(06.05.06) Ulf Söderberg makes ambient tribal thunder, dark soundtracks of
exploration into un-chartered jungles. Jaguars growl from dense
undergrowth, alien birds with brittle wings cry from the heavy bower
of twisted trees and the wind sings wordless arias through reed and
bark and leaf. But, always — like the perpetual presence of natives
stalking you through the verdant foliage — there is the menace of
drums. Tribal percussion explodes in an instant, shaking the trees,
scaring off the birds in a tinkling sound of breaking feathers and
making the earth shake like a herd of charging elephants.
Draconian Poetry is Marlowe’s feverish nightmare ride up the
turgid river in the pursuit of Mr. Kurtz, who has been swallowed by
the heart of darkness.
“The Call of the Serpent” builds from jungle ambience — the distant
hue and cry of native voices, the faint echo of stone tools against
wood and the guttering rumble of the jaguar in the brush — until,
like the sudden tightening of your chest with fear, everything freezes
for a second in that infinitesimal silence before a storm breaks.
Huge kettledrums shake the sky with their relentless beat. The
percussion in “Uthul Khulture” is preceded by a priest’s droning
ululation, a ritual cry for combat, that sends the Pictish army hiding
in the jungle streaming into the trees, resplendent with war paint and
sharp feathers. An elongated air raid siren is a distorted cry ripped
loose from the panicked reaction of the soft European intruders, the
signal to flee before the onslaught of rhythmically excited natives.
The slow drums of “Dark Garden” and the tonal groans of native singers
plays out like Peter Gabriel’s Passion soundtrack played back
at half speed; while “Therasia” blows like a moist wind across an
abandoned camp. Breathy drones of sound flow across the empty
clearing, dampening the silent tents and discarded equipment with a
wet fog, heavy with spores and fungi. Orchestral swirls of strings
vie with the wind to produce a claustrophobic ambience of disappearing
light.
“A Map of Eden before the Storms” builds from the dreadful ambience of
“Therasia” before erupting into tribal percussion. Söderberg
layers on the drums, making it sound like he has an entire forest
tribe in the studio with him. “The Clock of Distant Dreams” mixes a
bit of Morthound’s dark ambience with shifting tribal drums and hand
percussion beneath a slowly changing tonal melody. Mood music for a
massive march, thousands of men and horses bearing across dead seabeds
to a bristling stronghold at the base of a mountain range. “Now Night
Her Course Began” is the slow dissolution of the world. The sounds of
the jungle begin to slow down, stretching and undulating as their
elasticity decays and they become long notes, an amorphous benediction
to the fall of night.
I’ve been a fan of Ulf’s work since his early self-released records
and Draconian Poetry is a refinement of his tribal ambience, a
further darkening of the atmospheres with more explosive violence
lurking at the periphery of the musical landscape. This record will
leave you feeling haunted and hunted, afraid of the bestial forces
that lie beyond the edge of the firelight, in the dark places on the
map. This is mythological poetry, the savage heartbeat of the untamed
world.
Draconian Poetry is out now on Cold Meat Industry. (Buy it at Amazon.com)
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