Genre: Ritualistic Ambient

Released in collaboration with Darkwinter; catalogue number: DW 041

Tracklist (in no particular order) Night-time In The Forest Of Sticks
The Skeleton In Your Head
A Sad Story Of Not Having
Symptom Of A Nerve Disorder
Agnosia

Two guys from the UK - Kingsley John Buckland Ravenscroft and Alec D Bowman - come up again with a new masterpiece Agnosia, Formication’s seventh act. And again even by the outlook this album has something to tell about itself. This time their album is not only issued on CD limited to 500 copies, but is available as a net free release via Dark Winter, a label focused on dark ambient, atmospheric sound from all around the world.

Agnosia is a disease, a loss of ability to recognize objects, persons, sounds, shapes, or smells while the specific sense is not defective nor is there any significant memory loss. And maybe the cover that is usually a part and parcel of the concept within each of Formication’s CD this time also a reflection of the main idea. The object on the picture in the middle of the cover is quite difficult to determine. Sure, you can say that it is a shape of the man that is looking down. But some pay perceive it just as a spot..or a number of spots. You see, it is like a test at a psychiatrist’s – your perception depends on how much your mind is out of order..or how luxuriant one’s imagination is. So, as Agnosia come together with some difficulties in recognising the shapes and objects, the choice of the front cover is very appropriate in my opinion. This conception continues on the album, when you cannot be sure what is written on the CD, what you’re hearing and what is the origination of this or that sound, you cannot be sure about the track you’re listening to, because the exact names of the track are known only by the band members or even they might not know which track has which title of those mentioned on the back of the envelope. Yes, small cute envelope in black and white just to hold a CD and nothing else. Well, the artwork of the envelope and CD say it pretty all.

The CD contains only five track, but it is not quantity that counts, isn’t it? It is once again a fine piece of ritualistic ambient that makes you address yourself to the mysterious ancient times and then come back to contemporary world. Or is it a journey to the dreams or better to say nightmares? Pictures of day and night changing each other fast, grey and black clouds running accross the sky, sun rising and setting as if centuries are passing by while you’re just standing and watching. Or it may be you, changing seasons and making the sun set as an ancient shaman, insightful and powerful. These are the first two tracks – a calm atmospheric layer sometimes accompanied with remote haunting sound with rhythmic ornaments built of anxious sounds that remind ritualistic, sometimes shifting shaman drumming. If those two first tracks can be somehow called dark and anxious, then the third track is full of tranquility, which is created with teh help of transparent crystal sounds travelling from ear to ear and eventually slowly moving away so that the beginning of a new track comes as a slight shock. It is not a return to the first two tracks. It is viscous, unclear, very thick. As if you didn’t have any place to move and had to move together with something that moves near, as if the waves of something unknown and unseen moved you, some power you cannot resist. Guitar sound appear as an image of light in the end of a tunnel, a picture of something bright, embodiment of hope, which suddenly disappears to appear again after some time, when viscous, thick sound comes back. This time it is deeper and more atmospheric, this bass makes you feel the space and then fades away to give the way to the last track – Agnosia (the title is not stated on the cover, however), which gives rise to diverse feeling – on one hand it is very calm and even full of light and transparency, but on the other hand it has these sounds in background that doesn’t allow you to relax and calm down, they make you stay attentive and wait for something to happen. Well, something’s indeed happened: this band again pleased my ears and my imagination with their highly atmospheric and professional sound design. Will be waiting for the next album, just as ever!