My Dark Ambient Album Winding Down At The Edge Of Oblivion Is Out Now

I just released my ninth dark ambient album on Bandcamp: Winding Down At The Edge Of Oblivion.

It is themed around an android slowly losing function, sitting at the end of civilization, surrounded by ruin.

I tried to make a slowly building, subtle album, one to listen to with a nice comfy pair of headphones and a comfy bed to drift off into imagination on. I'm quite pleased with it.

If you'd like to check it out, you can find it on Bandcamp for £1.95. If you decide to pick it up, many thanks :)

Casey aka Reality Scruncher.

My Dark Ambient Album The Miasmic Bridge is Out Now!

I just released my second dark ambient album, The Miasmic Bridge, over on Bandcamp. This one is themed around the occult and is also free. The album description from the Bandcamp page says more:

A perpetually lonely person embraces the occult as a means to open up a whole new realm of connection. 

The endeavour takes years and culminates in three spirit communication sittings, held on three consecutive evenings. 

After the last of these, the person never attempts to reach out to the other side again, as like most connections, not everything that passes in each direction is to be wholly desired, or even trusted. 

Loneliness has its charms. It’s certainly safer most of the time... 

These tracks feature subtle, smooth, soul-scraping drones that sit uneasily at the threshold between the mind and the spirit.

If you decide to check it out, there are free Bandcamp codes on the store page if you'd like to add it to your Bandcamp library. You can also find my previous album, Deep Space Impingement, which is also free and has recently received a very generous review from The Dungeon in Deep Space.

Merry Xmas :)

Dark Ambient Review: Bradley Woods

Review By Casey Douglass

Before the local council had part of it cleared, the small woodland down the road used to have some wonderfully creepy moods. Sometimes, the trees rubbed together, making sounds akin to the Yautja in the Predator films. Other times, the leaves ruffle and crumple in a quite insidious, hushed whisper fashion. Pyewacket’s dark ambient album Bradley Woods, brings the sometimes sinister nature of being alone in the woods, to the comfort of your own headphones, feathering in some tasty folklore for extra atmosphere.

Bradley Woods is an album of uneasy rumbling drones, drones that are buffeted by rustling breezes and punctuated by small twigs snapping, cawing birds and, in the first track, a crying baby. The album is inspired by a folklore tale about the Black Lady of Bradley Woods, a ghost that haunts a woodland in Lincolnshire, England. After losing her husband, being raped and losing her baby, she wandered the woods looking for them, and apparently continues to do so even after death claimed her. The first track having the recording of the baby crying in the first moments certainly sets the scene.

I enjoy dark ambient albums that make strong use of drones, but I also find them a little infuriating, as I get to the end and doubt my impressions far more than usual. I think this is because the maelstrom of sound changes slowly over time, and often leads me to hear things that I think are some kind of audio hallucination. A real life example for me is thinking that I hear the phone ring while I’m in the shower. I can almost swear for certain that I hear it, but it’s just the spraying water and extractor fan fooling my brain. Drones do the same thing, although instead of a ringing phone, it might be an impression of a choral chant or a static-filled whisper.

In general, the elements of each track of Bradley Woods are the collection of tones that make up the rumbling drone, the rustling of leaves in the wind and small sounds or bird-calls, but there are impressions of different atmospheres. Track III for me, felt the darkest, as if something dark is coming. Early on, it has the quality of a swelling ‘Heeeee’ vocal, with the occasional small crackle. After the midpoint, the drone feels like it has a hollow quality, with a more prominent sparkly sound sitting in the swelling of the breeze. There is a section where a chirruping bird sounds quite agitated, along with a cawing crow and a snuffling pressure that slinks through the trees. This track brought to mind the way an eerie quiet can fall when atmospheres change.

Track IV continues the impressions of Track III, and for me, it felt like the thing that was coming has actually arrived. The pulsing, rumbling drone still sits in a rustling, breezy space, but the other incidental sounds, such as bird calls, feel more distant or muffled. There is also a feeling of something tap-tapping near your ear. It might be the kind of muffling that happens when something moves between you and the origin of a sound. You can still hear it, but something feels off, even if you can’t name it. Later in the track, the wind swells feel a bit harsher or sharper against the rumbling, and there are instances of faint knocking on wood, unless I’m imagining things.

As dark as most of the tracks are, after journeying through them, Track VI, the final track, has a more peaceful air to it. I think that I feel this because the drone seems to have an element that has a more Om-like chant quality. I also felt that I heard the tones of a church-bell somewhere in the swirling sounds of the track, but this could have also been an audio illusion. Never the less, I’d like to think that whatever has occurred in the previous tracks, the roaming spectre has maybe found some peace for a short while, before the next period of aimless wandering and searching begins at the least.

I enjoyed my time in the rumbling, folklore-infused version of Bradley Woods. It’s a lulling, sinister dark ambient album, one in which I felt that I was listening to a woodland that is falling into the dark embrace of night. The shadows lengthen and vanish into the murk, the breeze picks up, and the leaves seem impatient. The atmosphere changes, feeling denser and charged with a goosebump-inducing chill, the birds falling mostly quiet... the searching spirit begins to wander.

Visit the Bradley Woods page on Bandcamp for more information.

I reviewed this album by streaming it from the Bandcamp page.

Album Title: Bradley Woods

Album Artist: Pyewacket

Released: 15 June 2020

Dark Ambient Review: Drone Islands - Stellar

Review By Casey Douglass

Space certainly seems to be a great fit as the inspiration for music that loves to drone, the vast distances and cold danger just the kind of setting for sounds that seem to continue on and on. Drone Islands – Stellar is a collection of tracks inspired by astronomical events, and features a variety of dark ambient artists.

I think that my favourite track is Planetary Chain from Grey Frequency. It opens with a mid-level drone, one that has a vibrating edge. A siren-like drone rises behind it, the whoosh of what might be a rocket engine too, but the vibrating edge is what set the scene for me. I couldn’t help but think about how spare change rattles on a car dashboard. With the space setting of this album, I had visions of a spacecraft manoeuvring in the inky blackness of space, one of the pilot’s keepsakes buzzing on top of the control station. After the midpoint, wave-like sounds rustle against the ears, piano notes joining them a littler later. This led me to wonder if the ship is headed down some kind of galactic plug-hole.

PLUHM’s Sospensione is another track that I enjoyed, although in the beginning, I wasn’t so sure. It starts with a high, organ-like tone that crackles and breaks. A low drone sounds beneath as the notes echo away, small crackles popping as they distort. A buzzing begins, and when it ends, the soundscape has changed to a different space, one with an electronic heart-beat tone, plucked notes, and with a soaring drone behind. This buzzing occurs again, and once again the soundscape changes. It feels like whatever is going on is evolving, maybe like the stages a star goes through in its life time, or on a smaller scale, the journey an astronaut might make into the stars. By the end of the track, I had warmed to it a great deal, it’s a fascinating listen.

Astral Bridge Severance from Infinexhuma is the opening track of the album, and another one that stood out for me. It begins with a vibrating and echoing soundscape, metallic knocking sounds seeming to stir the space, a low hiss roaming, a distant shimmer beckoning. This track felt like the film Event Horizon to me, a drifting spaceship about which no one knows where it’s been or why it has appeared now. It’s sinister. The soundscape becomes a bit more cacophonous as it continues, a feeling of energy building up or maybe an engine flaring into life. There are rasping drones, female vocals, and an effect that seems like a bestial roar. This soundscape, for me, was one of threat, collapse and unknown forces. I like those things a great deal.

Drone Islands – Stellar is a varied collection of dark ambient space and drone scapes. I tended to enjoy the darker, deeper tracks more than some of the higher pitched creations, but all of the tracks have their own charm. If you like your dark ambient cosmological and droning, you should check out Drone Islands – Stellar.

Visit the Drone Islands - Stellar page on Bandcamp for more information.

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Drone Islands - Stellar

Album Artist: Various

Label: Eighth Tower Records

Released: 2 April 2021

Dark Ambient Review: #44 - The Recluse

Review By Casey Douglass

A few weeks ago, I was browsing my Bandcamp feed, and I saw The Owl’s dark ambient album #44 - The Recluse slide into view. I had a click through the three tracks and promptly decided that this sounded like my kind of thing. It felt dense and mind-filling, and after listening in more depth, I found that it had the wonderful ability to push the thoughts out of my mind, stifling the ever present merry-go-round of inner criticism and depressive predictions.

#44 - The Recluse is almost an hour long and is split into three tracks. The first is Oh, Sweet Catharsis, a track that opens with a warm, low drone. The soundscape felt like it had a rippling quality, maybe like the interference lines of a pebble splashing into a pond, but slowed down to a soothing, slo-mo rate. Lighter tones seem to emerge, suggesting themselves above the bass. These grow, and put me a little in mind of how a church organ might sound. A slight crackling of static soon follows, and then things build and build, with various elements distorting and seeming to compete with each other. At one moment the vibrating bass seems to be the louder, and then the “organ” flares up to out do it. This competing element, along with my notions of the church organ, set up a kind of God Vs Satan contest, an evolving audio tussle between two sides vying for control. That’s not to say it’s a violent track, I found it very relaxing.

The next track is Glacial Beauty. It might just be the suggestion I picked up from the track title, but I do think that this track feels cold. It opens with a low, airy, rumbling soundscape, one that evolves to contain a variety of pulsing elements. A growing static sits on top of this rumbling bass-line, making me think of midnight in the arctic. A deeper vibration begins, not unlike a rough-burning blue gas flame, if you dialled the sound up to mind-massaging levels. Around one third of the way in, a lighter tone begins, floating above the cold mental landscape like a seabird gliding above the frozen scene. A continuous bag-pipe-like whine dances with the warping higher tone of the seabird, the rough-burning gas flame a warm place to enjoy the show. This track is the longest on the album at almost 27 minutes long. It’s long enough to be lulling and comforting, yet also has enough elements to allow a variety of focusses. It builds and evolves, just like the first track, but takes a longer time to reach its peak, before simmering down to a calmer space in the final few minutes.

The third and final track is Emergence of Serenity. This track begins with a low drone, but not quite as low as the others. This one is more like a meditative chant, but there is a faster pulsing tone to keep it company. If the first track began like slow ripples on a pond, this one is the faster version. They culminate and then quietly dip down into a melancholy peacefulness. The first part of this track felt a little sci-fi to me. It had the whiff of space and vast distance, with static fuzzing that distance. Near the midpoint, things become more focussed on the bass end of the scale, a gritty throbbing vibration spreading and pulsing through the mind. The other tones come back with static, the distortion flapping in the listener’s ears, before things settle a little for a milder ending.

#44 - The Recluse is an album that creates some lovely, dense, walls of noise and drone. I wasn’t sure how I would get on with some of the harsher elements in some of the tracks, but they always felt like they stayed just the right side of “vigorous” for me. It was during my second listen (my non-note-taking session) that the album’s thought muffling powers became truly apparent. I’m struggling to remember another album that has engulfed my mind and yet also seen me nod off to it, even at its harsher moments. This is the good kind of nodding off by the way, not through boredom. #44 - The Recluse is currently name your price on Bandcamp below. I suggest you check it out if you like droning dark ambient with textures that bring peace to your dark mind, even if just for awhile.

Visit the #44 - The Recluse page on Bandcamp for more information.

Album Title: #44 - The Recluse

Album Artist: The Owl

Released: 12 Mar 2021

Dark Ambient Review: Werifesteria

Review by Casey Douglass

According to Urban Dictionary, Werifesteria is the word used to describe someone walking through a forest, on the hunt for mystery. French dark ambient artist Hiemal’s Werifesteria album, brings this notion to audio life. The album consists of three tracks. The first two clocking in at over 30 minutes each, the third lasting almost 20. Each offers the listener their own forest mystery experience, and each adds a slightly different feeling or texture to that experience.

The first track opens with the sound of a strong wind rustling the forest canopy. A mid to high pitched drone begins, nestling comfortably among the field-recorded sounds of the elements. The drone is both mercurial and stable, simple yet complex, depending on how you listen to it. The best analogy I can think of is how visible light is made up from all of the colours of the rainbow, and you can only see the individual colours when it passes through a prism. I felt that the drone on Werifesteria sets the listener’s mind as the prism, and the drone as the light. If you listen for the lower tones, you hear more of them. If you set your ears to the higher end of things, you’ll hear things too. Other tones do emerge but they are matched so well to the drone that they almost appear to sneak in.

The drone also changes over time, but it proves decidedly slippery to notice. I’ve listened to Werifesteria a decent amount of times, and the number of occasions that I’ve settled back and told myself “Pay attention to when the drone changes!” and I’ve just not managed to. If you click through the tracks it’s very noticeable, but in real time, it might take quite some time to think “Hey, has this changed?” I really like this element of the album. The drone itself is a great thought magnet too, sucking everything in. I once tried to meditate by holding a continuous “Aum” sound in my mind’s ears. It left me feeling quite strange, and the drone on Werifesteria seems to tap into this same feeling. There is something about a sound that just goes on and on and on...

The first two tracks of Werifesteria feel quite similar. In the first, the field-recordings feel more wind-based, in the second, more water-based. Both share the same kind of mind-focussing drone, with slight variations, although I felt the drone in the second track seemed a little less bold. The third track opens with the crackling of a fire and the sound of night insects chirruping. The drone/tones on this track seem like a continuous string-note floating in the air. There is also an ominous hollow feeling to some of the bassier sounds, maybe hinting at darker things roaming the shadows behind the fire light. I enjoyed this feeling.

One of the key qualities that I enjoy in a dark ambient album is if it is conducive to nodding off to sleep while you listen to it. Werifesteria has this quality for me, and then some. The evolving nature of the drone and the soundscapes means that I didn’t really notice many moments that were harsh enough to break the spell it casts on the listener. If anything, the only times I seemed to wake up were when a track was fading out. Maybe my mind missed the drone and began to wonder where it had gone. The field-recorded forest sounds and droning tones make this a lovely album to listen to, and a great escape from the mundane, into the mysterious.

Visit the Werifesteria page on Bandcamp for more information. It’s currently “Name Your Price” so it’s a great time to check it out.

Album Title: Werifesteria

Album Artist: Hiemal

Released: 25 Oct 2020

Dark Review – Outer Tehom

Review of Outer Tehom

Written by Casey Douglass

From the Ukraine's Oleg Puzan comes this thick drone album of darkest black, every track a perfect 13 minute summoning of elder gods forgotten in time.

I liked the concept of Outer Tehom as soon as I read the above blurb. All 4 tracks are 13 minutes exactly and anything that claims to evoke images of elder gods being summoned gets an instant thumbs up from me. Anyway, to the tracks...

The Tracks:

Black Arts

This first track opens with a deep vibrating drone, much like you might find some Buddhist monks chanting, if they happen to worship a dark god that is. It gives way to what sounds like an audio capture of some firebrand preacher warning and talking about demons. Then it all fades to a quiet deep pulsing and quiet rumbling that unnerves as much as it soothes. Towards the end of the track, tuneless chimes pierce the darkness, like a lone music box left playing its song as it winds down in a tomb.

Mortal Skin

Mortal Skin starts with a sensation of deep waves, building in volume as the soundscape fills out.

After a short while, a voice can be heard uttering uncaught words and raging. This whole track conjured a possession scene from various films to my mind, Evil Dead, The Exorcist, you name it, if it has a scene with strange intonation and bodily possession, this track will make you think of it.

Snake Hole

Snake Hole is a rumbling droning soundscape with plenty of distant echoes and sounds of vast distance. Strangely, it is one that flows past me with little of it lodging in my memory, like a dream fading quickly upon waking. No less enjoyable for it however.

Arcane Shrine

This track features howling wind and distant voices in conversation, bringing to mind a large temple with some strange rite occurring. As the listener, you feel far enough away to be safe but close enough to feel unsteadied by the rumbling vibrations coming from the ground. After a crescendo comes a lull with soft whispered sounds and pregnant silences before it builds once more. This pattern repeats a few times, the ante upped each time until a strange horn is heard above the growing silence as the track ends.

Thoughts

I felt the first two tracks were by far the strongest and most memorable. The drones of Black Arts and the demonic voice in Mortal Skin really provide something solid to focus on and enjoy. Snake Hole and Arcane Shrine are a little more sedate and spacial, and while pleasing, had less in them that appealed to my ear.

I give Outer Tehom 3.5/5, the two tracks that appealed to me the most doing the bulk of the lifting. Other tastes will beg to differ I am sure, but it was almost a case of liking those so much, that the latter ones really had a job to shine in their own gloomy light.

Check out Cryo Chamber here to view more information and purchasing options.

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

Album Title: Outer Tehom

Artist: Oleg Puzan

Mastering : Simon Heath

Artwork : Nihil

Label : Cryo Chamber

Released : 18th November 2014

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