Artist: Atrium Carceri
Album title: Cellblock
Release date: 3 September 2003
Original label: Cold Meat Industry (defunct)
Rerelease label: Cryo Chamber

Tracklist:
01. Entrance
02. Black Lace
03. Machine Elves
04. Corridor
05. Blue Moon
06. Stir of Thoughts
07. Depth
08. Crusted Neon
09. Halls of Steam
10. Reborn
11. Red Stains
12. Inner Carceri

At this point, Atrium Carceri should be a well known name to any fan of dark ambient music. With 10+ albums under the moniker Simon Heath has built a brilliant labyrinth of story-lines, mythos, and protagonists. The Atrium Carceri mythos is one of, if not the most, impressive collections of music within the dark ambient genre. The depth and sheer volume of the material could honestly thrust Atrium Carceri out of the confines of dark ambient music and into some other varied media. With this much information to pick from, it would be absolutely possible to make a series of books or films just based on the information already revealed. Yet, back in 2003 when Cellblock first released, dark ambient wasn’t really even a thing. Or at least, not in name.

Referred to by many at the time as “dark wave” it was really hard for fans and reviewers alike to even know how to classify Cellblock. There had been hints of music in the past which touched on the cinematic dark ambient experience, but no one had dedicated a whole album to this particular style. Atrium Carceri, as we now know, wasn’t just an artist writing albums. Atrium Carceri was, and still is, a story, a mythos, a set of gods, protagonists, times, and locations across a devastated and dying planet. The world was being turned on its head. The fabric of reality itself was tearing as gods and men reversed their roles, became one, killed each other off.

There are so many questions to ponder when it comes to the Atrium Carceri mythos. Does this take place on Earth, the Earth we know? Maybe. Most likely. It is worth noting that, in Za Frumi, Simon Heath’s earlier endeavor with Simon Kölle, he incorporated vocals in the orc tongue. So taking this into consideration, it becomes more clear that Cellblock must have taken place in Japan and U.S.A. As we can hear dialogues on Cellblock in Japanese and American English. If this were some foreign planet, I have to imagine Simon Heath would have used some other form of communication other than these two well recognized languages.

Having answered (or at least attempted) the question of where, we now must ponder the when. This one is much more problematic. I like to think of the when in Cellblock being in the near future, maybe within 50 years or so. There seem to have been structural changes to our cultures and planet hinted at in later albums, but on Cellblock, for the most part, things sound contemporary. Yet, the timeline of this album seems to lie in two separate time-frames. For the majority of the album we witness the environment and mental deterioration of a prison inmate. As we hear on “Crusted Neon” this is taking place in Japan. “Crusted Neon” appears to be a flash-back, a memory of some scene before the protagonist was imprisoned. Yet, 3/4 of the way through the album we reach “Reborn” a track which in name and sound seems to be a literal rebirth. Within the pages of the album the final line of text is “How many do we have to kill before they stop coming back?” This line seems to hint at the presence of reincarnation. Indeed it would seem that the original protagonist has died and has possibly been reincarnated in The United States. Yet, he still has the same thirst for blood, the hunger for murder is ever present. Coming back with his same desires, the reincarnated protagonist has returned to the murder spree which found his former self imprisoned. A detective on “Reborn” gives us an idea of the man’s deeds, saying “She’s been strangled, her throat’s been slashed. There’s jagged wounds running down the left side of her abdomen…”.

The idea of the change of landscape and time seems to be compounded by the choice of sounds in the two sections of the album. “Entrance” through “Halls of Steam” seem to be very subterranean, murky, muddled in their sound. They seem to depict the prisoner from his initial entrance to the prison, a time of fear and sad realization. As the album progresses the isolation becomes more and more profound, the mind of the protagonist deteriorates as he lies in his filthy cell, devoid of all contact with the outside world, save for his jailer. On “Reborn” there seems to be a good bit more clarity, the sounds are less murky and more crisp and pristine. This gives a sense of being outside the prison walls. The use of the English in its American dialect helps us realize that we are not in the same country anymore. It is worth noting here, that this final section of the album may be nothing more than a dream, an attempt to live through the dreamworld outside the confines of the prison, in a foreign land.

However, this vacation from imprisonment is fleeting. “Red Stains” is a highly suspenseful track, built up by its brilliant handling of the synth arrangement. It feels as if we have followed the detective of the previous track to the scene of the crime. Or is this a second crime? Hard to say, but we do seem to still be on American soil. As the track reaches its close, we hear the sounds of a metal door squealing open and then closed. Is this a sign of entering a second prison? Or, has the original protagonist just been awoken by the sound of his prison cell door opening? Again, it is hard to say. By the final track “Inner Carceri” it seems the murderer has been caught. His reincarnated self is now again imprisoned. The subterranean sounds return, yet it appears to be less muddled than on the previous tracks. This gives a sense of the clarity of the mindset of the prisoner, he has not yet succumbed to the isolation, he still has his wits. The album ends on this note, but we will see in the second Atrium Carceri album, Seishinbyouin that there is still more to be told about the tribulations of the imprisoned.

The release of Cellblock was immediately recognized by many to be a genre defining moment. The attention to detail on Cellblock cannot be overstated. The use of field recordings, human voices, synth, piano, and percussion all come together to present a thoroughly intricate and enjoyable album which not only is a delight to the senses but also tells a story. This story is not easily decipherable. I have given my best interpretation here of what I believe has taken place, but for all I know, I’m totally wrong. Simon Heath has been extremely cautious in how much information to give fans about the story-line of Atrium Carceri. Now over a decade after this debut, we are seeing time-lines and more details of the story slowly surfacing. But, back in 2003 the journey was only beginning and the story was anything but clear to the listener. Simon Heath has hinted at some future possibilities for clearly defining the story, but for now it is totally up to the listener to put the puzzle pieces together, as best they can. The mystery is often half the fun, the other half being a line of brilliant albums to feast upon.

Written by: Michael Barnett (5 November 2016)

Band: raison d’être
Album title: Prospectus I
Release date: 1993
Original Label: Cold Meat Industry (defunct)
Re-release Label: Old Europa Cafe (physical), Yantra Atmospheres (digital)

Tracklist:
01. Katharsis
02. Ordeal In Chapel
03. Ascension De Profundis
04. Mourning
05. Mesmerized In Sorrow
06. Cenotaphium
07. Synopsis
08. Anathema / Apotheosis
09. Penumbra

Back in 1993, Peter Andersson unleashed an album on the world which would be one of the benchmarks for dark ambient, a genre that was still in its infancy at the time. Sure, other artists had been pushing slowly in this direction as well. Delerium was fresh off their release of Stone Tower an album which must have had a decent bit of influence on Peter Andersson, who followed closely to their template but took it into a darker and more subtle place. A place devoid of the front and center percussion heard in Delerium. The classic Heresy by Lustmord was still just making waves across the scene.

Into this landscape, enter raison d’être. raison d’être clearly can’t be credited with starting the dark ambient genre. While still quite primordial, dark ambient already had about ten years worth of experimentation under its belt before Prospectus I hit the shelves, through the legendary Cold Meat Industry label. However, CMI did already have a name for themselves. So when Prospectus I released, it immediately found an audience. Fans ears perked up, maybe for the first time, as they heard an album which would change the face of the genre.

Lustmord through the proceeding years had been going for a sinister sort of feel. Heresy is wrought with some downright horrifying moments. raison d’être flipped the script, presenting an album which shared equal parts beauty and darkness. The sacral vocals incorporated throughout the album would not only become a trademark of the raison d’être sound. They would be tested and refined by many other artists even to this day. Whether any of them have ever reached the glory of this early release is a question that is absolutely debatable.

Adding upon the sacral vocals, which are such a defining part of their sound, raison d’être dug even deeper into this contrast between the light and dark. “Ordeal In Chapel” may be the most beautiful track on Prospectus I. On “Ordeal In Chapel” we hear and feel our surroundings in this chapel. Chanting is the dominate characteristic with a bell tolling in the background. Gently droning synths hold the majority of the track together, before fading out toward the end, as the track progresses further into the darkness. On “Ascension De Profundis” we are given a reasonably calm backdrop, with the sounds of church bells tolling. But these pleasant sounds are betrayed by the repeated phrase “The Holy Father”, and a sacral chanting sample which repeats throughout the track in an unsettling and decidedly eerie manner. The icing on this cake is an extremely well placed industrial sort of drum beat, which, while being quite pronounced in the track, doesn’t shatter the atmosphere, as is the case so often in dark ambient albums with percussion. Again on “Cenotaphium” we hear this brilliant use of industrial percussion, adding to the depth, yet allowing for continued immersion. Also of particular note, is the final track “Penumbra” which does break the immersion of the listener a bit, but not to a negative effect. Something that sounds almost like a violin, but is much more likely a heavily treated synth, cuts into the mix with its high-pitched notes. Following this is a clear and abrupt synth line, which meanders almost playfully through the track, taking on an Atomine Elektrine feel. Yet, with much of the album, this lighthearted side doesn’t last forever. We are slowly inundated with a pulsating sound which could almost be a human voice, but sounds quite demonic. A dreamier, yet fear inducing, synth line falls into the mix. On its tail is some serious use of industrial field recordings, which become more dominant as the track proceeds. By the end of “Penumbra”, we can hear a plethora of field recordings which all come together in a cinematic manner which might not be used so successfully again on a dark ambient album, until the coming of Atrium Carceri in the mid-2000s.

While raison d’être didn’t form a genre with this album, he did succeed in bringing a more peaceful, yet simultaneously eerie and irreligious release to the forefront of the CMI scene. The sense of beauty within the darkness cannot be overstated. One gets a feeling of religious nostalgia, simultaneously with a sense of the corruption on the part of Christianity. Light and dark are two sides of the same coin, and raison d’être is one of the best at blurring the lines between these two sides. Prospectus I has proven over the last 22 odd years that it is indeed a classic. As a fan who came into the genre much later, it is absolutely necessary to look back to the beginning, not only to see where the genre came from, but also to realize that some of these classic releases truly stand the test of time and would be just as welcome to the scene today as they were two decades ago.  Looking reverently back on the early albums of the 80s and 90s as if digging the dirt off the remains of an illustrious ancient civilization, there are few other artists that can bring out such emotion as raison d’être. Peter Andersson would refine and expand upon the template set in Prospectus I to build one of the most successful careers in the dark ambient scene. This album is an absolute must for any dark ambient fan who looks back over the history of the genre and doesn’t know where to start. Prospectus I is truly a classic and an early masterpiece of dark ambient.

Written by: Michael Barnett (9/9/2016)

Nota Bene:
raison d’être has recently restored, re-recorded and mixed Prospectus I. Check the “Re-release Label” links at the top or click on the Bandcamp player for information on purchasing this redux version of Prospectus I.