Reviews Archive

# A B C D E F G H I
J K L M N O P Q R S
T U V W X Y Z
Various (splits)
Various (compilations)

Share

m² - Heliogabal
CD, Ant-Zen, 2010
www.position-chrome.net



Heliogabal, also known as Elagabalus or Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, was Roman emperor from 218 to 222 AD, a half-Syrian youth who served as a priest of the god El-Gabal in his home town of Emesa. Taking imperial power at the age of fourteen, Heliogabal was notorious for his disregard for Roman traditions and sexual taboos, replacing the Roman head god Jupiter with the lesser Deus Sol Invictus. The religious rites he promoted together with the promiscuous lifestyle he led resulted in his assassination by the Praetorian Guard only four years into his reign; m²'s latest work is a tribute to this young man's disastrous rule and the exciting concept of a time where man had the potential of being a god.
Opening with the characteristic flourish of a dramatic tone followed by silence, "The Priests" sets the scene for an intriguing tale, similar in atmosphere and ancient historical feeling as the previous m² album, "Nyx". But soon the stark minimalism of that album is replaced with a style reminiscent of earlier m² works, with ambient electronica bass lines and melodies put to effective use together with subtle yet imposing rhythms. After the exotically occult rites of the opening, "Winds And Ruins" is an even more ominous affair, a desolate piece of pure dark ambient haunted by the sinister voices of forgotten deities and their followers. "Heliogabal I" comes next, the most abrupt and decisive track on the album, possibly a soundtrack for the grand entrance of the great man himself, ready to lead his followers in another dark ritual.
The memory of the Praetorian Guard is invoked in "Relics Of The Undefeated Guard", full of sudden outbursts of metallic slashing and frightening voices. "The Sacred Shrine" brings in some oppressive drumming and disturbing watery sounds, while "Reign" is a curiously electronic sounding moment, ever so slightly at odds with the classical imagery of the whole album. "Deus Sol Invictus" goes further in the electronica direction, but with a dramatic analogue synth tune paying suitable homage to Heliogabal's preferred god. "Whores, Smoke & Shadows" features a dense drone and a hazy ambience, conjuring up images of perverse pleasures in the name of the gods, and then "Square-Dimensional Space" provides a lighter sensation, but with no lack of suspense and fear. Finally, "Heliogabal II" is a powerful closing track, concluding the themes explored in the album perfectly with some of the tensest and most threatening sounds so far, possibly an aural depiction of the emperor's final moments.
Overall then this is one of the finest dark ambient albums to come out this year and a return to form for m² after the slightly uneventful "Nyx", providing a good mix between the more rhythmic older albums such as "Aswad" and the minimalism of "The Frozen Spark", creating an outstanding soundtrack to one of the sadly under-explored tales of ancient history.

-- Nathan Clemence [9/10]


Mika Goedrijk - Looking-Glass World
CD, Ant-Zen, 2010
www.myspace.com/mikagoedrijk



More widely recognized for the material he has produced under the guise of This Morn' Omina and Pow[d]er Pussy, Mika Goedrijk nonetheless ventured away from collaborative efforts in early 2009 to release "Pellicules", an album of solo work developed through revisiting previously abandoned or shelved ideas and sounds. A year later, "Looking-Glass World" is its successor, and follows similar themes. While the new album still focuses on patterns of ambient sounds, it diverges from its more industrial-oriented predecessor by placing greater emphasis on electro and IDM motifs. It is especially the more ambient, clicks-and-cuts side of IDM that Goedrijk explores here, and that is just what makes "Looking-Glass World" so fascinating.
Setting off the album with punching tribal beats and electro glitch, "Vanilla Flavoured Thorazine" might give the wrong impression of what to expect, as things immediately slow to a spacious and subdued simmer through the next few tracks. Muted clicks and percussion converge with supporting micro-sounds and patient beats, elements entering gradually and compounding to build both movement and energy into the empty spaces Goedrijk has defined. The melancholy guitar slides on "Dead Air" are exceptional when combined with rich bass modulations, and the swirly techno synths that appear in "At the 11th Hour" underscore the different influences at play here. "Lost Decade" even features a jazz trumpet pealing in the background, while the slow breaks and tropical feel form a sort of deconstructed jungle, both literally and figuratively.
When beat structures are permitted to gain ascendancy, as they are later in the album, the results are downright contagious. "Thistledown" blossoms from clinical small sounds and a slightly dirty rhythm loop into an uplifting nu skool breaks number. Tribal inflections and twisted acid lines boom on "Dangling from Rooftops", while hypnotic "Draussen im Grünen" moves with the willfulness only such an atmospheric breakbeat churner can arouse. It is this ambient-versus-kinetic dynamic that proves to be Goedrijk's most successful accomplishment with "Looking-Glass World". Although at times glitchy and subversive, the soft repetitions and circular motions that form the core of this release, whether via acoustic percussion or relaxed synth tones, give it a unique, introspective flavor. Its patterns, although superficially balanced and tranquil, seem to reflect a darker journey into the mechanisms and responses that drive psychosis. Coming full circle, "Le Grand Mal" finishes the album approximately where it started, but this time with an intensification of noise and chaos, disorienting and uncontrolled, as the Thorazine wears off and a fleetingly muffled reality becomes unhinged and very much present once more.

-- Dutton Hauhart [8.5/10]


Visions - Summoning The Void
CD, Cyclic Law, 2010
www.immensity.ca



The void. A vast empty space containing absolutely nothing. How to represent nothingness in musical form? Clearly only very minimal dark ambient will do. The latest album from Canadian act Visions, the house band of the acclaimed Cyclic Law label, attempts to summon the void, by means of five long tracks of some of the most spacious and expansive ambient music I've ever heard.
There is little to be said about the void and this soundtrack to an exploration of the void is suitably sparse and minimal, giving a strong feeling of emptiness and desolation yet giving few visions, if you'll excuse the choice of word there, of anything other than nothingness. The five tracks flow perfectly as a whole piece of music, all clearly belonging together in the same collection, to the point where tracks could easily have been separated at any arbitrary points. Little happens along the way, but the subtle textures and atmospheres on display here create a powerful impression and provide a perfect soundtrack for those quiet, private activities for which dark ambient is the best musical accompaniment, be it reading, drawing, magickal rituals or, my personal favourite, sleeping.
Having drifted off to sleep very peacefully on a number of nights I can certainly recommend "Summoning The Void" for that purpose, the blankness of slumber being the main void most of us encounter on a regular basis. Listening carefully while fully awake all the requisite components of a good dark ambient album are present, the dense drones, the distant metallic chimes and the occasional vague harmonic strings or voices. For some listeners, the album may border on uneventful, but for avid followers of the genre the overall sense of vastness and foreboding more than makes up for that minor shortcoming. "Summoning The Void" is a quality piece of dark ambient space exploration then, in the classic style of the great Lustmord, and Visions is certainly a name I would suggest to anybody wishing to add another good artist to their collection.

-- Nathan Clemence [7/10]


Bipol - Fritter Away
CD, Ant-Zen, 2010
www.myspace.com/bipol07



There's a certain point when the more generic Ant-Zen/Hands/rhythm'n'noise releases merge into an indistinguishable continuum. Too many artists follow the same tried and trusted formulas and seem tasteful rather than incendiary. "Fritter Away" occasionally comes close to falling into this trap but there is something more interesting going on here. Bipol's work sometimes comes across as an uglier, more fucked-up version of Ahnst Anders' sound, veering between vocal-heavy and more processed extremes and as a result this album seems more like a compilation than a coherent unit. I actually appreciate the fact that it's ugly and tense and that I can't instantly or wholly relate to it.
"Too Much" sets the tone with a prowling, muscular bass intro and is followed by "My Challenge" which features the harshly processed vocal textures which along with the general air of tension are the album's least generic elements. The vocals and heavy drums make it sound quite 'rock' at times and although this almost puts me off it does maintain an interesting, tense contrast with the electronics. The album sometimes feels like a colder, digital update of the better end of the industrial rock spectrum but at other times the vocals are too intrusive. "Talk About My Scream" makes me want to paraphrase Graham Chapman's Monty Python officer character and say "now stop that, it's silly, very silly indeed." It tries too hard to sound evil and as a result it's impossible to take it seriously. It would have made a great instrumental though.
The vocal works much better on the next track "Contest Of Devotion", this is because it's recessed, processed and kept in check, without any self-conscious melodramatics. The intriguingly-titled "In The Name Of The Workers" features heavily processed vocal samples with occasional metallic elements and works well. Another well-titled and impressive track is "The Menacing Kiss", which revels in its own unresolved tension. "Confusion" is a very uneasy and dynamic mass of contradictory rhythms which almost edges towards Autechre-style disjointedness.
The album closes with "Manipulation Now", a brooding, ugly closer featuring sickly whistles and bleak textures, leaving a nasty hangover. "Fritter Away" is very mixed and doesn't always succeed but at its best is excellent and certainly worth investigating.

-- Alexei Monroe [6/10]