Northaunt. The Ominous Silence . 2001. 4.5 stars .
Yet another brilliant and obscure record from Norway, Northaunt’s The Ominous Silence features chilling dark-ambient passages complete with sparse piano work and haunting field recordings from nature. Northaunt takes cues from black metal, chamber rock and the avant-garde to create a compelling listening experience that weaves between starkly beautiful melodies and menacing samples, pulling you into the black recesses of the unknown.
The Ominous Silence is exceptional for its painstaking attention to detail, as each drone, gargling vocal and effect is used subtly to create a mysterious soundscape. While the majority of the tracks here run long, they are still driven by underlying melodies so their efforts don’t become too outstretched and abstracted. Such a curious and unsettling work like The Ominous Silence demonstrates the evocative power of dark ambient and calls your attention to the quiet happenings around you. Every drop of rain, gust of wind and thundering storm is part of a wild, puzzling concert and Northaunt act as a medium for it. Powerful, if not often disturbing, material from one of the most underwritten genres.
This album is total insanity. With open wintry keyboards and furious black metal riffs, Darkspace create a crushing atmosphere that swallows everything around it. If you are familiar with Switzerland’s Paysage d’Hiver, you will know what to expect here, as Darkspace features PDH’s Tobias Möckl on guitars and vocals. While PDH was barren, lo-fi and rustic, Darkspace’s sound sports slightly better production and its ragged guitar rhythms are given more room to breathe. The sound created here is cold, grim and bleak but is also feverishly paced, running through torrents of visceral blackness.
Darkspace are less focused on crafting songs as they are on developing a harsh sonic landscape, as all of these tracks run long, eventually becoming monolithic walls of sound. While it is often challenging to have no distinctive compositional elements stick out in the mix, as everything blends together in a sea of darkness, there are still some powerful melodies under the surface to move the episodes along. Every so often a brutal doom metal riff will come chugging along, providing a relentless current to pull you along.
Taken as an immersing experience, Darkspace III is an exceptional black metal record that successfully incorporates ambient elements and chilling keyboard sections to full effect. In terms of disticntive song craft and variety however, causal metal fans may find this to be rather inaccessible. Its their loss still, since albums with such relentless consistency and cohesion are hard to come by.
Sigur Ros. Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust . 2008. 3.5 stars .
Iceland’s Sigur Ros have become synonymous with 21st century post-rock and for good reason. Initially stirring their brooding, neo-classical travels in the same icy gloom as innovators Godspeed You Black Emperor, Labradford etc, Sigur Ros added a strange endearing twist - soothing, choir-like vocals that lent their drama an air of hope and innocence, emotions the underground shunned and forgot. As a result, Sigur Ros, with all their E.T.-like charm, came out of the darkness and into popular consciousness, eventually lending tunes to apocalyptic films like Children of Men and Vanilla Sky . Deservedly, their breakthrough album Ágætis byrjun has been deemed as essential as Radiohead’s Kid A or My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless , as it carved out a sound that was harrowing, innovative and heartbreakingly beautiful. After such a strong impression on the world’s stage, pressure on the band surmounted. Where would they go next?
Try as I may, I just can’t stop posting about the obscure albums I’ve stumbled across online. Some of them are just too good to leave untouched, so here goes. Bathed in Sunlight is a beautiful ambient/post-rock album from Colorado natives Encomiast that features five blissful songs that incorporate an impressive variety of ethereal sounds and instruments.
Transient drones wash over you from the outset of "Pumpkin", as layers of synth harmonies and distant vocals glide across each other in slow, hypnotic movements. Together they create a trace-inducing atmosphere that is subtly executed yet incredibly powerful in its effect. "If the Night Commands It" introduces light percussion into the mix, as soft tabla drums patter away against the deep bass lines before a shimmering guitar sweeps across in a delicate post-rock fashion. The meditative vocals of Ross Hagen gracefully enter, providing haunting lyrical descriptions of some twilight scene. While the musicianship never deviates far from the set patterns, it still draws you into a peaceful dream-like state.
"Laughter in the Storm" is probably the album’s stongest track, as clear tabla percussion again sets the stage for gentle acoustic guitar lines and some stunning flute passages that hover at the front of the mix. Hagen’s sparse vocals return to lend a dark, foreboding touch to the otherwise warm melodies. "My Chariot Awaits?" takes a little while to get going, as it meanders in aimless ambient noise, before finally fleshing out with soothing synth drones and cinematic echoes, reminding me of lonely whale songs or strange rumblings within a subway tunnel. The closing "Evergreen" introduces ominous female vocals that careen across the light soundscape before driving drums crash in, bringing us to a final, glorious crescendo. While this epic climax is not nearly as bombastic as conventional rock fair, its contrast to the rest of the song (and most of the album) is immediately satisfying and demonstrates Encomiast’s deliberate sense of pacing and structure.
Despite its often spare and detached composition, Bathed in Sunlight feels natural and welcoming as they want to ease the listener into a trance with the care and patience of a ancient shaman. Fans of minimalist music, film scores and ambient rock like Labradford will find much to like here. While you may have trouble finding a physical copy of this, as its release is very limited, you may have a chance securing one from the band’s website . Good luck, this is surely worth the effort.
“Nothing matters aside from catharsis. The feeling of catharsis is what true people seek out. The problem is that virtually nobody is true anymore. Politics, religion, stock markets… It are these manmade things which people obsess over that is ruining everything. It is why people are loading up on anti-depressants and therapy sessions. Mankind created this demon of a system and most people are too busy on their cellphones to realize that this demon they feed and fund is the same thing that has ruined them. I can neither help nor save them. Misanthropy is the nautical map of my life. It has brought me true catharsis.”- ‘SGL’ Velvet Cacoon
One of the most mysterious and controversial Black Metal bands to come from the Pacific Northwest, Portland’s Velvet Cacoon play intensely atmospheric music partly inspired by radical environmentalism and the abuse of Dextromethorphan. The duo, known as ‘Josh’ (SGL) and ‘Angela’ (LVG), have been the subject of many bizarre rumors and hoaxes, giving their work an extreme, larger than life mystique. Stories of their asexuality, ‘ecofascist’ political beliefs, accusations of plagiarism, and the creation of their own diesel powered guitar (the ‘diesel harp’) have made the band the subject of heated discussion online and within the metal underground.
Despite the dubious nature of Velvet Cacoon, their sole ‘public’ album Genevieve is certainly a uncompromising masterpiece, possessing a claustrophobic and haunted beauty. The distorted guitar tone that dominates the mix sounds as if it was recorded underwater, adding to the oceanic themes evoked by the tracks “P.S. Nautical” and “Avalon Polo”. The cold and alien sound emitted from these blurred riffs is daunting, making the mystery of its creation ever more compelling. Deep, propulsive drum machine rolls provide the current for these black pools, moving at a constant, unchanging rhythm that palpitates like a terrified heartbeat. Strange, distant vocals whisper and hiss in the shadows, providing a menacing and ghostly presence to the ruminations. The entire experience is enveloping, opening black holes to suck in all light and emotion, leaving you to contemplate the harsh throes of the universe. While Genevieve may initially sound disturbing, it is also a hypnotic and existential listen, instigating deep reflection and wonder long after the bleak ambient closer “Bete Noir” has faded to black.
For its dark, natural (and supernatural) overtones, Genevieve is a rare musical experience that presents emotional and intellectual challenges that will be sure to stick with the attuned listener. Anyone interested in the work of Burzum, Wolves in the Throne Room and Sunn O))) will find much to like here, as Velvet Cacoon shares many aesthetic elements with those acts. I also recommend reading the rare interviews with the band, as they discuss the controversies surrounding their work as well as their esoteric views on drug use, sexuality, the environment and the universe. While some of their views may be odd and provocative, they certainly are intelligently put and make for an interesting read.
While on the ride home from work today, I was drifting off to sleep with the post-rock band Labradford playing on my iPod. It was a strange experience to say to least, having the sunlight splatter shifting colors behind my eyelids while the haunting ambiance set in. While partially asleep, I could still hear the jangling guitar and soothing drones weave in and out, as my body slipped into some subdued state of paralysis. When I got home, I found this strange video and it seemed to capture the mood. This song is from their debut album Prazision.
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