THE PLACE WHERE THE BLACK STARS HANG

This album is nothing less than the true offspring of Tangerine Dream's "Zeit". A similar concept, ambient minimalism meant to convey the vast emptiness of the universe, it succeeds admirably, but a warning: nothing much happens. Little squawking sounds and distant rhythms repeat, weave in and out, and fade, all sounding as if they really are transmitted from the other side of the universe. One piece, "Dark Companion", features what sounds like a mellotron choir, repeating a ghostly mantra much like on Popol Vuh's "Brüder Des Schattens - Söhne Des Lichts". There's a reason why this is called "Dark Ambient", and Lustmord is a master of it. This record is sparse and ominous, not even close to New Age wallpaper music. Perfect for a dark, rainy night with the lights off, but don't bother if you need a lot of stuff going on in your music.

An incredible dark ambient journey through bad neighbourhoods of outer space, The Place Where the Black Stars Hang presents a massive, daunting, and deeply rewarding electronic experience. Some of the calmer and more ambient portions of the Quake soundtrack by Nine Inch Nails delves close to this sort of territory, but it is across these three massive central tracks (plus their shorter prelude and coda) that the sounds in question really grow into their own. Like being trapped in a drifting spaceship you are unable to fix and listening to the computer systems slowy die and the oxygen leaking out, it's one of the most morbid ambient albums I have ever heard.

The figure of Brian Williams towers over the whole stage of the dark ambient, it can not be defeated, not demolished, like the statue of Jesus in Rio de Janeiro, he looks over all the dark matter generated by such a "musical" (in a good way) genre. The Place Where The Black Stars Hang is an example of Lustmord's canonical work.

This album throws back both infinitely tense and intimidating soundscapes of Heresy, and the radicality of Monstrous Soul, and now before the eyes, well, or in front of the ears of the listener only endless expanses of cold and uncomfortable space. The feeling of comparative softness of the material is artfully deceptive, as we already have a completely different opening, sky-high level of darkness, more vague, more frightening and therefore more fascinating and striking imagination.

The Place Where The Black Stars Hang is an example of the perfect game with psychoacoustics, in its own way progressive thing, magnificent from the initial Sol Om On to the final passages of Dog Star Descends. Individual highlights - Dark Companion and especially Metastatic Resonance. A truly mesmerizing composition! This album for me is Lustmord's magnum opus and one of the key ambient creations in the history of music. An absolute masterpiece.