Arkkon: Rotunda Arkkon: Rotunda (Soleilmoon - 2000) In the guise of Arkkon, London's David Knight builds the dark, experimental soundstructures of Rotunda with synth, electronics, tape manipulations and processing. Oblique angles, dim lighting and shifting floors make a journey through this dome unpredictable to say the least... Soft (though discomforting) tones ring out from In Echelon, reverberating into unseen corners as eerie veils seem to rise in the too-near distance. The 17.5 minutes of darkly radiant Pitchblende open on layers of warbly oscillations which flatten into a groaning, windswept plane. That even keel is eventually disrupted into a fluttering machine-like rhythm which phases out as gently (though ominously) rising/falling violin sounds conclude the piece. Resonating bass tones wander an off-kilter trek through Schlemmer (4:26) and are pierced with echoey shards and strung through with steely strands. Last Transmission (23:25) encompasses a blackened soundscape of Lustmordian proportions... unknowable sonic streams both high and low, blast furnace rumbles, smeary washouts, deeply distorted voices and creepy chimes are only part of Arkkon's ever-changing house of madness. (I also think I heard the world's largest, loudest bullfrog in there somewhere...) Helicopter-blade-like pulsations seems to slice the thick haze of Crimes Against Nature; in sinister tones of melodrama, Lydia Lunch provides vengefully whispered voice and words against the twisting backdrop, which buzzes out on penetratingly dispassionate electric chirps. Upon entering Arkkon's shadowy Rotunda, disorientingly indecipherable soundforms surround to direct and/or impede your progress. All is cloistered in darkness, though generally more of a psychotic, rather than demonic, nature; still, the faint of spirit may consider twice before stepping inside. A shaken 8.3 for this almost-hour of mind-altering sonic constructions. Available from Soleilmoon; Arkkon has his own site as well. This review posted May 29, 2000 AmbiEntrance © 2000-1997 by David J Opdyke (except CD cover art, rights retained by original owners).