When Osmose Productions (not a small player within the scene) offered us the album I - The Serpent at the very end of 2016, the world could make acquaintance with a new Dutch / Italian project, Liber Null. Unfortunately, this project, with members of e.g. Frostmoon Eclipse, faded away for a while, and nothing spectacular did happen anymore.
First of all: the exact release date for Turkey has not been confirmed yet. The initial worldwide one, February 10th 2023, got postponed out of respect for the devastating earthquake that took place recently in Turkey and Syria. Respect to you, guys from Sermon!
Quite recently I got in touch with a sympathetic human being from Argentinian soil, Leandro ‘Ăνδρος’ Pendino. Apparently, this guy has some projects going on, although I do not know which ones. …with one exception: Kasriel. It was this specific project that drew my (worthy, of course; haha) attention. Kasriel is the moniker of a Dungeon Synth project that released a first recording at the very end of last year’s Autumn.
Kajdum’s Tower is a very young label, formed at the end of 2021, which focuses on Dungeon Synth styled Music. It was formed by Gábor Tóth, especially known from his activities within the harsher and more explorative Metal scene. He’s the guy behind outfits like Nagaarum, In Vacuo, GuilThee or Értéktelen (amongst others), as well as the owner of NGC Prod.
I was kind of sad when I read that Depression Embrace would stop all activities. Poland’s finest Gates Of Hypnos recently released the last Depression Embrace album, being a compilation with almost three and a half hour of darkened ambience. And I am not sure whether Glog is still active, for this project recently released a compilation with all former material, all in once.
I am extremely pleased with the foundation of Centipede Abyss, a very young label from the U.K. that releases sweet lullabies and singalongs that involve Pan Inentropy and same-minded sonic mad(wo)men. Pan is the guy behind hordes like e.g. Act Of Entropy or Ar’lyxkq’wr, and in order to keep the band-name smooth and simple, he also co-founded Zvylpwkua (try to repeat this out loud five times without stuttering or hesitating).
[despite being released almost three years ago, yet because of its ingenious character…]
The term ‘yaldabaoth’ refers to a false deity, or a demiurge, imagined as a serpent-shaped entity with a lion’s head, who captures spirits within physical bodies. It’s a gnostic terminology that focuses on man’s faith and salvation, searching for the balance in between knowledge and self-betrayal. I can go on about this matter, but I’d like to focus on a release by a project with the very same moniker and their album That Which Whets The Saccharine Palate.
This review does not deal with a new album, yet with a re-issue of what I do consider a monument. That’s a personal opinion, but many Black Metal adepts will surely agree. And those not aware (yet) of this stuff will mostly follow my opinion too. I did write a review on the original edition of All Pain As Penance ‘back then’ (2019). It was (soon) sold out (all physical editions), and one of the labels involved at that moment, i.e. Inferna Profundus Records from Lithuanian soil, decided to have this stuff reprinted again.
Being a reviewer can be very harsh and confusing sometimes. But one needs to be open-minded and objective, on top of the unavoidable subjectivity that influences your opinion and preferences too, evidently. No, I won’t start any philosophical discussion right here. It’s just, well, it isn’t always easy to find words, or to express thoughts, when you have to ‘out-of-the-box-thinking’.
I think it would be a waste of (my) time to introduce this project / artist. The guy behind the project Sonologyst is Raffaele Pezzella, who works as master under that name, and who runs several prodigious labels within the worldwide Experimental / Ambient / Field Recordings / Drone / Musique Concrète / Electroacoustics / … genres. He’s the (co) author behind documentary works referring to these related genres, and curator of podcasts, compilations (anthologies) with lesser known artists and / or genres, you know…
