This Mortal Night
This Mortal Night
Download release only
Release date: 10/21/12
I fully admit to being an old-school person when it comes to
recorded music, i.e. I cut my teeth on buying LPs at underground record stores
in the late '60s and early '70s. Because of this, I am not up to date on the
plethora of ambient netlabels out there, many of which I believe are releasing
some excellent music. I only wish my limited time could be spent scouring the
limits of the World Wide Web looking for gems such as the one I am reviewing
now, the debut from This Mortal Night on the netlabel Katabaz records. The
label queried me about this release and I thank my lucky stars I clicked on the
link in the email.
This Mortal Night is an anonymous one-person
"band" (according to the label) who, when I asked for further info, replied
with "…we prefer not to give personal info (name, country), essentially
because our music is based on imagination, fantasy and evocative atmosphere...
and, of course, we are just a bunch of normal people so we don't really want to
show what's going on "behind the magician curtain" if you know what I
mean." Which I think is fair enough.
Instrumentation on the album consists of piano, synths, and
some field recordings. The "tags" on the album page on bandcamp run
the gamut: "ambient," "electronic," "dark
ambient," "black metal" and even "dungeon synth" and
"hell." If I had read those tags without streaming the music, I would've
expected to hate this recording. While this certainly fits under the ambient
banner and perhaps to some degree under the dark ambient one as well, the eight
tracks are less "dark" than some might interpret the word, and
instead might be classified more as atmospheric, moody, somber, with some
elements of tragic melancholy (a la Tim Story, Mychael Danna or Jeff Greinke –
his more recent works). The piano plays a lead role in much of the music, with
an emphasis on minor notes and chords, but synths certainly contribute at
times.
The first track, "Moan of the Winter Wind," starts
off with, what else, wind, punctuated by mournful piano notes and a
reverberating tone that has an eerie element to it (it sounds like a twangy
guitar with a lot of reverb). This is probably the "darkest" song on
the album, but it's more creepy and scary in a
walking-through-a-graveyard-at-night way than a bottomless-pit-of-despair way
which a lot of what I would label dark ambient tends to sound like to me.
"My Cold and Beautiful Nights" strips away to just minimal piano, drenched
in sustain/reverb, so that the notes overlap link ripples in water. A
smattering of textural synth effects add some sepia tone to the sorrowful,
melancholy of the piano, and on this track comparisons to Danna's recordings
such as skys or North of Niagara would be accurate. "Echoes of Long Ago"
bumps up the contributions from synthesizers while still having the piano a
featured player. Classic retro synth chords underlie the piano while metallic-sounding
noises float above the proceedings. "Field and Stream" is positively
light by comparison to "Moan of the Winter Wind," as the reverbed
piano melody has a warmish tint to it. Crickets open "Midnight Lake"
and the mood is tranquil, as if one were sitting down by a dock off of the
titular lake, watching the moon reflected on the blackness of the water,
serenaded by the sounds of the night. A brushing of ethereal synths adds the
perfect amount of ambient atmosphere. At just 1:43 in duration, the track is
way too short (but then, the sure sign of good music is that it leaves the
audience wanting more, yes?). "A Dark Sinister" opens with female
chorals that are more angelic than sinister, although not in a syrupy way.
Mournful synth horns and high pitched tones merge with the chorals which come
and go from background to foreground and back again. The way the various synths
are layered on this track is impressive (I'm listening on headphones and the
mix is perfectly amorphous as it should be, i.e. the sounds all coalesce to
surround you rather than being placed at unique positions in the soundfield). The
last two tracks are "The Great White Hollow," which is another solemn
piano tone poem with an emotionally neutral evocation, less impactful than the
other tracks on the album and, as a result, it suffers somewhat by comparison,
and "Those Were The Nights" on which the sound of wind and sparkling
bell tones reminds me of Jeff Greinke's recent beautiful minimalism.
This Mortal Night
(the album) flits between darkish creepiness, atmospheric pensiveness, and
soothing calmness, but these mood swings are bathed in the unifying aspect of
the piano's presence on most tracks as well as a general pervasive feeling of
gentle melancholy occasionally tinted with unease on one end and somber
reflection on the other. I know all too well that characterizing an ambient song
as "beautiful" or, even worse, "pretty" is the kiss of
death, but some of the tracks here are just that, e.g. "Midnight
Lake." Finally, the cover image, a black and white ink drawing of a
lonely, hooded figure, walking in the dead of night against a driving rain
storm in a rural landscape, perfectly captures the mood of this solidly
recommended album.
Look, folks, Katabaz is only charging as little as 2 bucks
for this recording (or you can pay more if you like). If you enjoy Tim Story,
Jeff Greinke, Mychael Danna, or similar artists, you won't be sorry you plunked
down your money on This Mortal Night.
I think it's a real find, personally, and I certainly hope to hear a lot more
from the artist and the new netlabel in the future.
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