soundscapes that echo the sounds of memories faded through time. Solemn vignettes seem to emanate from an early morning dream state, the late autumnal tones and noir-ish melodies drifting through fog, evoking feelings of quiet isolation and solitude. Recalling haunting and desolate places, a private world is exposed, where time and space are distilled down to what remain of distant pasts and hidden emotions, melded into a symphony of ethereal melancholy.

On reading the excerpt from the album description above, I was intrigued by the early morning dream state aspect of the words. So many ambient albums seemingly cloak themselves in the darkest time period of the night rather than the time nearer twilight, when the night holds its breath to see if the sun will rise again, or at least, that is my interpretation of early morning. What the listener has in Leila Abdul-Rauf's Insomnia is a collection of tracks that slide easily into this slice of time, one in which harsher or otherwise composed tracks might grate uncomfortably on tired minds.

The Tracks

“Midnight” opens proceedings, its lofty female vocals and chimes thrumming amongst a deeper cosy sound. A short track, it soon becomes “Drift”, a more subdued and reflective track. The notes and sounds created for me the image of a sparkling pool in an underground temple, the ripples reflected on the walls and taken up by the sounds in the soundscape. “The Opening” is a string-led oscillating track with a return of the female vocals again. A resonance joins them later, a reverberating whine that builds into what seems like male echoing voices at a distance.

“Clock Glows” is a cosy track, one that uses simple percussion notes to create an almost languid feeling of time passing and clouds drifting in the night sky. Lighter tinkling notes join as the track continues, almost imbuing it with lullaby credentials. “Pull” is a piano-led track that uses a mixture of brass and female singing to carry the listener along with the notes. “Seconds Tick” is another piano-based track, but this is more frenetic and airy, like a beaded curtain fighting against a strong breeze.

“Edges of a Mirror” is up next, a composition with a crystalline sound, all high pitches and ringing notes, slowly joined by a light drone that adds some flesh to the bones later on. “Absence” is a track that utilises repeating notes that set up a pleasing rhythm and that carry the listener along in some kind of self-propelling motion. Strings and echoing bassy sounds add more detail to what might be some flight of fancy or vision of ghosts from the past, like a ship in fog.

“He Sits in His Room” features bouncy notes that twang into more female vocals, the effect being one that shrouds the ears in darkness as other notes mingle with the soundscape. “Wane” is a track that features strings dancing in an echoing space, brass and drone joining them before things become quieter and deeper as the midpoint is breached. The final track on the album is “Dark Hours of Early Morning”, a track that begins with a breathy sigh and tinkling notes in the distance. A drone adds another layer to things, the sounds becoming stronger and more bold as the track continues. It seems to be very much a track in which something is happening, like a wanderer looking out over a misty forest canopy and seeing a giant tree surging into the sky, fireflies and birds flitting around its branches like some shamanic legend of yore.

Thoughts

Insomnia is an album that I felt fully lived up to its description. There is a certain aural caress to the music, but one that is more like the silence during a nuclear winter rather than anything too warm and cosy. Yes, there is often a warmth to the music, a relaxed feeling of night-time and rest, but there is also the impression of forces being marshaled and the prospect of being destroyed in a smother rather than an overt show of violence.

How someone with insomnia might fare if they popped this album on in the small hours of the night, I don't really know. All I can say is that, even if you sleep like a baby almost every night, you owe yourself the chance of listening to Insomnia if you have any kind of interest or appreciation for dark ambient that evokes night so completely.

I give Insomnia 4/5. Visit Insomnia on Bandcamp at this link for more information.

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

Album Title: Insomnia

Album Artist: Leila Abdul-Rauf

Label: Malignant Records

Release Date: 17 March 2015

Contact Me

Dark Music Review – Between The Horizon And The Abyss

Written By Casey Douglass 

Between the Horizon and the Abyss is remarkably polished and fluid. Within its realm, no seconds feel wasted, and every sound feels purposefully placed, even as it moves and flows in perpetual motion; strains of a distant angelic choirs fall beneath a complex array of arcing tones, liquidous, molten textures, & harrowing orchestral shimmer, with fervent masses of malevolent atmospherics billowing forth in glorious detail. While this technically falls under the banner of dark ambient, what Yen Pox has managed to create goes far beyond genre specifications and boundaries, crafting a new benchmark and adding a high water mark to an already stellar discography.

The part of the above album blurb that describes the perpetual motion and liquidous molten textures contained within Between The Horizon And The Abyss is a great description of the sound the listener can expect from Yen Pox' album. Most of the tracks feature this wall of sound that seems to at once hit the listener and at times wrap around them, giving an almost visceral heat-like feeling to the soundscapes contained within. This makes the yellowy steam of the album art a great fit too. If ever there was a soundtrack for the fiery orb of the sun rising over a black horizon, this album is it, in my humble opinion.

The Tracks:

The Awakening

A full drone with looming highlights of a higher sound that sounds a little like a flock of strange birds calling and whistling as they come nearer and circle overhead. A more mechanical expulsion joins, hinting at forces being brought to bear. Somewhere around the midpoint, the sound shifts a little, things falling a little quieter with a bassiness and deepening thrum that gives the listener the sensation of things lowering, or growing deeper. Other sounds undulate from left to right in the ear, pulsing and vibrating with an energy and rhythm that sees the track out.

White Of The Eye

What sounds like an expansive guitar-based drone begins this track, a lovely wall of noise that fills the ear. It grows and fades and grows and fades after awhile, distorting and tailing off as it swoops around the soundscape with other peripheral electronic sounds dancing around it. These sounds take on a choral aspect at times, more scream-like shrills at others. At around the half way point, string-based notes carry over the soundscape, their tone rich and strong like the rising sun over a desert plane. Towards the end, a lighter note plays around on top of the now more settled drone, the contrast between the two enjoyed before it fades into the noise once more.

Cold Summer Sun

A quiet start with a vibrating metallic sound against a drone that steadily grows in volume. A deeper bassy sound looms underneath adding a feeling of stark beauty to proceedings. Sounds that put me in mind of chittering insects and fluttering wings emerge, that along with the title, created the mental image for me of cold sunlight piercing the depths of a dark cave and disturbing the inhabitants. Maybe some rock slide opened a fresh shaft into the cave that the sun can now shine down through. Some of the later sounds and rumblings of this track hint at a larger and darker creature being disturbed too, something that might have been best left slumbering. Like the previous tracks, things change as the track progresses, things becoming a little quieter and a little more high pitched.

In Silent Fields

A vocal-type sound rises and falls against the backdrop of a digeridoo-like bass noise, other sounds joining that make it seem like a sun kissed landscape being roamed by strange creatures, their calls and shrieks represented by the different sounds that enter the ear. Harsher “crashes” sound at intervals adding an extra texture to the soundscape.

Grief Ritual

An almost alarm-like sound begins this track, deeper sounds and high screeches interspersed around it. The title and the sounds contained in the track put me in mind of someone alone in a foggy graveyard, spectral figures forming and dispersing around them, shouting and screaming before they become intangible once more. Things go quieter at the mid-point, like a breath held. A swarming maelstrom of whispers and tones swells. Whether this is the intervention of a more powerful being or not, who can tell, but it sounds nice.

Ashen Shroud

Vibrating metal and vocals alternate in a dance of sandpaper and falling dust. Things settle to an almost dripping atmosphere of ticks and abrasion, the voice rising and falling as the echoes recede into the distance.

Tomorrow In Ruins

A light drone that almost sounds wind-like is soon joined by other sounds, one that might actually be the wind. Sounds of strings and a deeper roaming drone expand the soundscape into something melancholy and grainy, a windswept post-apocalyptic city or landscape perhaps.

The Procession

A buzzing bee-like drone, or maybe like a car at a steady speed, starts this track. Distorted words insinuate themselves over the sharper sounds that knife their way through the drone, a conversation the listener is not meant to hear. Near the midpoint a very deep bass rhythm pulses and the other sounds take on more of a laboured exhalation, like a big pair of lungs shuddering and squeezing out a quantity of insects with each breath.

Thoughts

I found Between The Horizon And The Abyss quite difficult to analyse. Whether this is due to fatigue or just the way the sounds mingle I am not sure but I did enjoy listening to it. Each track has a good texture to it, layers of sound giving the mind of the listener plenty to focus on and use as it possibly daydreams or roams free. As I said in the introduction, I felt like every track seemed sun-kissed, even though some of the sounds sounded more of the abyss than the firmament. That being said, mentally looking back over the album, which I listened to a number of times, I find it hard to pick a track that stood out from the others for any particular praise or criticism.

I give Between The Horizon And The Abyss 3.5/5. It achieves a lot with the textures it works with but I think I need more in the way of focal point sounds in my dark ambient music rather than walls of sound. Of course, this means it is more my own personal taste rather than any real issues with the music. Someone else will more than likely rate it higher because it ticks the right boxes for them. I still recommend any dark ambient fan checks out Between The Horizon And The Abyss though, it just didn't resonate with me as much as it might have.

Visit the Bandcamp page for Between The Horizon and The Abyss here for more information and the ability to have a listen.

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

Album Title: Between The Horizon And The Abyss

Album Artist: Yen Pox

Label: Malignant Records

Release Date: 05 May 2015 

Contact Me

Dark Music Review – Filth Haven

Written By Casey Douglass

As one half of Swedish/Norwegian industrial duo K.N.O., Kristoffer Oustad is no stranger to the Malignant roster, and yet within the broader context of the K.N.O. sound, his exact contributions were never fully known, or at least immediately recognizable. Listening to his debut solo recording, it becomes evident that the more emotive and moody qualities within those recordings seemed to be his primary responsibility. The 7 tracks that comprise Filth Haven operate on a palpable psychological level and are perhaps some of the most personal and deeply emotional recordings Malignant has released. Oustad shows an innate ability to craft intricate and detailed pieces of grey hued, analog darkness that feel suspended in time… dreamlike and meditative, yet always hinting at something ominous on the horizon, as gradually shifting textures, drifting tones and haunting melodies intersect in a hazy, somnambulant procession. While the method for composition (analog synths, guitar, and field recordings) may have been the same, each track is uniquely different than the next, but in the end, feels tightly bound together by a cinematic framework that sinks deep into your consciousness. An absolutely astounding and rewarding work for those that appreciate all manner of dark music.

After a lengthy album description like that, I don’t feel the need to do much more of a lead-in to my review, save to say that this is my first time experiencing Kristoffer’s music and on the basis of this one album, I am looking forward to hearing more. Read on to find out why.

The Tracks

Elberton 1979

A strong sound that put me in mind of some kind of demonic horn starts this track, and by consequence, the whole album off. An echoing voice-over imposes itself over the blaring, maybe sixty percent of the words understandable. The words are sinister from the start but as they tell their tale, there is talk of large portions of humanity needing to be killed to keep in balance with nature. A harsher grating noise begins and twists upwards, a little like some kind of alarm going off. The sound echoes and grows and fades, and near the end, might be mistaken for the sound of a bomb being dropped from a plane. A short internet search reveals that there is a monument in Elberton Georgia that bears an inscription that talks about maintaining humanity at under 500,000,000. Creepy stuff. http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_ga_guidestones.htm

Traveller

A deep bassy drone pulsates with an even deeper beat, a tinny high-pitched squeal lowering in pitch and then raising again like an old style kettle on the boil. A string-plucked melody emerges before being twisted and perverted by tight twists in note. A high pitched pulsating tone sounds hot on its heels, the rhythm sitting both snugly yet uneasily on top of the persistent bassy drone. Think of someone playing the didgeridoo next to someone else toying with a sound generator and you are getting there. Static appears, the harshness almost sounding like screams in some places. Things quieten at the midpoint of the track, a lighter feel descending as the tones still climb and fall. Voices suggest themselves, like a choir in the background but this is probably an audio illusion. What sounds like an electric guitar note dances over the other sounds as these take on the aspect of an angry bee hive.

Anti-Clockwise Rotation

A fast-paced plucky sound sets this track off to a frenetic start, a faintly buzzing drone and blaring swell of noise rising and falling as part of the soundscape. There are high-pitched tones as the track progresses that sound a little like birds singing if listened to in the right frame of mind. This track seems to be all about the tempo and the core rhythm. The screeching electro-sounds certainly wheedle their way into your brain. The track ends the way it started, with the sounds disappearing, the plucky sound fading to nothing last of all.

Row Me Over

Various bird calls make up the start of this track, it’s very lulling and peaceful. It grows even more so when the sounds of the paddles of a row boat gently hitting water joins them. A gentle drone fades in, swiftly joined by a rattling metallic sound and a pulse-like bass-beat that turns the peaceful soundscape into something a little more trying. Ghostly notes etch out a melody, a very high-pitched noise ringing out over everything like tinnitus. I enjoyed how the non-threatening nature of the opening soon turned into something more sinister, maybe the calm water being negotiated by the row boat at the start turns out to be far wider and far more treacherous than first thought. The second half of the track is all swelling sound, swelling notes and resonances that create a glorious noise. Again, things quieten down as the end of the track approaches, the sound of waves the last thing to be heard.

Liquidator

Another track that starts with a blaring horn-like sound (to my ears anyway). Strings sing in a prolonged note that echoes and distorts, sending resonances into the other areas of the soundscape. A background distortion or humming can be heard behind it, a little like when a sudden loud noise leaves your ears hearing other things once it has vanished. A wall of thrumming drone crackles into life around the midpoint of the track before fading along with all but the blaring sound.

The Sun Maker

This is another track that begins with a fast-paced sound, this one sounds more like the chirruping of a cricket but sped up by some margin. Long string notes loom, small squeaks and squeals dotted around them, growing in length and volume. This is a flowing track which sees the stand-out notes slowly create a sombre melody that battles a little with sounds that put me in mind of a dentist’s drill. It might sound horrid but it really isn’t, it’s quite beautiful.

The Arch

A deep drone and a sound that puts me in mind of wind-battered metal set the foundations of this track, more mechanical/industrial rumblings and sounds being heard now and then. This track has a great underlying rhythm that makes it a great vehicle for the various detail sounds that are layered in.

Thoughts

Filth Haven is a dark ambient album that achieves what it sets out to by the use of drones and sounds with their own self-carrying beat, the momentum this creates in the listener’s mind helping to see them effortlessly through to the end. Compared to other dark ambient albums that I have listened to lately, it features a smaller number of field recorded sounds and contains more high-pitched and throaty sounds, the balance between these two aspects creating an interesting and flowing dynamic in even the more sedate tempoed offerings.

I give Filth Haven 4/5 as it is a great dark ambient album that produces some great impressions and dark audio experiences.

Take a look at the Filth Haven Bandcamp page at this link for more info.

I was given a free copy of this album to review

Album Title: Filth Haven

Album Artist: Kristoffer Oustad

Label: Malignant Records

Release Date: 5 May 2015

Contact Me