Dark Ambient Review: Dionysius Supernova

Review By Casey Douglass

Whether you believe in some all supreme being or not, the universe is already an awe inspiring place, with vast distances to which we can put numbers but can barely visualize, to energy and crushing forces that create and destroy beyond anything that us humans can experience. I’ve always appreciated dark ambient / space ambient that manages to impart some small element of this immensity, and Orphiká’s Dionysius Supernova is the most recent that has crossed my mental space.

The album description describes Dionysius Supernova as conceiving “the cosmic forces of the Universe as a Dionysian blast as well as a context of an inner travel into the Sun,” so you can make of that what you will. As is often the case, my mind took things in its own direction, but the sounds themselves do fit the theme of vast energies being expended or experienced. The sounds are big, and vary in texture, from fizzing, sometimes screechy energy bursts, to deep, smooth down-swells, like a giant finger pushing down on reality. They also felt to me, like a knife-edge type sensation, the balance between creation and destruction being decided by the thinnest of borders.

Opening track Universe Metanoia is a fine introduction to the album, the audio equivalent of a beautiful sunrise, yet one in which you feel like you are merely inches from the star itself. The sustained tones and drone are joined by higher notes that sweep and flow and judder, always reminding you that no matter how much light is before you, there is unending darkness behind. The soundscape feels immense, energetic and worshipful, cresting in shimmery waves. It feels like a variety of forces, both physical and metaphysical, are converging for your own enjoyment.

If the first track felt like “light”, the second track, Dionysius Supernova, felt like a heavy encounter between light and dark. It begins with deep, slow tones and a drone, soon joined by fizzing bursts of buzzing energy. A higher tone crests and climbs, but it seems like it’s struggling to break through, maybe due to distance. The fizzing discharges and pulses, and a higher piping tone joins. Things escalate as the midpoint approaches, and the track edges closer to a noise-based experience. Things distort and crackle at their limits. The high tones almost become uncomfortable and the fizzing discharges continue to boom in the low end. This track felt like one of struggle and strain, but also of majesty, and things being just as they need to be.

Blackened Stars is probably my favourite track though, and I think it is in the way that it presents the cold, deathly aspect of darkness. It opens with flares of static and a low, distant tone that seems to menace as it roams nearer and shrinks further. After listening to the first two tracks and feeling pleasantly drowsy, my mind took the sounds of this track and had me thinking about some kind of gigantic fortress floating in space, a strange purple light occasionally revealing strange markings on its walls. I might possibly have been reading too much Warhammer 40K. This construction sat in black space with no other stars, just the light that it emitted as it throbbed its way across the endless expanse. There are higher sustained tones, almost alarm-like, which further reinforced my sense of foreboding. I really liked this track!

Dionysius Supernova is, for me, an album that stays just the right side of “harsh”. It’s noisy and droning enough to fill my ears and mind with tones that give me a break from the perpetual anxiety and depression cycle that seems to live there. I’ve only described the first three tracks; there are eight in total, and they are all excellent. If you want to float on a comfy bed of droning galactic-noise, to have your mind blasted (in a nice way) by distortions and rumbles and climbing tones, you should check out Dionysius Supernova.

Visit the Dionysius Supernova page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also check out the track Constant Horizons below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Dionysius Supernova

Album Artist: Orphiká

Label: Noctivagant

Released: 20 March 2022

Dark Music Review: Insektio

Review By Casey Douglass

People often look to space when they think about strange lifeforms that we, if we ever meet them, might struggle to understand. The annals of sci-fi and horror are full of another alternative though, that of the insect world scuttling around beneath our feet. Insektio is an experimental noise album from Umpio, one that takes this chitinous world of insects as its muse, and comes out the other side with flakes of exoskeleton stuck to its lips.

So what does Insektio sound like? Well, it’s a screeching, popping, buzzing, clicking, rumbling, darting collection of tracks, each with its own feel. Some sound like they might be the audio equivalent of mandibles clacking and cutting. Others like insects might sound if they were somehow upgraded into weaponised military tools, like a thundering beetle-like attack chopper thumping over the horizon. I know that the album title and artwork frames the impressions that you are likely to get, but the tracks really do seem to embody the alien-like qualities of insects and their movements. It’s really fun to listen to.

My favourite track is probably the first one: Nocturnal Trigger Patterns. I think this is because it was this track that pulled back the veil and made me realize how rich the album would be for impressions and interpretations. It begins with an ear to ear screeching, rustling, thumping sound, hisses emerging from a sea of digital static. It felt like millions of tiny legs scratching along wooden beams. A high whining tone appears, one not unlike a retro 80s sci-fi UFO might make. A buzzing begins, pulsing in regular intervals, deeper bass tones giving the track more heft. Some of the notes I wrote about the images flowing through my mind included “demonic ticking clock”, “Military cockroach” and “snuffling pig eating”.

Another track that stood out for me is Asymmetrical Phonotaxis. It starts with small trills and beeps, with bass tones fluttering beneath things. After the business of previous tracks, this one felt chilled and restful by comparison. A boiling static begins, and then the sound that I really enjoyed, a sound that seemed like tens of metal cans rolling down a junk-yard pile of scrap. A dark hissing sits over things, and I half wondered if some kind of insect was using the cans as their new homes, snail-shell style. The thought of a junk-yard of tin cans scuttling around on slender legs made me smile. When the insects seize control, I hope they will be kinder to us than we are to them.

Wing Movement Communication is also a fun track, one with some very interesting sounds. After the darting fuzzy tones and echoes at the start, things turn a bit grainy, with a cascading sand-like feeling. There are impressions of scuttling, cloaking things in an itchy blanket of little legs. Some of the tones take on the aspect of a clipped elephant trumpeting call, the echoes and shrills chased by more scurrying movement. If the insects are communicating, I can only wonder about what they might be saying.

Insektio is an album that paints a compelling audio impression of a world that we often ignore. I don’t think any of the sounds could be considered as pleasant, but when taken as a whole, each track becomes a smoother kind of whole. Maybe when you pour so many harsh or strong sounds into the mix, they inevitably knock a few of the harder edges from each other. I was also surprised at the richness of the mental impressions that arose in my mind, as I don’t tend to listen to albums that might fall nearer the “noise” end of the spectrum. A fine album.

Visit the Insektio page on Bandcamp for more information.

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Insektio

Album Artist: Umpio

Label: ZHELEZOBETON

Released: 31 May 2021