I (quite) recently came in touch with Depressive Black Ambient Records, a Poland based label that focuses on daily happiness, instant joy and devoted ascetism. Indeed, nothing but my personal river to swim through… against the stream. They do not search for anything. Devourers of serpents, immersed in hypothermia. Where the breath is already imperceptible. Black, mourning, where we find no reason to inhale and exhale. Only chemicals and anesthesia [sic]. Why not? I’d like to dive into that polluted river. …the Styx, crossing towards the next level of life, disgusting and perverse. Aka: this label offers so much pleasure, which undersigned can only deeply adore.
Seriously, this label focuses on the edgy abysses of the muSICKal spectrum, and so do the projects they sign. One of these projects is Trwoga, also from Poland, creating ‘Dark Isolationism Ambient’ (ah, that description makes me horny / hungry!), being characterized as a specific surreal place. Initially Hadefobia was digitally posted at the end of July 2019, followed soon after in partnership with Depressive Black Ambient Records, also via digital sources, as well as on compact disc (jewel-case with booklet).
For about forty minutes, this one-man commando brings extremely bleak, minimal, nihilistic and isolationist Drone, both apocalyptic and eclectic, both abyssal and somehow explorative. Take the lengthy opener, for example, called Hipermnezia: an Arctic-freezing, void-like and desolate soundtrack, more than fifteen minutes of claustrophobic, terrific and desperate waves of emptiness, nothingness, and deepness at the same time. It’s almost emotional, like a story of loss and grief, anxiety and desperation. And because of the prominent and in-depth sensation of emotions, it works: 15:31 minutes of down-earthed, stripped-off and blank minimalism. It’s like distant waves, coming closer, very slowly, yet remaining untouchable, primal and archaic. Fading away then again, before seeming to crawl closer once more, yet never close enough to feel the breeze, to hear the tidal changes, to touch the nebula of free floating water drops.
Even though Mors Biologica Cerebri lasts for only ten seconds (!), it disturbs, for it expresses nothing, and at the same time so much as well. Silence, deafening silence, the whisper of nothingness, lifelessness, oblivion too…
With Żałobny Świt (= ‘mourning dawn’) things get creepier, more obscure, more horrifying. Low-tuned droning bass-lines, gloomy soundscapes, metallic gongs and ambient manipulations are canalised into a nine-minutes passage through the subconsciousness, brain-twisting and, at the same time, somewhat meditative too. It represents introspection as well as a confrontation with unconscious visions, nightmares and unfulfilled experiences. Long-stretched waves of sounds, much more abundant and rich in expression than both former titles, Żałobny Świt uncovers the hidden spirit of the mind, the unexplored dimensions of man’s Inner Eye. This Dark Ambient composition is so asphyxiating and murky, yet magnificent because of its many levels and bountiful structures.
Bedac Martwym (aka ‘being dead’) goes on in a comparable vein, like an overwhelming gathering of ominous synths, covering the listener in a thick foggy veil of surreal amazement, unwanted apprehension and mesmerizing resignation. There are several dreamlike waves of keyboard constructions, stretched out (without boredom!), growing stronger, then again slowly fading away, before creeping in once again. The melodies are intoxicating, with that dark-edged atmosphere and that doomed structure. Nice…
The album ends with the title track, another creation of oppressive noises, heavy ambience and paralysing post-industrialized drama. The whole album did build up, and this final sequence is like the trespassing of the final gate, the last portal where returning is not possible anymore. It shows the beauty, the painful beauty of a parallel dimension where death, emptiness and phobia rule.
The Hadefobia album is a love-it-or-hate-it experience which needs endurance, bravery – and maybe a psychotic view on reality too. But it grows the whole of the time (and each time you listen to it as well), revealing so many carefully hidden levels and subtle details. The entity behind this project, Kashnum, uses this project to express his vision on the fragile equilibrium of life and death, and a conscious relation with transience and reality. …worth giving a try (or many tries!)…
https://www.depressiveblackambient.pl/p/trwoga_26.html
https://depressiveblackambient.bandcamp.com/album/dba-black-003-trwoga-hadefobia-2019
https://trwoga.bandcamp.com/album/hadefobia
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/removed-life
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/antikythera