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Album Review: Tropic of Cancer – Restless Idylls

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Tropic of Cancer: Restless Idylls

Similar Artists: Silent Servant, Raime, Regis, Grouper, Vatican Shadow

Genre: Goth, Minimal Wave, Drone, Shoegaze

Label: Blackest Ever Black

 

Camella Lobo’s Tropic of Cancer alias represents the epitome of a “musical project”. Her tracks — which are a particularly unglamorous tour through goth, minimal wave, and drone — feel more like art installations than traditionally evolving songs. We feel as though the music being presented has been premeditated, catering towards some kind of definitive aim, without ever once becoming an inch more or less than what it’s meant to be. As listeners, we are simply left to examine these pieces in their unwavering state, hovering over them without ever being completely immersed — or even knowing much about what they are supposed to represent. In fact, the entirety of Tropic of Cancer might as well be represented as one towering sculpture sealed behind a glass box; each of the individual tracks represent this unknown entity from a similar, but slightly altered viewpoint.

Despite the influence of shoegaze, Camella’s palette of colors revolves almost strictly between black to dark gray. Nearly every track to come out of her project thus far has been based around the convergence of drum loops, Joy Division baselines, reverbed guitar textures and melted, undecipherable vocals (from Camella herself). It’s a style that is in no way unique unto itself, as this cold-wave music has actually become somewhat over-popularized through the last few years, but ToC has proven to stick out from many of their peers through a dedication to craft and unrivaled authenticity.

Part of why Tropic of Cancer’s singles and EP’s have been the source of such intrigue and speculation is that they have come out on Downwards — a label run by minimal techno titan Karl O’ Connor (AKA Regis), that specializes in dark, industrial electronic music. Now however, for their true debut (2011’s The End Of All Things was only a singles compilation) TOC has moved to the london based Blackest Ever Black. Since TOC share a thing or two in common with Blackest Ever Black showcase artist Raime, the move couldn’t be more fitting.

Restless Idylls is Camella Lobo’s attempt to take her project in some brighter directions — although I say this reservedly as the tracks here are as haunting and mournful as ever; just about as far away from tropical as one could get. However, a few tracks do see Lovo experimenting with some brighter chords and textures. The prime example of this is “Children Of A Lesser God”, the unquestionable highlight and centerpiece of the album. Though the track was actually released a year ago, this rerecorded version easily stands as the most vibrant and audacious track in the ToC library. It’s the track that all the others seem to revolve around, and it proves to be enveloping without sacrificing any of ToC’s grit or integrity.

This is also Camela Lobo’s attempt to make her project work in an album format, and on those fronts she hasn’t faired so well. In addition to “Children Of A Lesser God”, many other tracks on Restless Idylls have been released beforehand on singles/EP’s (although they seem to have been slightly altered), which is a bit underwhelming. In fact, there is actually very little that separates this from her 2011 singles compilation — both in reference to the quality of the songs and overall mood.

Karl O Connor — who is credited with production and mixing duties — has added some rippling, electronic undercurrents to Camella’s otherwise stable sound, and if you’re playing the music loud enough, it’s enough to give the pieces an intense quality to them; especially during otherwise bland tracks like “The Seasons Won’t Change (And Neither Will You)”. But otherwise, Restless Idylls is so unambitious and lacking in variety that it will be hard to recommend to much of anyone. Overall, these are tracks that travel in a circular motion, never ending up much further than where they started. While this may be the point of their existence, if so, their premise has become tired and predictable over the course of the artist’s 5 year career. If you’re willing to give Restless Idylls a shot, just know that you’ll have to give it a mighty big push to get it anywhere off the ground.

 

Track Listing:

1.) Plant Lillies On My Head*

2.) Court of Devotion*

3.) Hardest Day

4.) Children Of A Lesser God*

5.) More Alone

6.) The Seasons Won’t Change (And Neither Will You)

7.) Wake The Night

8.) Rites Of The Wild

Album Highlight – *

Album Review: Lustmord – The Word As Power

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Lustmord: The Word As Power

Similar Artists: Locrian & Mamiffer, Ben Frost, Robert Rich, Steve Roach

Genre: Dark Ambient, Drone, Religious Music

Label: Blackest Ever Black

 

There’s a whole lot of talented (as well as highly prolific) artists who seem to be devoting their lives to making dark ambient/drone music, and despite the time and patience that goes into making this so called “drone”, a whole lot of this niche feels disposable, and honestly, far from original. As great as Sunn O))) are, we don’t need dozens of artists to prove that to us by making what is essentially a “cover” version of the blackened ambient void that was so clearly perfected by the seattle duo a decade ago. I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, for I’m in fact a huge fan of a lot of the music I seemed to have just dissed, but recently many of these releases have acted more like mood experiments to be played in your sleeping chamber rather than an album to return to time and time again.

However, if there’s one label whose interests seem to lie in broadening the horizons of this genre, it’s Blackest Ever Black, whose 2010 debut marked the release of the first Raime EP. By linking disparate strands of electronic music (industrial, techno, noise) with the accustomed droning ambience, groups such as Raime have proved that drone is a genre that is far from sterile.

Brian Williams, who has recorded as Lustmord since the 1980’s, is rightly credited as a progenitor of the dark ambient genre, so it seems appropriate that he makes his newest artistic leap on Blackest Ever Black. Still, with an overwhelming catalogue of music from the past three decades, it’s hard to really get excited about a new Lustmord release — especially when that release happens to be a two disk, 70 minute long statement based upon theological constructs.

With The Word As Power — Lustmord’s most ambitious and high profile release in years — we are treated to 7 ritualistic monstrosities that blur the line between holiness and wickedness, serenity and fearfulness. The pieces are largely led by a host of ethereal vocalists, such as Aina Olsen, Soriah, and Jarboe of Swans fame, whose voices are all largely untouched production wise — save for some slight reverb and the occasional echo. This is the first album in the artist’s 30 year career to focus so closely on vocals, so it really is astonishing that they are all executed with such dynamic precision. The second half of the album even features throat singing from a completely unrecognizable Maynard James Keenan. Due to the mostly ethereal voices, these tracks play out like ancient hymns being sung as a gift to the heavens — hence the title The Word As Power. This power is best represented during the 17 minute centerpiece “Chorazin”, in which the vocalist wavers around the same vocal line while reciting the word “holy” over and over again, such as it would be in a buddhist chant in order to obtain a higher state of being. Still, despite the presence of religion, people are going to find this music unnerving over anything else, like they are being taken through a state of divine retribution.

Even with the cast of vibrant vocalists, the album happens to be its most heart stopping when the instrumentation is at its full force. The tracks range from 5 minutes to 17, and it is during the longest pieces where the environment becomes the most frighteningly intense. Aside from quiet ambience, the instrumental landscape is made up of minimal organ chords, swirling black metal guitars tuned to abnormally low frequencies, threatening bass drops, slight percussion, and deformed ghostly howls which claw at us ominously from the distance.

It may sound like it isn’t all that different from your average dark ambient album, and although it isn’t quite groundbreaking, it does manages to stand out from the horde of followers due to the way it maintains a solid mood, while still changing up the dynamic with each track to keep things interesting. Furthermore, while it may not propel the genre into unchartered territory like other releases from the label have, it does exist as a singular statement within both the dark ambient and drone genres — which isn’t a thing that can be said very often. The Word As Power is a monolithic, expansive, and downright harrowing release from an artist working at the peak of his creativity.

 

Track Listing:

1.) Babel*

2.) Goetia

3.) Chorazin*

4.) Grigori*

5.) Andras Sodom

6.) Abaddon

7.) Y Gair

 

Album Highlight – *