German DIY-label Vomit Bucket Productions is focusing on projects by founder Gag only as from a couple of months ago. One of the last releases that were not composed by Gag (he’s the guy behind the likes of Ataraxy, The People’s Noise Project, Vomitous Discharge, The Thousand Arms Of Compassion and several more), was At Night Time, created by Nekro:mancer. Nekro:mancer, by the way, is a side project of Cosmic Noise Waves (formerly known as Malevolent Alien Being).
As Nekro:mancer, there were an EP (Mahr, released on CD-r via Fuck The Industry) and a split (with Gag’s HNW / Noise-project Ataraxy) before, and At Night Time is the first full length, having a total running time of forty five minutes, and being extremely limited (there aren’t but a handful of copies left, so visit the label’s site as soon as possible, no, I mean, visit it NOW if you want to be one of the very few lucky ones; there will be no repressing, I guess).
At Night Time opens with Nightfall, which brings floating, ethereal Ambient dreamscapes, based on hypnotic synth melodies, rather monotonous yet extremely beautiful. A characteristic is the use of soft-electronic drum patterns (I wanted to use the word ‘drum beats’, but actually ‘beat’ might have a connotation of sonic intensity and heaviness, and that’s not the case at all). This symbiosis works out very well. Because of the unhappy atmosphere and this specific approach, I need to mention the Dutch Echo Grid-project, which in many aspects sounds alike. On Saturday 24th of January 2015, we did upload the review undersigned wrote for the Memento-album, by the way. Most of the compositions are comparable, combining those mesmerizing and truly freezing ambient noiscapes with trancelike drum rhythms, to get canalized, if you want to, in a soundtrack for eternal escapism. A couple of times those drum patterns do evolve into a beating, little up-tempo oriented identity, cf. Mahr. Pieces like Ghost World or Cry Of The Banshee do not come with those electronic additions, yet it’s rather a very minimal and even desolate long-stretched sound-wave that makes you gasping for air, despite the aural nihilism. The bonus track, Mahr II, is the most ‘danceable’ out of eight, not only because of the Techno-beats, yet the melodies are less nihilistic, repetitive than on the other songs. I was even about to shake my (pretty) head a little, to the left, to the right…
This album is not the most energetic piece ever created, haha, on the contrary. But it does not need to be extreme and aggressive all the time, even on a label such as Vomit Bucket Productions, which actually focuses on Noise / Gore / Grind stuff especially. But if you like to dream away with obscure and minimal Techno-injected Dark Ambient material, then this project might create the right stuff for you.