Month: February 2019

ΠANθEON – Discography Overview by Abby Helasdottir (Gydja)

New Zealander, Abby Helasdottir has been known around the dark ambient and post-industrial scenes for quite some time. She has a well-known dark ambient project, Gydja. But possibly more important to the scene has been her work in visual arts creating cover art for quite a few albums, many of which you’ll find on the Cold Spring label.

I follow Abby on Facebook and I noticed recently that she was doing frequent mini-reviews of releases from the ΠANθEON record label. Having also enjoyed and agreed with her sentiments regarding many of these releases I asked her if I could compile them all in this article, once she was finished. Her answer is now obvious!

I will give you the description of the label direct from their Discogs page:

“ΠΑΝΘΕΟΝ (or Pantheophania) is a Russian D.I.Y. label focusing on handmade editions of cassette tapes, CDR’s and CD’s, as well as digital-only and disc-on-request releases.
Founded in 2014 by Tim Six (Creation VI), the label releases all kinds of ambient music: drone, ritual, meditative, new age, dark ambient, etc. Many of the label’s editions are released in bundles with additional inserts.”

While each review is “mini” the collection certainly is not! Most (maybe all?) of these are available for “name your price”, but many also have beautifully crafted physical editions still available, some only 1-2 left on Bandcamp, so think about showing them some support if you dig these albums!

Michael

ΠANθEON – Discography Overview
Article compiled from posts by Abby Helasdottir. On the ΠANθEON discography:
I don’t usually buy entire digital discographies from labels on Bandcamp, especially if they’re large, as they tend to overwhelm the carefully curated library page, but how can you say ‘no’ to 107 releases from ΠANθEON. So many great releases. One of my favourites is the Creation VI‘s October Rite – just love how it strays into Aural Hypnox type territory with its otherworldly drones. Listened to that one multiple times already.

Now to gradually download, unzip and listen to 107 albums.

Med GenBrittleroots

Been making my way through the recently purchased ΠANθEON discography, and while all of it is good, some of it is spectacularly good. So until I forget to do it, I’ll highlight a few of the, well, highlights.

The unmemorably-named Med Gen are anything but with their album Brittleroots. Responding to the album’s theme of swamps, there’s a lovely, dense and deep murky quality to the sound, especially on the opening “Peat Accumulation” which seems custom-made for my ears: part chthonic, part aquatic, more deep texture than musical. Little bits of field recordings add some relevant details to the drones but what really stands out is that dense, dark, slightly drowny palette.

Sergey FilatovOn the Opposite Bank of the River

Sergey Filatov is not one of the more familiar names on ΠANθEON (just 71 listeners on last.fm) and this two track album is certainly not one of the label’s more jump-out-and-grab-you-by-the-throat releases (if any ambient can do that). Instead of overwhelming you with activity, On the Opposite Bank of the River wins you over with its determination to be indeterminate. Like the river of its title, it just meanders… gloriously. Much like a lot of work by Alio Die, it sort of lingers, hanging in the air, little melodic chimes patiently pulsing pastorally, with no real sense of momentum. Which is all great.

Field recordings are buried in the sound and only sometimes bubble to the surface: a prerequisite stream or brook, some lovely birds clean and clear in the mix. Most of the time, though, the nature it depicts seems to be off in the distance, indeterminate but present.

Mrako-Su – Грани Зимы


One of two releases from Mrako-Su on ΠANθEON, Грани Зимы consists of six tracks, two under seven minutes and the rest over eleven, with the longest, “Ветер в груди”, clocking in at 18:30.

While in my own music I have a tendency to add as many layers into the mix as possible (either to stave off inattention or insert additional esoteric nuance, cross fingers), I have always loved music that strips things back, and that’s what Mrako-Su does here. The tracks principally use a flute sound of some type, presumably slowed and processed in places for lower layers, but otherwise quite up front. It’s not played melodically, more tonally, and that’s something that also appeals; I’m not here for the chunes. There’s a patience here, with things taking their time to come and go, rise and fall, often eschewing any need for too much structure. And that’s one of the important things, because the music with its flutes and occasional drums and mouth harp, plus a slightly tundral vibe, feels very shamanic – but not in that smooth, processed way that needs to turn these aural elements into catchy, conventional songs.

So yeah, it’s slow, it’s subdued, it has lots of flute and feels shamanic without needing to break into a Wardruna floorfiller.

EugeneKhaThree Months


In my summary of Mrako-Su‘s Грани Зимы, I mentioned how much I like simplicity and minimalism, but the converse is true and that’s exactly what you get with Three Months by EugeneKha. In some ways, Evgenij V. Kharitonov uses comparable themes, if not the exact sounds, as Mrako-Su, mining a similar vein of, to use a slightly dreaded nomenclature, ethno-ambient, with hints of shamanism and nods to nature (aesthetics that are somewhat baked into the ΠΑΝΘΕΟΝ label). The sound, though, is completely different, with each of these three tracks, representing the months of June, July and August, using prominent, wide-open drones that fill the space, creating a thick, dense, somewhat all-consuming sonic cocoon.

The twelve minute “June (Mantra)” builds its density slowly, beginning with slightly windswept tundral hums to which rattles (or rainsticks), chimes and whistles (all perfectly reverbed for body without muddiness) are gently added, reaching maximum density with the addition of a pulsing didgeridoo tone, followed by a subtle melodic figure and a concluding hand percussion pattern buried in the mix. While “June (Mantra)” revels in its complexity, with each sound continuing to run once it has been gradually added, “July (Just One Evening)” begins with many of its elements in place, and then drops these out to a core element of a brooding tundral drone, waves of wind and a high pitched wash that is, or at least recalls, the metallic chirp of cicadas; whatever it is, its a tone and a frequency I’m very partial to, and I love the way it builds to take up all the sonic space so gradually that you only really notice when it ends and the silence is so deafening. That “July (Just One Evening)” reminds me of my own track “Wolfszahn” may be why it emerges as my favourite on the album.

“August (Three Dreams)” uses its 26-minute length to play with things at a slower pace, using a drifting, ever so gradually evolving drone that feels more Roachian than obviously dark ambient. This suddenly shifts at fifteen minutes into a clearly demarcated second section where percussion takes over to explore the more rhythmic, Byron Metcalf-esque side of the ethno-ambient sub genre. A few other sounds are briefly introduced and farewelled against the persistent beat, until it loses out to one of these, water sounds, which rise to prominence before the song and album end with a vocal coda (the album’s first obvious use of voice).

Сон Чайного Дерева & Sunhiilow – Liquid Silence / A New Beginning


The ambient nature of a label like ΠΑΝΘΕΟΝ lends itself to long-form music, with many releases clocking in at over an hour. That’s not that case with Liquid Silence/A New Beginning, a split release from Sunhiilow and Сон Чайного Дерева, with almost all the tracks hovering around the 2-3 minute mark, except for the aberrant 19:44 of “Liquid Silence”, one of the two tracks here by the Сон Чайного Дерева duo of Aloe and Tim Six. “Liquid Silence”, you may be interested to know, is not silent and is instead a lovely slow-moving drone that hints at Angelo Badalamenti‘s “Laura Palmer’s Theme”, while its shorter companion, “Sitar Rain”, sounds like exactly that, sitar and rain; well, more of the former than the latter.

Finland-based Sunhiilow takes up only a little more space than Сон Чайного Дерева on this release, but makes more of an impact due to her contributions consisting of nine tracks. Given their sub-three minute length, all of her pieces have little chance to build or go anywhere, and as a result, feel like snapshots or vignettes of sonic environments. Which isn’t a bad thing. Maybe I’m taking too many cues from the nom-de-musique, but there’s a solar quality to these sounds, a pastoral sunniness, all chimes and light tones. The brevity of each piece means that they’re better considered as parts of a whole, three-minute glimpses of a place that can be made from any angle or time, or in any order; kind of a longer-format version of Eluvium‘s “Shuffle Drones” but with fadeouts.

AstrolabeLights Beyond The Mist (cdr-on-request)


Astrolabe has always been on my “that would make a great project name” list, with its combination of nods to the stars and with those, the future, but still tethered to a dusty, archaic past due to the use of the tool since before the common era. So does this Astrolabe sound like an astrolabe, does it sound like it could be “the one that catches the heavenly bodies”? Not really, there’s nothing particularly spacey about the palette used here, and there’s no clanging of equipment in an old astronomy tower. Instead, Lights Beyond The Mist traffics in a refined, linear brand of ambience, its tones light and airy, feeling very much like the photonic haze that adorns the cover.

With two supra-twenty minute tracks twinned with two shorter ones at 10:11 and 8:31, the album acts like a concentrated dose of Astrolabe‘s style. And that style would be drifting. There’s never much sense of urgency, never any interruptions, and what there is in the way of perceptible evolution often sneaks up on you. So while “Hideaway” gives way for half its ten-minute length to an aquatic scape of trickles and streams, or the 23 and a half minute “Fragoline” climaxes in an almost space ambient roar, it’s often just the gorgeously refined light drones that stick in your mind, set against broader rumbling basses that you can feel are there, but are not in your face, erm ears. As such, track titles and times seem largely arbitrary, and its easy to just get deliciously lost between all four.

Sunmoonstar – Картины 


ΠΑΝΘΕΟΝ owner Tim Six has a professed love for that most maligned of genres, new age music, and this release from Floridian Natasha Home’s Sunmoonstar is perhaps the most new agey release in the label’s body of work. The aural palette should be familiar to anyone who has spent even a little time around that genre, all chiming tinkles, plaintive rhodes-like keys, thin airy pads, and whispy synthetic flutes. There’s almost nothing contemporary about what appears here, with even the production keeping things simple and not making use of any of the tricks that may not have been available to producers of yesteryear but are to anyone today. And that’s a good thing, in fact, the whole thing is lovely.

Like much new age music, which can have an admirably punk-like amateurish quality to it, the music on Картины often just hangs there, with no conventional song structure, no forward momentum, and no repetition of catchy melodies. With seven tracks rendered interchangeable with their titles in, for me, indecipherable Cyrillic, it’s all over too quickly after 30 or so minutes. Plus the cover design by Home herself is gorgeous, if devoid of any of the new ages aesthetics heard in the music.

Mathias Grassow & Closing The EternityUntitled



It’s kind of cheating to choose to review an album involving Mathias Grassow as you know, no matter what, it’s probably going to be decent if not great, and there’ll be a certain standard and sound. And yes, that’s what you get with this collaboration with Russia’s Closing The Eternity. The credits don’t say who did what on which track, but the 12 minute opening “(When) There Is None” is very much a typical Grassow piece, all resonant, crystalline drones, whereas the almost 17 minutes of “Schorl Vugh” incorporates various organic elements (squawking discordant flutes and chimes) against a static drone. The brief one minute interlude that is “Forsaken Well” brings the latter part of this approach to the fore with percussive and atonal clangs and bangs that then gives way to the album’s longest piece, the 30 minute and majestic “The Great Elaphe”.

Somewhat bringing elements from the three previous tracks together, “The Great Elaphe” gets going straight out of the gate with a warm rising drone, overlaid with a mouth-harp-like twanging drone, and a sense of momentum created with a drum beat buried down in the mix and a shake of a rattle above. This evolves into several distinct movements, the pace dropping away to open different locations, the warm drone always present, in which various elements are introduced: a pensive moment into which darker drones are introduced, the return of the subtle drum beat and rattles, a foreboding chthonic sequence at 17 minutes with menacing tones like a dungchen trumpet.

Creation VIOctober Rite


There are a wealth of titles by Creation VI in the ΠΑΝΘΕΟΝ catalogue, which is understandable given that the label is run by the duo’s Tim Six. As such, it might be hard to pick out a highlight, but for me, it’s October Rite. Recorded live in 2013 at Dom Club, Moscow, it contains improvised versions of some previously released and unreleased tracks, all presented and indexed as a single piece. As such, for the first five minutes, the sounds are accompanied by the slightly distracting mutter of audience sounds (unless that’s part of the track), until they are overwhelmed by an unassailable rising organic drone. This drone builds and evolves over the first 39 minutes of the track’s 53-minute length, always with a bassy rumble to it, with additional organic elements, percussion and voice, weaving in and out of the bed of sound. This addition of sound and the relentlessness of the drone creates an hallucinatory sensation and at the 30-minute mark you realise you have entered territory worthy of Aural Hypnox acts such as Zoät-Aon and Halo Manash. It’s here that the drone and its additional layers have that eldritch alien quality that is so evokative of the sounds of Aural Hypnox, giving the impression of slipping between worlds, or of something waiting in those spaces, about to come through. This section ends with a single audience woop and the rest of October Rite takes a slightly more sedate approach, resonating metallic tones and drones bringing things to a reflective end over 13 minutes.

Dronny Darko & ApolloniusThe Sea of Potentials


Despite having perhaps one of the cringiest monikers in ambient, Ukrainian Oleg Puzan has made a significant impact as Dronny Darko, most notably with a series of albums on Cryo Chamber. Here he teams up with Eelke van Hoof, AKA Apollonius, of the Netherlands, with four tracks, all neatly coming in between 15 and 20 minutes.

As the cover art implies, there’s a glacial quality to the material here, suggesting that the titular sea of potentials is frozen. Washes of icy wind, rising crystalline tones and rattling chimes interweave on “Drift”, but things do get warmer on “Lost” where, although there’s still a chill in the air, the ice seems to melt, with the mutterings of water rising into the mix and pads becoming rounder and friendlier. Across the two remaining tracks, the feeling of coldness never really abates, but in the final “Realign”, thicker ever so slightly warmer pads emerge against an opening bird-like cooing, alluding, perhaps, to a slow autumnal dawn. With a similar palette across all four similarly paced songs, The Sea of Potentials rewards carefully listening, without which this lovely considered slice of arctic ambience can pass by unjustly unnoticed.

FelliriumMermaids

With an instrument list that includes synthesizers, three types of guitars, ebow, digital piano and accordion, in addition to the usual textural sound generators like ocarina, hulusi, wooden flute, shells, rainstick and bells, this album by Andrey Vasilyev’s Fellirium has a different, perhaps more ‘musical,’ sound to many of the releases on ΠΑΝΘΕΟΝ. The use of guitar recalls the work of people like Jeff Pearce, Christopher Short from Ma Ja Le, Eric Kesner’s True Colour Of Blood, or Steve Roach’s occasional guitar experiments, with Fellirium using similar techniques to create washes and elongated chords of glistening ambience.

While it may mean I’m just easily led by the album and track titles, there’s a palpable feeling of the sea and ocean in Vasilyev’s aural palette, a hazy sense of light reflecting off vast expanses of water, of swells and ripples and the depth beneath. And that’s without any obvious use of water samples. Sometimes these washes and swells are given a little sparkle with the addition of a rattle of bells or shells, but for the most part, it’s just the beautiful nubilous ambience.

Угасание and Спираль Времени – В Отзвуках Эха


My final mini-review highlight from the ΠANθEON discography; had to end it somewhere or I’d be listening to nothing but for a long while.

In the folder name, this split release is listed as being from Ugasanie and Spiral of Time but the tags give both artists’ names in Cyrillic as Угасание and Спираль Времени, so I’m happy for the folder title otherwise I’d never remember who it’s by.

В Отзвуках Эха by Угасание and Спираль Времени (I’m already confused) consists of five tracks each from both artists, presented in its physical format in what looks to be a lovely cloth digipak with a labyrinth painted or stamped on the front. The tracks from Спираль Времени (Spiral of Time), who I’m not familiar with, are denser and murkier than those of Угасание, although both artists do seem to share a similar theme of isolation, with titles that reference places like Onegaborg in what is now the Republic of Karelia and Murmansk. With the exception of “Онегаборг”, which features a prominent dungeon-synth-style melody for its duration, the Спираль Времени pieces are, for the most part, textured sound paintings that lean towards industrial ambient with their aural choices and treatments. The Угасание quintet of tracks have a more sedate manner, feeling less refined and rarefied than the series of releases on Cryo Chamber, but incorporating the same themes and aural aesthetics, all wind-swept tundra and icy isolation.

Guest Sessions: Pär Boström Legacy Mix

This is the first of our guest sessions in which we’ll have artists with a variety of musical projects, yet all closely related to dark ambient, create a mix of their own music for us.

For this first mix, Pär Boström will be showcasing a song from each of his musical projects in a seamless mix, as per This Is Darkness usual recipe.

Pär Boström has been one of the most revered names in the dark ambient scene for almost two decades now. His emergence coincided with the birth of Cyclic Law, both artist and label owing successes to each other in those early years. While Kammarheit has been releasing albums since the early 2000s, many of Boström’s projects have cropped up over the last few years. Along with the emergence of his relatively new label Hypnagoga Press, which is run alongside his sister Åsa Boström, who is also the other half of Hymnambulae. The other project to include a second member is Altarmang, in which Pär is accompanied by Kenneth Hansson. It is also worth noting here that while Bonini Bulga and Teahouse Radio have only recently had their debut releases, these projects have been with Boström for years, awaiting a proper time to fully animate themselves.

00:00 Teahouse Radio – The Elsewhere Sleep
https://teahouseradio.bandcamp.com/album/her-quiet-garden

07:32 Hymnambulae – Bära Fram Solen
https://hymnambulae.bandcamp.com/album/orgelhuset

13:05 Kammarheit – Adrift
https://kammarheit.bandcamp.com/album/kollektionen

20:11 Bonini Bulga – Each Named
https://boninibulga.bandcamp.com/album/sealed

25:13 Aindulmedir – Wind-Bitten
https://aindulmedir.bandcamp.com/album/the-lunar-lexicon

30:00 Cities Last Broadcast – Cella
https://citieslastbroadcast.bandcamp.com/releases

39:30 Altarmang – Sulphur
https://altarmang.bandcamp.com/album/void

BRUTALISM – Upcoming Debut Streaming in Full!

We are very pleased to premiere the debut full length The Charged Void by BRUTALISM. Terence Hannum, most notably of Locrian and The Holy Circle, released the Symmetry Death limited 7″ lathe on his Anathemata Editions last year. I was immediately entranced by the bleak apocalyptic atmosphere presented on that track. So, it is with great pleasure that This Is Darkness was approached to present an exclusive early stream of their upcoming full length The Charged Void, which is set for release on Annihilvs Power Electronix on 15 March 2019.

Terence Hannum has been releasing music under a number of projects in recent years, including Locrian, the synth-pop The Holy Circle and the anti-fascist power-electronics Axebreaker. He’s also making his name in the writing world with a number of fiction novellas, recent highlights being: Beneath the Remains and All Internal (which we reviewed here).

But, Hannum’s true love still seems to be visual art. And this is where BRUTALISM seems to become the perfect project for him. Hannum is able to take all that knowledge of visual art along with his love for brutalist architecture and bring these into his musical world as tools for crafting something unique.

Hannum describes BRUTALISM as:

Deterritorialization.
Intimate Brutality at the very moment
of participation in surrounding nature.

BRUTALISM – The Charged Void is currently available for pre-order at:
https://annihilvspowerelectronix.bandcamp.com/album/the-charged-void-preorder
The Charged Void is being released on Annihilvs Power Electronix as a professionally-manufactured CD-R. This will be in conjunction with a cassette edition on Cloister Recordings.

David Lynch – Someone Is In My House – Art Book Review

Art: David Lynch
Title: Someone Is In My House
Release date: 19 February 2019
Pages: 304
Publisher: Prestel Publishing

David Lynch, Bob Sees Himself Walking Toward A Formidable Abstraction, 2000, oil and mixed media on canvas, courtesy of the artist.

After years of relative silence since the release of Inland Empire, David Lynch has been in the spotlight for the better part of the last three years. Twin Peaks: The Return set things in motion. For the first time since the early 90s, Lynch was on the minds of the mainstream masses, not just his usual rabid cult fan base. For those of us always wishing more focus would be put on Lynch’s many artistic endeavors outside of film, this has been a dream come true. All things Twin Peaks are back in commercial production, Blue Velvet finally received its Criterion Collection debut, the long lost Thought Gang (Lynch and Badalamenti) album was released.

David Lynch, Boy Lights Fire, 2010, mixed media on cardboard, courtesy the artist. Collection Bonnefantenmuseum

In the realm of books, we’ve also been fortunate. Nudes, reviewed by us, was released in late 2017. A 240 page art book packed with nude photography of women taken by David Lynch. That was followed by the semi-autobiography Room To Dream, also reviewed here. Now, 2019 is starting off with another huge art book featuring the works of David Lynch.

David Lynch, Couch Series #9, 2008, digigraphie, courtesy the artist and Galerie Karl Pfefferle, Munich

Someone Is In My House is the companion book to the currently running exhibition of the same name in the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, Netherlands. The exhibition will be running through 28 April 2019! Someone Is In My House showcases a multi-media selection of works, spanning the last fifty years. There is everything from pencil and pen sketches on torn out sheets of paper and collections of matchbook sketches to photography from ventures which would lead to the books and exhibitions of The Factory Photographs and Nudes.

David Lynch, untitled (Lodz), 2000, archival pigment print, courtesy the artist.

Someone Is In My House will be indispensable to the avid Lynch collector, but this book truly shines as an introduction to Lynch’s various art forms. Whereas books like the aforementioned The Factory Photographs and Nudes are straightforward art books, filled front to back with full-page photography, Someone Is In My House has a good bit more text, along with the large and beautiful images! We are given much more context for many of the included pieces. The various writers give us a bit of Lynch’s history to go with the images, as well as a number of examples from famous artists in history as comparison/contrast. Those familiar with Lynch’s history will find a handful of interesting details to be gathered, but these chapters/articles will prove highly useful to the reader that is only familiar with Lynch through film/television.

But there is plenty to attract the die-hards. The vast section “Works on Paper” is worth the price itself. Page after page of sketches, doodles, and an impressive number of lithographs give us one of the deepest views into Lynch’s subconscious yet. The matchbook collection, which I’ve heard about many times before, is presented here as well. Particularly as I gazed at these matchbooks for extended periods of time, I realized I’d be happier at my desk with this book and a cup of coffee than I would be seeing the matchbooks in person. Each stroke of Lynch’s ball-point pen seems to lead off into another universe yet to be uncovered.

David Lynch, Pete Goes To His Girlfriend’s House, 2009, mixed media on cardboard, courtesy the artist.

Paintings/Mixed Media is the other largest section of the book. This section would also be worth the money on its own. We are finally able to sit and gaze upon so many of these strange works that have been mentioned, or shown in passing in a documentary. Incredible pieces like “Bob’s Second Dream” are shown in full, but also have a close-up where you can study the writing and textures. Extracting meaning from the letters/words oddly strewn throughout many of these images can be an exercise in itself. Some of these works, which I’ve not enjoyed as much as others in the past, have given me the opportunity to gaze upon them in context, among other connected works, and a new appreciation for them has been sparked.

David Lynch, untitled (Lodz), 2000, archival pigment print, courtesy the artist .

The photography section is quite small, which isn’t surprising as Lynch’s photography has been presented to the public in books more than his paintings. But it still manages to feature some wonderful highlights, like the notorious “Chicken Kit” and “Fish Kit”. The “Chicken Kit” in particular shares disturbingly equal portions of humor and horror. There are also selections from the Factory and Nude photo collections, to give readers a taste of what they can expect in those books (the selections in this book appear to be exclusive, not re-used from those other books).

David Lynch, Girl Dancing, 2008, lithographie, courtesy the artist and Item Editions

The book is rounded out with a biography, further reading, selected exhibitions and selected filmography sections to help lead new Lynch fans off to discover more about this auteur.

David Lynch, Distorted Nude #4, 1999, archival pigment print, courtesy the artist

At roughly 10″x12″ and over 300 pages, Prestel has crafted a physical manifestation of Someone Is In My House worthy of its artistic content. The sturdy hardcover edition has thick pages and the images don’t present too terribly much glare when reading under lamp light. I would highly recommend this to the avid Lynch fan who already has a few of the other art books, or to the newcomer to Lynch’s art-life outside his film-directing career.

Written by: Michael Barnett

Wolves and Horses – “Lascaux” – Music Video

We are pleased to share with you the music video for Wolves and Horses track “Lascaux” from our new compilation, This is Darkness Presents Vol.2 Nothingness! Wolves and Horses released their first full length, Every Moment of Light and Dark on UAE Records in 2015. In 2017 they were featured on Tomb of Seers, from the Cryo Chamber ‘Tombs’ series. Shortly after that release we conducted an interview with them, which you can read here.

You can listen to the rest of the Nothingness compilation at the following link:
http://www.thisisdarkness.com/2019/02/13/this-is-darkness-presents-vol-2-nothingness/
Check out the rest of Wolves and Horses discography on their Bandcamp:
https://wolvesandhorsesmusic.bandcamp.com

This Is Darkness Presents Vol.2 Nothingness

The long awaited second installment of our compilation series has arrived! We’ve curated tracks from some of the biggest names in the dark ambient and post-industrial scene as well as some very talented up & coming artists. We invite you to discover this massive set of tracks, which starts in the more traditional forms of dark ambient and slowly meanders its way into more post-industrial and even dark jazz territory!

The album takes its name from its final track by Senketsu No Night Club, one of our favorite dark jazz projects in recent years. You can hear the original version of that track on their latest album Shikkoku, which we reviewed here.

Another track to note is the one by Fyrhtu. “Sun Ship, Night Sea” is the very first track to be released by the new duo which includes Leila Abdul-Rauf and Nathan A. Verrill, who have previously performed together in the band Cardinal Wyrm.

All tracks are exclusive to this compilation!

Thanks so much to Pär Boström for creating this beautiful album art. A big thank you also goes to the many musicians that took part in this compilation. All artists have graciously contributed their tracks to this cause. So whatever money is raised from this compilation will help support the endeavors of This Is Darkness.

If you like what you hear, be sure to follow and support the artists!

I will end this with the English translation of the lyrics to the included Skeldos track, “Tylos”.

Silences (Tylos)

We pull the roots out of our fields
So the wind could flow freely
So the thoughts could dive deep had they wished to

We purge everything and pile it in the ravine
And simply leave it there to decompose
No fires or rituals, merely an empty field
What good are spells when dunes are all your own?

We pick the antlers hung above the water
While fishermen pull out their nets nearby
While trapped reflections are refracted by the surface

We stack those wooden antlers in a sheaf
When stars encircle our restless heads
And sweep the water surface to let shine the smooth
Not spells, but merely our silences

Ugasanie & Dronny Darko – Arctic Gates – Review

Artist: Ugasanie & Dronny Darko
Album: Arctic Gates
Release date: 12 February 2019
Label: Cryo Chamber

Tracklist:
01. Behind the North Wind
02. Wreck
03. An Object
04. 80T-54’08.8N 49T-51’38.3E
05. In the Polar Sea
06. Absorbed by Ice
07. Isolation Pit

“Two weeks you’ve been scouring the Arctic Sea. No sun since you reached the North, the dark water a constant fractured mirror that meets the universe above and pulls you into its black fold. Everything points to “it” resting beneath the ice, in a slumber of centuries.

Three weeks, now on land, you’re getting close. Down here beneath the ice you feel disconnected from the world, like you are leaving the present as you spelunk into the past. You snap another glow stick and throw it down the ice shaft, the light strobes off crystalline walls as it reveals an ancient structure below. The Arctic Gates.”

After Northaunt, Ugasanie (Угасание, which my Belarussian friend has told me is pronounced Ew-Gah-Shay-Nee-Yuh, and which means something like ‘fading away’ in English) was the second “polar ambient” artist with which I fell in love. Pavel Malyshkin of Vitebsk, Belarus has been creating music since around 2010 under this name, with a few solid early albums before he was discovered by Cryo Chamber in 2013 and released the classic White Silence. Since then, Ugasanie has become one of the most well known polar ambient artists within the greater dark ambient genre. He also runs two side-projects: Polterngeist and Silent Universe.

Oleg Puzan of Kiev, Ukraine also came to prominence with his first Cryo Chamber release as Dronny Darko, Outer Tehom, in 2014. Since then, he’s created a vast catalog of albums covering a multitude of styles within the dark ambient genre. He also mentored his now wife and mother of his child, Sasha Puzan aka protoU, who has released a number of solo albums on Cryo Chamber as well as excellent collaborations with Dronny Darko and others. He also has a few side projects of which I particularly enjoy Cryogenic Weekend and Hivetribe.

With Dronny Darko known for his attention to detail using drones and field recordings to create exquisitely nuanced soundscapes, and Ugasanie‘s mastery of the far northern landscapes/soundscapes, we should expect something extra special here! If the amount of times I’ve played this album on repeat over the last few days is any indication, this one is a gem!

The theme takes us to the far north, into the Arctic Ocean, not far north of Svalbard (Spitsbergen), the massive archipelago which has been under Norwegian sovereignty since 1920. The album blurb tells us that there are people searching this region of the Arctic for “it”, which has apparently been slumbering beneath the ice for centuries. This scenario seems to hint at something like a Cthulhu type entity for which the explorers search. It seems that they find signs of what they seek around the GPS coordinates given as the title of the fourth track, “80T-54’08.8N 49T-51’38.3E”. I’ve shown these coordinates on the map below.

I’m having a hard time connecting the narrative in the song titles to the narrative in the album blurb. But it seems that the explorers are searching this area by boat in the middle of dark winter (that time of year in the polar regions when the sun sets and doesn’t rise again for weeks/months, depending on how far to the extreme north or south you are). At some point, the explorers wreck their vessel (likely into floating glacial breakaways or the solidifying sea itself). However they move on. They find their way into a shaft, beneath the ice, possibly beneath the frozen sea itself. Until they reach land and ‘The Arctic Gates’. Whatever great mysteries are revealed to them in these depths should be left to the listeners’ imagination.

From a technical perspective, Ugasanie provides brilliant field recordings, which are able to bring this treacherous and frigid northern climate to our headphones. We can feel the gusts of wind, the creaking glaciers, the flexing ice. But, there is much more to this journey than an unwelcoming frozen environment, there is also dark energy, possibly dark gods. Dronny Darko takes the helm on bringing the events and encounters to life within Ugasanie‘s world. The results are magnificent. Both artists show a perfection of their styles here, allowing me to close my eyes and bring this cinematic experience truly to life.

I’ve honestly felt the cinematic elements of Arctic Gates more intensely than most other albums in the last two or so years. Aside from Eximia‘s Visitors album, I haven’t had so much fun trying to piece together a plot since the last time I sat down with the Atrium Carceri discography for several days straight. This is cinematic dark ambient at its best, especially if you like the polar theme.

Written by: Michael Barnett

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The focus of This Is Darkness is to create and share content which will be of particular interest to dark ambient fans. This doesn’t mean we will only cover the music.

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Abbildung – At the Gates of Ouln – Review

Artist: Abbildung
Album: At the Gates of Ouln
Release date: 25 January 2019
Label: Winter-Light

Tracklist:
01. Brejor
02. Feruni
03. Astrolatry
04. Hymni Zahir
05. Travellers of Eternal Spheres
06. Abyme

“They dream our darkest dreams. They are searching for the untold meaning of their own dreams. They are starting to conjure all manner of strange things; demons, fears and chaos in primeval rituals. The mysteries of their realm unveil themselves, as we descend through their mystical gate….”

Abbildung, meaning in German a ‘mapping’ or ‘depiction’, is the dark ambient project of the Transylvanian, Casian Stefan. Stefan has been creating music as Abbildung since circa 2005. But, he’s also, at least equally, known through the community as the owner of the Essentia Mundi record label. While Abbildung has released the majority of their albums through Essentia Mundi, the last two have been on the Winter-Light label. You can check out my 2015 review of the last album All Demons Are Horned here on Terra Relicta.

Whereas All Demons Are Horned took an active and varied direction, diverging greatly in style from track-to-track, At the Gates of Ouln is a much more uniform release. This isn’t to say that it is any less interesting, but the tracks seem to progress in a smoother fashion. When choral male vocals fade into “Astrolatry” it does so almost effortlessly. When there are moments of percussion, again, they manage to stealthily fade into and back out of the mix.

As an active listen, these smooth transitions give you a reason to pay extra attention throughout the album, lest you miss something. For those incorporating this into  their passive listening, during reading, meditation or yoga, you will find the album can be placed perfectly in the background. Able to build a full and reverent atmosphere without sacrificing one’s concentration on the task at hand.

I use the word reverent because there is certainly a religious undertone which flows through the album. While the choral vocals being used are likely from a Christian choir, there is no reason to believe that this album should be considered a Christian experience. In fact, any hopes of something like that would be quickly dashed, as the beauty of “Astrolatry” shifts into the much darker and more primal “Hymni Zahir”.

In “Travellers of Eternal Spheres” we again return to the choral vocals, but this time they are obscured at a great distance. It is almost as if they become part of the shimmering drones which flow around and through them. The darkness of “Hymni Zahir” seems to have corrupted the beauty of the previous track, and “Travellers of Eternal Spheres” is then rendered a twisted combination of the two atmospheres. As “Travellers” draws to its close, after the 10 minute mark, we are moving toward a stiller darkness. We are left with some subtle field recordings and an ominous set of notes that corrupt and become the silent darkness.

“Abyme” truly represents the abyss here. Those dark and lonely notes from the previous track return, giving us a continuation of that motif. The field recordings become more subterranean and pronounced. The drones are almost non-existent. As the track proceeds through this dark soundscape, an unsettling high-pitched noise slowly begins to invade the track, gradually increasing in intensity (mind you the note/noise is nowhere near on par with something like death industrial or power electronics or noise ambient, this is a harsher but thoroughly dark ambient experience, and nothing I would really need to warn a sensitive ear against). Once this sort of demon has been abated by the 10 minute mark, we are again lost in the depths of an all-encompassing darkness which fades into total stillness.

I really enjoyed the last Abbildung album in 2015, and it was my first experience with the artist at the time. However, I found that there were only certain times when I could listen to the album and really allow it to shine. At the Gates of Ouln is a much more versatile album for me, and in the short time I’ve owned the CD it has been played at least several times a day, and never once was it found to be out of place, whatever I may have been doing at the time. I, therefore, very highly recommend this one. This is the perfect introduction to Abbildung if you aren’t previously familiar. For those of us familiar with his past works, this could likely be the best yet. Add a beautiful digi-pak presentation from Winter-Light, and there is really no excuse not to pick this one up!

Written by: Michael Barnett

Aindulmedir – The Lunar Lexicon – Review

Artist: Aindulmedir
Album: The Lunar Lexicon
Release date: 21 January 2019
Label: Hypnagoga Press

Tracklist:
01. Wind-Bitten
02. Book of Towers
03. The Librarian
04. Winter and Slumber
05. The Lunar Lexicon
06. Snow Above Blue Fire
07. Sleep-Form

Aindulmedir is the latest project from Pär Boström, known to most in the dark ambient community for his work as Kammarheit and Cities Last Broadcast. Following in the aesthetic the label often presents, mixtures of solitude, mysticism, northern landscapes and nostalgia draw the listener once again into the esoteric worlds presented on Hypnagoga Press.

For this release we will quickly notice a new side of Pär Boström being unveiled. While he often focuses on northern and/or dream landscapes and mysticism in his works, Aindulmedir takes these concepts a little bit outside the confines of the dark ambient genre. Aindulmedir adds a healthy dose of dungeon synth vibes to the mix. But this will not be your standard dungeon synth. Comparisons to someone like Mortiis wouldn’t make much sense here. The sounds of Aindulmedir more closely align with something like Grimrik‘s debut Eisreich. The solitary northern vibes outweigh the fantasy elements here, allowing for a subtlety which is often sorely lacking in the vast majority of dungeon synth releases I hear.

Though I mention a lesser reliance on the fantasy motifs, Aindulmedir actually does bring its fair share of fantasy into the mix. However, this is more noticeable in the album art and theme than the music itself. (Though there are some great fantasy moments, like the track “Winter and Slumber” with its more jubilant vibe.) We can see, through album art and titles, that The Lunar Lexicon transports us to some lonely tower on a remote mountain pass. This tower must be filled with the slowly decomposing grimoires of centuries passed. In the middle of the tower sits the old wrinkled hermit, his white beard falling carelessly across his old robes. In his lap sits some book of knowledge and power, while blue flames dance and leap from within the stone hearth. This is a place I never want to leave…

The Lunar Lexicon is stated to have some connection to a novel Pär is currently in the process of writing. Now, we can all begin to obsessively wonder what mysteries might be in store for us within the pages of this novel. As far as I’ve seen, this is the only public mention of such a work, so we can be sure that frigid climates and magickal books (and maybe even a wizard?) will be part of this narrative. But as the album description says that the music is “crossing the borderlands of a novel Pär is writing”, we are left probably with more questions than answers. I, for one, am incredibly excited about this news.

The album is also said to be “winter music for bibliophiles and hermits”. For those of us in the northern hemisphere, that makes now the perfect time for enjoying such a work. As our world slowly shifts we’ve been seeing vast accumulations of snow across various and often random sections of the world. There is no better time to sit down with a great book, a cup of hot tea or coffee, and Aindulmedir on repeat in the background.

I continue to be surprised by the ability of Pär Boström to continue expanding his musical output into new projects, while also moving forward with the others. I get a bit of a Kammarheit vibe from “Sleep-Form” but really this album sounds nothing like any of the other releases I’ve heard from Boström (of course, not all his works are solo, some like Hymnambulae include his sister Åsa, and Altarmang includes Kenneth Hansson). It will be increasingly interesting over the years to come, as we see how these various projects will all advance and morph.

The album was released digitally as well as in 30 limited edition cassettes. The cassettes were sold-out in something like two hours, so it looks like the community is certainly keeping an eye on these limited edition releases. From their past statements, it seems we can expect to see more of these sorts of ultra-limited edition releases in the future. However, other releases like the Hymnambulae debut, Orgelhuset, were pressed in a much larger quantity, so I guess there will continue to be a bit of each.

Since I first discovered the genre of dark ambient, Kammarheit and Cities Last Broadcast have both been incredibly important to me. It’s great a few years later to see Pär Boström taking his work in new and varied directions, while still staying faithful to his original projects. The Lunar Lexicon by Aindulmedir is yet another utterly magnificent release to add to that already impressive list.

Written by: Michael Barnett

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