I recently posted a review on Lamaštu, a stunning and magisterial collaborative work of Alessio Antoni aka Neraterræ and Mattia Giovanni Accinni aka Chaigidel (link: see below). But the Chaigidel project created another interesting adventure about four years ago at the moment of this writing, with the working title Entrails Of The Earth. That one was written, performed and produced by Mattia, and eventually independently and digitally released in very early 2020 (as well via [temporary?] defunct Nailed Physicals).
Enter 2023. The young Canadian label Dark Odyssey Records was born with the intention to release new and older Dark Ambient-related material that needs / deserves any additional support. Dark Odyssey Records ‘aim to keep the genre healthy and stable by re-introducing classic recordings’. Well, a first example is this re-issue of Chaigidel’s way too underestimated four-tracker Entrails Of The Earth. Besides a digital opportunity, this material has been printed on cassette too now. It’s a pad-printed and so-called ‘high-grade ferro-tape’ with two tracks on each side, and it includes a j-card as visual addition (with a fine picture at the inside in fully-colored print). The visual cover-art is the original painting; a confronting black-and-white drawing of a late-medieval pest-mask, as used during the devastating plague of the 17th century (and not the ‘Black Plague’ from the 14th century, as often stated; yet that’s another historical discussion that is of no importance right here, right now).
The concept deals with death and resurrection. A transcendental (after)life will take place after body, spirit and soul first fade away into death. In medieval-esoteric tradition, salt, mercury and sulfur, connected to respectively earth, water and fire, were considered the representation of man through aforementioned body, spirit and soul. According to the alchemists, to implement the change one must regenerate through alchemical death, just as a small seed needs to die to be reborn as a tree [taken from the bio]. In order to rise again, stronger than before (‘to regenerate’, as the bio says), the former ‘self’ (physical and mental / spiritual) must perish; otherwise enlightened rebirth cannot take place.
Entrails Of The Earth consists, as mentioned before, of four chapters: A Little Seed (11:19), Under The Soil (08:26), Sulfur, Mercury, And Salt (06:36), and 16/4 (14:36). It’s a coherent collection of sonic creations (the word ‘songs’ would be an understatement and an exaggeration at the same time), excavating through mire wherein old corpses await to reveal their secrets of a past life and a transition to come. Through aural areas of Death, Dark, Post and Black Industrial, and more, Chaigidel guides the listener via heavy mechanics and machinal noise-sculptures. The result is as harsh as it is intriguing.
A Little Seed (a metaphor for the necessity of trespassing mortality into / towards rebirth) immediately opens in a grim sense, although it’s still down-tuned and ominous. Haunting drones and gloomy rumbles arise, quite soon injected by anti-hypnogenic noises and reverberating machinery. It’s all veiled in a nebula of smothering oppression, intensifying the enigmatic yet terrifying nature of the concept. Towards half of this composition, other elements join: metallics, percussions, samples, mechanoid industrialization of surreal origin / orientation. It works mesmerizing; not like a transcendental form of hypnotica, yet like paralyzing analgesia. There’s a permanent movement in sound, constantly generating. Under The Soil too moves through immense orbits of unphysical anguish and esotery. With a repetitive wave as spine, and with a whole scala of seemingly brittle yet actually poignant and severe mechano-sonorities as exoskeleton, this piece initially floats in exploration and ritualization of psychic discomfort, slowly evolving into introspective and sensory form. The repetitive soundwave is a constant that eventually flows over into the third chapter, Sulfur, Mercury, And Salt. Yet soon, a low-bass drone and dismal tones expand into a sonic chemistry of suffocative nature. At three minutes, field-recorded samples and poisonous textures penetrate the grim pseudo-monotony (believe me: this neologism might surely define the qualification). And things get even creepier and more overwhelming via the lengthy opus 16/04. With a sense of suffocating horror, this final composition gathers sci-fi-like frequencies, echoing soundwaves, electrified resonations, and electro-magnetic glitches, creating an un(der)worldly ambience. Step by step, cacophonous elements, shrieking noises, electroacoustic manipulation, digital elaboration and droning variegation take over the initial sound-sources, painting a sonic wall of inorganic plasmatic harshness. The addition of dissonant piano twanging and string-treatments towards the end sounds, despite its non-overwhelming character, enormously grandiloquent.
Or: a must for all open-minded ‘fans’ / connoisseurs of Power-Electronica, Death Industrial and Ritual Noise; and everything in between!
https://darkodysseyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/entrails-of-the-earth
https://chaigidel.bandcamp.com/album/entrails-of-the-earth
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/chaigidel-neraterr%C3%A6
https://nailednazareneindustries.bandcamp.com/album/entrails-of-the-earth