En Nihil / And Through You I Found Nothing
Released on the 17th of February last year, And Through You I Found Nothing By En Nihil was an album released on Shrouded Recordings. Released as a limited cassette and CD-R, sadly not sold out! Can be acquired through Discogs (if you are lucky). For some reason, you cannot actually hear it on Shrouded Recordings Bandcamp site and it´s not on Youtube either. So you are basically (or I am) dealing with something which is under the radar, as we speak. Anyways, we are dealing with "only" 1 track which is 27 minutes long! The track is on the A-side and on the B-side as well.
The track starts in the quiet sort of state. Raw and primal noise-ambient with a heavenly epic touch. Post-apocalyptic feel with a religious/spiritual sort of aesthetic. There is a distinct hiss on the tape (bad recording?), but then again... It adds up to the primal feel and the sound keeps floating out like ectoplasmic goo through your speakers.
The epic and angelic intro ends and jumps straight into metallic harsh noise! At this point, I do think that a proper sound quality of the tape itself, would have been a good thing. This harsh-noise thing is an action-packed pee-wee with a sound (and expression) that really wants to break through that tape hiss. There are a lot of things right now happening that I would love to hear more clearly.
The harsh-noise things stop and enter into a... dungeon-synths recording in slow motion... hearing it while you are buried beneath some church. The feel of this recording holds the theme focused, definitely a clear focus on nothingness. The paranormal feel here feels real... and actually scary. You cannot actually hear the stuff 100%, but more sense it with your imagination. There are many comparisons with Brighter Death Now´s 1890 vinyl release here, which is also the strangest album by Brighter Death Now.
The next thing coming up are ritualistic beatings on something big and metallic, think that ritual scene in the second Indiana Jones flick!. The old-school death-industrial feel is strong here, almost with a nod or two to the likes of Megaptera and to the eldritch horror author H.P. Lovecraft. So far the album almost sounds like some sort of live-recording (Done in one take?). It still sticks to the theme folks.
Screaming and vocal-based harsh noise gets back at your face one more time, with a punishing and throbbing bass sound. Sounds like it was recorded through a metallic pipeline. Sounds pretty demonic if you ask me! All of a sudden there is a... buzz... moving from one speaker and to the other. Sounds like crickets! I know!... Because I have crickets in my basement (food for my tarantula). Cool-sounding distorted vocals end the track... and the album/track?! .. Damn! I actually wanted more!. Hell... I just have to turn the tape and listen to the same track on the B-side.
It´s a marvelous, epic, and grim journey through the dark side of the human psyche. You can have it in the background while watching an avant-garde flick like Begotten, you can listen to it in absolute pitch-black while having a good stout, you can hear it while reading eldritch horror. Tons of reasons to listen to it, although it does have issues with the sound quality although... the charm and the sincerity of it save the album to the very end. Actually quite breathtaking!
