AMON

The essential AMON material and the ultimate collection of sonic-subterranean electronic drone rituals. Fundation is released as a double album. The first chapter includes late materials and the second chapter is a collection of early materials taken from albums such as El Khela or Mer. In this review, my attention is focused on the first chapter. The sound materials selected for the occasion features stunningly conceptualised organic drones suspended on a blackened chaosmic surface. With voluptuous spherical sounds and static electronic textures "Prepare to Leave" rises from the dark abyss. Emptiness is real, the abyss is under our feet and the chaos is upon your head. Ghosts and ancient deities seem to surround us in a somnabulic carnival. Uhura Photons is nightmarish, densely burgeonning dronescape which includes an amalgm of dissonant / consonant electronic vibes. It seems to resonate in a blackened cosmic whole. Time is Waiting is made of intwined linear buzz with crescendo and creeping echoing noises. Mopula is a cerebral-paranormal electronic soundscape that is delicately floating in deep astral space. A personal favourite, beautiful eerie ambiences to relax and to meditate on the ruins of metaphysical time. Tanit Zerga provides a low-fi timbral drone progressively covered by abstract electronic scintillations. A very immersive, static and low environmental piece. The album closes with a majestic crepuscular, monotonous electronic epic which includes subtle sonic minimal melodies. Highly recommended and a legitimate introduction to Amon's typical musical world.

The Legacy is a vast collection of cosmic synth drones coming from outer space. We travel in complete darkness, through mysterious, haunted and evocative mindscapes. This is in the same mood as other Amon's releases and is still gorgeous to our ears. This is discreet music built on long monotonous-cloudy buzzing dronescapes. The opening track is a dark dense spherical drone that guides the listener in truly desolate place, in front nothingness. Quite beautiful with dying resonances. Enter Darkness features unearthly abstract droning textures, revealing almost phantom like presences. It carries on with an austere and spacious sound architecture (Machinery). In Domes / Colonies, the tension goes further with epically bleak ambiences that takes us into a creepy, suffocating ambient universe. Exit Light is a much more detached, suspenseful piece built on eerie drones for high frequencies and massive burgeoning echoes. Amuhaptra closes the album with glacial subterranean drones. The Legacy provides a convincing avalanche of nocturnal drone rituals, creating some vertiginous states of listening. Play loud.

Nona features a primal-creepy electronic dronescape that seems to rise from a strange-dangerous alien planet. This album is extremely doom, cavernous playing with long abstract resonances and low frequencies. Nona could be a magnificant soundtrack for foundfootage "abstract" art cinema. Heavily austere moving drone tapestries metaphorically inaugurate the meeting between the elements of macrocosm and the embryonic cellules of microcosm. This blackened "chaos-mic" electronic album contains Amon's all time sound signature but push the atmospheres to the extreme limits of blackened textural frequencies. Only the last part of the album features more detached, transparant, unearthy ambient electronic waves that rise from an agonising-isolationist background. An other cerebral and physical experience throw burgeonning and eternal drone rituals. Not so easy. Otherwise you need this one if you are already a fan of primordial "dronemusik".

The final project saw the light in 2008 but it is initially based on MORTAR's previous materials recorded in 1996. Andrea MARUTTI (AMON) provided some additional sound materials and mixed the ensemble. All tracks are from AMON / MORTAR in duet except Part III by MORTAR and Part IV from AMON. Musically speaking it reveals an aesthetic-mystical peak experience based on primal expressive / static droning textures. Part I introduces a deeply spacious electronic ambience. In metaphorical terms it connects us within the universe, suggesting the presence of a tellurian breath that surrounds us. As human we seem to vibrate with the divine (communion) and the music is the communicative medium. Part III is an almost goth-like ambient piece covered by micro-noisy injections, harmonious electronic echoes. Part IV certainly represents the highlight of the album with a superb ambient funereal theme dominated by detached-desolate-phantomatic organ chords (closed to TANGERINE DREAM's Zeit). This album is a difficult listening for neophytes but reveals some astonishing, otherwordly parts that can be perceived as real nocturnal-dreamy invocations for curious listeners. A very special, immersive sound environement that should not be missed and has to be listened in appropriate conditions & circonstances.

In these long experimental abstract suites, Andrea Marutti develops the basic idea of revealing the sonic characteristics of droning vibrating chords. Mer is an impressive, immersive ride throw spacious vibes, creating a real state of spiritual isolation. The atmospheres created are particularly cloudy and foggy, musical metaphors of interior space of Human subjectivity, an illustration of anthical, mythological times (...) or anything related to the foundations of the existence itself. After the conceptual, cerebral floating piece called foundation, we can listen to the haunted, melancholic (almost melodic) droned out piece Gateway. Darkside return II emphasises the shadowy, ghostly archeological aspects of Amon. Secret chamber contains floating almost metallic harmonies. I consider Osirion as the most magnificent piece with Gateway. It provides an ultimate obscure droning mantra including a few dynamic vibrations. To conclude Mer is a beautifully achieved musical essay with slowly moving textural patterns that immediately recalls the darkest facets of ambient minimalism. Suspensful meditative drone music. A real phenomenology of listening.

This album from Amon (Andrea Marutti) is a particular occasion to invest dark-moving drone textures within a rather detached-disembodied splendor: We are not haunted by a hell-ish, apocalyptical electronic "droning" symphony (Lusmord) or "intoxicated" by tumultuous, neurotic sounds (Maurizio Bianchi). The ambience is archeological, exploring the strates of time in antical places. Consequently the dronescapes are developped as sonorous, immersive, low frequences with lot of reverbs, echoes, driving windy silences. It's a kind of moody meditation with a total absence of melodies, only built on fundamental, static and veiled electronic sentences. This work is honest, well composed and imaginative but it definitely should be listened with a high quality sound installation (in order to appreciate the momentary micro-changes hidden behind massive droning spheres). it can easily ravish fans of Bernard Ghunter, Thomas Koner and those who dream in the heavenly cathedrals of drones.