AMN Reviews: Various Artists – IDIL Music Award 2024 (2024; Unexplained Sounds Group)

Avant Music News is proud to have been part of this project. Its goal was to release a compilation of dark experimental music from leading artists worldwide. Unexplained Sounds Group called for submissions and we co-sponsored a modest stipend for artists. Along with several other music websites, publishers, and reviewers, we participated on a jury that selected the winning entries.

The submissions were of high quality and varied in texture, focus, and instrumentation. This made it hard to select the winners but the group’s voting provided the following results:

First Place – Richard Bégin
Second Place – Ignoto Militi
Third Place – The Black Monolith

The album containing all 26 submitted tracks was released on January 25, 2024. Rather than review it as a whole, I’ll focus on the pieces to which I gave the highest scores. But I want to reiterate – the tracks not discussed here are also quite good and worthy of attention.

Hans Castrup – Plexyphoresis

Plexyphoresis is a densely packed set of synth layers accompanied by field recordings, sculpted sounds, and even snippets of what sounds like a trombone. I’ll admit that I’ve only recently discovered Hans Castrup, but this piece has me looking forward to hearing more from his discography. It has a lot going on, and the bassy drones create a tense and suffocating environment. Castrup received my #1 vote.

Richard Bégin – Mouvements Cycloniques des Regions Temperees

With an anthemic three-note repeating pattern over static-laden atmospherics and subtle guitar strumming, this track from Canadian cinema professor Bégin is both weird and yet catchy. I have come to appreciate his works over the last few years as being distinctive even in the experimental music context. It is not surprising this this track won the first-place award.

Henrik Meierkord – Mörk

Henrik Meierkord is another recent discovery for me. His approach is compelling in that it is based on his cello playing, but manipulated to produce droning soundscapes. This short track is slow-paced and melancholy, falling just short of being ambient.

Ignoto Militi – Il Nemico Sotto di Noi – Monte Cimone

Here is another pleasant surprise. The martial drumming that pervades this piece is compelling and a grounding for Militi’s doomy electronics. Very much in the soundtrack vein, ominous synth chords ebb and flow as a main theme. Militi won second place for good reason.

Mombi Yuleman – Burning Down the Outpost

Mombi Yuleman is a favorite in these parts. Many of his recordings explore strange events like alien abduction and hauntings. Here, he uses a combination of instrumentation and effects to generate a busy and dynamic amalgam of sounds.

The Black Monolith – Creating The Door

Finally, I would be remiss to not discuss The Black Monolith’s submission, which landed in third place. I ranked it highly because it executes well on a basic idea – thick droning chords. These textured elements are relentless and smothering, an excellent representation of dark ambient music.