Schloss Tegal - Psychometry

For most ears who are curious in the world of dark-ambient, Schloss Tegal would be one of the prime movers in the genre. Some even claim that they were the first real dark-ambient act. The band has existed since 1989 and has had a string of various releases on various labels up until 2006. And now, 15 years later a new album called Psychometry has been born. So far it has been released on 1 CD-digipack, 2xLP edition, 2xLP+CD+8" etc (check the details on Discogs link below!). It´s a heavy treat and a heavy cult-item so sure. 

For those who don't know, Schloss Tegal is a name for a psychiatric hospital (near Berlin) that treated soldiers with art and music therapy. And Psychometry is basically the psychic ability to extract information from a certain physical object simply by touching it. The cover-artwork + booklet that follows the release is a thing of lovely murky beautifulness. A cover-artwork which gives hints back to the early days of spiritism and meets up a kind of...esoteric cosmic horror. 11 tracks, about 55 minutes in total darkness.

First track Psychopompus hits it home already in the first 5 seconds. The sound is just right, not too smooth and not too rough either. Very heavy and very murky, but strangely pleasant and hypnotic-stimulating at the same time. Kind of, death industrial for dark ambient fans... in other words, it´s dark-ambient... just a wee bit darker (if you ask me). Monotonic underwater waves of heavy-sound and subtle ambient-drones... very nice!.

Second track Incorporeal Being moves further into cosmic strangeness. A huge mass of wind swirl and drowns the listener into oblivion, in a heartbeat, I was sure that it sounded like someone breathing (just slowed down with tons of powerful reverb). Eerie and dreamy recordings of something going on in the background... what it is I do not know. 

Third track The Invalid Earth has that dark-ambient mood meet up with a kind of... old-school industrial feel. Reminds me of one of those Throbbing Gristle intros to some of their live recordings, depressing but evocative mood setter. A ritualistic thump later on with a scary radio-recording and a... ghost-like whale singing as well. I like it!

At the Fourth track Krononaut (Time Zero), it actually gets sort of scary in the classic paranormal sort of sense. A very desperate (but hard to hear) telephone voice is talking, a sort of... recording of dead people talking (forever) and being recorded on some high-tech radio equipment. Fluid like ritual ambiance in the background in the company of a cold mechanized machine sound, the kind of sound which u would expect from the strange machines which the Migo created in Lovecraft´s Whisperer in the Darkness. Still being unpleasant in the pleasant sort of sense.

Fifth track Black Vessel has a more of a harsh cold electronics sound. Ruined post-war territory. Think Dagma Mor and Grey Wolves in ambient-soundtrack moods. Again, interesting stuff going on the mix. Lots of cool layers here, and lots of recorded details.

Yup, And I will not reveal anything more from here since there is so much for you to discover. And yes! We have such sights to show you! It´s a great and horrific dark-ambient treat for those who think that dark-ambient has turned... into a shallow and hollow over-produced thing. This one is unpolished, harsh, unforgiving and just being true to the bone (Yup... truly it´s dark ambient here).  Give it a spin (or 10 times for that matter!).

Discogs (band+release):

https://www.discogs.com/Schloss-Tegal-Psychometry/master/1606803

Bandcamp (band):

https://schlosstegal.bandcamp.com/album/psychometry

Facebook (band):

https://www.facebook.com/schlosstegal

Official Website (band):

http://www.schlosstegal.net/

Tryhm - Phobos Sanctum

Warm weather is here... and what can we do about it? My idea would be to escape into a damp and cold cellar-room while having cold and murky horror-ambient... churning out from my speakers. And that is what Tryhm is (kind of) about. Phobos Sanctum is their fourth release, and this Norwegia-based act has been in existence since the year of 2016. An 8 track album, about 40 minutes of length.

First track All Nightmares To Come begins with that kind of.... familiar CMI-sound. An ambient-industrial version of In Slaughter Natives via Controlled Bleeding sort of. Evocative religious humming voices, strange sort of gasmask sounds, a female voice gasping for air, metallic chain-sounds loops in a rhythmic fashion, and more. A very decent opening, I liked it a lot... VERY evocative intro here!

Next track Chamber of Mirrors has that same sort of feeling like the first track, the kind of feeling that you in someplace... and you cannot get out. This track has to be closer to a haunted and eerie place, the sort of place where walls whisper their secrets while your neck hair slowly stands up. Lovely depth to this piece, a terrific piece of multi-layered horror-ambiance!.

Third track Final Form Of Life adds death-industrial aesthetics to the mix. Strange sort of clicking sounds, which gives the listener the feeling of a certain activity happening in the recording... something dreadful if you ask me. Hints of neo-classical tunes add more to the horrific drama, without getting too dramatic. A great track, with a kind of weird sudden ending (should have been longer). 

Fourth track Ghosts Nests, is a nest where... sorrow and despair have just... clumped together. Sounds of (slightly altered) crying sound of children and women with strange whispering happening in the background. The mixing of sounds and the added sound-effects (echo/reverb) really gives this sad piece a horrific effect here! Lovely neo-classical Raison D´être sort of wipe enters the track later on, which adds more fuel to the sort of storytelling feel this album has (so far). 

Fifth track In A Trance of Absence has a really discomforting kind of intro. It sounds like... someone is japing something into piano strings, this is going on while the sound of a swirling vortex is going. Doom laden and militant sounds start suddenly and add a good deal of industrial dynamics into the track. 

I will not have to reveal anything more to the reader since the rest of the album continues to deliver those excellent tensions. Worth discovering and listening to right from the start. A great example of horror-themed (ghost)-ambient... if you please. A modern ghost story flick could use a soundtrack like this, do give it a spin!.

Bandcamp (band):

https://tryhm.bandcamp.com/album/phobos-sanctum

Facebook (band):

https://www.facebook.com/TRYHM-646820292155422/

Mystica Visio - s/t

Mystica Visio by Mystica Visio (self-titled), a 35-minutes debut release from a new act from Brazil. A physical version of this album hasn´t been planned yet, but the artist is working on it. So let us hear (or see) what mysterious visions we shall find behind this release.

Already from the beginning, it sounds cool (a track called Mystical Visions From A Dead Past). Retro-futuristic marriage between Berlin-school and dungeon-synth, think classic soundtracks from Italien zombie-flicks from the 70s! Very sleek, very atmospheric, and very well played. The sound-quality would make any retro-synth-lover droll here.

Next track The Glowing Figure moves into vampire-haunted Castlevania. A very chilling moment with subtle and sinister moments. When the clock strikes at midnight, a ghost will appear. That kind of feeling, again... Very neat! Not that far away (in style) from Coil´s soundtrack to Clive Barker´s Hellraiser people! 

Third track The Prophecy Was A Lie adds a piano moment with string-like synth-work. A very beautiful, melancholic piece with tragic moods. Kind of... if the piano had a tale to tell, it would certainly sound like this. Very sincere and very... honest. So far the most, gothic-sounding piece.

Fourth track Journey Across The Lake Of Lost Souls adds more fuel to the fans of Tangerine Dream. Love the way how this monotone bass-synth-melody feels like... the steps/journey you partake over this lake of certain doom and darkness. Eerie extra synth-sounds adds a creepy descriptive touch of what can be seen in this lake. Might just be the lake of Hali, where Hastur (He Who Is Not To Be Named) sleeps?. I don't know, certainly the moment eerie piece on this album. 

Fifth track Spell of Entrapment, being the longest track on the album. Is a kind of piece that you can... isolate to? A slow-moving epic piece that takes the listener back to Runes Order. A very moody and cosmic element as at work here. I once remember Arthur C. Clarke once said;

Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not, both are equally terrifying.

Again, a kind of... Lovecraftian gaze-upon-the-great-cosmos feel at work here. Makes you imagine how the great Outer God Azathoth is also entrapped by his demonic servants, they keep playing music for him to keep him occupied. If he wasn´t occupied by this, he would destroy the entire universe! I do think that the convincing atmosphere (and well-played synth) takes my mind to such a fantastic voyage!

Last track Within These Damp Walls I Found My Home ends the album beautifully. A saddened ending track ending in complete solitude. Almost out of breath here!.

AMAZING album, amazing synth-work, and amazing this and that. A perfect balance between a storytelling-soundtrack and pure talented musicality. A rare thing when you actually get these two elements in one package. I highly recommend this moody retro-voyage, a fantastic story-telling moment!. 

Bandcamp (band):

https://mysticavisio.bandcamp.com/

Facebook (band):

https://www.facebook.com/mysticavisio         

Subklinik - Molestdeath

The good news is that Subklinik is still alive and kicking, and this act has an upcoming release (late June) called Molestdeath. It will be available via the official Subklinik Bandcamp site, and it will be released on cassette via Korporation Records. An almost 40 minutes journey into a realm of utter darkness and morbid curiosities. Bound to please any fans of Cold Meat Industry, Slaughter Productions but also older labels like Sterile Records and Nekrophile Records.

First track Return To Slaughter welcomes the listener with that old-school pre-dark-ambient/industrial-ambient sound from the mid-80s underground cassette-culture. A hypnotic and humming soundscape that sounds a bit like the humming-blades from older airplanes. Bone crunching and ritualistic machine-drums, paranormal, and tortured voices roam in the background while razor-sharp tones drop gently in and out of focus. Think somewhere between early Brighter Death Now and Anenzephalia sounds good right?.

Second track Isolate adds more fuel to the morbid sort of mysticism. Looped and evocative synth-driven bass-line while a strange and necrotic windy-sound of desolation touches and makes your neck-hair stand straight up. It could also sound like... distant bombing or explosions. I am not sure, it sounds unbelievable great and depressing (in a good way!).

Third track Molestdeath starts with an interesting, pulsating, and rhythmic heartbeat-sound. Distant pitched down human voices hums and screams while samples from a court-order are being held, cannot hear what it is about but considering the mood, it will probably be something rather nasty. The reverb and echo effects are great and perfect, and the mood is just really strong so it doesn't matter that you cannot hear the sample that well.

Fourth track Deadvoid... sounds like a Deadvoid. One of those eternal falling pits of blackness and death which no one... would jump into. A simple but effective scary horror-themed background ambient-piece.

Fifth track Mental Atrophy, bloody amazing track! Excellent high-pitched tones, more screaming, and cool sounding ritualistic drums. A very simple and monotonous atmospheric piece that you want to repeat over and over again. Keep getting back to that classic and experimental soundtrack which was done for the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre!

Sixth track Rotting Agony is a slow and grinding ruined piece, pure death-industrial atmospheres (no power electronics here folks!). Being buried alive with only the sound of your pounding heartbeat keeping you company, almost sensing and hearing sounds while your life slips slowly away.

Last track Dismembered End is... a Dismembered End. Not much to hang on to, could it be any darker?... (YES IT CAN!). A pleasant and torturous moment at the end of the rope?... (YES IT IS!).

A depressing but JOYFUL experience that old-school death-industrial (without the power-electronics sound) can still impress the listener to this day. Might just be the best death-industrial album I have heard in a long time, true to the bone and incredibly efficient at the same time! DO NOT MISS THIS ONE!

Bandcamp (band):

https://subklinik-korporation.bandcamp.com/

Facebook (band):

https://www.facebook.com/subklinik/