This is a 4-album set from ZeroK, a label that has been a consistent purveyor of quality experimental ambient music over the years. Each album is from a different artist and any connections between them are not apparent other than previously being featured on the label. Nonetheless, Black Programs Facility manages to provide a cohesive mood across several hours of sound sculpting.
Joel Gilardini – Nocturnal
Gilardini is a Swiss guitarist who runs his playing through loops and effects. Nocturnal was a live improvised performance from June 2022 that features long-held notes, drones, and synthesized percussion over one short and two long tracks. The guitar parts are gentle enough to be taken for keyboards at times, though they can be mildly unnerving. The overall feel is that of the Berlin School, with nods to the synth-driven works of both Klaus Schulze and Steve Roach. And yet that description does not quite do the album justice – Nocturnal is compelling and easily holds up to multiple listens.
Lars Bröndum – Wall of Darkness
Wall of Darkness is a set of electroacoustic pieces – sculpted sound art – that employs layered tones, oscillations, and percussion. Bröndum finds a satisfying middle ground between structure and lack thereof that gives his creations coherence but also the feeling that anything could happen. He uses composition elements of melody, harmony, and rhythm merely as a scaffold on which to construct textural, aleatoric, or improvisational passages. As just one example, Aeon begins with a hazy static that quickly incorporates a pattern from what sounds like a hand drum before evolving into an amalgam of ululating sound walls. Bröndum then incorporates pointillistic percussion elements, sweeping synths, and abstract loops. There is a lot more to Wall of Darkness – this is just a taste.
Mombi Yuleman – Abductee
Mombi Yuleman returns with another UFO-themed release. These haunting, synth-laden soundscapes are based on reported alien abductions (not unlike 2022’s Lost Hours). The textures are hazy and gritty with judicious use of synthetic percussion and sequencing. The result is varied and cinematic, with effects, recorded snippets, strange vocalizations, and other background noises. But the dominating feature is the use of long-held synth chording, which produces dense, suffocating atmospheres.
Vongoiva – The Fabric of Space and Time
Composer Heikki Lindgren and videographer Ville Westerlund are Vongoiva. Here, of course, one can only listen and not see their output. Nonetheless, The Fabric of Space and Time is an odd take, and different from the three other albums in this set. Notably, it employs a large extent of field recordings and percussive elements that appear to be cut-ups and/or musique concrete arrangements. Perhaps representing how some scientists believe that spacetime is constantly tearing itself apart and reforming on the quantum level, these manipulations have an abstract post-industrial feel. Brief melodies repeat and fade. But as the album continues it heads in a more drone-oriented direction, culminating in a 29-minute final track of background rumbling and static punctuated by fortepiano dynamics.
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