Aural Hypnox — Underworld Transmissions
The CD comes packaged in a seven-inch vinyl sleeve- with a brown card covered booklet featuring off white pages-these are filled with symbols & often ritual cryptic texts. The outside of the white sleeve is screen printed in dark gold inks that take in a circular symbol & the releases titles. The inside booklet features white screen-printed texts & symbol on it’s outside- with the whole thing been topped off with a piece of paper with a download code on. This release is Ltd to just 150 copies, so I’d advise acting fair quick- as I think many of the original tapes are now out-of- print, and it’s great to have all these tracks in one place.
The idea/ concept behind the series & these tracks was for the members of the Helixes/Aural Hypnox collective to create a series of fairly spontaneous sonic rituals/ séances that are largely improvised and unplanned- so as a result of the tracks often feel ghostly, drift or murkily growing. Each of the tracks lasts at dead on the 9.40 mark, with the whole release having a runtime of 57 minutes.
The Cd opens up with “Séance I”- this was recorded in November of 2013. Here we find a haunted Arabic vibe, as we get a distantly hazed blend of darkly glowing drone, and languidly baying ritual horn & single string work- it feels like one is on an endless & shadowy desert path in the dead on a moon lite night. It’s a rather subdued if satisfying enough begin to proceedings.
Next up we have “Séance I”- this was recorded in January of 2014, and this stands as my favorite moment of this collection. The track is more of brooding & simmering slice of low-fi ritual drone-tronics- as we find a looped organ tone, top with this continual uncurling haze of sustained electro haze. It’s truly spellbinding stuff, and I could easily have listened to this track for an hour plus.
Track four is “Séance III”- this is from April 2014, and shows a more minimal junk/ subdued noise feel. We find a blend of sourly tolling drones, scrabbling & flitting noise textures, creakings & the occasional high pitched oscillation. All to create a distinctively grimly tense & creaking dungeon type vibe.
The release is topped off with “Séance I”- this is from January 2015, and this returns to the horn & string hazed feel of the first track- but there’s a malevolence & subtle seared edge to proceedings, as along with the darkly longing blend of horn/ string work we get this topping subtle cluttering & grating noise elements on top, and at moments these lock into slowly rocking disharmony that at times almost moves towards slurred blacked metallic drone matter.
In conclusion, if you like slightly more abstract ritual ambience with darts into more subtle noise bound & experimental like sonic regions I’d say give this CD a go- through it’s one for the more seasoned fan of the Helixes/Aural Hypnox work, as much of what’s on offer here is a little more difficult & grating then some of their releases.