Genre: Dark Ambient
 
01 Abyss

This is yet another first of a kind for me. I have received my share of three-inch singles and EP's to review for you, but this one is just that, one track. The duration of this sole track is listed as six hundred and sixty-six seconds, translating to eleven minutes and six seconds. The release itself comes in the most minimal of forms, the little disc having nothing at all printed on it, slipped between a folded white sheet that has a picture of a black hole [the cosmic variety], only the color is inverted, lending its white background space to the very Black Metal-style logo of the project.

The single song here is not without some abysmal charm. The Dark Ambient style is very similar to the work of an artist I have had the pleasure of reviewing very recently, Mister Karsten Hamre. “Abyss” is a track that simply consists of what are probably only two or three sounds, a very lightly distorted drone, and what could be a synthesized brass section. The latter of the sounds is the one providing the most movement for the duration, played as a somber melody, not exactly a sad one, but it sure as hell is not a happy one, either. There is nothing else to “Abyss”, but this will not have me saying that it is too long for something that does so little. Thruth be told, it actually feels much more like a very minimal piece of Neo-Classical work.

There are thirty-three copies in circulation of this disc. The label this is on deserves a quick metion too because it is featuring more and more artists that focus on very long singles. The thing is, the label has criteria for a track submitted for release. The track lengths are 333, 666, 999, or 1332 seconds. This seems a bit odd, but compromise is fair.