(05.21.07) OK, lets start with the basics. This CD is one track long and lasts 69 minutes and it’s dark ambient. If that ain’t going to float your boat no matter what then it’s as simple as this… You aren’t going to like this album.
If it sounds intriguing, then keep reading.
Sadalsuud is a track that combines synthesis, live instruments and vocals into a rich dark ambient tapestry, and it works very well indeed. The music is exceptionally creepy, lots of evil sounding scrapes, screeches and drones and the whispering female vocals repeating refrains is very effective at getting the hairs on the back of your neck to stand up. Not one for the works Christmas party, this one!
I can imagine that trying to manage dynamics in a track this long must be a nightmare. 69 minutes is nearly movie length and with it not being split into “chapters” (which to be fair even DVDs of films do this) it means that you’re pretty much listening to all of it in one go, or just the start 10-20 minutes and then trying to remember where you were for next time, making liberal use of the skip forward button on the CD or jog wheel on your mp3 player (Lucky for me my journey into work is almost 75 minutes. More than adequate for the additional listens needed for this kind of thing) so does it manage to keep interest?
Well for me it does; the track morphs through various phases, for example, there is a more melodic phase not far from the start (10-12 mins in) of the track and a really harsh grindy section not far from the end and in-between this it does flow very well. I would really like to see this as the soundtrack to a dark independent film or other, I think under those circumstances it would work exceptionally well.
Dark ambient for me is about two things; putting you into an odd form of calm unease and instilling dread and fear into you… Sadalsuud achieves both of these very well indeed. The creeping suspicion that something utterly horrible is going to happen is difficult to shake off.
So to sum it all up:
The Good: Really atmospheric, good use of sounds and live instruments, good track dynamics, scary.
The Bad: Not split into tracks, Sadalsuud can be a bit much for one sitting. If the idea of a 69 minute very well made dark ambient track floats your boat then well… here it is. Happy nightmares.
Sadalsuud is out now on Some Place Else. [Purchase]
