Ritual Dark ambient / Avant garde Neo-folk / Post Rock weirdness

Tracklist:

01 Broos
02 Ava
03 A Forest For Riss
04 Prone
05 Bordun
06 A Forest For Wyrd
07 Gentle Art Of Incineration
08 Dwaling / Star Of Moth
09 A Forest For Far
10 Gentle Art Of Incineration Reprise / Asrequiem
11 Rike
12 A Forest For Eoh

After been listening the strange music behind this project from the Netherlands and methodically exploring its beautifully crafted wood case, preciously sheltered in velvet inside and accompanied by some suggestive black & white postcards with some remnant aura of paganism and mysticism, I gave myself to the task on finding out about its name. First thing that is necessary to illustrate is the original procedure from such curious name, an element which perhaps brings some relevant information about the musical inspirations and luckily a hint from the imaginary involved within the project. Hadewych/Hadewijch/Hadewig from Antwerp was a mystic poet from the 13th century (Allegedly 1240); her writings expressed the homogeneity of concepts that mixed part of pagan beliefs and conceptions with a Christendom vocation. She was a heretic and a spiritual revolutionary in all sense of the word, sharing principles with the Cathars from the French Languedoc (Is believed that she was part of the Beguine movement) and expressing radical concepts such as that women were as divine as their male counterpart, that sex was not naturally intended for just procreation and that nature was a reflection of god in direct reference to Pantheism. Her works are scarce as most of them disappeared during the dark ages, but what is available depicts a person touched by the grace of divinity, understanding the multiple connections with the totality through the natural principles and demonstrating a pagan spirit transmuted through its writings and expressions. So the music certainly shares some of these characteristics and ideas associated with its name and you’ll rapidly find out why.

The band seems to prefer to cover theirselves in a relative anonymity. In one of the postcards the name of Peter J. Nijland is nominated as the writer and main composer, but there is also a company from other musicians. Scramasax is the additional member that is at charge of Percussions, additionally there is Didier and Dercksen that seems to be musicians for live performances. The CD was released by Avant Garde collective Tuchtunie in a very limited edition so your chances are few if you don’t get this item as fast as you can as it is worth the price in every way.

There is a couple of traditions that could be traced back when you listen to this enormously experimental work, first there is the Black metal aura surrounding it, but this is an aspect that is only apparent as they mostly take the atmospheric soul from this genre in order to deliver its sinister halo all over it. Secondly there is two fundamental characteristics that gets surrounded by this black mantle formed by the atmosphere, that is a clear post rock character introduced as a shadowy ether instrumentation that somehow sublimates the heaviness from the blackened ambience and while the instruments are clearly there they play not a role in their own, more likely they follow a rare and ubiquitous, non linear and sometimes atonal/dissonant construction where chords are replaced by atypical arrangements that often resemble the structure of an harmony but that nevertheless remain in a middle ground between cacophony and synthesis. Anyway this later aspect grants to the work an skeletal formation, a solidity consolidated in rarity. This characteristic reminds of the efforts from Einsturzende Neubauten to elaborate covers from famous songs without proper instruments or with instruments intended to accomplish a different mission that was not corresponding their innate sonority. Therefore the tracks result rhythmically alien although evidently structured and definable in form, following a patron that results non linear (and distant from the literal concept of a song), radiant in atmosphere but completely other people’s dynamics. As result the general sound of the work reaches the goals from experimental bands such as Ulver, which the band is more than probably a musical heirs or at least a sound enhancer.

Their sound lacks the synthetic appeal given by synths, even though they use them as they are mainly intended to create background and to round and polish the contours of the tracks, many live recordings are found as well as acoustic instruments, and organic samplers an aspect that enhances the particular organic sound that plays a major role through the work and maintains a natural related atmosphere, reminiscent of ritualism, natural landscapes, mystic plays and visions. Atmosphere is omnipresent during the whole work taking several forms and strategies to be implemented, whether it is by the ethereal atonality from deformed guitars displaying a typical blend of ethereal shoegaze or as subtle drone sequences from the synths and ultimately as agile samplers that unexpectedly appears as ghosts while in a desolate path. An aspect to highlight is the inclusion of the strange almost tribal percussions given to certain tracks such as “Ava”, “A forest for riss” and “Prone” constructed entirely on the concepts of prepared piano music, altering its timbre and coming as a storm of opaque and placated hits that resemble a machinery rhythm full of sombre tones and most enigmatic movements. The reverberant sound of the piano is accompanied by guitar distortions and strange live recordings, giving the tracks a latent vivid texture. “Prone” is a really “industrial” track because of the rhythm implemented, repetitive and crazy it remits to ritualism and trance. The track is seconded by shoegaze expansion and a sinister vocal set that delivers unintelligible words as in most of the tracks that presents vocals, prays or mantras come through as whispers and mumblings that really remits to some ritualistic atmosphere. During “Borden” the vocal delivers as a narrative, preserving a rhythm and particular intonation that result attractive. The epic track from the work is “Gentle art of incineration”. A blend of somber drone spells and post rock rhythms, slow paced and monumental, aerial and mesmeric, this track really moves the listener as it progresses in its vastness and manifested feeling. 

What we got in here is a work that deserves to be recognized, a very strange transgression of musical creation, strangely mixing elements from post rock with somber atmospheres of dismal abyss, ritual logistics and bizarre instrumental application, giving to its sound a rare and difficult to find order and progression. Their instrumental variation and experimental intrepidity are perhaps their major achievements, creating an album that exudes originality from every pore and equally impress the listener with their unexpected formations. Their sense and logic for rhythm is simply amazing, they really attract with the vast compendium of dissimilar rhythms and percussions, this particular aspect joined with the ambience and ritual influx finally results in an excellent and absolutely eligible piece for exploration and mandatory for all those lovers of what is different, original and illuminated. They really pay tribute to the name they chose to represent as it really portrays the poetic wanderings of a pagan mystic and its epiphanies.