Dark Ambient Review: My House Is Full of Faces

Review by Casey Douglass

Sometimes, it’s the most innocuous things that we focus on. Maybe you notice the sound of a blackbird singing in the garden while you are vomiting into the toilet, or maybe someone is insulting you and all you can notice is the dried skin on the side of their nose. It feels surreal, to me anyway. Mutestare’s My House is Full of Faces is a dark, ambient experimental album that, pleasingly, left me feeling the same way.

Mutestare describes the album in his email to me: “It fits into the broadness of the ambient genre but never really settles into it: There's electroacoustic, noise, modern classical and electro influences throughout. The tone is generally surreal and emotionally, it's got something to do with memory, intimacy, sexuality, regret, and the feeling of being bound to a situation that's inescapable. It runs through the path of darkness and recovery and light.” I have to admit that the mention of feeling stuck in a situation is what really spoke to me, as I often feel quite futile about my own life.

Broadly, upon listening to the album, I found a pleasing blend of tones and drones, from plucked guitar strings to fuzzy vibrating low tones, with plenty of warping and echoing for good measure. Certain of the tracks also included field-recorded sounds that helped give the soundscapes a feeling of depth and distance, whether snippets of bird song seemingly caught through an open window, or the more visceral and central use of the sounds of crowds and applause. What all of the tracks seem to share is a dose of the surreal, and it was fun to ponder what was actually happening during each one.

One of my favourite tracks is the opening track Golden Furniture in a Fading Room. It features guitar notes and other twisting and warping tones. There is a squeaky floorboard aesthetic too, with various beeps and crackles creating a charged but heavy atmosphere. Towards the end of the track, there are snatches of voice and birdsong, along with echoing footsteps. This track really did bring to mind the atmosphere in a room, with snatches of outside life wafting in through the open window.

Predicament is also a track that stood out as, once again, it seemed to deftly embody the track title. A low growing drone gets things started, with higher tones becoming apparent at the edges. A faint jitter and whisper-like vibration dances around plucked notes, creating an airy but dark feeling. There are echoes and a metallic clink, and a sudden buffeting feeling. Things get screechy and distorted, like a storm is brewing, and after a while, a male and female voice can be heard. For me, this track felt like two people who live together having a big row, and the anger and calm that ebbs and flows as a consequence. This track seems to contain a whole host of feelings and moods, and this adds a tension that feels like a maelstrom of peace and frenzy.

Another track that I really liked was Faces. It begins with horn-like tones. These are soon joined by the sounds of clapping and whistles. This track feels like the curtain call at the end of some kind of show, but one in which a hint of dark discord begins to grow. After the midpoint of the track, the notes begin to distort into a kind of self parody. There is a topsy-turvy feeling, a low metallic vibration, and a harsher high pitched tone that chimes and warps and makes everything seem to waver. To me, this track had a number of moods, from the way that our self critic berates us when we make mistakes, to the folly of trying to gain approval from other people and how quickly it can be taken away for no reason. The track ends with a pounding beat that merges with the following track, which I will talk about next.

Feels the Same in the Crimson Room creates the soundscape of sitting in a nightclub, the babble of voices, music and the tinkling of glasses. There is a slight warpy feeling and things halt around sudden laughter. There is a distorted mic thump and a feeling of isolation and anxiety that feels similar to the previous track Faces. This track felt like trying to get away from your mental demons by going out and meeting people, only to find, as always, that you can’t get away from yourself or your shitty mental health. I enjoyed the way that this track was a total departure from the others in the way of being a beaty, dancy affair, but one corrupted by a darkness that still keeps it in line with the general tone of the album. A pleasant surprise.

The final track that I wanted to mention was Imp. Twisting, tinny electronic tones rise and fall, soon joined by piano-like notes that feature a bit of a lumping “spang” at the fringes. A high buzz joins a while later, with a higher tone sitting above everything. For me, this was a track of creeping shadows, of sitting in a dark room with the door opened a crack and a narrow dart of light highlighting the bare floorboards. Later, there are scuffing motions and warbling, twisty plucked notes. A flute-like tone also joins the fun. This track felt like a peaceful exploration of numbness, of that nothing feeling where you and the world both feel like nothing, and all there is, is the light cast on the bare wooden floorboards.

My House Is Full of Faces is a dark ambient album that does a fine job of creating moods that sit at the more subtle end of the spectrum. While it might be easier to give audible voice to more clear-cut and extreme emotions, this album nestles languidly in the grey areas, seemingly presenting those moments of pre or post-emotional numbness and despair that are easy to miss when more overt feelings of doom dominate. If you enjoy music that explores feelings of stagnation, ennui and disconnection, you might like to check out My House Is Full of Faces on Bandcamp.

 

I was given a review copy of this album

Album Title: My House Is Full of Faces

Album Artist: Mutestare

Released: 23 March 2025

Dark Ambient Review: Morphology

Review By Casey Douglass

I recently rewatched Marvel’s 2016 Doctor Strange film, and as I sit here trying to think of an opening paragraph for this post, it occurs to me that the scenes in which said doctor plummets through bizarre, ever evolving dimensions gel quite nicely with Diagnostic aka Jan Robbe’s dark ambient album Morphology. This is because, in my opinion, Morphology would be an excellent audio accompaniment if you are ever lucky enough to find yourself blasting through this kind of weird infinity.

Jan used a variety of sound design techniques when he created Morphology, weaving the influences of machine learning and chaos into each track, building up soundscapes with fluctuating discord and smoothly birthing reality bubbles, before pricking them with the next squeal of tone. The album art itself gives form to this feeling of the unusual. For me, it evokes notions of Giger, biological morphing and twisting alien realms, which makes it a great fit for the audio itself. The tracks themselves are whizzing, whirring maelstroms of sound pierced by periods during which you can settle into a kind of rhythm or comfort. That’s not to say they aren’t comfortable at other times, as even at their most frenetic, the sounds stay interesting and the right side of harsh.

Sensory Deprivation is my favourite track. It begins with a kind of “giant gas furnace bursting into flame” impression. A gentle squealing rises before giant rumbling crashes seem to hint at the ground itself folding over. There are moments of quiet static and then the cascade begins again. This track made me think of a hellish rocky landscape being sun-blasted by a nearby angry star. The colours of the scene are red and black, the shadows flickering and dancing as the massive energy swells scrape the surface of the landscape. This track made me feel both sci-fi planet explorer, hell denizen and slasher murder movie victim all at the same time. Dark, and I love it.

Hayabusa-2 is another track that stood out for me. This one opens with a pulsing, chiming, sparkling energy swirl, but soon morphs into a creaking, thudding space. There is the impression of things clattering and falling around, and this track felt very much like it might be describing a “quantum lodger dragging a quark-based table across their apartment floor”. After the midpoint, the track turns into a more haunted space, maybe shifting up to a more gross level of reality and letting the uneasiness sit there. Obviously, this is just my own mental narrative, but I liked the avenues that my mental taxi drove me down.

The final track that I’ll single out for attention is Morphology AI A. It starts with a muted rumble and a burst of what might be music. There is a ‘roaming wind’ feeling, like a distant storm. I thought that there were hints of tone that suggested technology coming to life, and a feeling of “channel hopping on TV”. As the midpoint approaches, there is something I noted down as “existential wonder-blare”, the kind of thing that you might hear if an angel actually appeared at your darkest time. This moment felt like some kind of bubble bursting, the wonder-blaring space that consumes the track hereafter an echoing, cave-like vastness, which contrasts wonderfully with the tech-fizz of the opening.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure how I’d get on with Morphology. It was certainly a departure for me, in regards to the type of dark ambient or experimental music that I’ve listened to before. What I found was an album that fizzed, warped and exploded its way through layer after layer of aural exploration, but one that managed to do this in a way that felt kind to the ears. Whether it’s kind to the mind will depend on the particular mind that’s listening. If you are someone who likes to ponder the vastness of the cosmos, of time, and the possibility of countless dimensions, I think that you’ll enjoy losing yourself for awhile in Morphology.

Visit the Morphology page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also stream the whole album on Jan’s YouTube channel embedded below. If you’d like to learn more about Morphology and Jan himself, you can find the interview that he kindly gave me at this link.

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Morphology

Album Artist: Diagnostic / Jan Robbe

Released: 28 April 2022

Dark Ambient Interview: Jan Robbe

Jan Robbe is a composer, programmer, artist and sound designer, one with a love of broken rhythms, experimental electronic soundscapes, and the possibilities afforded by using technology in the creative process. Along with co-founding the netlabel Entity, Jan has various music projects to his name including UndaCova, Atomhead, Duncan Avoid and Diagnostic, the last of which is how we began chatting.

In this interview, Jan reveals how he got started with the tracker scene back in the 90s, the perils of getting stuck in one type of creative style, and who his inspirations are. He also tells us which software and hardware he likes to utilise, how he uses neural networks as an aid to his creations, and why he thinks that humans using A.I for creativity is a dance that benefits us greatly.

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Casey: The description of the latest album under your Diagnostic name, Morphology, tells the listener that you utilised things such as non-linear feedback loops and neural networks, among other approaches, when you created this album. Before we get to that though, in the 90’s, you experimented with tracker software on hardware that was far less powerful than that which is available today. What brought the young Jan Robbe to music creation, and what sort of software and hardware were you using back then?

Jan: Back then my interest in music creation coincided with the discovery of the tracker scene. Simply searching for free music on the internet, that was also small in download size (actually a factor at that time) led me to the Fasttracker / Impulse Tracker software that many artists were using. I remember being shocked by how good the music actually was, even though netlabels were putting it online for free, it was a true explosion of creativity.

So I used Fasttracker at first, but my music wasn't very good. It wasn't until Fruityloops came along, with the support of VST plugins, that things really got interesting. I understood that I didn't actually need to buy any sophisticated hardware to make pleasing sounds, in fact it was all pretty much free of charge.

Around 1999 was when I really caught the producing bug and decided I would make a track every day, with the sole mission of making something that I could be proud of, and perhaps also something that others would enjoy.

Casey: Committing to creating a track every day and doing it for the intrinsic feeling of satisfaction are both great ways to go about any sort of creative endeavour. Have there been periods where you fell out of love with the music or the process, for whatever reason, and are there any other mental approaches or techniques that you use to help to get yourself back on track?

Jan: Especially in the very beginning there were several moments where I simply gave up. It takes a lot of time to grasp all the concepts (synthesis, mixing, compression, fx, ...), but my love for music has always brought me back. By now it's my preferred creative outlet, I almost need it to feel sane, to catch emotional unease by the throat. Or simply for my own enjoyment.

There have been periods where I just lacked the time or inspiration, but I keep in mind that these are only temporary. Life gets in the way since it's never been a sustainable thing for me. Getting stuck in a singular style has also proven to be a problem, but changing up, learning new styles is just endless fun. There's always some artist that will inspire me to make something new.

Casey: Who were some of your biggest influences and inspirations when it came to the music that you wanted to create, and how might this have led to you co-founding the Entity website?

Jan: I remember feeling bothered with commercial electronic music being very repetitive and similar. There was a clear opportunity to just break things, you know, like broken rhythms, breakbeats, but not as a looping structure... I wanted it to just keep on breaking itself with endless variation. Aphex Twin seemed like one of the first to really execute this idea properly, with Squarepusher and Autechre working in parallel and really pushing the boundary of sound. Along came Venetian Snares, which really spoke to me as I always preferred the harder side of music.

But you know, life isn't all metal and violence, so in that regard, say around 2002, I found my counterpart in ambient and more specifically, dark ambient / drone music, just to cover a wider emotional spectrum, using music as therapy.

In 2003, with my friend Nico, we started a website to promote the experimental approach in electronic music. Something that wasn't genre-bound, but simply sounding good to our ears with the artists' authenticity shining through: Entity. This way we got to really know and discover artists, work with them and help them reach some listeners, however small the audience, it didn't matter much as we felt connected in our cause. We all know we are an odd bunch anyway.

Fast forward to today, the list of artists I appreciate just keeps on growing. In my current playlist there's KK Null, SØS Gunver Ryberg, Fernanda Martins, Alphaxone, ProtoU, Marco Monfardini, Oophoi and Ionosphere to name a few.

Casey: As with so much in the music world, the technological world has advanced a great deal in a few short decades. What have been some of the most exciting tools for you to use during that time, and what does your current composing/creation environment include?

Jan: Along came things like Native Instruments Reaktor, Absynth and granular synths (most notably the native Granulizer in FLStudio and Robert Henke's Granulator) which really took sampling to the next level. In later Atomhead works I got a bit obsessed with Rob Papen's Subboombass which served as the basis for a lot of my drums / bass sequences. UHE Bazille became my go-to modular emulator, and eventually got me into the analog modular domain.

For a couple of years now I've collected Eurorack modules and experimented with them, and while there is certainly a uniqueness to this approach, and improvisation is very gratifying, I find myself returning to the digital domain since I see myself more as a composer / programmer / sound designer than a performer.

Casey: For Morphology, you made use of machine learning to create the sounds it contains. What need does machine learning fulfil in your creative process, and how do you train the neural network to give you output that is in the ballpark of what you are looking for... Or do you use it more as an element of chaos and let it throw up things for you to spring off from?

Jan: I've always had an interest in how the brain works, how we perceive music and sound, so when the opportunity arises to experiment I gladly jump on the train. A.I is an important evolution, of which we are only scratching the surface. It is evolving at an enormous pace, it's actually hard to keep up, but using Google Colab's cloud computing service it became more convenient as some of the notebooks are easier to grasp and don't require an advanced degree in programming to use.

Using the Jukebox AI notebooks, there are a couple ways to go about it. One method is to prompt it with a piece of music, and have it "guess" what the continuation might be, based on a large pre-trained database of music or "model". When you are in a creative rut, it's obvious how this output could be used to your advantage since the results are entirely unpredictable.

For Morphology I found it more apt to train my own neural network, based on the material that I had already created, in order for it to produce variations of itself. Most of the time it tends to output a mess of unintelligible garble. But once in a while, something entirely unique comes out of it, something that also displays actual emotive content, that I wouldn't have created myself, though it still contains the gist of the sources so it would "fit" with the rest.

Casey: The other element mentioned in the description of Morphology is chaos, by way of non-linear feedback loops. I’d imagine that your neural network’s output produced plenty of chaos that also made it into the track. How important was it for you to have some chaos in Morphology, why does it appeal to you, and why are non-linear feedback loops a fine place to find it?

Jan: Chaos is not just a kind of randomness, it's best understood in terms of Chaos Theory, a chapter in System Dynamics, which covers emergent complexity.

Using modular synths, chaotic feedback systems can be quite easily achieved. My favourite method is to patch the output of an oscillator into a filter, then feed it back into the oscillator (SYNC or FM inputs). Many strange noises will ensue and it doesn't take a lot for it to go completely haywire, going off on its own tangents (simply automate the filter cutoff or something).

There's more methods, for example there are modules which can create Lorenz Attractors or similar chaotic functions. They can act like an LFO, without exactly repeating themselves. So it's non-repetitive, much like a non-periodic tiling (e.g. Escher or Penrose), it tends to sound more interesting, alive, unpredictable, than something which simply repeats itself.

Casey: Alongside your music creation projects, you’ve long had an interest in generative design, making use of its concepts when it comes to your fractal computer artwork, and in your 2014 game Hyperspace Invaders. At the moment, a key element seems to be the human involvement in training or assessing what the software outputs, making sure that it achieves a certain task or function. What advancements in areas such as machine learning, would you most like to see with regards to things that you might currently find restrictive or a struggle, and do you have any concerns about the paths that A.I might take us down when it comes to the creation of art in whichever form?

Hyperspace Invaders Screenshot

Jan: I can't wait for these systems to become faster and more convenient. I don't see a problem for creativity, quite the contrary. Humans will adapt to this technology, like a dance. I've heard someone say that "the code is the art", and while I agree, I also still think that selecting and applying the output are creative choices. For example, text to image, where you prompt the neural network with keywords (like "a cat in a bag travelling into another dimension")... it generates a picture based on your description. It could be the final form. Or it could inspire you to make a game or movie concept or anything you can imagine. Imagination is limitless. A.I is simply an extra tool for us to employ. An extremely powerful one at that.

Casey: As someone with a finger in so many creative pies, what does the immediate future hold for your creative endeavours?

Jan: I'm focusing on sound design and composition for video games, at least I will try and see if that's a feasible thing to find a job in. I want to check out more A.I. scripts, both in audio & image/video, it's very exciting.

Perhaps at some point I will have another stab at a mini Hyperspace Invaders iteration (hyper casual), if the situation permits it.

I'm finishing a flashcore EP with my friend Eelke of Anti-Narcose Records which will probably be my next release.

I definitely want to make more ambient-style things too, both in collab and solo. I would love to dedicate more time to Entity. But as you can probably tell, that's a lot for one plate, so, don't wait up, just have a check now & then :)

* * *

Thanks so much to Jan for taking the time to chat with me. If you’d like to read more about Morphology, I’ll be writing and posting my impressions in the coming days. (Casey from the future says looky here).

You can find Jan’s creations in a variety of places, such as Bandcamp, Soundcloud and Facebook. You’ll find his digital art (such as the picture below) at FRAMEofMIND, and the netlabel at Entity. You an also find Hyperspace Invaders on Steam.

Catharsis by FRAMEofMIND

Dark Music Review: Esoterika

Dark Music Review: Esoterika

Review by Casey Douglass

Esoterika is the most recent album from Humanfobia, a dark experimental music project from Chile. It consists of two members: Mist Spectra and Sábila Orbe, and is a project inspired by the supernatural, life after death and ghostly happenings. The music could fall into any number of categories, from dark ambient to witch house, but it’s dark, which is the main thing I tend to look for.

On Esoterika, Mist Spectra provides the haunting feminine vocals, her phasing shimmering words at times clear and bright, at others like a whisper from the grave, depending on the track. Sadly, I don’t speak Spanish, so I couldn’t understand what was being said, but the track titles gave enough of a hint for me to get the feel of what was happening.

This leads me to the first track that I clicked with: Gato Negro (black cat). A bouncy electronic tone sets a rhythm, and is soon joined by the sharp meow of a cat. It’s all a little discordant, which is part of the charm. The cat sounds range from the normal to the quite severe, and at times, the other sounds in the track seem to mimic the cat. By the end, I thoroughly had the cat’s meow on my brain, and came away really liking the track.

Next up is Phantasmal Doppelg▲nger. A fast beat is joined by a ghostly wavering voice, while a quieter rhythm sits in the background, carrying the track along. Beeps and bursts of electronic noise join things, a little like a modem handshake at a laser show, and the voice, when it fades and reappears, shimmers. The overall image this track created in my mind was what it would be like for a ghost or creature to come through an old CRT monitor, only to stare the user in the eyes as their double.

Ʃso₸erika is next, a punchy track with a mixture of both masculine and feminine vocals, along with various electronic tones and beats. The vocals seem to stutter in and out, phasing with the pulsing notes. It almost sounded a little like a chip-tune song to me at around the midpoint, something from an old NES video game corrupted by dark influences maybe? A fun track though, either way.

MΛgic Spells of Doom is the final track I wanted to talk about individually. Fuzzy electro noises and vocals from Mist Spectra echo and squelch into a soundscape that's ripe with buzzing activity. There is also a pleasing muffled effect, like the digitized sounds are happening underwater. Later there are what could be the sounds of a radio sweeping through frequencies, maybe the spell-caster of the title tapping into different levels of existence?

All of the tracks on Esoterika are haunting in their own way, the various electronic sounds, samples and tones creating a dark digital space in which technology and the supernatural just might be meeting and bashing out a few obscene offspring. I’m not used to listening to the kind of electronic beats that Esoterika provides, but the dark samples and tone held this dark ambient fan’s interest throughout. What’s more, Esoterika is a free download from the Humanfobia Bandcamp page. You can visit that page by clicking here if you’d like to find out more. You might also like to check out Phantasmal Doppelg▲nger below:

Album Title: Esoterika

Album Artist: Humanfobia

Released: 8 Oct 2018

Dark Fiction - Viewpoint

Viewpoint

By Casey Douglass

as part of #fridayflash 

(Something a bit different this week. Read only the bold text, ignoring the italics, then when you get to the end, start again at the beginning and read through it again, but only reading the italics the second time.)

Mike watched the tip of the hoodie as it crested above the pot noodle stand. His heart lumped a couple of times as it missed a few beats. Not another one he thought. Jason browsed the garishly coloured snacks on the shelves, shaking his head at the additives and sugar each contained. If his body was a temple, he certainly wasn’t going to be filling it with prostitutes. He edged along the counter to the panic button. At a snails pace, he pushed his hand below the lip of the surface, his finger trembling as it just touched the garish red plastic. He paused his aisle roaming and smiled. It didn’t sound right but he could use that for his art project. He ran a finger along the bottles, their shiny plastic reflecting the lights into tiny UFO trails. He looked out through the building length window. The only other inhabitant of the petrol station was an elderly man struggling to get the petrol cap off his ageing Rover. He would be next to worthless if anything kicked off. Damn it. It was always the way. He shivered and wrapped his grey jacket around him more tightly. He was glad it had a hood, this chill or bug or whatever it might be was really getting to him. He caught a sight of the attendant through the cans of Pringles. Six times the place had been turned over this year and it always happened when it was dead. Well, Mike thought, no doubt the little shits keep watch and choose their moment. He was looking through the window with a far away glaze to his eyes. Jason thanked his lucky stars that he didn’t have to work a job like that. He knew he would probably start hacking into his wrists with that razor again. Thankfully, that was a long time ago. He wouldn’t get like that again. Mike glanced back to ascertain where the roaming youth was now and jolted as he found himself looking into the depths of the hood. The boy’s mouth was drawn in an ugly grimace, the edges drawing up into his cheeks in a way that made Mike think of the Batman villain Joker. He decided to give up his hunt for something to eat and just pick up a packet of cigarettes instead. He moved to the counter and waited, the attendant still miles away. Jason wondered whether to cough. His phone vibrated in his pocket. He frowned, knowing it would be Teresa. She never got the hint. He placed one hand on the counter and pushed his other into his pocket. The boy stood on the other side of the counter, one hand upon the counter, the other hidden in his left hoodie pocket. Mike’s eyes stared at the covered hand, watching for any tell-tale sign of a sharp edge. The boy spoke. Adrenaline shot through Mike’s veins, a slight convulsion rippling through his organs and setting him trembling. He pushed the button. The attendant turned. Mike asked for a packet of Marlboro. The attendant flinched, and the world got a whole lot louder.

THE END

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