Vidna Obmana is, along with Rapoon and Genetic Transmission, an artist whose back catalogue this label reissues with a generous hand. Latest package contains two discs, Monument of Empty Colour and Depression and Ideal (ZOHARUM ZOHAR 275-2), both of them collaborations with PBK, the American 1980s veteran Phillip B. Klingler, likewise prolific ambient-noise-electro-acoustic genius who has collaborated with Artificial Memory Trace, Illusion of Safety, Government Alpha, and many others.
Monument originally came out as a cassette in Belgium in 1989 on Dirk Serries’ own Decade Collection label, a vanity press imprint that managed but six releases. I’m certainly enjoying the bleakness and ambiguity of this one, which feels like it has a lot more meat and sinew to it than Vidna manages when left to his own devices. The original cassette had a cover photo where a beckoning cathedral glass tower in the distance was separated from us by means of a cast-iron gate, suggesting a somewhat foreboding scenario. Even the title ‘Door of Secret Rising’ is part of that scenario, in my fantasy version; perhaps a latterday Gothic novel of a castle with many hidden compartments. (The digipak of today’s release attempt to emulate the spirit of that image, but it’s too subtle and tasteful). If we are dealing with modern masters of sonic horror here, we can reckon Monument as a successful meeting between Dr Frankenstein and Manfred from the Castle of Otranto. I expect the means and methods (electronics, loops, tapes) are quite simple and basic at some level, but my word how these two manage to imbue their devices with occult powers.
Second disc is occupied by Depression and Ideal, another substantial array with six long-form tracks; also originally from 1989 and released on Mr Klingler’s own PBK Recordings label in California (though there’s also a Canadian version from Freedom in a Vacuum). The original cover art was one of those examples of vague, abstract imagery which was once so much in vogue – maybe a close-up of some granite boulders showing the grain, plus inside some splotches of black blood or Jackson Pollock thrown paint. Where Monument above achieves a lot of its unsettling power through loops and more loops, this Depression item is aiming for a rather terrifying pitch of intensity, slowly ratcheting up the levers of pain one notch at a time. Another characteristic is a certain dissonance, a sense of one too many frequencies competing for the ether; if on Monument the two of them agreed on common ground for their experiments, now the air has soured and the mood has turned to one of brooding contempt. You can start to see why this sort of blank, neurotic and troubling music appealed so much to depressives and shut-ins of the late 1980s, who at the time had no other outlet for expressing their unhealthy mental states; now of course they’ve all become internet trolls and incels. I jest, of course…in all seriousness these are two great examples of post-industrial art music which tend to reach the parts that even contemporary dark ambient and dungeon synth cannot touch.
I’ve tended to feel a bit surfeited by these many Vidna Obmana projects, but this one will be a keeper and may even make me wish to investigate some of the past output of PBK. From 10th January 2023.