Schloss Tegal - Black Static Transmission 

One of the veterans of dark-ambient/industrial out with a classic re-issue. Black Static Transmission, was originally released by Cold Spring in 1999. Now remastered and released by Tegal Records, with a fantastic-looking artwork! The original cover was... (let's be honest) quite awful! This cool-looking glossy digipack really does its work, and the graphics represent the recordings way better. The album offers 6 tracks, almost 60 minutes long.  

The first second the album starts, you are there. The first track Black Static Transmission starts in some underground and abandoned subway/bunker, right under a busy motorway. A huge dark place where it hums with layers of reverbed sound. In the distance, strange voices are talking. Chittering and haunting radio voices, the movement of old machinery, and... distant chanting voices. All the sounds swirl around the listener like ghosts. Although in the murky ambient section of electronic music, everything seems surprisingly vibrant and organic.

The second track Blind Fault Upheaval (R'Lyeh Rising) starts with someone talking about a great darkness, and beyond that darkness, a light glows. Then, the heavy machinery of atmospheric death-industrial starts. A looped and thumping heavy sound works as the bass, a layered high-pitched vibrating sound of drills all wrapped up in a lovely and harsh analog-driven soundscape. 

The third track Toxified Systems Resistor is a really mystical piece. Telegram beeps, radio static, a floating UFO... and someone talking about the use of reality technology, and then someone mentioning the numbers.... 4....7....1. I can't help but think, that somewhere in some secret government they are using high-tech stuff to contact dead spirits (for some reason). The whole track is very relaxing and non-menacing but then again... there is the presence of a subtle creepiness...hiding. Interesting ear-opener for sure. Cosmic-horror ambient for sure. 

The fourth track Necronaut travels further into the deep paranormal spaces. A long ambient track that makes time stand still, with a brilliant murky (and adventurous) soundscape with tons of interesting weird recordings/sounds. The soundscape works almost as a kind of huge wall, giving the listener the impression that something weird and indescribable is going on the other side of the wall. U can sort of hear it, but you can't see it. It´s like the sound/recording from a world between the living and the dead... beautiful!

The fifth track Terra Insanium (The Overbeast) continues with the number...4....7...1. The goal to get in contact with the dead continues, the phenomenon of EVP? Thinking back to John Carpenter´s horror flick The Prince of Darkness, about the mysterious video that was sent (as a dream) from the future that others could receive by dreaming! The track has that lovely low-tech grainy sort of quality to it but is still multi-layered in a high-tech quality. Lovely mixture of low-tech and high-tech here! At this point, I'm aware that I´ve been on an aural journey, and with this track, we´re getting closer to...that is beyond the darkness? I´m actually not sure if I should be afraid, or astounded?! 

The sixth and last track Into the Quantaplex gives the answer to my former question. I should be afraid, sounds like hell being recorded through the radio. Eerie static, people screaming in hell, whispering, and more. Might just be the sample (from that recording from 2019) made by a person who lowered a microphone in a deep drill hole. Jim Jones is also here as well, and a lovely female singing loop. All is well in hell I guess? 

Black Static Transmission is an honest, frightening, and disturbing album, without trying to sound evil or extreme. It works on a specific paranormal theme in a convincing serious matter, I'm quite sure that the intention wasn´t to frighten the listeners but to inspire and intrigue the listener instead, if u do end up being frightening well.... that´s just a bonus! The whole thing is a journey from the start to the end, the whole thing sticks together like glue in a really good way. Interesting to think that Schloss Tegal is one of the pioneers of the dark ambient genre, this act might just be TOO dark for the term! 

Bandcamp (band):

https://schlosstegal.bandcamp.com/album/black-static-transmission-2

    

         

 Splintered - Between Scylla and Charybdis

A great noise-industrial rock band that started in the early 90s by Richard Johnson. The same guy was responsible for the cult magazine Grim Humour and the well-known industrial/noise label called Fourth Dimension. Between Scylla and Charybdis is their sixth album and the first one after their pause in 1998, all the material within has been made and recorded between 2021 and 2024. A 6-track CD digipack-album with over 50 minutes of spacy punishing enjoyment. 

One may ask about the actual album title. Scylla is a hydra-looking monster-daughter of Poseidon himself. And her sister happens to be another monster-daughter called Charybdis. Legend has it that Charybdis was once a water nymph who expanded the coastal line of Greece causing floods and destruction, this made Zeus angry and he therefore turned her into a huge water-dwelling Cthulhu´ish monster. Scylla on the other hand was also a water nymph that Poseidon liked too much, causing his wife Amphretrite to be jealous which then turned her into a Scylla monster. These two monster creatures inhabit the narrow sea between Sicily and the Italian Mainland, causing the sinking and destruction of traveling ships. So in other words, the album title has the same meaning as Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, or between a Rock and a Hard Place. The lesser of two evils. 

First track Permutation 1: Furta Sacra works as a sort of intro to the album. The sound of crashing waves onto cliffs, and excellent epic psychedelic space-rock guitar work with a raw, scraping, and atmospheric bass line in there as well. Sounds really promising so far! Furta Sacra means the stealing of relics done in the Middle Ages when Christians moved a relic to another shrine/church. 

The second track Scylla starts with some gritty static noise, where the slithering sludge-guitar and the bass slowly creep in. Some ritualistic thumbing drums are added, with some mysterious vocal parts hidden in the background. I really get that feeling, that you are on treacherous waters! Something big and scary is hiding in the murky depths, waiting to strike. Really love those ethnic tam-tam drums that come later on, giving the track an adventurous feel. Love how the whole thing bloody works together! 

The third track The Horrors of Linden, is another slow and narrowing epic-piece of heavenly psychedelic space-rock. Like being on mescaline in the middle of the burning desert. A thing described as a cross between early Earth and Skullflower. Absolutely masterfully done.

The fourth track Charybdis, offers bubbling underwater drums and vocal parts sounding like far-away radio-static. Beautiful hidden melodies of sound in there, find them like treasures in a maze. Shimmering and pulsating like a soon-to-exploding star, this album keeps on amazing me! The whole track engulfs the listener, just in the same manner Charybdis engulfs the whole sea.

The fifth track Bell Harry´s Lament is the longest track on the album, being over 15 minutes long. Might just be my favorite track on the album. Slowly and surely the track builds up to something grand. Noisy post-rockish textures, scraping and hitting bits of shimmering steel springs, ceremoniously rhythmic parts, chirping birds, and moody church bells... not even halfway through! Some kind of daylight voyage through the ruins of an ancient graveyard, u can almost sense the dead trying to get your attention...for some reason unknown. The track ends with those watery waves, could it be about the protagonist in M.R James's ghost story?

The sixth and last track on the album is called Permutations 2: Pillars of Salt. Ends the album in the same manner as how it began with the first track. An excellent outro, delivering the last bit of the album. 

The whole thing is a masterpiece, and the whole thing can be listened to again and again. Plenty of exquisite ritualistic moments, levitating space-rock moods, even jaw-dropping undertones of cosmic horror... the whole thing just makes the time... well stop! And that is all I have to say, one more thing. Do give it a listen, it´s quite the trip!.

Official website (label):

https://fourthdimensionrecords.bigcartel.com/product/splintered-between-scylla-and-charybdis-cd

Facebook (band):

https://www.facebook.com/p/Splintered-100057425623087/