Dark Ambient Review: Advent

Review by Casey Douglass

Advent is the title of Randal Collier-Ford’s latest dark ambient album, one that has just been released by Cryo Chamber. When I hear or read the word “advent”, I always find myself thinking of the modern advent calendar that many kids use to count down the days until presents. Sorry, I mean to Christmas. Luckily, the word outside of this context can simply mean the beginning of something. Fortunately, Randal’s Advent is a syrupy dark creation that blows away any notion of jolly fat men and mass consumerism.

The album description describes the appearance of a bizarre and sinister new world in the forests of South America, one with denizens that are hostile to explorers and whose fringes are roamed by titan shadows that roar in the night. Strange structures are mentioned, the contents a mystery to distant observers. My own journey through the soundscapes of Advent seemed, in the main, to be concerned with these structures, the sounds and atmospheres taking me deep below the ground. I also seemed to see things in the colour that permeates the album art above, darkness filled with that kind of glow. I really like that artwork!

Advent makes great use of long, horn-like sounds and a variety ritual drumbeats. They are the sort of signal that, when heard at the edge of an unknown darkness or stretch of deep water, you’d find yourself holding your breath as you wonder if some creature really will surface and answer the call. I enjoyed how the atmosphere reacts to these sounds too, the horn or beat at times gaining extra twists to its tone just at the moment it halts. A little like if you clap your hands in a room with metal pans hanging, you might hear a quiet “ping” afterwards, in the microsecond where your clap stopped. On a dark ambient album where strange things are afoot, that is a very pleasant addition.

The first two tracks (there are three in total on this 40 min album), saw me being a bit of a dark “Indiana Jones”, delving deeper into the stone tunnels of the temple, hearing drumbeats, chanting, and catching sight of strange flickering eyes in the red/orange light that seemed to illuminate things. The drumbeats seemed to echo back along strange corridors, the rattles, vibrations and buzzing the soundtrack for dark energy flowing and strange forces moving. There are also some sounds that might be bone cracking, strange creatures tapping on the walls, or some languid beast slowly moaning its way along a pathway that is probably too close for comfort. It’s not all ritual and darkness though.

At various times, the sound of string notes sing out. Sometimes in juddery bow jangling form, other times delivering a melancholy melody that changes how the soundscape feels. The Second Wound is an example of this, as I felt that the first half of this track had a morose and gentle feel to it, piano notes also adding into the mix to create a strange sad space. The second half of the track becomes more ominous with pounding drums and higher energy. With regards to the images that crossed my mind, I felt that I might have been roaming the dark vaults of some deep, underground temple, the “monsters” I’d been afraid of all laying dead on the floor, killed by something far worse that was coming up out of the depths. I liked that feeling.

Advent is a primal quest into the dark recesses of a newly manifesting world. Ritual, and the force of the raw unknown, dance together in the mind of the listener. The drumbeats seem to give the mind strength and confidence but to also be summoning some kind of doom at the same time. When you are tired of the Christmas madness this year, especially with the way Covid has warped the common sense of so many people, escape into Advent for 40 mins, and come back overflowing with dark ambient refreshment.

Visit the Advent page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also check out the track Beckoning Absurd Shapes below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Advent

Album Artist: Randal Collier-Ford

Label: Cryo Chamber

Released: 17 Nov 2020

Dark Music Review - Locus Arcadia

Dark Music Review – Locus Arcadia

Review Written By Casey Douglass

This album takes us on a voyage across the stars to the Locus Arcadia Space Station as it follows a lone protagonists questions into what happened after loss of contact.

"I can barely hear them now, their thin reverberating voices quickly fizz in and out. The crackling sounds of half garbled transmissions dance erratically in my ears, desperately trying to break through a crunching wall of distortion. My last connection to home is quickly disintegrating. The only thing I could muster from the broken transmissions was that there used to be a prison on this station and also some kind of archaic cyborg research facility. As I struggle to hold back the closing walls of helmet induced claustrophobia, I soon fear everything will be buried underneath a smothering film of my own sticky breath. I hate the feeling of being trapped in this glass prison. My attention shifts, and I begin to notice just how cold it's become. It's dropped 30 degrees since my initial inspection; the meter now reads -87 Fahrenheit. Ahead of me awaits a mammoth of a station. A rust colored metallic structure with hundreds of slits like eyes peering out into open space. I slowly slide a vigilant gaze along its seemingly endless perimeter, and in complete awe of its massiveness the reality of what awaits me firmly sets hold. A fine pointed sting of uneasiness slowly climbs through my sternum and into my throat. Now just twelve meters from the entrance, my steps turn deliberately cautious. I hesitantly raise and press my boots into the ground, compressing the tiny granules beneath me. The closer I get, the quieter it all becomes, and the more alone I begin to feel. As the distance between us diminishes, the anticipation grows feverishly tall like the dozens of rectangular glass lookouts adorning the otherwise dilapidated station. The main entry hatch now within arms reach, I punch in the code: 7-5-1-3. The door opens..."

How’s that for an album blurb? If that doesn’t set the tone for the feelings and visions that Locus Arcadia provides the listener, I don’t know what will. A collaboration between dark ambient artists Randal Collier-Ford, Flowers for Bodysnatchers, Council of Nine and God Body Disconnect, Locus Arcadia is a bleak dose of sci-fi infused dark ambient that stifles and frees in equal measure.

I must admit that my favourite moments contained in the four longish (about 15 mins) tracks often were the ones that featured the sound effects associated with the text above. These might take the form of beeping controls, the clanking of airlocks opening, or more intimate sounds such as the breathing or heartbeat of the exploring astronaut. This is where some of the stifling claustrophobia comes from, the closeness of someone breathing inside a helmet as strange sounds loom in the distance.

A couple of the tracks stood out for me above the others though, and these were Black Echo of Morgues and Memory, and Prisoner's Sacrifice Facing Arcadia. Black Echo of Morgues and Memory starts with a muted rumbling and see-sawing strings that build into the kind of sound that wouldn’t be amiss as a horror flick builds tension, alerting the listener to an incoming threat that they are unaware of creeping up on them. Metallic thumps and chimes boom and clang, soon to be joined by swelling horn-like sounds that put me instantly in mind of the Alien films’ scores. This is always an instant win with me. Also featuring in this track are other sounds like juddering static-like interference, rattling hulls and a little later, wet “blips” that seemed to channel a motion tracker, for me at least.

Prisoner's Sacrifice Facing Arcadia starts with the calm breathing of the astronaut inside a helmet, with button beeps, mechanical clamps and hisses of air giving plenty of audio cues as to what is happening. Once inside whatever it is, a drone moves in with quick beeps and rushes of air. A female voice whispers as a pulsing machinery sound begins to rise. There are footsteps, metal clanks and distorted radio chatter. A little later, things progress to a quieter soundscape that features an echoey, low grade fuzzy static that pulses and more than a little puts me in mind of insect wings. Later still, something is triggered and a warning alarm begins to sound. Something opens and an avalanche of sound rushes out. Something then closes, hinting at the entry of the astronaut into that other space. The listener hears the heartbeat of the astronaut slowly become still and the soundscape eases into a calmer, lighter feeling until the end.

Quite a listening experience. I enjoyed the other two tracks as well, but the two mentioned above just really grabbed me and had more for me to latch onto as being particularly interesting for me.

Locus Arcadia is an alluring dose of sci-fi flavoured dark ambient sound, and does a very good job of transporting the listener into some interesting places. If you find yourself hankering after some sci-fi inspired feelings, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed if you check it out. I give Locus Arcadia 4/5.

Visit the Locus Arcadia page on Bandcamp here for more information and check out the video for Prisoner's Sacrifice Facing Arcadia below:

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

Album Title: Locus Arcadia

Artists: Randal Collier-Ford, Flowers for Bodysnatchers, Council of Nine, God Body Disconnect

Label : Cryo Chamber

Released: July 12, 2016

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Dark Music Review – The Architects

Written By Casey Douglass

Dark ambient is a genre that can use an enormous variety of sounds and inputs. While some artists use sounds from the natural world, twisting them to their own ends, others look to more man-made or mechanical sounds. The Architects falls into this second category and puts these cranking, clanging sounds to great use.

The Architects consists of 8 evolving tracks with a mechanical touch to each one. This album is the product of deep theory, ageless echos and murmurs of voices not heard in countless millennium. By use of ritual techniques and unconventional sampling, Randal Collier-Ford takes us to his world of a union between the old and the new. This is an original take on Drone vs Sound Design, leaving enough room on the album to explore both concepts fully, from empty rooms of pure sound sampling and bowing techniques to tracks with bass driven drone fused with distortion and drum hits from the abyss.

The Tracks:

A New Age

A subtle track that crackles with droning energy, like the sound of some giant plasma-infused machine barely alive but ticking over sedately in a darkened warehouse. That is, until a random power surge tickles its capacitors and sparks a cascading thrum into life.

Construction of a Demon

A gentle ‘plastic thudding’ sound gives this track a beat, joined by what seems like the sounds of night falling in a forest, but everything distorts into a perversion of how they really should be. High pitched whining and fittings being cranked judder into the darkness as whirring sounds and others join the soundscape. The track is aptly named, it really could be a demon being constructed.

Eye of the Watchers

A lighter tone begins this track, albeit one that has a looming darkness behind it, like a lone candle in a dark cavern, the dance between the two forces can only end one way as chittering clanking things move just beyond sight.

The Return

A crystalline note swells and undulates as a moderately heavy drone creases the air, the hint of vocals possibly in the distance but almost at the edge of conscious hearing. The volume of the sounds rises and falls until it erupts at the midpoint of the track, a punchy alarm-like sound echoing in the distance as the drone takes full control of the soundscape. This is a fairly gentle track that simmers rather than comes to the boil, except the aforementioned midpoint escalation.

Grave of the Chariots

An airy sound looms closer, much like a UFO might make if it buzzed over head and then landed some way off. Strange creepers and vines crack the surfaces of the ground, shimmering and pixilated and all reaching toward the silver pulsing vessel. Slight tinkling and shrill ‘squeaking’ filters through the air as a bright light erupts from the vessel and begins to scan the surrounding area like a dazzling laser. A long note dangles in the air like a puppet that has had its strings cut but before it begins to fall. Everything holds its breath. These are the images conjured in my mind by this great track.

Hellgate

A rising sound blooms and crescendos with moments of calm in-between, almost sounding like the soundtrack to a movie that plays when the axe wielding murderer is revealed to the audience in a flash of lightening. Echoes and sounds that seem to Doppler away impregnate the soundscape with a looming threat that threatens to break through whatever flimsy barriers stand in its way. A high-pitched whine drills into your ears as the track nears its end. Did something get through? There’s no way to be sure for certain.

Cove of the Architects

Another track that has a whine at the start, like dirty fingers rubbing around an angel’s halo. A lower resonance joins it and the tone of the track begins to drag down towards something darker. A richer bell-like ringing arrives, along with a gentle bass-drone that adds more layers to the shifting tone, the combined result almost like a long held note on a church organ, until it shifts once more. After the midpoint, things quieten and a fluttering distorted fabric-like sound jostles uneasily with a waxing and waning tone that seems to summon up a sound that might be wind, either real or psychic.

Void

Warped vocals and wet slitherings echo in a large space that seems to serve up plenty of things to focus on. Tonal snatches, half-recordings, was it birdsong? It’s gone. Clinking keys? Gone. A voice? Too late. Maybe this is the place thoughts come to relax or let off steam by screaming. Probably the latter, considering the cries and shouts that twist the soundscape as it goes on.

Thoughts

The Architects is an album that always serves up something interesting for your ears to focus on. The mechanical and metallic sounds work well and certainly bring strange contraptions in dark places to mind. If I had to choose some favourite tracks, it would be Eye of the Watchers, Hellgate and Void, all of them mix the subtle with the creeping darkness in a way that I really enjoyed.

I give The Architects 4/5. It’s a great listen with inventive sounds and pleasing resonances that I think any dark ambient fan would appreciate.

Visit The Architects page on Bandcamp here for more info.

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

Album Title: The Architects

Artist: Randal Collier-Ford

Label: Cryo Chamber

Written and Produced: Randal Collier-Ford

Mastering and Artwork: Simon Heath

Released : 27th January 2015

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