Ambient/noise stuff is an odd thing to review as you’re very much asking the question “what is this for….?” Is this mood music, a story, a film without images, a background soundscape? What exactly is it?
Not sure I’m going to help you there, but once you get past the ‘domestics’ (this is a fourth collaboration between Mories of violent black ambient Gnaw Their Tongues and Eric Eijspaart) it is pretty much straight into their grim little room
This work is split into seven unnamed (at least in my copy) passages of machine sounds and distant snarled vocals built up from a dark cloud of rumbling, churning deep noise. The presence of often identifiable percussion adds to a somewhat ‘live ‘sound somehow with the clanking of metal and hiss and whistle of noise conjuring images of dungeons below close to the passage of tube trains or other shaking, heavy machinery. There’s a sense of isolation as other things move about it, maybe. However that self-same percussion also can almost jerk you out of the mind-space and into a concert venue which does break the spell if you’re not careful and, with this kind of music, that spell is the heart of the matter. On the other hand it also can bring the atmosphere so much closer, breath on your cheek clear and it might also mean that if ever performed live it may work even better.
This is dark music. Black ritual music entombed in concrete and iron. Glimpses of chanting fade behind the rumble. Stretched, breathy but torn vocals call as though summoned. There seems to be no feeling of descent to me, nor any feeling of travel, instead it is almost like watching some presence unfold and expand over the length of the album, creases and clouds and petals of black blood and oil roiling through and against the air towards the listener. Once in our world it speaks, whispers and natters its poison in the ears of all who attend. There is no physical anger or pummelling violence here, no roaring giant, but there is a violence of intent and a sense of something utterly wrong trapped between those vocals and the brain juddering sub-sonics which occasionally bubble upwards. This is like the hidden room layered with the psychic memories of vile, violent ritual and keeping this insidious presence shackled here.
I may still be taking my nascent steps in the world of noise and ambient but the one thing I have learned is that this is never background music. Use it as that and you will never find a way inside where you can drown in this stuff. Gospel Of The Burning Idols is no exception. Aderlating have constructed a fine and subtle if difficult work here, something that in daylight has you checking, checking, checking your nails for the grime trapped beneath and in the dark just watching the door, making sure that it is still there, still closed and that it is still trapped on the other side.
Welcome to Hell House.
(8/10 Gizmo)
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