Opposites do attract, and that goes for geographical issues too. Harlow MacFarlane from Australia and Cyclic Law from Canada did work together a couple of times before and… damn, what a stupid introduction…
Funerary Call are an outfit by Mister MacFarlane, aurally active for quite some time, and despite not being that known in general, this specific project is rather influential and inspirational to quite a huge (underground) Ambient / Industrial scene for sure. Under this specific moniker, Funerary Call did release two Cyclic Law-recordings before (if I’m not mistaken), including, rather evidently, the first part of the Mirror Reversed-saga. Brings me, quite easily, to the second part of the concept, which is a one-track experience that clocks forty six (!) minutes. But despite being proposed like one single composition, The Mirror Reversed II looks (sounds) as if it were composed, divided into several distinctive segments.
The album goes partly on in the vein of the former material, though maybe the result is more droning and monotonous this time, being much more based on nihilistic soundscapes and minimal field recordings. Yet still there is quite an impressive archaic elegance, balancing in between levels of ritual oppression and obscure, meditative ambience. The first fourteen minutes are drenched in some hollow and, at the same time, somewhat tribal atmospheres, trespassing earthly reality. Only then a new level of post-tribal blackness enters, introducing asphyxiation and utter grimness into the aural experience that this second chapter seems to be. And that might be my major remark: the lack of those post-industrial outbursts, the emptiness left after quite a grandiose prehistory. It’s still ominous, yet not of the Nightside Emanations kind anymore. It’s still enthralling, yet not as deeply as the first The Mirror Reversed-composition. After twenty eight minutes, one might expect another primordial sequence, but it turns out to be more of the initial soberness, based on primal field recordings and minimally droning soundscapes. Towards the end the cosmic interludes seem to conquer the down-earthed nihilism from the first era, and things might start getting more suffocative and hallucinogenic. The last six minutes are, therefore, the most exciting ones on this second The Mirror Reversed-chapter, and it gets closer to what we might expect from the past. Yet still I think it’s the one and only possible chapter to close this mystic and magic saga.