Faunus Amadeus Loki is the artist’s name of New York born guy John Donadio, who runs the Volk Lore Music collaborative. In a far past he used to be involved with some blackened projects, such as Mastema (which did include Asphyxiation’s Danny ‘Zoth Ommog’ Gonzalez), but with Volk Lore Music he independently releases material from different projects, amongst them quite a lot he’s involved with himself, such as Stark von Oben, Visoteric, Herrenvolk, Dracul - Order Of The Dragon, Faunus Loki, Volk Lore or Endoki Forest. The latter started two decades ago, but initially this one was focused on blackened stuff too. Nowadays the ‘blackness’ still counts, but like many of this guy’s projects, the whole is based on a synth-based execution. PS: you might expect some reviews in a near future on other material from this guy (Herrenvolk and Visoteric for sure).
With Black Sorcerers Fortress (actually, Black Sorcerers was the name for a small and independent, shortly-lived label John did run in the nineties), Endoki Forest bring an hour of ritual Dark Ambient with new and some renewed compositions. The better part is focusing on mesmerizing passages of trance-like Martial Industrial / Ambient, enlightened (or better: endarkened) by elements of obscure ritual invocations. Let’s take the opening piece Dominus Maximus, for instance, which is a repetitive and hypnotic piece of minimalistic Dark Ambient, with somewhat shamanistic voices (which are, by the way, performed by The Krueger, who’s part of Dracul - Order Of The Dragon too, and who is in the Khaos Theory line-up as well, also on Volk Lore Music, and who did join forces with Faunus too on his Herrenvolk-project before), and towards the end with those fabulous fairylike vocals as well (those haunting female re-appear many times, by the way, and they are of such a great importance!). The addition of samples from thunder and rain (literally) aren’t but strengthening the dreary atmosphere of this opening song. Next comes Portal To Absuthulu, which is a continuous interpretation of Waters To Absuthulu, I guess. It’s quite ‘light’, but towards the end the whole sphere gets grimmer and more uncomfortable; read: more oppressive and obscure. The majority of excerpts on this (digital) release are quite following the same direction, combining elements from Dark Ambient and Ritual Industrial, with elements from very related and same-minded genres. But for sure a surplus too is the injection of elements from two other, somewhat relative genres: Drone at the one hand, and Electro at the other. The Drone-elements characterise the more integer moments, the more long-stretched compositions that dwell within spheres of transcendental introspection; the somewhat electronic excerpts are of a truly unique kind, exploring all angles of martial supremacy, flirting with any possible element of military greatness, strengthening the glorious attitude of eternal glory. In addition I truly need to add the fabulous elements on the title track, which does end this fantastic journey (and being based on Herrenvolk’s Erwachen from 1998, actually): grim vocals and hypnotic keyboard-leads, mesmerizing synth passages at the back ground and epic-martial drum patterns…
In short: Black Sorcerers Fortress is a monumental expression of militant grotesquery and ambient supremacy. Faunus Amadeus Loki always succeeds to impress with all projects he’s involved with, but Black Sorcerers Fortress might be one of the highlights! Visit Volk Lore Music’s Bandcamp-page to go ‘deeper’ into the subject. I did listen to all releases posted on that page in mean time, and I’ll promise you: you will be satisfied (unless you’re a ***********************)…