Cold Spring Records is a label and online store that has its origins over 30 years ago. Today, it releases music that spans several unconventional genres including noise, power electronics, dark ambient, neo-folk, industrial, and other experimental forms. Over the last several years, we have reviewed a number of their releases.
Sonologyst – Shortwave Spectrum (2023)
This 2CD release from Sonologyst (Raffaele Pezzella) explores what are often referred to as “numbers stations” – shortwave transmissions of vocalized numbers, Morse code, or other patterns. They have been reported and recorded throughout the Cold War era, and are thought to have been used in spycraft. The messages were possibly encrypted with a one-time key to provide instructions to agents in distant locations.
On the first disc of Shortwave Spectrum, Sonologyst uses a set of transmissions recorded between 1982 and 2021 as the basis for six experimental ambient tracks. The musical aspects are highly oscillatory yet low-key, often providing a hazy and mysterious (if not haunting) atmosphere for the recordings. Sculpted static, loops, and effects accompany subtle synth drones.
The emphasis here is on the manipulation of sounds rather than the sounds themselves, giving these pieces a dark acousmatic nature. They evolve at a tectonic pace, which makes them seem to be ponderous-roiling monolithic slabs of noise at first. However, there are notable fluctuations and changes throughout in addition to the radio-based chirps and clicks.
The second disc consists of a single 42-minute track providing a raw version of the shortwave recordings accompanied by a stationary drone. The recordings are much higher in the mix than on the first disc, allowing the listener to fully appreciate the varied nature of the source material.
Sleep Research Facility / Llyn Y Cwn – Sargo / Posidonia (2023)
There is deep ambient music, and then there is deep ambient music. This split LP from Sleep Research Facility and Llyn Y Cwn falls squarely into the latter category. Exploring oceanic themes, each artist’s contribution consists of dark, oscillating synth tones with enough bassy rumbling to shake your walls.
Sargo is a single 20-minute excursion from Sleep Research Facility, the first in over a decade. This track heads directly to the depths, with aleatoric underwater noises, hissing, and heady drones. These sounds are not the splashing of surf on the shore, but instead the movement of water at and near the bottom of the sea. Some of the elements are voice-like echoes of old radio broadcasts.
Posidonia consists of three tracks from Llyn Y Cwn, totaling about 15 minutes, which are in the same vein but focus more on murky layered synth. Snippets of whalesong accompany these dark, droning soundscapes. Sculpted white noise provides windswept atmospheres that ebb and flow between foreground and background. From time to time there are repetitive mechanical noises, perhaps of underwater machinery or ships.
You’ll want to turn the volume up on this album to appreciate its subtle details. But don’t forget to turn the subwoofer down so that you avoid causing structural damage to nearby buildings.
Jagath – Svapna (2022)
Jagath is a Russian collective that produces ritual ambient music, but does so in an unusual fashion. They eschew digital processing and layered synth, and instead record in abandoned resonant locations – underground sewers and tanks for example – to create a soundtrack for industrial decay.
The four long tracks on Svapna are driven by custom acoustic instrumentation, found-object percussion, and voices. The rhythmic structures go beyond the typical pounding patterns found in most ritual music and instead incorporate aleatoric elements. Coupled with largely improvised playing of atypical stringed, wood, and metal instruments, this gives the album a sense of unpredictability. The beats rarely follow any particular tempo or cadence, yet are densely structured with several performers contributing. The voices vary between chant, drone, and spoken song. This results in a uniquely haunting effort – it is as if human-made formations are crumbling to a melancholy soundtrack of acceptance.
Various Artists – Vision of Darkness Vol. II (2022)
Following up on the first volume of this series that was released in 2017, Unexplained Sounds Group and Cold Spring Records have teamed up again to document the rich and multi-faceted Iranian underground music scene. The music spanning these 20 tracks all falls under the rough category of experimental but varies in approach.
While incorporating pieces from dodenskald and Negari, Shirely, and Pandi that hint at Middle-Eastern melodies, the rest of the album can roughly be divided by influence – dark ambient / drone, techno, or something else. Regarding the former, Morego Dimmer is present with two of his monikers, Nyctalllz and Xerxes the Dark. The Xerxes track employs wind and sparse string instrumentation, as well as synth, to great effect. Other artists providing efforts along these lines include IDFT, Shahin Souri, PooYar, Melkor, and Reza Solatipour, exploring ominous long-held tones and cinematic waves of synth. In contrast, Babak Sepanta, S.S.M.P., Dariush Salehpour & Zhoobin Askarieh, and Sam Eyvaz make use of sequencers, loops, and/or percussion to drive warmer and catchier efforts. Nonetheless, where Vision of Darkness Vol. II contributes in the most compelling fashion is its featuring of artists whose material defies simple categorization. Tracks from Alireza Amirhajebi, Amin Shirazi, and Vesal Javaheri straddle multiple genres with rough textures, beats, static, and sculpted feedback, among other sounds.
Ultimately, the exact categorization of many tracks is too difficult and not even necessary or desirable. Art finds a way to be expressed, regardless of labeling. This set of recordings from one of the world’s oldest civilizations is captivatingly modern, abstract, and enjoyable.
TenHornedBeast – The Lamp of No Light (2022)
TenHornedBeast (Christopher Walton) offers up five long tracks on his first release since 2017. In addition to synths, Walton appears to use stringed instruments (or synths tuned to mimic string instruments) to generate slowly moving and discordant drones. Pounding and crackling elements echo in the background as does no small amount of rumbling. A few passages include wailing electric guitar feedback to further weigh down the mood. The Lamp of No Light is a portal to infernal regions full of fire and brimstone. The journey through these hellscapes is deliberately paced, giving ample time for apprehension and dread to build in the traveler.
Sonologyst – Interdimensional (2022)
The term “interdimensional” can be used both in a speculative scientific sense as well as to refer to popular elements of science fiction and horror. Here, Sonologyst (a stage name of sound sculptor Raffaele Pezzella) explores the former while necessarily eliciting the latter.
Inspired by the writings of string-theorist / futurist Michio Kaku, these six tracks are heavily based on long, moody drones, controlled reverb, and delay. Each has a different set of characteristics and qualities, in terms of duration, periodicity, and texture. Pezzella combines these synthesized aspects along with samples and effects to generate dense atmospheres. While often suffocating or claustrophobic in their haziness, metallic foreground elements vibrate, rub, rattle, and squeak to form unconventional melodies. Other tracks exhibit a slow-moving melancholy, with brighter tones and a “cosmic” feel, or a gentle lilting of the drones accompanied by unintelligible voice recordings.
This is yet another essential release from Sonologyst. While Interdimensional could easily be placed in the dark ambient category, this album is better thought of as cinematic sound art – and an excellent way to spend 45 minutes of your time on a gloomy Spring day.
Llyn Y Cwn – Du Y Moroedd (2022)
Du Y Moroedd is a haunting set of deep, rumbling soundscapes with significant elements recorded near, upon, or under the sea. Llyn Y Cwn (Benjamin Ian Powell) put these pieces together while on a sonar-enabled research ship searching for World War I wreckage. He included underwater sounds from the seabeds underneath ice fields near Greenland, as well as those of an old lighthouse bell in Wales. These field recordings are combined with windswept and ominous drones across ten tracks, most of which are in the 3-7 minute range. The final piece, Stratigraphy, is over 31 minutes long, and will likely sound more familiar to dark ambient listeners, with baleful textured waves that move in and out of focus joined by austere percussion.
Llyn Y Cwn – Dinorwic (2020)
Llyn Y Cwn is the moniker of Welsh dark ambient purveyor Benjamin Ian Powell. Dinorwic takes its title from a slate quarry in which Powell made field recordings. These serve as the basis of an airy set of ominous drones constructed from processed sounds and subtle synth waves. Deep rumbling accompanies these atmospherics, with static, crackling, and micro-tectonics of the landscape shifting.
If nothing else, the album represents an understated exploration of human impact on the environment. Though the layers on Dinorwic are ultimately windswept and based on natural acoustics, the echoes of dead machinery linger at the edge of perception. Thus, what is heard are not sui generis sounds of the Earth. These sounds are earthy but exist due to human intervention.
While the approach on Dinorwic does not vary dramatically from that of Llyn Y Cwn’s previous release, Twll Du, fans of that album – or those of Powell’s countryman Lustmord, will find much to like here.
Colossloth – Plague Alone (2020)
The title of this latest effort from UK-based Colossloth suggests that it was recorded during the current era of social isolation. But the recording was made and it was prophetically named in the summer of 2019. Plague Alone has more than its share of sharp edges and aggressive discordance, with grinding waves and walls of sound over electroacoustic elements. Electronics, feedback, backward masking, and sculpted white noise are put into effect as well. But instead of being a sequence of random noises, Plague Alone is a logical progression that tells a compelling and appealing story. A harsh story to be sure, but one worth hearing. This is a very strong release and a suitable follow-up to 2017’s Heathen Needles.
Sonologyst – Ancient Death Cults And Beliefs (2020)
Sonologyst is Raffaele Pezzella, one of the more active purveyors of dark ambient, electroacoustic, and experimental music. He is not only active as a label head and running a radio show, but also as a recording artist. Ancient Death Cults And Beliefs, released March 13, is a journey exploring the rituals surrounding death and the dead. The album’s five tracks focus on the two main emotions that humanity expresses about this topic – fear and veneration.
Pezzella combines grinding, windswept drones with both patterned and rhythmless object percussion, as well as crackling processed sounds and echoing waves. In and around these are further sonic manipulations that provide rough motifs and a sense of direction. On one track, what sounds like either a baritone sax or a synth provides a mournful slow-paced theme. The result is a tense feel evoking both ancient and modern technology. Organic and oppressive, the sounds investigate the mysteries of death through the listener’s subjective experience.
But even ignoring this central concept, Ancient Death Cults And Beliefs stands out as a compelling slab of modern dark ambiance enhanced with generous doses of processing. Well done.
ZPK – Zamia Lehmanni (1986/2019)
The most unexpected and compelling aspect of SPK’s 1986 release of Zamia Lehmanni (subtitled Songs Of Byzantine Flowers) is its sheer breadth of styles. Between tracks, and even within certain tracks, are passages that border on tribal / ambient, industrial, non-Western musics (Middle-Eastern, African, Southeast Asian), sound collages, and various other unclassifiable styles and weird amalgams.
Graeme Revell was the creative force behind SPK, and his work under that name during the 1980’s morphed from industrial to soundtrack in nature. Zamia Lehmanni falls in between these two genres, capturing some of the best aspects of each. This re-release is a fresh mastering with Revell’s approval.
As one example, Romanz in Moll features a grungy industrial beat, synth washes, melancholy improvised piano leads, and haunting vocalizations. In contrast, In The Dying Moments, consists of twisted chants, tribal percussion, and a bass synth line to go therewith. Alocasia Metallica includes non-western rhythmic vocal phrasings over flutes and dense group percussion.
The other remarkable aspect of this album is just how futuristic it ended up sounding. Recorded over 30 years ago, Revell’s ability to fall between and combine established styles in new ways is still being perfected by today’s artists. Zamia Lehmanni was decades ahead of its time in this regard, and would have been a striking release if it were recorded today.
Llyn Y Cwn – Twll Du (2019)
“Windswept” is a term that fits Twll Du (Black Hole), the upcoming release – sixth overall, it seems – from Llyn Y Cwn (Lake Of The Dogs). Invoking either primeval landscapes or outer space, these deep drones somehow manage to be both utterly overwhelming and suitable for background listening depending on your volume level.
Each piece was crafted from a field recording as well as overlaid synths. The latter is not significantly layered. Instead, the recording and the musical elements are laid beside one another. So arranged, the former provides environmental white noise while the latter swells and drifts. The result is a set of dark, ominous sound walls and atmospherics. A suitable example is the third track, Cwn Cneifion, which features ponderous drones and washes over rumbling that resembles a distant thunderstorm or the destruction of a star.
While the overall approach and sound over the course of the album do not vary dramatically, they are unusual enough to remain interesting throughout. Thus, Twll Du is a compelling slab of dark ambiance recommended for fans of Lustmord in particular.
Tunnels of Ah – Charnel Transmissions (2018)
Tunnels of Ah is Stephen Ah Burroughs and Charnel Transmissions is his fifth major release under this moniker. Not exactly ambient nor drone, Burroughs uses electroacoustic manipulations of both of these approaches as well as other stylings to evoke a sound somewhere between industrial and musique concrète. Distorted noise walls crumble and processed voices haunt these five medium-length tracks. The drone elements mimic the consequential sounds of high-speed travel as they undulate and echo in a prickly and metallic fashion. Non-specific percussion comes and goes.
The feel on Charnel Transmissions is one of melancholy and alienation. Alone in an unknown landscape, you are haunted by scattered vocalizations and ancient machines operating according to obscure mechanisms. And when you can make out the words of the disembodied voices, they only add to your growing trepidation. This is an unclassifiable and compelling release that spans multiple subgenres.
Colossloth – Heathen Needles (2017)
This is the second recording from Colossloth, who is as far as I can tell, an Englishman. And I will frankly admit that it is hard to believe this variety of sounds, noises, and harsh freaked-out melodies come from a single individual. Heathen Needles, released earlier this month, covers an impressive amount of ground. From dirty synths to distorted drones, speaking and screaming voices, feedback, acoustic piano and guitar, backward masking, noise walls, and undulating rhythms. Needless to say, this is not pleasant music in the normal sense of that phrase. Instead, Colossloth generates a veritable hellscape of aggressively-manipulated sounds.
The title track, as an example, begins with a grungy synth rhythm, interspersed with video-game fallout effects that melt away into walled noise. These elements are joined by IDM-styled keyboard chording, the echoing of which survives until the end of the piece. Compare that with the next offering, Lain Inert, which features slowly rolling synths with decimated samples, power chords from an electric guitar, and guttural voices. We Had a Pact is comprised of several layers of drones, walls, and noises, growling, post-industrial rhythms, and a deceptively charming melody made from the aforementioned backward masking. There Will Be Islands begins with distorted noise walls before adding a nearly ambient synth rhythm, then indecipherable spoken word elements.
Heathen Needles is fresh and surprisingly non-repetitive. Colossloth processes a number of familiar styles and techniques in a fashion that is unusual and unconventional. The result is a thoroughly twisted and enjoyable album.
Common Eider King Eider – Shrines For The Unwanted, Respite For The Cast Aside (2017)
Common Eiders and King Eiders are both categories of large ducks. Be that as it may, Common Eider King Eider is a dark ambient group consisting of Rob Fisk (formerly of the quirky pop band Deerhoof), Andee Connors, and a host of guests. This album, Shrines for short, is perhaps their 10th depending on what you count.
It starts off routinely enough. Thick, bassy drones ponderously exploring a haunted landscape. Over the course of Cast Out to the Wolves to be Devoured, They Were Instead Embraced, the movements become louder and more menacing, yet the tension remains in check. The second track, The Dark Winter, introduces synth washes and wordless chants. By the five-minute mark, it has already grown into a multi-layered crescendo – and from there it keeps going. Chaotic percussion and dense walls lead to an outro of twisted vocals. Elk Tongue takes it down a few notches, with eerie, windswept atmospherics. On the 25-minute finale, Litha, all hell breaks loose. Beginning with deep chants, the track slowly morphs into synth-led thematics over growled vocalizations. Slowly the droning becomes more distorted, and the growling becomes frantic screams…and continues for several unsettling minutes before settling back into the original chanting and a soft, distorted drone.
Shrines is a deliberate journey from unsettled quiet to all-out madness. It is a carefully and beautifully crafted hellish nightmare. With so much music out there that falls somewhere in the general category of “dark ambient,” it is refreshing to hear an artist not only serve the genre so well but break new ground in the process. Highly recommended.
Various Artists – Visions of Darkness (In Iranian Contemporary Music) (2017)
Visions of Darkness is a new 2CD release from Cold Spring Records that documents underground music from Iran. As the album’s liner notes state, “[i]n a country where youth culture has been heavily restricted for so long, it’s significant when a cultural form such as this has an opportunity to reach a wider audience – aided by the abstract nature of dark ambient, drone, and noise.” The artists have suffered through limited funding opportunities due to economic sanctions, but have nonetheless persevered to offer their unique takes on a range of musical styles.
Several of the tracks recall early (1985-1995) Steve Roach, with slowly layered drones evoking a desert atmosphere, as well as echoing sequencers. Not necessarily dark, but fitting the “ambient” moniker quite well. But, in addition to these aspects, some artists include whiffs of techno, middle-eastern chants, spoken word, and electroacoustic elements. As an example, Longing to Return by Xerxes the Dark begins with throat singing that rapidly evolves into a scratchy palette of droning soundscapes. Industrial percussion and machine noises join in for the second half of the track, which ends with a distant choral chant. Hossein RangChi provides windswept synth work over a melancholy piano melody on Mute. Narcissa Kasrai’s Articulation sounds as if it came from the GRM school, while Nyctalllz’s Daeva is an oscillating set of post-modern background drones with subtle foreground pulses and crackles.
The sheer variety and consistent quality across this compilation make it a notable release. Combine that with its cultural importance, and Visions of Darkness is a welcome and enjoyable addition to the collection of anyone who is curious how non-mainstream artists of an under-represented country express themselves.
TenHornedBeast – Death Has No Companion (2017)
TenHornedBeast is Christopher Walton, a longtime purveyor of dark ambiance. This latest release, Death Has No Companion, features haunted soundscapes over three tracks totaling almost 60 minutes.
The opening, The Wanderer consists of long, slow, drones of electronics and stringed instruments. The drones are layered and oscillatory, with an occasional metallic character. The Lamentation of Their Women begins with repetitive processed piano chords over more droning, in a style reminiscent of William Basinski‘s works. This slowly builds, adding feedback and distortion, almost into a full-on noise wall. In Each Of Us A Secret Sorrow, the longest track, exhibits a deliberate pacing and includes more electronic / string drones, as well as cymbal flourishes.
Overall, the album evokes a haunted primeval land, sparsely populated and foreboding. Unseen dangers lurk nearby. But the traveler of this land is so caught up in his own sorrow that he may be oblivious to peril. Death Has No Companion is bleak, dark, and desperate, all good reasons to give it a listen even if nihilism is not your thing.
Skullflower – The Spirals of Great Harm (2017)
UK’s Cold Spring Records puts out recordings of a wide variety of unsettling music: dark ambient, neo-folk, harsh noise, and experimental. Skullflower, which centers around Matthew Bower, fits the more extreme end of that spectrum. Bower has recorded under numerous monikers for over 30 years and this double-album reflects the confidence that comes with experience.
The Spirals of Great Harm features traditional instrumentation, particularly guitars, rather than just electronics. But this might not be apparent initially. To that point, the album is a viscous, ever-shifting series of noise walls featuring long drones from distorted chording. Hidden in these walls are some subtleties that careful listening will pick out – a melody or two within the mass of sound. But Skullflower ultimately offers an overwhelming post-post-rock and post-industrial set, fitting for both foreground and background absorption.
Comparisons to early 70’s Krautrock are not out of order here, though without the rhythmic emphasis. A welcome slab of dissonant, twisted darkness from an early purveyor of the same.
Dave Ball & Jon Savage – Photosynthesis (2016)
What we have here is a combination of 70’s and 80’s synth-heavy electronic music, the 90’s colder, sparser ambient, as well as field recordings. The amalgam thereof is a distinctive and compelling sound – retro without being derivative, modern without feeling unfamiliar.
Dave Ball founded the pop band Soft Cell in 1979. On Photosynthesis, he teams with electronic musician Jon Savage for eight tracks that form an hour-long suite. Apropos to its title, the album brims with organic textures, perhaps due to use of analog instrumentation. As stated in the liner notes, “[s]itting in the garden surrounded by trees and plants on a sunny day, the idea of organisms using sunlight to synthesise nutrients from CO2 and water became an inspiration to us. This idea, juxtaposed with mankind’s destruction of the planet through pollution and war gave us the inspiration to compose this soundscape.”
The putative centerpiece of the album, a sixteen-minute track titled One Night in Helmand Province, covers both these yin and yang aspects. Sequencers provide sweeps, percolations, and effects, while the rhythm is driven by dark, shifting drones. Unintelligible voices fade in and out of the foreground, as do washes laden with static.
Both beautiful and menacing in tone, Photosynthesis, stakes its claim as an original work in a crowded field.
Andrew Chalk, Ralf Wehowsky, and Eric Lanzillotta – Yang-Tul (1998/2016)
Ambient artists Andrew Chalk, Ralf Wehowsky, and Eric Lanzillotta join forces for two long tracks on this recent reissue of a 1998 release. The first piece, Wycha, features Chalk manipulating material from Wehowsky. A background sine wave provides the anchor drone, while object percussion and effects evoke a lo-fi experience. Gentle clunks, static, and hissing contribute throughout, as does a subtle, low-pitched background wash. This is ominous music that never quite goes full horror-show, but still might raise a few hairs.
For the second piece, Chalawy, Wehowsky worked over material from Chalk and Lanzillotta. The direction of this track is harder to ascertain, as noises and effects are the focus first four minutes or so, until an underlying mid-range drone evolves. Bassier elements also emerge, while sounds that resemble tuned percussion play in the foreground. Twisted whistling, wire scraping, and object percussion are prominent as well. The single drone eventually is replaced by several concurrent layers, each coming and going, until a cacophonous combination of keyboard and vocal sounds take this track to even darker places.
Hijokaidan – Emergency Stairway To Heaven (2015)
Unknown to many (including this writer), Hijokaidan is considered to be one of the first noise bands, having been founded in 1979. This 2015 release on Cold Spring Records demonstrates that the group is not showing any ill-effects of age when recording aggressive heavy improv. The clearly identifiable instruments are guitar and drums, both played in a freak-out, structureless style. Electronics and perhaps another guitar accompany. Comparisons can be made to some of Merzbow‘s recent work with the likes of Balazs Pandi and Mats Gustasfsson. Past collaborators include Merzbow (of course), Acid Mothers Temple, and Otomo Yoshihide.
This particular album is a double, featuring a 50-minute studio suite eponymously entitled Emergency Stairway To Heaven, and then another 65 minutes documenting two live performances. Great stuff if you enjoy unrelenting, ever-changing walls of metallic noise.
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