Fog Baptism - Seasleeper
Yes! And we are totally ready for 2025! New artists and new labels are to be reviewed on Kalteldur. One of the first I will begin with is Fog Baptism´s Seasleeper album, released on a label called Inner Demon Records. A D.I.Y label that hails from Tampa, Florida. With tons of cool interesting releases, all within the world of noise, industrial, drone, ambient, etc. Really dig the design of the physical releases on the label. All hand-stamped CDs. Art printed on heavy card stock and enclosed in a vinyl pouch with a flap. Hand-numbered. And then you have that lovely black-and-white aesthetic!
Some info about the project from Bandcamp here :
"Fog Baptism is a one-woman project conducted by Sylvia Joyce out of Sacramento, California. She approaches the project as a diary, splashing each release with different moods and soundscapes; a reflection of her headspace as the days slouch onwards. Her works span different genres such as black metal, electronic, industrial, noise, ambient, and doom metal. When she isn't writing, Sylvia enjoys spending her time reading and staying at home with her wife and two cats."
So there u go. With a project called Fog Baptism, I had a certain assumption that there was a certain black/doom-metal meets ambient/noise vibe going on. Anyways, the album is called Seasleeper. Like Cthulhu maybe? Or maybe just another drunken sailor living in some boring fishing village? 5 tracks, for almost 40 minutes in total length.
The first track is called Sunlight. The first sound we hear is a filtered low-fi recording of watery waves hitting the shore. A heavenly melancholic ambient drone with a slow tune gets mixed into this, in a really good and dreamy way. Again with an excellent low-fi sound and a primitive approach/aesthetic. A deeper organ-sounding synth tune resides in the background to add something extra to the earlier drone tune. A perfect mixture of these two moods of sound. A kind of Aphex Twin´s Selected Ambient Works Vol.2 vibe here, with a minor touch/element of dungeon synth. I like it very much. Incredible dreamy, melancholic, and mystical.
The second track called Twilight follows up where Sunlight ends. Two slightly melodic synth-drones working perfectly together, like Yin and Yang... perfectly balanced. Thinking about places in my own country, places where nature roams wild and where one cannot hear a car or anything manmade. Where u can climb a hill, and just observe an endless horizon of hills, fields, trees...and old abandoned farms. The album is still a bloody charm so far!
The third track is Midnight. A subtle machine-like rumbling, the distant sound of deep trumpets with a heavy kind of... blanket of sound over it all? Like... if you wake up with heavy hangovers in the winter time, and u just need a little bit of that blue sky or sunshine... and all u get is a dark, grey, cold, and cloudy day. Just like if someone has pulled a blanket over the sky. Fans of Inanna/Archon Satani would love this track.
The fourth track is called Abyss. Might just be recorded in the same session as Midnight. Kind of like Midnight, just way more... blurry and weightless. A long track that goes on for 12+ minutes. Very curious about how this kind of music has been made? Both focused and un-focused at the same time. Incredible spiritual stuff here, with an unthinkable depth of sound to it. Pretty dark stuff, but not forced... more natural sounding if you ask me.
The fifth track called Trench, is the last track on the album. Very murky and with a very dense sound. The whole track works as a trench, something that is hard to get out of. Sounds like being buried in layers of dirt, with just the top of my head popping up. But again, very pleasant and intriguing to listen to.
Seasleeper is a sleeper, with a very focused dream in its mind. Like walking through fog, but u know the way in your mind. I am in no doubt, that the artist was in a certain kind of meditative state of mind... and the artist wanted to transfer that state through sound, and then further into the listener. And hell yeah, a sure success I might say. It´s an album that you will keep on returning to, an album that can (and will) reveal hidden parts of your mind (and past!).
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