AETHENOR

Unfolding the abstract

This album really caught me by surprise. I´ve been listening to the thing on and off for the better part of a year, and always came out at the other end with a feeling of being left out - unmarked by the music, or perhaps feeling void of any sort of interpretive skills to weed out the different languages in use here. BUT, and that is a big but, recently I´ve been going through the releases of 2011 to be able to form that inevitable list of lists, even if something like that is far from what I usually combine with music and how I think things should flow. However, there are people out there in the big wide world of the internets, who feel compelled to check out such a thing, and even further might go as far as to start purchasing some of these listed albums. Well, then by all means why shouldn´t you go ahead and spend your hard earned cash on something that most likely will turn out as an overlooked and forgotten little gem. Yep, as I was saying in my quest for those little musical treasures from the preceding year, En Form For Blå suddenly got flipped back in my stereo again, and whether it´s because I´ve been sick all week lying in bed with alternating chills and heat waves running through me, or because I recently quit smoking and could kill a small dear just to pollute my lungs a teeny tiny bit - I honestly don´t know, but this album has completely transformed itself.

The title En Form For Blå, says the same thing whether you´re from Norway or like myself hail from the marshy lands of Denmark: Kind of Blue. This title is quite the hint. One might be as bold as to suggest these sort of musical tirades to be the second coming of jazz. Big words I know, but then again I´ve always been fond of talking without thinking about consequences or what route to choose, - and just like the spirit of jazz and bebop, I suddenly remember that maybe we might not be so different after all - even if I apply these mechanics into the way I speak - and jazz does it through music - and a whole lot better and more intoxicating, I might add. It´s the spirit of communicating without a net - freeform -abstractly and improvised. Sometimes the experiment will sound like crap - in fact most times I hear someone attempt this in current music, I have to say that I feel totally and utterly unmoved by it. Soulless manure.

What we face here in this album is a combination of moogs, jazzy spastic involuntary drumming, droning surfaces and an altogether confusing mish mash of different instruments that speak when not spoken to, and weave in and out of the conversation like a drunk man trying to let you know about JFK´s old bicycle repairman, who in fact was part of the Russian star-fleet. Comprised of Stephen O'Malley from Sunn O))), Daniel O'Sullivan and Christopher Rygg of Ulver and renowned drummer Steve Noble - Æthenor packs a real punch in form of artistic name dropping, but the fact of the matter is, that these guys manage to tear free from all the mumbo jumbo often associated with super groups. This is all about the music.

It´s sluggish and crawling, staccato, in your face, wall to wall, out of tact, windswept like a tumbling butterfly, freakishly silent in several places, magical, soft, abrasive and everything in between, - and to tell you the truth - I find it pretty hard to believe that this album suddenly chose to unravel its mysteries to me, during a time where my mental state should have me reaching for the nearest Tangerine Dream record - or just anything soothing to wash down my aching body, - but somehow En Form For Blå has just captured me. I´ve been listening to this all week - through fevers and darkened rooms with monsters and angst filled dementia spewing out of me like a dark and treacherous fountain - and loved it just as much as when the grey skies have separated and opened up to calm and orangy colours from a cold sun. It is astonishing that music can feel this warm and fluid, when made up in the flinch of an eye. Maybe that has something to do with the buzzing nature of the electronics here, which can be humming and rather stagnant sounding - to these basking sizzling creatures set on fire - roaming the track like something that isn't meant for containment. Works both ways.

I´m not sure as to whom I should recommend this album to, but if you´re looking for something that is out of the ordinary - and furthermore for something progressive(in the truest sense of the word), then you should probably take a chance with this one. Just give it some time, just like I did, and before you know it, you´ll be cursing at all those pessimists who claim that prog rock is dead - and maybe, just maybe you´ll open up to this album little by little, and wind up loving it with a passion of all the nightmares leading up to it.

After their last album being kind of a disappointment, Aethenor recorded En Form For Blå and it is definitely an improvement. My problem with the previous album is that the band's sound seemed to have hit a wall and they had no more room for progression in their sound, but En Form For Blå fixes that. It's still noisy and loud, but added to this album is more percussion, electronic elements that stand out more, and the occasional melody. The sound of the band as a whole has become much fuller than on previous albums, like they've realized that there really isn't a limit to the atmospheric elements they can slam into their particular sound, so they just went for it and threw everything in. En Form For Blå compared to previous albums has a stronger focus on percussion and instrument feedback, and comes off sounding like very noisy post-rock at times, but this is definitely not boring music in any way. Tracks like "Vivarium" and "Dream Tassels" show Aethenor experimenting with almost-spacey type electronic melodies, but the tone and the percussion give it a more down to earth and less convincing feel, but this is definitely an experiment that I'd like to see them move further with.

Much better than Faking Gold and Murder, but from the material on En Form For Blå, I'd say the band still has a lot of developing to do before they start sounding fresh again. But, I'm a fan of this kind of avant-garde noise anyway, so I can't say I wouldn't recommend it. Again, this would be best suited for fans of Igor Wakhevitch's brand of ritualized avant-electronic music with prominent organic touches.

Faking Gold and Murder isn't really much different than Aethenor's previous albums, but from the frantic beginning of the first track you'd almost be expecting a more energized version of the band's dark soundscaping. It's only more of the same, though, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The first track does feature some witchy vocals among frantic winds and avant-garde electro-acoustic crashing and ringing of pans, pots, keyboards, and abstract percusion. Atmosphere-shaping electronically rendered resonances also appear as they did previously, which is always a plus. If I did have to put a picture to this album, I'd say a meeting of satanic priests for sacrificial purposes would probably be my choice. Among all of the frantic, avant-garde confusion of the structureless tracks, the last track, "IV", is actually remarkably mellow and much more inviting, featuring soothing drones that seem comfortable and distant keyboards and sirens playing an incomprehensible but pleasant-enough sounding melody.

It's by this album that I decided a change in Aethenor's sound would be appropriate, but nothing too huge. Just a few extra elements would help this band progress in sound, and keep me from getting bored. This is a nice album, though. Like their other releases, this is dark and atmospheric, with a strong creepy leaning. Again, this is great stuff for anyone who happens to be a fan of Igor Wakhevitch.

Betimes Black Cloudmasses is Aethenor's follow up to their wonderful, creepy debut album, and still follows the deep, dark, droning methods of progressive electronic. Where the debut sounded like the setting for a Lovecraftian scene of madness, Betimes Black Cloudmasses could be the soundtrack to a torture chamber in a darkened castle.

"I" consists of sinister organs, the sound of klanging chains resonate though the stone halls, tin dishes of the imprisoned sliding beneath their doors on the cement floor, the slamming of giant doors, and the whistling of electronic experiments performed on the unlucky.

"II" sounds like keys jingling before igniting an experimental thunder machine that generates noises that would turn a whole city mad. The center portion of the track is ominously optimistic with floating wooden windchimes. A buzzing drone leads the track to its end.

"III" sounds like the life of a rodent living in or around this castle - it begins completely empty, the rodent accidentally running into pails, brooms, and tools fill the atmosphere, along with the voices of some mad soul carrying through the vents.

It's kind of hard to give a review of music like this. There's nothing technical about it, and not much musical either. It's all about atmosphere, and with albums like this it's really up to the listener to craft imagery for the soundscapes presented. Above is my interpretation, and I suggest this album to anyone willing to attempt crafting similar or different mental imagery for a dark and noisy album. Also, fans of Igor Wakhevitch would most definitely enjoy the avant- gardist tendencies at work here.

Aethenor's Deep In Ocean Sunk The Lamp Of Light is the sound of the earth's ancestral spirits invading your mind, altering it into insanity of the darkest persuasion. The album begins with the sounds of furious winds, crashing oceans, klanging of metals upon a close-by vessel, sounds of distant lighthouse sirens echoing across the water. This is the signal of the rising of the high priest of the Great Old Ones from out of the ocean's depths - Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

But seriously, this album really does have a Lovecraftian effect on the mind, and could very well be inspired by the infamous mythos, considering the album's name and pseudo-cryptic cover. For those not too impressed with progressive electronic of the spacier variety, perhaps this dissonant and earthy take on the genre may be more to you're liking. Highly recommended cryptic, dark, dissonant, empty, and creepy progressive electronic from Cthulhu's house at R'lyeh.

After two years, enough time for much to happen, much to be done and much to be created, Æthenor, for which the recommendations work usually more than one way (electronic, post-rock and even metal grounds) are back with a second major work, Betimes Black Cloudmasses, one that, given the capacity of the material, could be consider bit small, but applies actually to the band's ethics, as 34 minutes of heavy experimentation was also the degree of refinement that was provided back on the debut. I also think the release was done, as previously, in two formats, if not even three: LP, CD and likely Vinyl.

By this already second burst, it's past the time to talk any longer about what Æthenor brought new in the genre (or the borderline genres - we'll get back to this a bit later), but more what's new and better in their own complex equation of making music and expressing art, through the new offering. The results are satisfying, it seems that the old recipe is put into the making of it, but signs of maturity build in the round form that Betimes Black Cloudmasses' suite of three electro-dark experimental parts sounds like; in parallel, changes in the lineup happen: the Sunn O))-Guapo-Shora trio has now evolved to a sextet, the big new man being for sure Kristoffer Rygg from Ulver, Arcturus and such - who, realistically, has only brief ("but perfect" is said in the official presentation, "but unnoticed" I'd say myself) vocal interventions, it will be more pleasant to see in him in concerts. Meanwhile out of two other musicians, Alex Babel and Nicolas Field, the latter's got more studies, in drumming and even electronic fusion (read: chemistry-making, probably sounds & stuff), but tad less participating credits, being more of a soloist. The essential question is probably this: are there major transformations happening in Æthenor's bottled up essence? Not by how I personally feel it, the adherence - in terms of musicianship and, afterwards, in style - truly pays off, seems welcomed.

As influences, Daniel O'Sullivan mentions himself, on the official BlogSpot, at the time of announcing that Betimes Black Cloudmasses is done & delivered: "Musically, Æthenor summon the most somnolent examples of Bernard Parmegiani, Organum, Nurse with Wound, Klaus Schulze, Igor Wakhevitch, Coil, Iancu Dumitrescu and Charlemagne Palestine." Highly interesting orientation, and while we know how does the lean of Schulze or Coil translate in Æthenor's own embodiment, the more academic names like Wakhevitch and Dumitrescu are also put up for potential, without shallowness or such, as indeed, at least through the dynamic, accidental parts of this album's flow, there's a feeling of true "post-modern experimental composing".

Three parts (numbered again with roman letters) are mostly equal as importance and gravity, their stitched continuity giving the impression of an epic that has it all (contrasts, climaxes, abyssal nuances, etc.). Electronic is the prime color, though experimenting is extremely refined and the dark trance parts could also relate to "black, doom, hollow" brushes. Of course, post-rock emanates through several "indie" stretches, both emotionally and in the veil of the sound. If previously Æthenor could only have been placed in modern electronic (from dark ambient to more crushing, experimental tones), this time the drop into drones, the "void" kind of dark ambient and sound-sampling can virtually be referenced to certain kraut-electro techniques of the Golden Age.

[Part] I is slow, haunting, of an elevated ambient-empty drone mix, the contrast, in the middle part, being noise/silent music, with percussion interventions. The return to accidental sounds happens swiftly. What these 10 minutes infuse is practically a regular invitation to heavy, treacherous, hypnotic meditations. What [Part] II has, on a superior note, is wildly dynamic, extremely experimental yet of a controlled mechanic experimental slurps, bangs and ample flashes, guitar and the entire dark force of the percussion being added to the electronic engine. This is very good, weird, intense music coming from Æthenor. The climaxes are several, but the burn & screech added to the last one gives, afterwards, the signal of a complete fall into shadows and silences, with bass waves and stuff like that. [Part] III gets back to some kraut tinges, but overall samples sounds, rhythms and forms of artificial music for the first 5 minutes, while afterwards it goes back to less interesting, still full of juice ambient drones, elongations and irregular electronic-voices, coming to life through modulators and similar sampling instruments. It's, in all, a 34 minutes exploration of darkly imagined points of the Universe - either the void, either mortuary caves, either depths where sound is deformed or amortized, either the one place where chaos and noise can translate into a form of wicked music.

Resuming, Betimes Black Cloudmasses is primarily electronic with intense experimental findings and a post-rock cracking, dissonant ideal of expression.

Æthenor is a band consisting of Daniel O'Sullivan from the avant-prog band GUAPO, Vincent De Roguin from the heavy post-rock band SHORA and Stephen O'Malley from the Drone Doom band SUNN O))). With all of these guys in one band one would think this will be one of the heaviest bands ever in existence! Sorry to pop your balloons because that's not going to happen here.

Instead of turning the volume up they lower it down. This is the ambient music that one would expect these guys to make. It's ghastly, dark, sinister and downright creepy. The playing is more on the abstract side and they focus more on making surrealistic soundscapes instead of creating melodies and such. These surrealistic soundscapes are done by various sounds and instruments. Whether its a rumbling drone in the background getting louder by time, the sound of creaking wood, the clattering of metal objects or the haunting keys of a rhodes piano, all of these sounds help to create the dense and disturbing atmospheres of the album. The sound manipulations and sound effects are also an integral part of their sound like in the beginning of the second song when weird screeching noise takes over the rhodes melody giving it a sci-fi vibe to it.

Most of the song here are rather calmed and atmospheric. The album is very dense and layered and although it may seem that there's very little things going on at first glance, more in depth listening will prove the opposite. The last song on the album is maybe the exception since the instruments and sound are more upfront than in the other three songs and also the fastest one to get its message across making it the most accessible one of the bunch.

This album is wonderful to get lost in. The soundscapes created by this band will suck you in and never let you go. It'll take you to place never seen before and I have to warn you that those places are anything but pretty.