Silvaplana, Sils Maria, Augur Tongues / IARNWITH, AT-03 / IW006 cassette (2024)
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 …