Author: Phil Barrington
Book title: Cracked Amber Solid {Frieze of the Faded}
Release date: 14 March 2017
Publisher: Barrington Arts
Cracked Amber Solid {Frieze of the Faded} is the third book by Phil Barrington. In this art book, we see the faded and corrupted memories and ghosts of lives once lost. Over the better part of three decades, these photographs were collected by the author. After the revelation of this project, he left these photos outside for three whole years. Over this time the photographs were often distorted beyond recognition. Those which are still perfectly clear at least have a fade and filth of antiquity.
Cracked Amber Solid is a look at life and death, through four sections: Life, Love, Sex and Death. Throughout these sections Barrington uses collages of these images as well as often disjointed text to build a greater picture of his vision. While at first this vision may seem quite disjointed, the relevance quickly presents itself. In combining these images and texts, Barrington manages to bring out emotions in the reader which can be quite surprising and unexpected.
Barrington thanks, among others, The Caretaker in the beginning of the book. I found this immediately interesting, as one who lives for music. Not sure if this was The Caretaker musical project of Leyland Kirby, I allowed it to remain an open question as I proceeded. Moving through the book, it became abundantly clear that this was the musician in question. The use of repetitions and thoughts which fragment and distort immediately reminds of a written companion to the aural style of The Caretaker.
Much like The Caretaker, Barrington lets ideas repeat and fester throughout the publication. What seems odd and out of place at the start gradually becomes a necessary key to the overarching concepts. An example of this is the recurring mention of the girl being run over by a bus. In its first mention this seems strange, but as the book progresses toward its final section of death, the connection between random events, innocent childhoods, and that innocence slowly being lost throughout the struggle of life becomes much more obvious.
In a second comparison to The Caretaker, Barrington has used collected fragments of history, which come together as a whole. In his collages of photographs and text, he paints a vivid and altogether original picture. This is quite similar to the process Leyland Kirby uses when creating his albums, by digging through the old forgotten belongings of the deceased, finding antique records to use for his modern musical project.
Though only one section of the book is specifically dedicated to love, this seems to be an overarching idea throughout. As he often illustrates, love makes life, love is sex, and love ends in death. Though this order and concept are easily mangled by the cruel ironies of life itself. The allusion to the young girl being killed by the bus brings this cruel concept to fruition. There are many other examples presented of the ways love can manipulate and often destroy lives. For instance, it is seen in the recurring use of variations of the phrase, “When distant wedding bells chime and a noose swings.” This is a morbid and depressing comparison, but one that strikes true throughout.
As a whole, Cracked Amber Solid is a depressing piece of work. One can’t help but reminiscing back to times in their own lives, or the lives of their loved ones, when parallel circumstances presented themselves. Barrington uses this mechanic masterfully. He is able to take these disjointed and seemingly random sets of photographs and text, and bring them all together to form a powerfully moving work of art. The images themselves are quite thought provoking, if often filled with extremely vivid sexual themes. Reading this book and absorbing its imagery was certainly time well spent. As a person who is often prone to boredom when reading the works of many authors, this was never the case. Barrington has certainly showcased his talents well here. This could be an easily recommended read for anyone with a darker sense of imagination and a love for unorthodox forms of art.
Written by: Michael Barnett
Barrington‘s book, Cracked Amber Solid {Frieze of the Faded}, can be purchased in two formats: as a high-resolution pdf and as an ultra-limited hardback art-edition. These can be found on Barrington Arts webstore: http://www.barringtonarts.com/my-shop/
A free low-res version can be found here: http://ow.ly/k1Yk309M8gJ
AFFECTVS & Lamia Culta have both been producing music for several years. As individual artists, they both have strong occult leanings. Their solo albums have been enjoyable and noteworthy. But, in 2016 their collaborative album Homines Sacerrimi on the American dark/ritual ambient label 
“Verbum Portae Aperio” may be one of the crowning achievements of the album. Both artists showcase their absolute best skills, leaving behind any sense of doubt in the listener. After Lamia Culta‘s invocations at the beginning of the ritual, we are encompassed by sounds conjured from the depths of hell. Demons writhe and scream in the background. Deep bellowing voices appear as she repeats the invocation, “Satan!, Satan!, Satan!”. This intensity gently subsides as she goes from screaming Latin incantations to softly singing as the track comes to its close.
depths of some ancient cavern, delivering the thick incense smoke past the nostrils before vanishing into the abyss. Following her invocation of Satan, Lamia Culta gasps and moans in ecstasy as if the dark lord has been offered her body for his enjoyment. Sacrificing herself to his will, she is fully prepared for the continuation of this diabolical rite. As the rest of Blessings from the Darkness continues, this moment hangs in my mind, never loosening its grip. The deep, rumbling, infernal growls match the euphoria of Lamia Culta, as if that fiendish lord of the underworld has truly savored his offering.
The emotion of Lamia Culta‘s vocal delivery is only part of the reason to find oneself fully encompassed by Blessing from the Darkness. AFFECTVS showcases an absolute mastery of the ritual ambient style. Comparisons to Shibalba can easily be made. But where Shibalba showcase a more conservative aspect of the ritual ambient genre, AFFECTVS takes it to utter extremes. From the howling wind field recordings, to the hypnotic drones, he builds an atmosphere that is visualized with the greatest of easy. The tribal drumming, chimes, and other ritual instrumentation adds yet another layer of authenticity to the rite.
Offered on 
This album will be particularly pleasing to anyone with a love for the darkest days of history. The inner panel of the digipak consists of one sentence, “Djevelhorer Skal Brennes – Martin Luther (1537)” This can be translated to English as “devil whores be burned.” It is a fitting preparation for the onslaught of soundscapes presented within. Fullstendig Brent takes us on a deeply cinematic journey back in time to the 17th century in the northern parts of Norway, specifically to the fortress of Vardøhus in Vardø, the center of Norwegian Finnmark. This fortress would play the stage to a particularly dark and brutal period of history. We are taken here at a time when witch trials were being carried out around the western world. Each track on Fullstendig Brent gives us a glimpse into various times during these proceedings.
The cinematic edge is taken to an even more obvious place on “Christoffer Orning”, named after a notorious district governor responsible for the majority of deaths of innocent women and children. The track starts out with prayers being begged in unison by the demented congregation. After they give their blessings, the witches are allowed to burn for their sins. As the beating industrial noises completely overtake our senses, it’s easy to imagine these so-called witches perishing in the most horrible way imaginable. Their body slowly roasting on the pyre, they shriek in utter despair soon followed by the sobbing of this unlucky female victim, attempting to alleviate some of the pain as she begins to smell her flesh being cooked, long before losing consciousness or dying.
What started several years ago as a project fully dedicated to the use of guitar and bass drones, has blossomed this year into something wholly new and exciting. As recently as 2014, albums like Bring Down The Sky highlighted the more conventional skills of Northumbria, with marvelous slowly evolving guitar work that could almost be considered solos. These meandering guitars were planted firmly upon a guttural and earth-shaking bass drone. Helluland, their first release on Cryo Chamber, brought them to a new chapter in their lives. Helluland still was dedicated to consistently drone-laden guitar and bass work but it had taken on a more subtle feel. Along with the evolution of their sound, Helluland ushered in the first chapter of their current trilogy. A set of albums which is dedicated to the story of the ancient Norsemen discovering the Americas, incidentally, well before Christopher Columbus.
Markland clearly has a tale to tell. This is blatantly obvious without ever reading into the back-story. Just putting on headphones and pressing play, we catapult into a dark and wild world. From the very beginning of “Torngat” we can hear the waves beating against the ship as it nears land. By the time we reach “The Night Wolves/Black Moon” the turn of events is perfectly delivered. This description of the album barely scratches the surface, tracks like “Still Clearing” and “The Shores of the Suffering Wind” boast what is easily the best work by Northumbria to date. In short the album is a masterpiece.
Tracks like “It Was Good To Destroy Once Again” showcase a lot of the diversity presented. There are moments when the track is peaceful, with gently sweeping drone-work. Yet, as it progresses it moves into areas of looping and a faint but steady percussion. Reminding of something which generally falls into more experimental and ambient musical outings. It can be something almost akin to the sounds of some artists on the 
This hypnotic suggestion stems from the pure minimalism on Queer Reminiscence. There certainly are some active elements here, as already mentioned about the percussive sections peppered through the album. Yet, this variety of styles and instrumentation still hold a stripped down and minimal feel because of the sparing use and perfect placement of the various sounds. Unlike so many collaborative albums in the ambient realm, Queer Reminiscence makes it extremely hard to label any specific sounds to the musician responsible for the sample. There is never the moment where one thinks, “oh, this is certainly done by SiJ and not Item Caligo“. This is a testament to their individual skills and their years of experience writing music. But it is, even more so, a sign of their natural connection. They don’t seem to be fighting one another for the lead. They manage to give listeners the sense that Queer Reminiscence was created by one mind channeling its concepts into reality.