Billing as a cosmic atmospheric black metal duo, Stellar Forest put out its self-titled debut EP a week ago and a real doozy it’s turning out to be, to my ears at least. Stellar Forest may be new but members Erroiak (vocals) and Septev (all instruments) come with a lot of experience in black metal, atmospheric black metal and dark ambient, and various combinations of these genres. It’s no surprise then that this EP merges elements of these aforementioned styles into a hybrid blackened techno / ambient synthesis, and moreover one that manages to be savage and hard-hitting, noisy and cold, and at the same time icy-glossy and polished, and trance-inducing, in a way that electronic pop can be. Searing, burning tremolo BM guitars, furious blast-beat percussion and spidery roaring, rasping vocals meet a barrage of glacial dark ambient, minimalist coldwave melody, glitch electronics and breakbeats: the range of influences and inspirations brought by Erroiak and Septev are mind-boggling but across all six tracks of the EP the black metal elements are clearly defined and help to anchor the varieties of non-metal music that pass through.

Tracks are numbered I to VI and can be treated as being mostly instrumental, as Erroiak’s screaming, wailing vocals tend more to be one of various layers of sonic texture in each and every track. At just under 30 minutes, the EP plays as a soundtrack to a futuristic science fiction film just waiting to be made, once the Stellar Forest men give their thumbs up to such a project. The noisy scourging BM guitars and pounding drums may be upfront across most tracks but the synthesisers and electronics fill the spaces behind them, presenting a soundscape made intriguing, mysterious and complex by all the contrasts of its component musics and their interactions between and among one another.

As the EP continues, the music becomes more and more dreamy and trance-inducing, as breakbeats and ambient drones start competing for equal attention with the BM elements, sometimes superseding them altogether (as on track III), and often it seems as if all the angels in Heaven and the demons in Hell have come together in one Almighty rave that ranges over the length and breadth of the known cosmos. While parts of the music can be ugly and savage, and melancholy can be found (especially on track 5), the overall impression is of a sweeping glacial and abstract beauty that can be ethereal and spiritual, and which is not usually malevolent though neither is it completely benign. In all of this, Erroiak and Septev do not forget that melody, riff and proper song composition matter, and all songs feature these structural constituents, even if in unusual ways.

A most singular sound universe of sweeping cold beauty, terrifying and confronting, yet breathtaking in its scope and ambition, beckons to all who might dare enter the Stellar Forest realm.

Danish label Janushoved has lately been releasing some very lovely electronic ambient music on cassette and this recording from Sejlet is a good example of what Janushoved specialises in: graceful if perhaps introspective ambient with a melancholy air. Apart from “Halvvind mod Kerteminde”, most tracks are quite short, the last couple of pieces very much so, and all of them are very distinct from one another in atmosphere and mood as well as tone. “Halvvind mod Kerteminde” especially is a dreamy piece in which you can float away completely enveloped in a cushion of serenity and peace, accompanied by occasional birdsong, insect rhythm and wisps of trance drone. Later tracks like “Sjællands Rev” and “Korshavn” may have a darker atmosphere with a more sombre, wistful mood while “Langør”, definitely not the liveliest piece here, does no more than what its name (in English, “languor”) says.

For me, the most attractive (and the shortest!) piece here is “Sælen Ved Romsø” which packs in a dreamy (even if sickly sounding) fairy-tale world with tinkly tones and bleached swirling drone, and then another dream-like soundscape of toy-like tones and background fumbles, all of which give the entire one-minute wonder (well, maybe almost two minutes) the impression of being a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it snapshot of a dizzy kaleidoscope universe filled with ever-changing colour and spectacle.

At just under 21 minutes in length, this truly is a miniature universe of wonder and magic which, if you’re willing, can expand to infinite dimensions in your head.

Based in Buenos Aires, experimental film director / photographer Marcelo Cugliari began making and releasing soundscape works based on field recordings and the use of objects and electronics in 2023. “Void Sessions” is his second major work for a label, and his first for Unfathomless, the debut recording being a cassette “Unknown Landscapes” for Japanese experimental music / noise label Neus-318 in 2024. “Void Sessions” is a homage to Cugliari’s father who passed away in 2021, exploring the concept of emptiness, physically and metaphorically, especially where the boundary of the physical meets and blurs into the psychological and the metaphorical. People we have known who have passed away may not be present physically but as long as we have memories or documentation of them, can they really be said to have passed away if other realms are not empty of them?

The sole track on “Void Sessions” was made in Cugliari père’s room in Buenos Aires with the use of radio sets and a TV / radio as the primary sound sources, with the sounds produced later edited by Cugliari. It’s a very eerie and spooky work, often more hissy than noisy, with sounds that could be interpreted as ghost voices or actions (in pointillist noise) of beings in multidimensional worlds existing in parallel with ours. There are not many sounds that appear familiar to my ears, and most of those are in the far background. Depending on where you’re coming from, in terms of what music and soundscapes you already know, the sequence of sounds and noises at times may suggest a journey or a struggle to reach or to understand something beyond normal human experience. Later in the recording, sounds of rain and water droplets bring some semblance of familiarity, maybe even comfort, and many of the sounds become very rhythmic and are almost on the cusp of forming melodies – but the overall tenor of the entire work is even with very few abrupt or unpleasant surprises.

Listening to this recording, you may not necessarily feel the emotions that Cugliari felt on making it, but you will certainly be aware of the immense spaces contained within it. A paradox of empty space containing within it the potential for filling the whole space comes to mind as well. At the very least, listening to a work like “Void Sessions” will fill your mind and imagination with what could be, as well as what is and what was … certainly at some level this “void session” is not void at all.

It’s a pity this album, the second by Portuguese act Durvena Cabina, has come out quite late in 2024 as (for me anyway) it’s certainly a contender for Album of the Year in 2024: inspired by the folklore and legends of northern Portugal, and using samples of the folk music of this area, “Contos da Casa do Lobo” (in English: “Tales of the House of the Wolf”) lays out an extraordinary sonic tapestry of hilly and mountainous landscapes, cold rainy winters and peoples of Celtic, Iberian and other mysterious origins whose beliefs revolved around human contacts with otherworldly beings both benevolent and maleficent. I am not at all familiar with Durvena Cabina – I only heard of this act very recently – but the artist behind DC also runs a black metal project, Sokushinbutsu. Durvena Cabina’s music here embraces black metal as one of several inspirations and core elements that include neofolk, psychedelia, ambient and musique concrète in a setting of long droning shamanic freeform ritual pieces, each and every one of which is highly absorbing, hypnotic and magical.

Although the album is divided into six tracks, it’s best heard as one complete unit from the first track to the last, or even with the tracks mixed – though individual tracks, even the shorter ones like “Solstício”, are enchanting enough that you’ll be quickly drawn deep into the mysterious dimensions behind them. Each track reveals a lush soundscape that can contain unexpected power and menace as well as charming beauty and sometimes plaintive melancholy. Tales of wolves and their ability to inflict disease and suffering through their evil gaze, and of other hostile beings and spirits, often magnified through long periods of isolation and cabin fever during inhospitable weather, come to terrifying life in tracks like “Caí no Poço, Morri no Campo”, a spooky ambient work of ghost voices and effects made even more chilling by constant background metal-sawing noise drone. Samples of folk chanting are given a sinister edge through distortion and a wave of harsh BM noise guitar drone accompanied by eerie fragments of flute melody and space ambient effects in “Ela que chamou o Fumo”. Closing track “Luna” starts off as the most soothing and song-like piece, though it has the mood and atmosphere of a keening elegy, but the simmering chaos of the Otherworld and its denizens is never far away.

A beautiful and enthralling album of mystery, magic and menace, this particular collection in sonic form of dark folk tales is a unique achievement indeed.

You probably can guess this alarmingly titled album is the product of a frightening new sonic creature, one christening itself after Finnish black metal act Beherit’s third album “Electric Doom Synthesis”. Hailing from France, EDS presents a very pessimistic view of future human society, one governed by an oppressive, technologically dependent apparatus in which humans are viewed as a giant mass of soulless entities, each no better or having more value than an insect, on this work of bleak industrial / noise / power electronics. There may be other musical genres represented on this debut, but their influence seems very slight, and the dominant style of music is harsh, bleak, often rhythmic and highly abrasive in texture.

The album divides into two halves and the latter half is taken up by one track “Carverider” performed in a live setting in March 2024. Stretching over half an hour, “Carverider” winds its way through many detours in different music settings, most of which are noisy, aggressive and highly confrontational. There are some unexpected quiet surprises – though they don’t stay quiet for very long! – and a few passages are dominated by heavy beats, with one late section filled with rapid-fire breakbeats that go so fast they end up turning into one continuous cacophonic noise drone stream. Despite all this, the track holds together very well, channelling its restless energy from one noisescape to the next smoothly.

The album’s first half, also about half an hour long, is slightly better behaved and a bit more restrained, with found sound recordings and vocals present in parts. Four tracks of varying lengths take us through different parts of the EDS dystopian hell, some more darkly ambient, menacing in mood or close to sheer madness than others. Though they’re all noisy and chaotic, they do differ from one another in mood and are frightening in their various ways, especially in their use of vocal samples to portray a post-modern dysfunctional panopticon society.

For all its strident cacophony and sometimes monstrous vocals, all steeped in a harsh production, the album does exert a pull on your consciousness: you find yourself anticipating whatever unpleasant surprise might be just around the corner, and you end up having to follow the music and see out its post-industrial nightmare vision to the bitter end.

An elegant and ethereal release of ambient droning sound art, “Magnetically Yours” is structured from repeating tape loops that, over time, deteriorate in the quality of their sound as the physical tapes themselves slowly degrade from over-use and exposure to their immediate physical surroundings. Mancunian native Andrew Hargreaves, the sole member of Tape Loop Orchestra, constructed the two tracks of this short release (just over 30 minutes long) from soundtracks of strings-generated music under a layer of “eroded choral humming” (according to Vaagner’s Bandcamp page) and the use of reverb and synth samples, creating a work of introspective melancholy and languid nostalgia bathed in a warm or cool misty atmosphere.

Track 1, recorded in 2022, despite its slow, gentle pace, turns out to be a continuously changing creature of many moods, generating an overall impression of a steady rolling tapestry of ghostly scenes, memories and long-gone visualisations, all gradually fading or blurring, doomed to an indistinct oblivion. The music’s tone is sombre yet soft and peaceful, passing no judgement on this procession of nostalgic recollections that may soon be forgotten or out of reach forever. Sonic transitions are so gradual and so smooth as to be imperceptible, though listeners may be aware of a darkening mood, more lush and dream-like, developing in parts as the background hum becomes more bristly.

Like Track 1, Track 2 which was made in 2023 is just as changeable, though it initially seems sadder and more spiritual and heavenly. Depending on your point of view, some of the spiritual parts can also be a little creepy as what appear to be fragments of voices float in and out of the flow of music which itself is composed of melodic piano and other keyboard flotsam and jetsam. Some of the source material here is more defined and, as the track continues, distinct melodies may become noticeable. Transitions are a bit sharper and faster, and listeners can feel they are definitely on a journey deep into hitherto inaccessible reaches of space.

It’s definitely very haunted and haunting, a work to be treated with respect as you find yourself passing from your mundane material surroundings into a strange world of many interlinked dimensions with porous boundaries, as you drift from scenes of longing and nostalgia into altered states of consciousness where the heights of heaven are but a passage into dark realms of space. “Magnetically Yours” may not compare in scale and grandeur to epic minimalist tape-loop dramas like William Basinski’s “The Disintegration Loops” but, unlike that work, itself set in a particular point in time and space through its artwork and the circumstances of its recording, “Magnetically Yours” is (as its title suggests) a work you can make very much personal and intimate through your own listening experience.

In contrast to its black metal / ambient twin “Sils Maria”, released on the same day (17 July 2024), “Limbs of Dionysus” is a ferocious beast of blackened psychedelic sound art. Two long and twisting tracks take listeners through a dark labyrinthine cosmos of jangly guitar riffs and speedy thudding percussion, all overseen by a mysterious spectral vocal that appears now and again as if to guide the music down further shadowy and indistinct paths. Where “Sils Maria” is a restrained work that is light, even elegant in its execution, “Limbs of Dionysus” is feverish and desperate in tone and pace, and the music can appear very dense and convoluted in its structure as it barrels along like a wild cyclone.

At 23+ minutes, Track I is a sprawling soundscape piece of dissonant jangly black metal guitar, set in the same space as “Sils Maria” with a similar clear sound and a sparse minimalist approach, accompanied in the main by blast-beat percussion and wraith-like cries and screams in the far background. Riff after riff after riff is thrown up in the music though each does not repeat for very long and as a result listeners can have a hard time getting a-hold of anything in the music that might serve as a reference point. The one thing that does impress this reviewer is the resonant ringing quality of the guitar tones, however far deep in this dark abyss the guitars may be. The music is urgent and desperate, and listeners can feel overwhelmed by the claustrophobia such desperation produces after over 20 minutes of non-stop rush-about. Eventually a point of exhaustion or release is reached, and the heavy droning tones of church organ swamp the listener, as though God or some such other deity is pronouncing judgement on us lost souls.

Track II may be the shorter track but it is more tortured in form and emotion as the music quickly passes through many moods and the vocals, becoming clearer, reveal anguish and torment in their ranting and shrieking. The music quickly becomes just as fast and frantic, close to hysteria, as the first track as it dives and dashes about; riffs rarely settle into a particular groove before they are swept aside by another frenzied detour into yet another part of the darkness. As with Track I, the organ glides into the music in its last few moments, seemingly to offer comfort or judgement.

Like “Sils Maria”, no matter how intense or aggressive the music becomes, “Limbs of Dionysus” actually sits quite lightly on the ear and the result never becomes overly dramatic or histrionic. In their linear structures both albums turn out to be thoughtful and meditative works, perhaps contemplating the present sorry state of humankind and its uncertain future in a universe indifferent to its children. The twin albums may appear opposed to each other in style and mood, but when heard together they complement each other so well that they really have to be heard together for their strengths to be fully appreciated.

One of a pair of debut albums for New York solo black metal act Silvaplana, “Sils Maria” is a beautiful and hypnotic soundscape work of black metal / ambient experimentation. Divided into six numbered tracks, the album really deserves to be heard as one continuously evolving tapestry of dark and intense music. Its core style may be dissonant atmospheric black metal – at least that’s what I think I heard in the album’s opening moments – and from there, with the addition of church organ, piano and synth-generated percussion, “Sils Maria” expands into a complex universe where anxiety, dread and melancholy are ever-present.

While the percussion anchors and structures the music, and gives it its pace, the other instruments are more or less free to wander where they will – and wander they do, even if this means that listeners may find themselves being dragged through passes and valleys that might turn out to be cul-de-sacs, or they lose sight of their keyboard or six-stringed guides. The beginnings and endings of tracks may be peppered with nature-based found sound recordings, in particular birdsong and the sounds of falling or running water. Far in the background may be gruff raging vocals, and these together with the nature-based sounds, the energetic drumming and the overall improvisational approach may remind black metal fans of Kaatayra, but without that band’s Brazilian tropicalia influences.

As the album continues, its earlier anxious atmospheres give way to darker feelings bordering on terror, especially on Track IV where solo piano and jangly guitar vie for attention in a bleak black space, made all the more so by being so clear you can almost feel yourself falling into its depths. Track V has an elegiac feel from the interplay of guitar, piano and organ, with neither instrument ever really dominating the others. All that has been generated so far in the music – the sense of dread, the fear, the intense emotion and grief – comes to a head in the funereal dirge that is Track VI where Gothic organ, furiously thudding drumming and wailing screams release the tensions that have built up through the music. Listeners can easily find themselves meditating on the current state of humanity, the problems we have created over past centuries for ourselves and our descendants, and what our fate is likely to be if we cannot or refuse to resolve any of these issues.

Even though the music can be nightmarish and Gothic, almost on the verge of cracking up, and the mood grows ever darker and bleaker, it never feels heavy or melodramatic; indeed, throughout “Sils Maria” the music has something of a light touch and is quite stately and restrained even as it ranges far and wide. The space within the music becomes a fairly significant instrument in its own right, though it is never a dominant player. The sparse minimalist presentation allows the guitars, keyboards and percussion to lead a winding path through intense emotional worlds to what may be (for some listeners) a devastating conclusion. Yet at the end you never feel you have been bludgeoned into feeling this way – rather, you might go all the way back to the start to relive the lesson …

If you look carefully at the front cover art for “Contemplation”, the fourth album from Finnish occult black metal act Valtakunta, you’ll discover a horrific suicide scene – and that’s the point of this work: the free-form nature of the noisy music, ranging through noise, trance and psychedelic influences and elements, might suggest an uplifting outlook promising transcendence and hope, but the craggy death-rattle vocals and the arrangement of the track titles actually warn of emptiness, dark horror and the resulting despair that follow after such revelation. After releasing four albums over a nine-year period since the first self-titled debut came out in June 2015, Valtakunta remains a mysterious act and the only thing I can say for sure is that this album and the previous third album “Ylösnousemus” (Finnish for “resurrection) feature contributions from Antti Klemi from fellow Finnish BM act Circle of Ouroborus. On “Ylösnousemus”, Klemi contributed vocals mostly but on some tracks on “Contemplation” he also plays guitars, drums and synthesisers. Nevertheless, Valtakunta maintains a distinct style of desolate BM experimentation even as that band draws closer to Circle of Ouroborus in its worldview and existential despair and dismay.

Opening track “The Temple of Our Reincarnation” is a sterling work of continuous blackened noise fury and thunder, dominated by burning tremolo guitar, crashing percussion work and a roaring demonic vocal hidden in a chamber kilometres deep underground. The drone / trance chaos and erratic drumwork continue in “Through Stones, Roots and Lepers” with a clearer (and thus even more horrific) vocal though some people just might find the howling guitar feedback tiresome and distracting from the drumming. “Necromantic Delusions” admittedly doesn’t sound much different, but it appears more focused as the guitars and percussion work together rather than against each other and a definite mood is established.

The last two tracks “Void Soul” and “Contemplation” are the two glories of the album – or, depending on your viewpoint, the most harrowing tracks – as the vocals rise to screams and suffocating keyboards join the guitars and thundering drums in their cacophony. At least everything is less chaotic than previously, with the guitars now playing definite riffs, and melancholy and sadness now suffusing the cold space-ambient synthesiser drones and the other raucous music. Whatever sounds and noises appear now have a clear purpose, right down to the end lingering drone guitar notes. The final title track appears to start in a hypnotic trance state, and for a few minutes you feel as though held in a taut embrace, ready to drop anywhere and everywhere, yet the music holds tight and steady. The screaming may be the most horrifying part of the track – come to think of it, it may be the ghastliest element in the entire recording – as it rants and vents its spleen in some enclosed tomb in another dimension. In its second half the music – mostly blackened noise / space drone psychedelia – reaches a shrill climax, with the drums banging away and the guitars and synths roaring up a storm of feedback howl and power electronics drill noise.

Bent Windows Records’ Bandcamp page did promise dismay and demented horror with this album, and I will admit the music can be unbearable in its extreme noise terror stance. The first three tracks play as though the musicians are fumbling in the black noise chaos and trying to find a balance between what they’re doing, so they can do what needs doing – but once they’ve achieved their balance, even though that happens quite late in the album, there’s simply no stopping them as they charge through a fraught soundscape and push into another dimension, leaving little more than purrs and rumbles behind. Behind the horror, the bleakness and the despair though, there’s still a quality, hard to pin down, that is exhilarating and enthralling enough for listeners to follow all the way through, though the path be strewn with extreme danger and deception.

Based in Kansas City, Missouri, smack-bang in the middle of the US Midwest where the dominant landscape is more or less flat prairie, sound explorer Christopher McFall chooses as his subject the neighbourhoods of Kansas City East and West Bottoms and their train lines as a metaphor for the train lines of the mind, going back into the past and forward into the future, with all the memories, images and impressions attached to them. From the raw sonic ambience of steel wheels moving and screeching along rail lines as train carriages move into depot yards – for the most part gritty, even seething or keening at times depending on your mood or point of view – to car noises and other recorded urban sounds, McFall obtains surprisingly expansive vistas that allow the mind and imagination to roam free. It probably helps to know Kansas City and its history as a transportation centre linking the cattle ranching industry with markets and consumers in the urban eastern United States and beyond, but you can still imagine a long, endless and ever-changing parade of cattle, cowboys, horse-drawn wagons, trains, automobiles and all the people they carried over the past 170+ years since the city was founded as a port at the confluence of Kansas and Missouri Rivers. 

Best heard in its entirety as if it were one continuous track of five parts – all parts are untitled – “I Throw The Switch …” can be a mysterious, even spooky work, even though the sounds derive from everyday banal sources like a repeating loop of an ignition key starting up a car (track 2). Track 3 is an especially dark and murky soundscape piece of jangle loops and a shadowy shunting rhythm. As the volume level increases, and little details become much clearer and cleaner, the mood across the track seems to become warmer and lighter. The longest track (Track 5) is a mini-album drama in itself, starting quietly with a breezy-to-windy ambience as if describing a desert, transforming into a world of nostalgia and longing as winds appear to blow across landscapes that shift in form and shape. As the winds pass by, snapshots of images of cityscapes and people long-forgotten whip past our eyes like bits of paper or plastic bags being tossed and blown around.

You can really lose yourself in a past now long gone with this album, and your only worry is that when the album finishes, you find yourself back in a present that seems flat, dreary and superficial compared to what McFall has presented of the world he knew growing up in Kansas.