Taklamakan - Cavern
I am getting more and more into the Croatian underground-music these days, and latest offering has been called Taklamakan. The mysterious name for the act requires an explanation, here goes:
The name may be an Uyghur borrowing of the Persian tark, "to leave alone/out/behind, relinquish, abandon" + makan, "place".Some sources claimed it means "Place of No Return", more commonly interpreted as "once you get in, you'll never get out" or similar.Another plausible explanation suggests it is derived from Turki taqlar makan, describing "the place of ruins".
So there you go. And with this (place-of-no-return) Taklamakan release, we head into deep subterranean and hidden caverns. A simple 3-track EP, almost about 30 minutes long.
The first track called Cave, primitive eerie ambiance welcomes the listener. Heavily treated and warped minimal recordings giving the listener an instant hypnotic/ mesmerizing state of mind. Almost sounds like a more primitive and darker version than something out of Aphex Twin´s Selected Ambient Works vol.2. You could also listen to this while watching Werner Herzog´s Nosferatu, with the tv-volume turned down of course! Kind of the same... eerie and damped aesthetic. A beautiful piece, truly cave-like feel to this!
Second track Stalactites has a more... ritualistic feel to it. Metal-clangings in the deep caverns of the earth could as well be in the deepest pit of Moria if you ask me. Or maybe some deep place close to hell/inferno (in our own world). I am sure that fans of acts like Tombstone and Korpses Katanik will enjoy this!
Last track called Stalagmites, head crashes you into metallic-grinding harsh noise. A punishing 13 minutes exploitation after being treated almost... ambient-wise into hypnotic relaxation. Early analog-noise treat (early Merzbow) kind of vibe to this. Not the kind of Stalagmites I want falling on my head!
And that is that... you are out of the cavern after being submerged into engulfing darkness, being close to hell and escaping falling stalagmites! And you know what?... You wanna do it again!. It´s a great mini-album by this very productive act (See the Bandcamp site plus the Discogs link below). For you cassette-tape hungry addicts I can reveal to you that this release has been out on cassette via Circumanalis Records, it was released back in 2009 as a split between Taklamakan and I Dreamt of Her Beautiful Tentacles ltd. to 15 copies (nice!).
Bandcamp:
Discogs:
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