Published by Alessandro Violante on June 17, 2016
The new Michael Idehall’s CD is out for Ant-Zen, but in cooperation with Scandinavian label Beläten. No Man’s Land, this is the title of Swedish artist album that moves in what he has termed “seancetronica”, a music that combines dark industrial ritualistic and sound rhythmic experimentation, noisy frequency, and properly filtered voices. Idehall gives us a work that refines what has been done before (we refer to the excellent compilation Deep Code Sol that collects some outputs of long sold out cassette) with a painstaking care for a recognizable sound and staff.
Probably, No Man’s Land “seancetronica” was focused, as well as ritual industrial artists sounds like Trepaneringsritualen (Beläten mastermind) also angst pop by Galakthorrö. For example, in the title track the ritual sound is combined with disturbing and macabre noise, repeated vocalizations as the mantra of apocalyptic landscapes.
The general tone of No Man’s Land veer towards a dark hypnotic ambient, at times fluid, especially in songs like Behind the Moon, while not lacking post-industrial drives with electro-angst pop tones (Deep Code, Malleus and Raven of Abraxas) maybe lighter than previous works, but not less heartfelt. What No man’s land loses in immediate impact than the noise-ritual aggressive previous works as Deep Code, it gains in a cure for the sounds and the sound layering, from which emerge anyway episodes restless and evocative as Howlings and interesting experiments like Angel of Fear, where the female voice in the background goes well with the distortions of Idehall. However, there are incursions into dark caverns where noise drowns between rhythmic noises bordered, for example in dystopian track Nightmare.
No Man’s Land is a very good album that confirms the quality of a ritualistic and sound research in Sweden that has its roots in an Cold Meat Industry “occult” tradition, influenced by Italian pioneers Ain Soph and Sigillum S. In Michael Idehall’s album there are references to Indian philosophy (Yona) and Buddhism (Of the Stupa) elements that characterize long artistic and spiritual pursuits.
Label: Ant-Zen, Beläten
Rating: 8