Artist Timothy C Holehouse / LAN Formatique
Label None
Year 2009 (?)
Genre(s) Dark Ambient
Yet another split tape featuring Mr. Holehouse and yet another blinder. packaged with a small insert (part of which is reproduced above) on purple coloured tapes there's really no preparing for this release.
Holehouse opens with electronic drone and distant drums, fracturing under subtle bomb samples. Wails echo around the piece as if you're being serenaded by lost souls. There's a very real image of a solider slowly dying in the middle of a battlefield, blood mixing with the moody ground. Being beckoned to and taunted by those that have already passed. The closest artist I could compare this to would be Edinburgh's Wraiths (Edit : I have just noticed they are thanked in the insert), this release is a lot calmer however and very much has an identity of it's own. The insert tells us that these tracks were recorded in a 16th Century cottage in Dorset, coupling this with the images evoked within the sounds and the artwork there's a very strong aesthetic drive to the release which works perfectly. This is proper bleak electronic ambient, feelings of loss and despair creep into your brain, carried effortlessly by the music, itself simply dripping with implied menace. This shits all over most of the so called "medieval dark ambient" (See : Dark Ages) by not only creating the aesthetic needed but also being able to carry the idea within the music itself. I tried to listen to this tape whilst lying in bed the other night but had to turn it off because it was genuinely freaking me out. A simply fantastic effort. One issue that I have noticed is that the second track appears to hard panned to the left channel, this can be overlooked when considering the sheer depth of the music included however. The final track is a more overt noise piece, but it carries forward the atmosphere from the preceding two arrangements. It's really hard to describe each track separately as they flow together so well.
LAN Formatique were new to me with this tape and here they present us with six tracks which were apparently "Recorded between the land of the living and the Emerald city", now I'm not too sure about anyone else but I, for one, am intrigued. The first thing I noticed about their recording was the use of guitar to form a basis of the music, alongside what sounds like real (Being a drummer I'm fucked if I'm wrong) drums. I'm reminded of Opaque mixed with a little bit of early Abruptum, very befitting the style established over on Side A. The constant panning of the drums gives me a bit of a headache but when they build up into an all out assault I quickly forget any issues I had, this is noise rock at it's noisiest and most brutal. The songs blend into one long track (Which is really helped by the format) which leaps around seamlessly from foggy ambient drone to spastic instrument abuse almost at random. Only with great care can something sound so spontaneous and unplanned.
Holehouse opens with electronic drone and distant drums, fracturing under subtle bomb samples. Wails echo around the piece as if you're being serenaded by lost souls. There's a very real image of a solider slowly dying in the middle of a battlefield, blood mixing with the moody ground. Being beckoned to and taunted by those that have already passed. The closest artist I could compare this to would be Edinburgh's Wraiths (Edit : I have just noticed they are thanked in the insert), this release is a lot calmer however and very much has an identity of it's own. The insert tells us that these tracks were recorded in a 16th Century cottage in Dorset, coupling this with the images evoked within the sounds and the artwork there's a very strong aesthetic drive to the release which works perfectly. This is proper bleak electronic ambient, feelings of loss and despair creep into your brain, carried effortlessly by the music, itself simply dripping with implied menace. This shits all over most of the so called "medieval dark ambient" (See : Dark Ages) by not only creating the aesthetic needed but also being able to carry the idea within the music itself. I tried to listen to this tape whilst lying in bed the other night but had to turn it off because it was genuinely freaking me out. A simply fantastic effort. One issue that I have noticed is that the second track appears to hard panned to the left channel, this can be overlooked when considering the sheer depth of the music included however. The final track is a more overt noise piece, but it carries forward the atmosphere from the preceding two arrangements. It's really hard to describe each track separately as they flow together so well.
LAN Formatique were new to me with this tape and here they present us with six tracks which were apparently "Recorded between the land of the living and the Emerald city", now I'm not too sure about anyone else but I, for one, am intrigued. The first thing I noticed about their recording was the use of guitar to form a basis of the music, alongside what sounds like real (Being a drummer I'm fucked if I'm wrong) drums. I'm reminded of Opaque mixed with a little bit of early Abruptum, very befitting the style established over on Side A. The constant panning of the drums gives me a bit of a headache but when they build up into an all out assault I quickly forget any issues I had, this is noise rock at it's noisiest and most brutal. The songs blend into one long track (Which is really helped by the format) which leaps around seamlessly from foggy ambient drone to spastic instrument abuse almost at random. Only with great care can something sound so spontaneous and unplanned.
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