Dark Ambient Review: DIM (Reissue)

Review by Casey Douglass

I’m a big fan of the dark ambient creations of Xerxes The Dark. However, almost two years ago, I had the chance to review the DIM (Reissue) and I didn’t really feel it was to my taste. Fate had other ideas though, and in my recent review of Xerxe’s mammoth X-Theory collection, I was exposed to one of DIM (Reissues)’s tracks: Dimmer. I really enjoyed it, and decided that I really should take a closer listen to the album. So here I am, after having taken a closer listen.

As the album description explains, DIM was the first Xerxes The Dark album that Morego Dimmer released. The original had more tracks, but as I hadn’t heard the original, I came fresh into the reissue with nothing to really compare it to. This version has a few less tracks but was remastered to increase the quality. I can appreciate that the album a high-school age Morego produced back in the day might stand to have some deft tweaks and edits here and there, much like my writing from only a few years ago. So fair play to Morego for going back to squeeze some extra goodness from the raw material that he had already produced.

As I mentioned in the X-Theory review, Dimmer is still my favourite track. I thought that I described it quite well there, so I’ll simply quote myself (yuk) so that I can move on to some of the others. “Dimmer is a fast-paced, retro-feeling, somewhat jaunty track that I found got stuck in my mind. It opens with an electronic melody that gets loud enough to feel almost uncomfortable, but then fades a little when lower tones join in. This track has a feeling of massive momentum, and the grainy distortion of the tones just gives it even more charm. Maybe it’s a radio broadcast from another universe, or maybe it’s a dimension jumper’s soundtrack of choice before they engage their mini-black hole-fuelled jump device. It’s a track that feels bright and vigorous, with a retro aesthetic that wouldn’t be amiss as the theme to a Netflix nostalgia-fuelled sci-fi series.”

The opening track, Dim Curse, is another that I had fun with. It starts with bursts of static, a drone and a warbly echo, and it put me in mind of the white static hiss you get on an old TV with no signal. As the track continues, I felt like the ghost of a picture or pattern was starting to form, a feeling of something trying to break through. With the tones that sweep up and down and the general fuzzy feeling, it left me with more of that retro sci-fi feeling mentioned above, like something scary and fun was about to play out on screen, or even come through it.

Dim Land, the next track, is a less fuzzy one, but still with a playful aspect. Electronic tones ping off like laser beams into a colourful horizon, like the kind seen in an old video-game, where colour steals the awareness more than shape at times. Things feel like they hang in the air, which is something I noted down as “like flotsam in the wake of a starship in a purple universe.” Later in Dim Land, I heard agitated electronic tones, spirals, and an airy sound that just might be the sharp intake of breath through razor-blade lips. This is a pretty trippy album for me, and I enjoyed the variety of images that the tones and soundscapes inspired in my mind.

DIM (Reissue) was an album I flicked through previously, but on returning to it, I found a lot to enjoy. I don’t know if my tastes have changed in the few years since I first sampled it, or if I just decided too quickly that it wasn’t for me at the time, but sitting here, in present day 2021, I’m glad X-Theory gave me another chance to return to it and to give it a decent chance. What I found was a fun, trippy, lo-fi electronic album, with some catchy melodies and a time-warping feeling of nostalgia. Most of the tracks seem to echo or incorporate the sounds that you hear in previous ones, and this helps build a real feeling of continuity and cohesion. If you like your dark ambient a bit more electronic, a bit more frenetic, and a lot more fuzzy, check out DIM (Reissue).

Visit the DIM (Reissue) page on Bandcamp for more information.

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: DIM (Reissue)

Album Artist: Xerxes The Dark

Label: Zāl Records

Released: 12 May 2019

Dark Ambient Review: Oracle Of The Throne Ov Fire

Review by Casey Douglass

Oracle Of The Throne Ov Fire is a dark ambient project from two occult-minded music projects: Emme Ya and Occult Odyssey. Both use their music as a way to expand their understanding of the systems that they embrace, and to also deepen their explorations into the energies that they deal with. It has been a long time since I’ve read anything related to the occult or to magickal systems, so I have to admit to a head-scratching rustiness when it comes to some of the entities or systems referenced. As always, I’ll fall back on my usual approach to writing a review, that of describing the music and the images that it created in my mind.

The first thing to address is that this is a chant and ritual drumbeat-fuelled album. From the very first track: Miccacuicatl - Mictlantecuhtli (Funeral Chant to Miclantecuhtli), the listener is treated to dark, echoing spaces and semi-distant chanting. For me, I had the impression of some earthen-walled grotto, someone deep inside throat-chanting around a bend that I couldn’t see. A blown pipe-type note pierces the soundscape, a deeper tone hanging in the air. The chanting turns to whispers, the space pulses with a bass throb, and the feeling of things manifesting or responding to the chanter intensifies. I particularly enjoyed how the whispers or chanting “clicked” or “grated” at times, setting up their own rhythm that carries the listener along.

I think my favourite track has to be Descending Into The Temple of Pestilence. It opens with a vibrating rumbling and a hiss, with higher tones sitting above everything. A short time in, a piercing ringing sound starts, sharp and defined in the right ear, a shadowy, rustling version in the left. A chant begins, crackles and rumblings tickling at its edges. The voices and chants seem to come from both male and female throats, and when combined with the perpetual chiming and rumbles, creates a lovely feeling of energies shifting. Some of the spoken words are even reversed at times, which gives them a lovely, strange quality. I think, for me, this track could be the soundtrack to a procession making its way down into a forbidden temple, the rocky pathways falling away into massive drops on either side, the temple in the distance casting a strange glow against the rock walls that surround it.

Another track that I greatly enjoyed was Chants of Putrescence. In part, this was because it’s a bit of a departure from the deeper sounds of the others. Chants of Putrescence opens with chiming notes and a growing high-pitched shimmering sound. These build and build, cracking a little as they flood the track. A reverb-like effect vibrates and quietens things. As the high-pitched tones return to build again, a low chant accompanies them, a fast drumbeat its companion. I enjoyed the semi-ear splitting sounds of this track. The high tones, the low chant, the drumbeat and other vocals create a chiming space that manages to feel both golden and shining, while at the same time corrupt and warped.

Oracle Of The Throne Ov Fire is very much an album for people who enjoy the power of the human voice, the tones and drones that we can emit, and the words that we can drive with strange energies or hidden intents. If you have any awareness of the occult, you’ll likely get a good deal from this album, but even if you just approach it as another prospective dark ambient album for your collection, it can create some wonderful spaces for you to enjoy.

Visit the Oracle Of The Throne Ov Fire page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also listen to Funeral Chant to Miclantecuhtli below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Oracle Of The Throne Ov Fire

Album Artist: Emme Ya & Occult Odyssey

Label: Noctivagant

Released: 23 Nov 2020

Dark Fiction: Good Luck!

By Casey Douglass

Image from Oliver Hale @ Unsplash

Mr “Lucky”: 8:27pm:

The bass throbbed through the walls. He half wondered if it actually made the air in the toilet smell worse, somehow massaging the particles and releasing their full stinking potential. He wasn’t surprised by the smell, or that some other enterprising souls had got into the toilet before the main act started. The support band were decent, but worth missing the end for some bladder comfort.

His trainers squeaked on the sticky floor. The urinals were all occupied, the two cubicles were too. A guy was waiting outside the first stall, the other had no queue. He sidled over and waited near the latter.

A toilet flushed. Another followed. The door in-front of him swung open. He exchanged a brief nod with the man who emerged. As he entered the cubicle, the door of the other one swung open as well. He heard a voice chuckle and exclaim: ‘Good luck!’ to the waiting man.

He shut the door behind himself, and heard the companion door close on the other side. He then heard an ‘Ughhhh!’

He grinned at the stained wall as his mind conjured up several images of what the unfortunate occupant next door was confronted with. The ‘Uggghhh’ had sounded quite nuanced. It was half “I’ve caught my scrotum in my zip” and half “Help me I’m dying!”

By the time he had pissed, flushed and left the toilet, the other stall was still occupied. He heard no sound coming from inside. He chuckled as he exited the room, merging with the darkness of the dance floor. He was eager to tell his mate about the poor soul who had clearly had a messy surprise, and how, if things had gone the other way, it might well have been him!

Mr “Poor Sod”: 8:25pm:

The guy in the toilet stall ahead of him was taking an eternity. He looked down at the gap underneath the door, wondering if he could see in which direction the denizen’s feet were facing. If they were facing the toilet... Shit, now he had mental images of the guy inside wanking over the porcelain bowl. The door that led back to the club swung open and another guy walked in. His nose wrinkled as he entered flavour country. The watcher tried not to smirk, and then realised that he’d been waiting for so long that he couldn’t even smell the noxious aromas any more. Damn it!

The newcomer appraised the occupied urinals and then settled a few paces to his right, in front of the other cubicle. No chance of switching queues now! The other guy had been in his a good while too, but he just knew that it would be the one to open first. This evening just gets better and better.

The other cubicle door flew open. He sighed. He half hoped the other guy would beckon him to go in, seeing as he had been waiting already. The guy just waltzed in, the thought probably didn't even cross his mind. Selfish prick!

The door in-front of him opened moments later, a grinning man gliding out, his eyes a bit wild, his movements jerky and uncoordinated. Great, it wasn’t wanking but drugs... He hoped there wasn’t a fucking needle left in there!

‘Good luck!’ the departing stranger chuckled.

The guy watched him open the exit and flounce out into the booming music. Must be a full moon, he thought, as he bit back an acidic reply. He tentatively entered the cubicle, his eyes scanning the walls, floor and the toilet itself. Everything looked very clean, surprisingly so. In fact, it all looked pretty damn good! Maybe his night was going to improve from here on out. Stranger things have happened!

He closed the door, turned, unzipped his jeans and began to urinate.

His head throbbed.

He looked down to make sure he was hitting the target.

He yelled.

Mr “Pissed Off”: 7:59pm:

The journey to get to the club was a long, expensive one. Not only did he have to grease official palms in two liminal zones, but the etheric passport renewal and body rental had cost an absolutely colossal chunk of karma. As was always the case, the body barely responded to orders from a seventh dimensional brain. It was this that caused most of the trouble.

The bouncer at the door had thought that he was drunk already, so he’d had to shimmy a trans-dimensional shortcut open and flop into the bar area. As was just his luck, he solidified on a big skinhead’s foot. The hand that had latched onto his throat felt like it was trying to squeeze his innards out through his ears. A different bouncer saw the altercation and a brawl began, giving him the chance to slip away.

His eyes hadn't adjusted to the dark just yet. He accidentally brushed against a woman as he picked his way through the crowd. He earned himself a stinging slap on the cheek for that one.

A hot fiery feeling began to bloom in his chest, the urge to incinerate the whole fucking club with a bit of spiritual flame. But no... he was better than that. He had to be, especially if he wanted to be let back home again.

Someone jabbed him in the side, darting fingers reaching for his wallet. He sent a crackle of electricity into the thief. A splash of hot urine christened his shoes.

He began to pant. He just wanted to see the band. Was that too much to fucking ask?

The support band was up on the stage, wailing and hammering and doing a fine job of making everyone look forward to the main act.

Just wait, he told himself, the night will be worth it. Just, just, a little mischief first, something to ease the pressure.

He angled himself through the crowd and jostled his way to the restroom.The air was thick. That was the only way to describe it. He switched his nostrils to plane of existence six and breathed in a nice meadow dew fragrance. Who needs air freshener when you have etheric senses!

The restroom was empty, so he made his way to the first cubicle, locking the door behind him. He looked down at the white toilet and rubbed his chin. Maybe a little infinitude? Or a bog monster? Or an etheric leech? So many choices, so many options. He heard footsteps entering the room. He opted for the infinitude, it was quieter.

His fingers danced, his third eye opened and the slightest flash of purple light fuzzed the air above the toilet rim. He clicked his fingers and the haze blurred into a vertigo-inducing drop. Even though he was expecting it, he still had to throw out a hand to catch himself on the paper dispenser. Toilets, all the way down, is the best way to describe the view. Some relatively normal, others gross and overflowing, others not made for backsides that any human might imagine. Toilet after toilet falling away and sweeping down, making the viewer’s mind think that it was about to tumble out of the world. He felt his rental body’s gorge rising, but closed his eyes just in time.

He became more aware of the noises all around the cubicle now, activity in the one next door, urine hitting urinals on the far side of the room. He saw the cubicle shake as the the stall next door was opened. He turned and opened his own, his eyes falling on a twenty something guy who looked about ready to punch someone.

‘Good luck!’ he smiled, a small chuckle escaping at the same time. He left the restroom and headed back into the throng, hoping that the rest of the evening would flow that little bit more sweetly.

THE END

***

This story was inspired by something that genuinely happened to me at a music concert. I was Mr Lucky above. I walked into the toilets and heard "Good luck" said to the guy next to me. I then heard the "Uggh!" and had to bite my lip to stop myself laughing out loud. I wanted to create something a little bit strange and a little bit funny around what might have happened to the guy in the next stall. This story is the result. Thanks for reading :).

Dark Ambient Review: Progression Of The Wolf

Review by Casey Douglass

When I was little, I used to be deathly afraid of wolves. I used to dream about them every night, werewolves and the more regular variety, and they always used to eat me. Now, I think they are amazing, and would love to be one of those brave people who care for a pack and can just walk in and tussle with them. The title of Dev-I-Ant’s dark ambient album Progression Of The Wolf got my attention for this very reason.

I don’t know which kind of wolf is progressing in this album. I suspect it’s one of the werewolf variety, for a couple of reasons. The first is that, you might think an album themed around wolves would be heavy on wolf-howls, but it isn’t. In fact, a lot of the sounds are a guttural, rasping snarl at most. The other reason that I suspect a transformation into a werewolf, is that many of the tracks feature a kind of “pounding on metal” sound, like someone kicking a sheet of corrugated metal, or slamming things around. That doesn’t really fit with a four-legged wolf’s activity, but it just might someone who is succumbing to the power of the Moon. I'll take my detective hat off for now. The butler did it though, have no doubt.

Another element of Progression Of The Wolf that I enjoyed, was the appearance of spoken words on many of the tracks. Lines such as: “Hell is home, the fire warms my bones, and the screams drown out my own” and “Flesh like canvas, blood as paint”. I thought these added an excellent extra focus to the rumbling, clanging soundscapes, and they also added a little extra flavour to the images that might be forming in the listener’s mind. A curious addition to the first track though, are sound-bites from The Predator film, the clicking mandibles, its attempts to copy human speech. I liked the track, and I love The Predator, but I’m not entirely sure how it sits with the other tracks. There are chain-like rattles and other sounds, so maybe the subject of the album is watching the film on TV before things go south?

The Path I No Longer Follow is probably my favourite track. It opens with a warbly, pulsing drone. It feels like a prolonged exhalation caught up in a rising wind. The muted sound of thunder cracks, bell chiming notes ring out, and the wind seems to blow with harder gusts. For me, this track brought to mind an exposed grassy hilltop, maybe overlooking the slate grey of the sea as storm-clouds come in. Later, there are the sounds of footsteps on leaves, someone literally walking a path. This led me to feel that someone was walking away from that hill, maybe into a nearby woodland, the kind where a fork looms in the path. One branch looks fair, and the other looks foul. I’d bet the walker takes the darker path.

The next track, Where Flesh and Soul Depart is also another favourite. This opens with the sound of a thunder storm too, and the chiming of a bell. The chiming lasts longer than it would take to signal the hour, making me think it’s a warning or alarm. A deep chant-like drone sits below everything, and then things fall silent. What is left is a rumbling, echoing soundscape, one pregnant with clanging metal, creaking, small knockings and other smaller sounds. The track pulses with malevolence and gives us a voice saying things like “The blade creates hurt” and the “Flesh like canvas, blood as paint” line mentioned above. Maybe the would-be wolf has holed up somewhere to wait out the storm.

The final track, Progression Of The Wolf, is the culmination of the wolf’s journey. It opens with a hollow, boiler-room drone and a lone wolf howling. There is a banging metal door rhythm and guttural, fleshy, eating sounds. It made me think that the change has happened, and that the new werewolf has found their way into the basement of a building, to get used to their new body in peace. There are more words in this track, words that tell of the wolf learning to survive and being set free. I really loved the howls and the wet sounds. Classic horror and power all rolled into one.

Progression Of The Wolf seems to be an album that describes an uncomfortable transformation, one that rubs up against the world and one in which the world is pushing back. It has the feeling of a furtive evolution, one that takes place in the shadows, with the howling wind and rumbling thunder battering the walls of sanity, as a being tries to fully realize their new nature. I can’t remember other dark ambient that felt this way for me, so it had a kind of novelty for me in this respect as well. Head over to the Bandcamp page below to check it out, if what I’ve said above sounds intriguing.

Visit the Progression Of The Wolf page on Bandcamp for more information.

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Progression Of The Wolf

Album Artist: Dev-I-Ant

Label: Kalpamantra

Released: 2 Jan 2021

Dark Ambient Review: Yig

Review by Casey Douglass

One of the really nice things about the recent Lovecraft-inspired Cryo Chamber Collaborations is that they are branching out into areas of his writings that I’m not that familiar with. I didn’t really remember much about Hastur when last year’s entry landed, and Yig, the newest release, is another that has sent me off, browsing the internet for more information. Yig is some sort of snake god, and as the album description details, this sets the scene for notions of strange cults, dusty temples and people hallucinating as snake venom flows through their veins.

With this notion in mind, I guess it’s not unreasonable that I thought that I heard the hissing of snakes in so many moments of listening to Yig. I dare say that if I was listening to an album with a different theme, I would have noted some of these sounds down as “static” or “whispers” or something else. But this time, it’s snakes, snakes everywhere. And why not. I’m not phobic about snakes, and I don’t love them either. I think my mind just enjoyed looking for signs of them, therefore finding plenty. There was also at least one instance where I thought I heard a rattlesnake rattling too, and I don’t think that was just wishful thinking.

As with previous Cryo Chamber Collaborations, a number of artists came together to create Yig. Their efforts formed into two, hour long tracks, that take the listener through a variety of experiences and soundscapes, melding and merging into different takes on the theme. For me, the sounds and tones created images of the shimmering sun, grainy desert winds and stone passageways that echoed with the hiss of snakes. There are sounds that I didn’t expect to hear either, ones with a more sci-fi feel. An example occurs around the five minute mark in track two. A dark brooding space seems to be lit by a whirring, spinning effect, the whole soundscape stuttering and distorting before finally smoothing out again. I really enjoyed this, as it confounded my expectations a little.

Around the twenty-third minute of the same track, the soundscape that the listener enters feels like it is full of gelatinous bubbling bubbles. You might even describe it as swampy and wet. There are deep tones that sound like the distant mumblings of a great creature, with insect-like scurrying sounds plucking at the dense atmosphere. Three minutes later, a crisp electronic tone seems to roam the soundscape, the effect it has on the bubbles one of agitation and annoyance. It’s a truly interesting soundscape to experience. As a whole, I felt that most of Yig gave me impressions of being underground, maybe in a sprawling city, or in strange cavernous landscapes. Besides this swamp-like space, at other moments I felt like I was in an underground garden, and of course, in various temples and ritual chambers. In track one, there was even a moment where some of the more gentle tones made me feel like I’d entered an area where sunlight from the surface just about managed to reach down to me, a tiny opening shining with blue sky, offering the prospect of escape, but only if you could somehow fly.

Another fun and unexpected moment, again in track two, happens at around the nineteenth minute. The soundscape is injected with jaunty bursts of tone, warping piano-like notes and the rumbling of a water or sand-fall. I wrote in my notes that it felt a bit “jazzy”, but only the kind of jazz you’d encounter in a bar at the end of the world. Even though I’ve drawn most of my examples from track two, both tracks have plenty to admire and enjoy. There is a variety of chant-like tones, drum beats, voices and plucked notes, alongside breathy tones, drones, rumbles and ghostly sounds. And as I said at the very start: hissing. Think of Yig as a journey from the desert into the depths of the Earth, seeing all kinds of biomes and structures as you travel. That’s how it appeared to me at least.

Yig is another fantastic Cryo Chamber Collaboration, an eldritch dark ambient creation that captures the bleak fatalism of Lovecraft’s horror. It swaddles the listener in darkness, guiding them into dark places and ominous vistas. It lifts up their spirit for brief periods, with hints of light and beauty, and then plunges them back down into the recesses of the Earth once again. If you like your dark ambient eldritch, sandy... and slithering, you’d do well to check out Yig.

Visit the Yig page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also check out the track Yig 2 below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Yig

Album Artist: Cryo Chamber Collaboration : Neizvestija, ProtoU, Dronny Darko, RNGMNN, In Quantum, Dead Melodies, Atrium Carceri, Keosz, Northumbria, Beyond the Ghost, Wordclock, God Body Disconnect, Randal Collier-Ford, Hilyard, Council of Nine, Dahlia's Tear, Lesa Listvy, Creation VI, Aegri Somnia, Ager Sonus, Ruptured World, Alphaxone.

Label: Cryo Chamber

Released: 29 Dec 2020

Dark Ambient Review: Daemon

Review by Casey Douglass

I think that I first came across the word “Daemon” when listening to the audiobook of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. In those books, it was an animal manifestation of someone’s inner-self, but the word has a number of other meanings, from the background processes on a computer, to Greek notions of deity. Mindspawn’s dark ambient album Daemon, is a contemplation of a number of these notions, and it tells the story of one daemon in particular.

One of the sounds that I most enjoyed on this album, occurs on a number of the tracks. It’s a strange, stifled voice, like someone trying to talk with no tongue, or an echo from a long way away in a dark tunnel. Supplicate is a track strong in this. It begins with a low drone and a chant-like quality entering the soundscape. A high tone stabs through the air, making the atmosphere warble. Then the strange voices begin, like something trying to communicate with you, but that you can’t really understand. The soundscape seems to boil and trundle along, and after the midpoint, some of the sounds made me wonder if some kind of debate was going on, but one that has moved further away from the listener. A dense, heady track.

Axon Terminus is another track that I really enjoyed. It opens with a whirring, resonating tone. A pulsing buzzing joins shortly after, a lower tone also blaring out like a horn. It’s not long after this that some of the tones clip and cut out mid pulse, like someone stifling them in the air with their fingers. It’s an interesting sensation and conveys a great quirky feeling of strangeness. As in most of the tracks on Daemon, this one is a low, brooding soundscape. Around the midpoint, it becomes a more chimey, resonant space. There is even the sound of what might a strange creature jabbering at one point. Maybe the daemon has passed through, from the darkness to light, like some kind of etheric stargate?

Another track that had a great texture was Margin of Error. For me, the soundscape felt like it was describing something fantastical, rubbing up against the more normal world. It felt like being in a deep underground car park, hearing the rumbling of traffic high above but far away. It felt like seeing strange lights and shadows, and feeling alone and far from help. The deep swells of tone even made it feel like hearing the breathing of some great leviathan, maybe even being inside it. I don’t know whose error is alluded to in the track title. It could easily be the wanderer in that dark place, or rumbling things that were aiming for somewhere else, but found themselves in the wrong location. It’s a very cool track.

Unbound is the last track that I’ll mention. It’s a deep, brooding space, vast but dense. There are sounds that might be distant cries, but they sound like a chainsaw revving up and down. A little later, there are wolf-like howls, shimmering echoes and a feeling of chittering. For me, this whole track brought to mind some kind of mental turmoil, taking the form of a vast underground cave system, rumbling with strange static and abyssal rumblings. Maybe the daemon has been severed from its linked-host and is wandering the mental projections of their mind, trying to find a way back to being remembered again. Whatever is going on, it’s fun to listen to.

Daemon is a rumbling, brooding album, the snatches of voice-like exclamations and the chant-like feel to the soundscapes make it a great album for contemplation. It’s smooth, echoing and wraith-like, and I thought it did a really nice job of creating the “alone, but not alone” feeling that any thought about daemons might bring up in us. It’s definitely an album that you should check out.

Visit the Daemon page on Bandcamp for more information.

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Daemon

Album Artist: Mindspawn

Released: 18 Dec 2020

Book Review: The Mind Workout

Review By Casey Douglass

My Obsessive Compulsive Disorder really came to a head when I was about ten years old. Thirty years later, it’s still my constant companion. Like most people tend to do, I’ve tried all manner of approaches to deal with it, from perspectives that tackle it head on, such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to others that try to lessen the symptoms in various ways. Mark Freeman’s The Mind Workout: Twenty steps to improve your mental health and take charge of your life combines a variety of approaches to improve the reader’s mental health. None were wholly new to me, but Mark’s way of knitting them together seemed to come at just the right time.

A month before I purchased Mark’s book, I picked up Jonas Salzgeber’s The Little Book of Stoicism. It must be about the fifth book I’ve read on Stoicism, a philosophy that I find compelling in many ways. The aspect that really sank into my mind on reading this particular book, was the concept of treating everything that happens each day as training. The idea behind this is that it lowers the stakes of things, making them easier to accept and to deal with. Pretty much the opposite to how OCD feels, treating so many things as life and death. That really resonated with me at that moment, even though it’s something I already “knew”. I recommend The Little Book of Stoicism.

Okay, you’re probably wondering why the second paragraph of this review talks about a wholly different book to the one mentioned in the first. Am I some kind of maverick reviewer who likes wasting your time? Not at all. I mention the “everything is training” idea, as it was shortly after I read that book that I discovered Mark’s The Mind Workout. The Stoic training idea so neatly went hand in hand with what Mark writes and teaches, it was a pleasing coincidence. Here were two books telling me the same thing in slightly different ways, one in Stoic terms, the other written by someone who used to be bedevilled by his OCD too! Many years ago, I came across Mark’s Acceptance Field Guide, so his writing wasn’t unknown to me. The Mind Workout expands on the topics he raises in that book wonderfully.

One of the core elements of The Mind Workout is revealed in the very first line of the introduction: “If you don’t run, it’s not weird if you can’t run”. I also enjoy a later quote: “If you avoid sweating, eventually everything makes you sweat. If you avoid anxiety, eventually everything makes you anxious.” One of the ways that Mark teaches the reader about mental health is to draw comparisons with how we build physical fitness and strength. We wouldn’t expect to be able to walk into a gym and pick up the heaviest weights from day one. He points out that, when it comes to our mental health, we need to have this kind of mindset too. He cements this idea by pointing out that how we use our minds during the day, the normal, “inconsequential” things that we do, all build up to get us into the mental difficulties that we might struggle with down the line.

One of the first exercises Mark gives the reader is to practise not checking their smartphone. Now this is by comparison to other things, a low stakes, low grade checking behaviour. Sure, urges are involved, habit, and uncertainty, but unless you are waiting for a ransom call linked to the kidnap of a loved one, it’s not likely to be fraught with super-strong emotions. Mark teaches that how we deal with uncertainty is the key to so much of our problem, and that by dealing with tiny uncertainties well, we can train our brain so that it might handle larger uncertainties more skilfully. Even not checking your phone when the urge arises begins this training, and after all, if you can’t handle the uncertainty of what you might be missing with a phone check, how are you going to live with some of the really “charged” uncertainties that life inevitably throws your way? This is us picking up the small weights at the gym, to start our journey towards those bigger ones at the edge of our vision.

I’ve known for a long time that once I give into an obsession and do some kind of controlling behaviour to make the anxiety go away, I’d be beset by further obsessions later. These might be related to the initial fear, or even in some wholly unrelated area, but it would still be like poking a hole in your tent in the rain, it just lets more misery through. What I didn’t do though, was to look at how the most mundane, boring actions of my day, all contributed to how I got to my current state of tizzy. Another of Mark’s exercises is something he calls “Taking a Compulsion Journey”. You sit with a bit of paper, draw a sweeping line, and write the compulsion you are struggling with at the far end. This might be endlessly scrolling down social media, wanting to keep checking the door is locked, that kind of thing. You then work your way backwards from performing the compulsion, writing down the events of the day, how you felt about them at the time, working backwards in time, maybe even all the way back to getting up in the morning.

I felt besieged by some mild compulsions one evening. I sat down and completed this exercise to see what might have fuelled my state of mind during the day. Wouldn’t you know it, I found three or four instances earlier in the day that seemed to get me to that point, moments where I checked something boring and unnecessary, moments where I was uncertain about something I’d written... Seeing the compulsion journey laid bare, I could acknowledge that it was little wonder that my mind was giving me new uncertainties to solve and battle with at the end of the day. I really appreciated the view it gave me, and it helped me to see that on the days that I managed to live with the small uncertainties, by evening, I wasn’t so frazzled.

Mark has a whole host of exercises in his book and they are all useful for peeling back the veil of how your mental health works. Another of the key points he makes is the importance of finding out which Values are most important to you and being guided by them in your life. Values are like a constant direction that you decide to move in, like saying that you want to head East with a compass and setting out in that direction. You never reach “East”, you just keep going in that direction. They are not goals, although they can be used to help form healthy, meaningful goals too. One of my guiding Values is Creativity, so I always try to ask myself if a certain action will be aligned with that Value. Mark says that it’s important to move towards the things we want in life, rather than only taking action to simply move away from the unpleasant things we don’t want, such as anxiety. He says that Values help us to deal with the tougher times, because we already know where we want to be heading, and they stop us from sliding back to what we already know, the behaviours that keep us in the cycle of struggling. This is what Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is all about, and even though I’d read a few books on it, once again, Mark’s presentation really helped me.

Wow, this review is getting seriously long! I will round things off by saying that Mark’s honest descriptions of how his own mental health affected him were incredibly relatable. In the chapter Stop Checking, he describes the daily battle he had with leaving his apartment, his fears of carelessly leaving something in a dangerous state that would burn the building down. He describes his stove, the way the knobs could pop off and then you wouldn't know, when you put them on again, if it was actually set to high or low... Even to how, when trying to check if it was off, he would look at the top and assess if he could see the hob was glowing (it was electric). If it wasn’t he’d worry there might be a fault, that it might just be broken, and that something is going badly wrong inside... This goes on for a number of pages, and I felt I could have written something similar about some of the ways my own mind throws up fears, uncertainties, and the things it wants me to do to try to resolve them. You really can start out by worrying that the light is turned off, and end up thinking that you're living in a house that will burn down the moment your back is turned.

The Mind Workout is a book that I highly recommend to anyone suffering with their mental health. It isn’t just aimed at one condition, beyond the human condition and how our brains work that is. Mark also does plenty of videos on YouTube and Twitch streams, where he continues to elaborate and to explain the ways that we can start to head in the direction that we’d most like to in life. It’s also a great chance to see a wall of post-it notes that aren’t being used by an exhausted detective trying to track down a serial killer. I swear that’s how most post-its I see on screen are used these days. Mark’s have interesting mental health tidbits on them. He also loves tea, cookies and doughnuts, which always seems to lighten the tone when they are mentioned.

I’m still struggling, but I feel that more has fallen into place by reading Mark’s book and listening to his online chats. One day at a time...

Book Title: The Mind Workout: Twenty steps to improve your mental health and take charge of your life. (Released as You Are Not A Rock in the U.S/Canada).

Book Author: Mark Freeman

Publisher: Piatkus

Released: June 2017

ISBN: 978-0349414539

RRP: £13.99 Paperback / £5.99 Kindle.