The last four-five years, Rojinski used to be one of the most productive projects on Mater Terra. The great(est) thing was that it wasn’t just about quantity, yet above all about quality. Despite the overwhelming number of releases, each of them, without exception, was of a very high standard.
Unfortunately, due to personal issues, the human entity behind the project needed to cease activities. It was understandable; it was comparable to the reason why I stopped writing reviews for almost a year, so I am judiciously understanding.
Enter February 2026. After a (short) period of silence (indeed ‘short’, yet ‘disturbingly lengthy’ when referring to this specific outfit), Rojinski sort of surprised with a new release, The Final Stretch. The result was more varying than before, for some reason, but I was left ‘hungry’ for The Final Stretch could not overwhelm me that intensively. Okay, it still was (and still is) a fine effort, evidently.
Then again, Rojinski went silent (even-though shortly).
Enter March 2026. About five weeks after that former release, Rojinski return with a new recording, ominously called Condemned To Live And Suffer. It was that title that draw my attention in the first place. I am pretty sure that it does refer to two things: the personal events in the life of the guy behind this project (here too, comparisons with my personal life and beloved ones do float by), and the current state of our civilization, from socio-political point of view. Sharing friends all over the globe (also in Iran), and seeing nothing but misery, grief, inequality, discrimination, brainless hatred, religious fanatism, false ideologies, abuse of power, squalor, environmental degradation, denial of human dignity and mutual understanding – nope, I won’t go too far, but you know what I mean. That’s exactly what this new release’s title does refer to: the uncertainty of our human existence, as well as the difficult times from the artist’s private life.
This said… In short, I am very, very ‘happy’ (forgive me the use of this word, seen the current context, yet then again…) with the sonic side of Condemned To Live And Suffer. It is a characteristic Rojinski release, with a profound deepness in sound, a nice yet necessary variation and a hidden message. The accompanying cover visuals are courtesy of Mr. Rojinski too; and yes, it is AI-generated, I think (this person is professionally active within this sector, for what it is worth), but it does fit once more – a tormented, abject face, hardened and uncompromising too.
Condemned To Live And Suffer consists of seven chapters, having a total running time of about fifty minutes. Some parts are comparable - actually the whole adventure is strongly cohesive once more - but several excerpts offer a unique alternative view (an aural view, evidently) of ‘the main core’.
Opener Dementia (08:51) opens in an enlightening manner, with softly-hovering sprinkles of weightless infinity (if you don’t get it: listen and you’ll understand), but after a very short transition with female voices (sampled) and spacy affects, things evolve towards a more dim, more doom-laden form of slowly expanding darkened ambience. Monotonous drones get injected with some whispers, distantly-industrial elements and, eventually (at about half of the track), additional layers of mesmeric synth-laden sound-sculpting. Undulating waves, like hypnagogic visions, pass by, accompanying the listener through a dreamworld beyond knowledge and conception. The few ‘beats’ towards the end strengthen the intrinsic intensity.
The succinct second track, Short Memory (03:57), differs a lot in nature, dwelling around in spheres of fairy-like Comfy / Dungeon Synth, like a view on a starlit night-sky, or a look inside a secret, enigmatic, and why not, sacred mini-world; a place where the emptiness is so abundant, so extensive, until it becomes endless, like the feeling of just being a spot in an infinite cosmos.
The Ghost Of 1984 (07:49) (I wonder if it refers to the legendary novel by Orwell, or any social, political or environmental event that very same year) comes with a Dark Drone laden character, slowly expanding yet, in origin, minimalistic in essence. The levitating aural monotony works addictive, sedative, even seductive, enriching the lingering soundscapes.
The next piece, Voices From The Past (04:50), reverts from the mildness of The Ghost Of 1984, for delving deep, very deep, into the oppressive pits of remembrance and nostalgia. It’s an orchestral composition, overwhelmingly gloomy and somber. It’s a symphony of affliction at first, with these dreary synths and some woeful, hypnotizing, female voices. Soon more bombastic orchestrations enter, with dismal organ-like melodies and that profuse interplay of choirs, martial drums and keyboards.
To My Mom For Ever (09:18) returns towards introspection and integrity, like Dungeon Ambient Music covered in a nebula of isolationism and derivation. However, when the song climbs up out of its initial tomb of desolation, a glimpse of melancholic fairness might emerge via long-stretched, captivating drones and elegant scopes of sound-tapestry. Mind the outro on this track, with that heart-beep-thing, defining the fragile equilibrium of mortal life and sweet death.
With I Gently Slide To The Other Side, the story organically continues after the former song. This piece, which clocks 07:46 minutes, returns to the basics of haunting yet elevating Dark Ambient, created by a round a rich palette of synth-based layers of stringent and rigorous, yet melodious and vivacious (despite the ‘lack’ of ultra-energetic exploration) textures. Remarkable, and necessary being mentioned, is that Rojinski adds female voices and some percussion-like samples once again at the end.
The album ends with the title track (07:37), building forth on the spine of the whole album. rumbling drone-waves, meditative soundscapes and endarkening yet sagacious changes in sphere and construction, including ominous drum beats, accomplish this journey through the Inner Eye (and Beyond) with delicate fairness and graceful amenity.
PS: when finishing this article, I saw the artist’s liner notes on this album, narrating about, and I will quote, ‘a man who’s living just for the other, like unchained to life because the love of he feels for his family… He’d would like better be gone to… somewhere else.’ Damn, it’s incredible how meticulously accurate Rojinski was able to translate this concept into Aural Art, for Condemned To Live And Suffer exactly exhales this concept. Once again, this project surprises, despite a certain negative ‘being-within’, with an adequate, expedient and evincive auditive embodiment of in-depth topics.
Warm hugs during cold times…
https://rojinski.bandcamp.com/album/condemned-to-live-and-suffer
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/rojinski
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/rojinski-0
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/rojinski-1
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/rojinski-2
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/rojinski-3
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/rojinski-4
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/insectarium-omensworn-rojinski
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/alphaxone-rojinski