Dark Ambient Review: Chapter One

Review by Casey Douglass

Album Cover

Bullies suck. Sadly, the world is infested with them. It might be the knuckle-dragger at the shop who bumps into people deliberately, hoping for a fight, or the keyboard warrior on social media who rages and screams at the slightest, tiniest offence, righteously dishing out death threats and harassing people off the platform. These are the thoughts that flowed through my mind on listening to Engravings’ dark ambient album Chapter One, because, for me, it sounded like the soundtrack to a film that sees the bullies get a big dose of payback from someone they pushed too way far.

I think the track titles are probably the spark that kindled this particular idea in my mind. Track titles such as Spite, Hatred and Revenge certainly steered me away from any notion of peace and fluffiness. I’m sure someone, somewhere, has named their cute little bunny-rabbits those names though, such is life. For the most part though, those words tend to mean what we think they mean, so I'll jog on with those meanings. Of course, the music also helped to bring me to the “bully revenge” idea, its mixture of vibrating tones, footsteps and echoes depicting nicely insidious soundscapes.

The opening track: Spite, gets things off to an ominous start. An echoing, cave-like beat knocks along from ear to ear, a buzzing tone weaving its way through the air as a tinny whining sound falls. There are resonant flares that put me in mind of a pulsing light-bulb, hanging bare in a barren room. The beat changes and gathers more energy, taking on a more sinister feeling. For me, this track would be the kind of track that’d accompany a montage of a character in a film plotting their revenge. Hunched over, desk strewn with scribbled notes, and an energy and drive that they’ve never experienced in other areas of their life. Until now.

One of my favourite tracks is The Last Thing I See. It opens with a pulsing feeling, whispers, and echoing high tones. The soundscape fluctuates and is airy, or light, but also buzzing. The track title and music combined to give me the image of someone tied to a chair, one of the bullies unlucky enough to fall into the clutches of the films’ protagonist. There is a dark, rasping, panting aspect to things, a warbling buzzing, melancholy tone setting a sad scene. The soundscape felt like one of desperation and resignation, and ends with panting, scraping echoes and rumbles. A really dark track.

Another favourite track for me was Alone In The Shadow Of My Failure. It begins with a buzzing and a resonant drone, a bass rumble deepening things. A soft electronic tone begins, one that feels both sad and a little bit cyber-punk. Some of the tones are a little “car-horn-like” at times, and after the midpoint, there is a kind of digital-broth simmering sound. In the context of the bully revenge film theme, this track caused me to imagine a bully who was too afraid to face the consequences of their actions. They work in a basement comic book store and use one of the many samurai swords decorating the walls to commit suicide, surrounded by the comics that they love. A low, pink light bathes the scene in warmth, the clicking of the ventilation system the only sound.

Chapter One is a dark ambient album that does seem to simmer with spite, and others of those emotions that come along as part of being human. Any horror lover knows the benefit of enjoying a nice on-screen bloodbath or fright-fest, and horror fans tend to be the some of the nicest, most even-tempered people that I know. This album might send you off on a different imagination holiday, but I certainly enjoyed mine. If you like brooding soundscapes and buzzing tones and echoes, you should check out Chapter One.

Visit the Chapter One page on Bandcamp for more information.

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Chapter One

Album Artist: Engravings

Label: VoidSoundLTD

Released: 21 Jan 2021

Dark Ambient Review: Threshold

Review by Casey Douglass

In this time of pandemic, it’s hard not to feel like you’re being watched and judged by others. I know this, because I find myself judging people more often too, and I’m usually pretty hot on the old mindfulness stuff. I do eventually realise that I don’t really know a single thing about where someone is going or why, which is something I guess. This watchful state, either as watcher or “watchee”, it’s not an enjoyable feeling. Strangely, switch things to imagining that I’m walking in a haunted woodland, being watched by strange beings in the trees, or watching them in turn, and I find that flight of fancy very enjoyable. It’s this latter feeling that Quiet Dusk’s dark ambient album Threshold brought to the surface for me.

The feeling of being watched began with the opening track: Everything is Known. It opens with a radio-hum, the rustle of rain-fall and pulsing deep tones. There is the “click” of something opening in the echoing space, a resonant chiming, and warping, clipped tones. A little later, the whispers begin, with slow tinkling notes, and what sounds like quiet reversed speech. What this track brought to mind was the notion of watching something that you really shouldn’t be watching. Maybe you’re walking through the woods and you witness a little door opening in a tree trunk a little way ahead. A strange creature rushes out and disappears into the leaves. Then you notice every tree has such a door, and little windows to go with them, and every one of them contains glowing eyes watching you.

I really liked Everything is Known, but another favourite track for me was Walking Vessels, partly because it still left me in this watchful woodland space. Walking Vessels begins with a drone and a smooth pulsing or throbbing. The drone is like a light air-craft flying lazily in the sky. There is also the rustle of wind and rain, hence the woodland notion appeared for me once more. A buzzing joins the drone, one that might best be described as a bee-hive hum, but one you can feel as well as hear. There is another sound that made me think of something opening or closing again, and possibly footsteps. Towards the end of the track, a small engine seems to start, more lawnmower than car. Maybe the denizens of the wood have stolen it and are using it as a generator? Who knows?!

Another fun track is Under The Skin, as it contains an interesting sound effect that made the soundscape feel off balance, in a nice way. It starts with a resonant shimmering sound, and a pulsing note that sounds as if it’s being made by someone breathing down a flute. A fuzzing, knocking sounds in the right ear, which when combined with the airiness in the left, creates a lovely feeling of lopsidedness. Not in a literal “I feel off-balance” way, but in the impression it gives. I don’t know why I liked it but I did. This knocking softens a little later, and is replaced by a whiny electronic, gnat-like tone. The second half of the track features some interesting vibrations and high tones, and finishes with a distant female voice talking about death, and how “there never was a real me”.

The last track that I wanted to mention is, funnily enough, the last track on the album: Gasoline Demons. This track starts with a harsh, buzzing note that appears at a slow interval. The sounds that join it in the echoing space seem a bit like robots chuntering or debating about something. Some warble and squawk, others hoot more like cuckoos. A whistling element joins, a drone too. After the half way point, an “exhale-like” sound appears for a time, and the soundscape feels like it deepens. The “robots” still debate and haunt the place however. I guess my mind latched onto the gasoline part of the title, more than the demonic part. Gasoline-fuelled robots arguing over who gets the body of a dying person in an abandoned gas station? Could well be...

Threshold is an album that, for me, created many moments of the “being watched” vibe that I spoke about above, alongside other moments of uneasy strangeness. In many ways, the music only hints at the things that could be happening or that are causing the sounds, and this leaves a lot of space for the imagination to fill in the gaps. It’s a bit like the difference between seeing a ghost compared to just the feeling of one passing by and setting your body on edge for no apparent reason. I found the soundscapes smooth and lulling, and a fun place to let my mind roam, and I think you might too.

Visit the Threshold page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also have a click around in the full album on YouTube below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Threshold

Album Artist: Quiet Dusk

Released: 13 Jan 2021

Dark Ambient Review: A Silent Vigil for Oncoming Plagues

Review by Casey Douglass

I’ve seen a lot of dark ambient fans listening to dungeon synth in recent months. I’d flicked through a few of the albums that fell across my timelines, but I wasn’t really sure if it was for me. A few weeks ago, dark ambient creator Joseph Mlodik (Noctilucant), sent me a review code for his new music project Gavella Glan and its first album release: A Silent Vigil for Oncoming Plagues. It’s described as a mixing of dungeon synth and fantasy music, and is largely inspired by The Witcher 3, even featuring some samples from CD Projekt Red’s game.

What I first noticed about the music of A Silent Vigil for Oncoming Plagues, was a kind of perky innocence to many of the tracks. For me, things felt for the most part, clean, chirpy and optimistic, and the moments of darker tone felt like a safe kind of darkness, the difference between watching a horror and being in one, if that makes sense. Joseph explains in his album description, that this album was born in a period of isolation, and from “Something reminiscent of old video game scores, the 90’s output from Mortiis, forgotten memories, lust for adventure, and a means to escape this deranged world and to momentarily cope with it...” With that description in mind, I think he nailed it.

In the very first track: The Calm Before The Storm, the listener is treated to bell-chiming notes, sparkling outer tones, birdsong, and a mellow synth sound. It’s a peaceful track, with the odd, harsher, foreboding sound. It felt like walking up a grassy hill and seeing a quaint village laid out in the distance, the golden sunlight of dawn catching in the lazy woodsmoke of the chimneys. Other tracks might differ in tone but again, never felt threatening or too ominous. The Ones Atop the Mountain is a great example. After a low, droning, windy opening, once the melodies begin, it feels like a fun adventure again, rather than a dire expedition. It was genuinely nice.

The Oxenfurt Drunk is one of my favourite tracks. It starts with a voice saying “I’m here to talk about the contract!” and a jaunty string-like note with sparkles at the fringes kicks off. We hear corks popping out of bottles, drink pouring, and a little later, this pouring turns into a kind of “infinite pour”, becoming part of the music. It sounds like a potion being poured, backed by drunken muttering, and later, a confrontation and a nasty voice saying “I sense your blood!” This track felt zany, intoxicated, and just like how a pub fight would probably sound in a fantasy world of magic and poverty.

Another of my favourites was A Stormy Night of Arcane Hexes. It opens with a distant chiming and an oncoming rumble. Insects chitter and there is a dark shimmer to things. You can hear something panting, with whispers intruding at the edge of the soundscape. A haunting female vocal begins, the odd bell-chime, and a sparkling tinkling. Later, there is laughter, wind and rain. This track felt very much like what someone stumbling into a witches’ circle might experience, or maybe someone harried by playful sprites as they walk through a haunted woodland.

The title track, A Silent Vigil for Oncoming Plagues, is probably the most dark ambient track, in my opinion. It opens with a pulsing electronic tone and an oozing trickling. There is a deep vibration and ominous, string-like notes. It feels sad and foreboding. A deep shuddering bass sound rumbles along like a giant creature sleeping, and a female vocal floats and nestles on top. This track felt like a world dancing on the precipice, the last good times about to slip into the chasm, and people trying to catch the last small enjoyments that they’re able.

A Silent Vigil for Oncoming Plagues is a fun album, one that taps into some of the retro feeling of old Saturday morning cartoons and classic video-games. I think that the dark ambient, where it seeps in, does a great job of keeping it anchored, balancing the ying and the yang of lightness and darkness nicely. I’m still not certain that dungeon-synth and this style of album will be something that I visit regularly, but I did enjoy the time I spent in Gavella Glan’s world.

Visit the A Silent Vigil for Oncoming Plagues page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also check out the teaser video below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: A Silent Vigil for Oncoming Plagues

Album Artist: Gavella Glan (Joseph Mlodik)

Mastered: Mombi Yuleman

Released: 15 Jan 2021

Dark Ambient Review: The Black Stone – Music For Lovecraftian Summonings

Review by Casey Douglass

The fiction of H.P Lovecraft has inspired so many other creative projects, that if you are a fan, and I am, you will probably never be short of some kind of Lovecraftian entertainment. The Black Stone – Music For Lovecraftian Summonings is a dark ambient album that has collected together 14 tracks from a number of dark composers, wrapping them up in one 80 minute long (approx) eldritch package.

Before I get to the tracks themselves, I want to say that I enjoyed the album description. It ponders the notion of whether H.P Lovecraft liked music himself, and looks at the role music often plays in certain of his dark stories, such as in the story of The Music of Erich Zann, and also in how the mad god Azathoth is often mentioned with regard to his “monotonous lullaby of cursed flutes”. The album description did a great job of framing this album, priming my mind to wander down certain pathways, with the track titles themselves finishing the effort.

I think that my favourite track has to be Dead Space Chamber Music’s Nocturne For Erich Zann. Lovecraft’s story: The Music of Erich Zann, is one of my favourites, and one of the most memorable for me. Hearing a track like Nocturne For Erich Zann, a track that really captures the events of the story, was a genuine pleasure. It opens with a creaking, squeaking space, tortured strings groaning and drumsticks knocking. It all feels a bit discordant, but doesn’t take long to build a pregnant atmosphere, one where the music starts to come together, and you get the impression that a sinister audience is beginning to gather outside Zann’s window. There is a ghostly sighing, a high pitched twisting to the soundscape, and things feel like some kind of cosmic intelligence is paying far too much attention to the unfortunate musician. A brilliant track.

As much as I enjoyed the previous track for its uncanny impression of the events of a story, I loved Lars Bröndum’s The Legend of Dagon for the way that it didn’t. For me, the sounds on this track placed Dagon in a very strange setting, that of a glass of beer in a sleepy pub. This is very much a track full of electronic buzzes and reverberating tones, it feels a bit lo-fi, if that’s the right word. A short time in, a plinking bubbling sound begins, which to me, sounded like ice rattling against the side of a glass. I bet you can see where my imagination got “pub” from. Things deepen and get more rumbly, and I was struck by the notion of Dagon manifesting in some tiny way in this abandoned glass of beer. I bet the pub lights even flickered and the wind howled outside too. I really enjoyed how this track led me to think about Dagon in a novel way, and in tones and notes that wouldn’t have first come to mind when I think “Lovecraftian”. A lovely surprise.

Another track that I really enjoyed was New Risen Thrones’ The Whisperer in Darkness. A low, subdued opening gives way to the sound of lapping water and insidious whispers. There are occasional water splashes, like something cresting and sinking once more below the surface. A drone grows with shuddering high tones and string notes for company. The second half of the track sees the soundscape become steeped in vibration, with squelchy, uncanny echoes, a feeling of something surging and infesting the air. For me, this track gave me the mental image of an abandoned jetty jutting out into the sea, the moonlight playing off the midnight mist as things creep toward the shore. Very atmospheric and well done.

The final track that I'll mention is Mario Lino Stancati’s The Color Out Of Space. A prolonged tone opens the track, a pulsing puttering tone joins, and things begin to whine and shudder. Some of the sounds made me think of how teleporters sound in certain sci-fi films, like something was coming. After roiling awhile, the tones merge and blare, announcing something. Things turn harsher and the second half of the track sounded a little like a 10ft bee buzzing around inside a 30ft glass jar. This track also led me to remember how much I enjoyed the Nick Cage Color Out of Space film, and Mario’s track would’ve sat very nicely in that film’s score, in my opinion.

The Black Stone – Music For Lovecraftian Summonings contains a brilliant dose of Lovecraftian music. I enjoyed the diversity of sounds and the way that some of the tracks came at the subject matter from perspectives that certainly didn’t fit my preconceptions coming into the album. If you love Lovecraftian things, or even just dark things in general, you should take a listen to The Black Stone – Music For Lovecraftian Summonings.

Visit the The Black Stone – Music For Lovecraftian Summonings page on Bandcamp for more information.

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: The Black Stone – Music For Lovecraftian Summonings

Album Artists: Mombi Yuleman, Martyria, Lars Bröndum, Solatipour Reza, Dead Space Chamber Music, Alphaxone, Mario Lino Stancati, M. Cosottini, C. Bocci & D. Barbiero, Kloob, Ashtoreth, New Risen Throne, Moloch Conspiracy, Dēofol, SÍLENÍ.

Curated and Mastered: Sonologyst

Released by: Eighth Tower Records

Released: 8 Jan 2021

Dark Ambient Review: S.S. Moreau

Review by Casey Douglass

I’ve never read the book, or seen the films inspired by H.G Wells’ The Island of Dr Moreau, but I guess that the fact I know the general gist of it speaks to its pervasiveness in parts of our culture. While I remember watching a Simpsons’ Halloween special that tipped its hat to the tale, I’m not aware of having heard any music that was inspired by its species-meddling. That is, until now, as S.S Moreau is a dark ambient album from Scott Lawlor and Mombi Yuleman, one that takes the sinister idea of Dr Moreau and runs with it... all the way into space!

I quite like coming across stories or ideas that uproot something from its familiar setting, and that plants it somewhere quite different. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but others, it can take something that you previously felt quite indifferent to, and give it enough of a twist to make you realise that you really enjoy it in this form. The concept of S.S Moreau is that of a stranded spaceship crew who are rescued by the sinister doctor when his space station, the S.S Moreau, detects their distress beacon. Once “rescued”, and after a period of uneasy discovery, the crew eventually find themselves fleeing from his strange alien-hybrid creatures as they threaten to overrun the station.

I thought that the first track, The Biological Station, set this up beautifully. It opens with an eerie whistling drone, a little like what you might hear in the first Alien film’s score. A light beeping and a whirring tone looms, and what began as restful, grows into a more ominous soundscape. It starts to feel a bit swarm-like, and as if something big is coming. It is the audio equivalent of being on the verge of starvation and coming across a maggot ridden cow carcass. Salvation and doom all in one. A little later, the sounds and tones gave me the feeling of the stranded ship being swallowed up by the larger S.S Moreau, the creaking metal and cavernous feelings giving the impression that the larger ship actually licked its lips. Then you hear the organic, guttural sounds of strange creatures.

The tracks that follow feature a nice range of creature sounds. Some sound bird-like or monkey-like, others more alien. He Knows Something Of Science feels damn right tropical, with clicking trickling water, insect-like rattling and the hoots and chirps of who knows what. Monsters Manufactured is a different beast, one that feels more lab-like, more meddling. It opens with a deep male chant, a female one joins, and a third that warps up and seems alien... something other. An ominous beat and a tinny beeping rhythm create an enjoyable feeling of “wrongness”. It lightens a little later, with a female vocal and light, breezy tones, but the background sounds still hint at dark things. I thought that I heard faltering footsteps on metal floors at one point, and at another, a kind of trundling rising discord, like a mass breakout of warrior insects.

How The Beast Folk Tasted Blood is a clinking, smooth space, the slow beat soon joined by faster tempos. It felt a little tribal, a little “cannibal”, a little “exotic”. I liked the last third or so the most though, when things seem to darken, a sound like sea waves breaking on a beach of bones and a vibrating tone hinting at a line crossed that can’t be undone. The final track, No Desire To Return To Mankind, seems to give the protagonist a dark dose of grim determination. Its plastic-carrier-bag-rustling and throbbing bass tones giving it a “film end-credit” type feeling, one where the ending was far from happy and the scars and trauma will last in the survivor/s for the rest of their life. I particularly enjoyed the radio-chatter and the strange squawks and sounds that seep into things.

S.S Moreau is a dark ambient space treat for people who like their darkness with a sci-fi twist. Some of the sounds it contains seem close to their earthly counterparts, others seem warped and manipulated, which is a pleasing parallel between how tones are created for dark ambient albums, and the subject matter of hybrid-creation. If I was drifting in space and the S.S. Moreau offered rescue, I’d be game for that, even knowing how things would turn out. It sure beats starving to death or turning into an icicle as depressurization occurs.

Visit the S.S.Moreau page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also check out the track Monsters Manufactured below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: S.S. Moreau

Album Artist: Scott Lawlor & Mombi Yuleman

Released: 8 Jan 2021

Dark Ambient Review: Rites Of Darkness And Dismal Visions

Review by Casey Douglass

As someone who suffers with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, I know the value of putting my mind into a state where I just accept that the stuff I fear has already happened, and I might as well enjoy the rest of my day before everything comes crashing down around me. It releases the mental tension of trying to control or protect myself from misfortune, and ironically, helps me to see things more clearly afterwards. I think this is what drew me towards Umbrarum Tenebrae’s dark ambient album Rites Of Darkness and Dismal Visions.

In a Covid world, where people are trying to cling on to any little tidbit of hope or good news, the idea of an album themed around “haunting people into further desperation” really appealed to me. Alongside the OCD stuff above, it appeals to my dark and perverse sense of humour. I also feel like it’s a great tonic against the continual rumination and regurgitation of the media, where often, there’s nothing new to report, so lets just speculate ad infinitum until something happens, and scare people even more. Sorry, this is a dark ambient album review, I promise.

For all that Rites Of Darkness and Dismal Visions is set in a world coping with a new plague, the soundscapes it builds sent me down into cavernous cave systems and rumbling temples. It made me feel a little like an old-school DnD thief type character, creeping through dangerous spaces and spying a procession of monks or holy soldiers venturing forth to slay some dark thing inside. The darkness seems to be very watchful, a common sound being the teeth-clicking chittering of some kind of creature, prowling and guarding their domain. The first track, Path To Oblivion, set this scene for me, its fluttering-wing sounds and drumbeats making me think a little of Tolkien’s goblin-infested Moria. The next track, Liber Mortem, brought the monk-warrior feel to things, its raspy rattling soundscape populated by stick-clacking, chimes and malevolent hisses. It is during this track that the sacral chanting fully hits home, which gave me the imagery of some kind of holy army trying to reach the root of the evil.

I think my favourite track is Chambers Of Shadows. It opens with a distant wind and echoing chimes, but soon turns into a droning, drumbeat punctuating, hiss-filled soundscape, one with creature screeches and clicks, alongside a mellow female, and later, a male chant. This track brought me the image of the holy army in a mist-filled cavern, a place in which something like Medusa might be roaming, with people being snatched off into the murk, but the others slow on the uptake as to what is happening. The swelling notes also hinted at strange marvels to see, like carvings and lore engraved on hellish statues, stuff that hasn’t been read or seen for millennia. A varied soundscape with a quiet ominous feeling, brushing up against snatches of drumbeat and chimes and creature sounds. I really liked it.

The next track, The Chaos Principle, seemed to hint at some kind of rite being performed. After the low pulsing opening and muted chimes, the gentle echoing soundscape is punctured by a large hissing or snarl. A deep ritual beat begins, and the chiming tones start to feel like they are warping or twisting in the air. There are creature clicks and more chanting, and it all led me to feel that the goal of the quest was at hand, and that the denizens of that place aren’t taking kindly to that kind of audacity. I didn’t really think about what the outcome of the quest was, I found it more fun to leave things up in the air and to not think too hard about it. The final mellow track, Knell Ritual, could easily be the triumphant army celebrating, or just as easily, it could be their associates in some far away cathedral holding a funeral in their absence. Either is fine by me.

Rites Of Darkness And Dismal Visions for me, was a chant-fuelled trek into treacherous, hissing subterranean caverns, one where I could safely watch from the shadows and not really care which of the forces involved might prevail. It was peaceful and soothing, and seemed to provide a pleasant tonic against the crap going on in real life. It let me sit in a space where the worst has already happened, one where there is no need to dig up feelings of false optimism or hope. And that is kinda of refreshing.

Visit the Rites Of Darkness And Dismal Visions page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also check out the track Liber Mortem below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Rites Of Darkness And Dismal Visions

Album Artist: Umbrarum Tenebrae

Label: Noctivagant

Released: 20 Jun 2020

Review: Audio Visual Coherence Breath Pacers

Written by Casey Douglass

Heartmath UK+IR offers customers a number of tools that help to bring their mind and body into a state of coherence. They’ve just released a pack of new Audio Visual Coherence Breath Pacers from Syntropy States, and I’ve been putting them through their paces for the last couple of weeks.

Added Nov 2022: These breath pacers now only seem to be available as part of the Syntropy app. You can read more in my review.

So what is coherence and why is it useful to enter it? Basically, your heart rate varies in timing between each beat. This is your Heart Rate Variability (HRV). When you’re experiencing negative emotions, such as anxiety or frustration, your HRV, if plotted over time, would look jagged and dramatic. When you’re experiencing positive or heartfelt emotions, such as appreciation or love, the time plot would look closer to a smoother, sine-wave pattern. Your system would be in a state of coherence, where various bodily systems are working more harmoniously together. This helps you to think more clearly and puts your body into a more synchronised state.

Heartmath provide sensing devices that actually give your current coherence a score, and they also offer tools and techniques to help you to deepen and expand your capacity for coherence. I was lucky enough to be sent one of their Inner Balance review devices after my previous post about their Syntropy States relaxation aids, and I’ve been experimenting with it for the last couple of months. I hope to write an in-depth piece about my experiences with the Inner Balance device soon.

You don’t need Heartmath’s gadgets to practise their coherence techniques however, you just need to adopt a slightly deeper and even breathing pattern, focus on your heart area, and if you can, generate a heartfelt emotion, maybe by thinking of something you’re grateful for, or about someone you love. These new Coherence Breath Pacers take away the burden of making sure that you’re breathing in a suitable rhythm, and help you to focus in a slightly easier way.

There are seven videos in the collection, each coming in a light and a dark variety, and each makes use of a different geometric shape in the pattern that it presents to you: Cube, Sphere, Dodecahedron, Isohedron, Merkaba, Octahedron and Tetrahedron. When you begin playing a video, you’ll see an expanding and contracting pattern that makes use of whichever shape is at its base. You will also hear a soothing soundscape to help you to focus and relax into the process.

The videos are available in three breathing paces, 8/10/12 seconds, and as you watch the shape ebb and flow, you time your inhale and exhale to begin and to finish when the direction changes. If you’ve opted for the 10 second pace videos, it means that you will be inhaling for 5 seconds, and then exhaling for the next 5. There are sample videos of each breath cycle duration on the store page, so you can try each one to see which feels most comfortable before your purchase.

I found myself gravitating towards certain of the videos more than others. I think that Sphere was my favourite. The soundtrack had trickling water and a nice vocal too, but what I really enjoyed was the dark mode version. Watching it felt like looking down a tunnel, and also gave me the impression, of what a black-hole might look like if it was “liquid”, if that makes sense. In general, the light mode videos all had a really pleasing “sunny” light source in the middle, with the Merkaba video giving me an impression of said sunlight shining through blinds on a quiet afternoon.

The dark modes of each video had a kind of neon feel for me. The colours of the Merkaba video in its dark form, made me think of desert sand and a glowing evening warmth. Another thing that I found quite fun was to reverse my breathing pattern on subsequent viewings. If I watched a video by inhaling at the start of the pattern, the next time, I would exhale first or wait one cycle to begin with the exhale. Inhaling when the outer edges of a pattern are expanding towards you feels a certain way, but inhaling when you see the opposite happening feels a bit different. That gave me two ways to approach each video and in a way, gave each video four variations.

I had hoped to use some of my Inner Balance device readings as a way to gauge how effective these Coherence Breath Pacer videos are, but it doesn’t seem that I can, right now at least. My average coherence rating for my daily sessions has gradually increased, barring the odd exception, so any benefit that the videos might have given me could well be masked by this general increase. What I can say however, is that my highest average coherence ratings often seem to go hand-in-hand with using the videos, so at the very least, they are helping rather than hindering me.

Something else that I really appreciate, is using the videos to help with my breath pacing. On my low-end smartphone, the Heartmath app is a little bit laggy at times, which makes using the on-screen animations and pacers a little off-putting as they can chug at times. Using one of these videos and being able to watch along, being less concerned with my breathing pattern, brings a different feeling to doing my Heartmath exercises. It also had the unlooked for benefit, of helping me to feel a heartfelt emotion when I was struggling to find one, because if nothing else, I could reflect on how pleasing the patterns on screen are to watch. If you are feeling down or numb, that feels a lot more doable and immediate than using your memory or imagination to coax a feeling to the surface.

I think that the Coherence Breath Pacers are a great way to experiment with coherence practices, and whether you own a snazzy biofeedback device or not, the breathing is such an important element. Once I get my breathing settled, coherence often occurs moments later, so having these videos did free me up to lean more into the heart-focussed emotion aspect of entering coherence. They are something that I intend to use regularly, at least once per day, and I think that they would make a nice addition to anyone’s meditation or focussed-practice toolbox.

The Audio Visual Coherence Breath Pacers are available from Heartmath UK+IR. They’re also currently on sale at £12 from their regular price of £15. You might also be interested to know that the Relaxation Aids from Syntropy States are also currently on offer at £15 instead of £19.

I was given review access to this product.