The AmbiEntrance Overviews are always a mixture of ambient, electronic and miscellaneous delights. In October's bag of goodies, you'll find a few special Hallowe'en treats (denoted by... ooooh!... the ) amongst the other not-so-spooky offerings. It's all good, so reach in... amir baghiri: autumn   (ARYA - 1998) (8.3) From the ARYA division of the esteemed Amplexus label comes amir baghiri's seasonal offering. With the tribal rhythms and growling didge sounds of last heat, I would have readily believed this was vintage Steve Roach. Even the less rhythmicated pieces (like the drifting skyshapes of flying gees) have that expansive outdoorsy feel (sounds like rain, too). That track includes no honking geese, but after picking up a neo-tribal beat, one hears jews harp, didgeridoo blasts and other gruff throaty emssions. playing wind takes a different course, lolling around on muffled calliope-like meanderings. autumn sky again looks to the old Roach/Obmana school of big, floaty layers of shimmering soundwaves, adding a bit of wind-and-rain-in-the-leaves for locational ambiance. With contributed cello and viola, an exploratory string section wanders through dying leaves, which are fairly alive with pattering ethnic breakbeat patterns. Available as part of Soleilmoon's vast catalog.   Coma Vi®us: Hidden   (Side Effects - 1996) (8.5) This is the sound(s) of Paul Haslinger and friends in a black mood. Lower Than Epsilon opens with subsonic textures, dark rumbles, windy drones, distant growls. Only slightly less oppressive, the nearly-17-minutes-long atmospheres of Arcana Mundi flow through darkened hallways, resonating with random clatter, haunted moans, ghost piano and spooky electronics effects, smoothing into an isolated neoclassical drift at the end. Short track Causality (7:44) remains veiled by nebulous fogbanks which radiate in their own intriguing murkiness. If you're used to hearing Halsinger as part of Tangerine Dream or in hyper-world-beat mode (ala World Without Rules), this disc certainly takes a darker, less bombastic turn. Moody darkness which isn't just for Hallowe'en.   Legion: Leviathan   (Side Effects - 1996) (8.4) Legion is another moniker of Andrew Lagowski (our first AmbiEntrance interview, back in September 1997). Consisting of 6 (named, but unmarked) tracks which flow as one 72-minute slab of deep, subaquatic resonance, this dark and washy soundworld opens on the drips, swooshes and drones of Leviathan. Slight electrobeats, whispers, surging currents and a strangely submerged spiritual chorus flow through I was one. Other pieces blend effects like tolling bells, ripples, rumbles, organ sounds and muted crashes which undulate in a droning, mostly beatless environment. This immersive darkness contains a few moments of minor menace, but for the most part is quite a comfortable place to damply drift in its cool, murky shade.   Mortiis: Født til å Herske   (Dark Dungeon Records - 1994) (8.0) Hailing from Norway and probably already well known to darkwave listeners, this is the dark dwarf Mortiis' first release. Consisting of two more-than-25-minute neo-orchestral parts... Født til å Herske pt. 1 is somber enough... with mildly spooky organ drones, piano interludes, brassy synth blares and faraway chants, all converging to a climactic showdown which is followed by the grey haze of shifting synth-choral drifts. Electronic wind effects blow through the brass sounds of Født til å Herske pt. 2; additional thuds, organs, buried vocal chants and other gutteral utterances add to the Gothic sense of medieval decay. Definitely dark, if not a bit monotonous in parts. Mystical Sun: Primordial Atmospheres   (Solarworld Recordings) (8.5) This smooth blend of music and sound purports to enhance my body's autonomic responses and entrance my brain, and while I don't generally buy into that... maybe it does. At any rate, I like it! Nebulous Mist swirls in a rich, cinematically unfolding expanse of synthflow, peppered with sonic embellishments both synthetic and natural. Apollo takes a rather New Age approach, but does it well. Urbane bass and piano sounds are stirred into Akasha's mix, along with serpentine electronics and lush synth pads. More organic, the heartbeat of Liquid Saturn emerges from the watery murk of an ambient stew. The red giant of this solar collection though is the 33-minute-plus Journey to Samadhi which slowly evolves over a pulsing drone and surging surf. Neomystical elements accent the peacefully trance-inducing mood rather than overwhelm it, adding bells, ethnic woodwind sounds and occasional murmered intonations. Psychoactive or not, it works for me... truly ambient music with a healthy doses of rhythm and natural soundscapes. More information, samples and more can be found at the Mystical Sun website. Psychic Enemies Network: Psychic Enemies Network   (Skin and Barrel Music - 1998) (8.2) From Matt & John Thorne, artistic DIY sound experimentations/mutations generally smolder in a dark, surreal, sometimes musical sprawl of urban decay. In This City swelters in a muted chaos of intertwining sonic debris, eventually sprouting sampled voices and rhythmic effects. The jazzy xylo-tones, bass, guitar and drums of Drawn softly explore a more musical realm, wound with a serpentining flute. By the Flesh fuses dark ambiance with further jazz-like excursions. An intriguing textural murk of not-easily-identifiable sound sources surrounds Of So Many (9:55); occasional beats emerge from within, along with faintly tonal emanations. Heck, parts of this disc are practically dark enough to warrant a   though the spookiness is of more of an alienated, cerebral nature. (And, when you read the titles consecutively, it makes a mini-poem, too.) Visit the Psychic Enemies Network website for ordering info, plus images, sounds, links and more.   Various Artists: Choice Cuts   (Milan - 1999) (6.8) Subtitled "Wicked sounds of horror featuring music from the films of John Carpenter, Stephen King, Wes Craven, Brian DePalma and more", this comp gathers 47-minutes of filmdom's "scariest" music, most in standard movie-style arrangements. Largely a vehicle for John Carpenter who writes his own music for his films (Halloween, Escape from New York (& L.A.) and Vampires are represented here), the 13-song disc includes five of his tracks, some of which are not-too-frightening. Michael Kamen's opening theme from The Dead Zone nicely mixes horrific processing mutations with more-traditional orchestral spookiness. Pino Donaggio offers paranoia-inducing Italian electronics which segue into brass and string horrorforms. Christopher Young's Urban Legend theme impressively emotes within its standard symphonic presentation. From the film Crash, Howard Shore bends the norm via lankily distorted guitar sounds, and Carpenter's Vampires track entitled Slayers puts a dark twist on Tex-Mex blues. This disc proves what I think most of us already know ... if only Hollywood would catch on to the likes of our own Lustmords, Lulls, Shinjuku Thiefs, and other dark ambient artists (from whom I must say we're not hearing enough lately), it'd be a much scarier place. Posted October 27, 1999 | 1999 Overviews Index

AmbiEntrance © 1999-97 by David J Opdyke (except CD cover art, rights retained by original owners).