This is the second album of Shrine that I review. The other album was not totally convincing to me, the second is neither.
Shrine makes alright dark ambient, with many long tones which make the music it more “soundscapes”. The sound is somewhat dark, which is good in my opinion, but not really varried or moody enough to keep my attention.
Links: Shrine, Cyclic Law
In 2007 I received the debut 3″ mcd to review. It made me have to reconsider my ideas about dark ambient. A magnificent and extraordinary dark piece of ambient was presented by Vestigial. After a great debut cd on CMI (2008) I somehow missed the “Solar” mcdr (2009), but now both minis are made available on one disc by Cyclic Law. Dark ambient like even in the best days of CMI it was not made. Great material!
Links: Vestigial, Cyclic Law
You have got to love a project with such a name, right? So why did it take until I heard that Peter Johan Nijland (Distel, Hadewych) cooperated to this release before I actually listened to them? The release is somewhat confusing. There is a tape, apparently released by the band themselves and there are two cd versions, one from a label that was unknown to me (Silken Tofu) and another from Malignant. These are not two versions though, but two parts of the same compilation. Roughly said, the first part (Silken Tofu) contains more industrial sounds, the second more ambient. Industrialwise the project goes from somewhat chaotic industrial, reminding a bit of Objekt/Urian, to darker, but also to more noisy sounds. The second cd is pretty dark with, like I said, more ambient sounds but also with industrial and noise influences.
Trepaneringsritualen may not be brilliant, but they certainly released some interesting material, especially for people who enjoy the good old industrial sound.
Links: Trepaneringsritualen, Silken Tofu, Malignant Records
Next year it will be 20 years ago since I got myself the debut tape of this Canadian project. Where did time go? The sound went from eerie ritual to dark industrial to the more dark ambient soundscapes of today. Many releases have been made available. Sometimes shortly after eachother, sometimes after such a lap that we all wondered if the project would still raise again from the ashes. In recent years the other project Sistrenatus seems to have been laid to rest in favour of Funerary Call. It took many years before the countrymates of FC and Cyclic Law found eachother, but here is the first collaboration.
This 45 minutes soundscape does not sound as ritualistic to me as other releases of FC, but I can asure you that it is as damn dark as previous offerings. The music could be the soundtrack for a horror movie to give you an idea of the atmosphere. This sound may not be my favourite FC sound, but this album surely is another good release of mr. MacFarlane.
Links: Funerary Call, Cyclic Law
Of Parhelion I reviewed an album before. Zac Keiller does not ring a bell, but he also seems to have some material available. When reading back my review of Parhelion’s “Midnight Sun” (2010) I could write about the same again. “Farthest North” is an album with dark ambient soundscapes with often very low frequencies or drones and on a few occasions a flinch of noise. This time the atmosphere remains that of a dark ambient album, gloomy, so however the sound is a bit too monotous or ‘soundscapish’ for my taste, I kind of enjoy this album. “Dark ambient” is a very fitting way to describe this album, but do not expect the Cold Meat sound.
Links: Parhelion, Zac Keiller, Cyclic Law
So I fell for the title. Actually I thought this would be a compilation, but it is an album of a project of which I cannot find a whole lot of information. Discogs has a project with the same name, but I am not sure it is the same and the Discogs list of the label does not list this album. By exception I have linked the cover of the album to the label instead of to Discogs. In any case, as you can expect with an Eraserhead tribute, this album contains rumbling industrial ambient quite in the vein of the original soundtrack. Furtheron the sound gets more industrial with here and there a touch of noise. It is all slightly monotous, but not boring. Save the artwork I do not find a whole lot of references to the film.
This is a very cool album! “Grey” opens with some pretty dark ambient and immediately goes over into something rhythmical (no, no ‘trance ambient’) and gradually grows into a weird sound collage (with ‘trance ambient’ elements), not as minimalistic as Zenial, but “musique concrete” also applies to parts of this album.
I had never heard of Aquavoice, but there have been three previous releases in the past decade. My first encounter is a positive surprise for sure. The album goes from dark to atmospheric and from minimalistic soundscapes to trance ambient, it is all well executed and sounds interesting.
Links: Aquavoice, Zoharum
This is certainly the most interesting of the three recent Cyclic Law releases. The previous album of Vortex contained an interesting blend of dark ambient and tribal drummings and other experimentations, “Kali Yuga” is a nice and somewhat dirty industrial ambient release. Industrial rhythms, a little bit of noise, yep, like the previous album something somewhat out of the ordinary. Well done.
Links: Vortex, Cyclic Law
The name does not ring a bell. This could be because Ketil Søraker also plays in Mulm and used to play in Northaunt both projects are too ambient for me. Taphephobia is also quite a monotous dark ambient / soundscapes project, at least, on this album. The label describes the sound as “drone ambient” which is a way of describing the sound. There are indeed the low frequencies (drones) which makes this album more interesting than the album of The Floating World, but I guess I like my ambient darker and with a little more variation.
Should you enjoy the Cyclic Law roster, I suppose that Taphephobia is an album to try.
Links: Taphephobia, Cyclic Law
Just as the 2011 debut “Leviathan Device”, “The Chronos Anomaly” is quite a typical dark ambient album. The sound is often soundscapish as contemporary dark ambient seems to sound. Also like the debut there is variety in the music though. Some tracks just babble forth, while others are pretty dark. There is less rhythm on this new album, but the deep drones are still present. This is good, because however there does not seem to be much novelty in the sound, especially the darker compositions are interesting, particularly because Triangular Ascension seems to have given his sound more depth. There are more details, much things happening in the background and even the monotous parts keep my attention trying to keep up with everything that is going on. Yep, this is a nice example of well thought-through and well-executed dark ambient. If you like the genre and you liked the debut, you should certainly get your hands on the second album of this Venuzualian project.
Links: Triangular Ascension, Cyclic Law