Clavius — After Dark
The CDR comes in a slim-line DVD case- this features subtly dark & murky artwork of a saucer-shaped craft- with red lettering on top. This release came in an edition of twenty-two copies- and as writing this review the label still has copies.
The sixty-seven-minute album, takes in just two tracks- and first up is “3001, seven minutes later”- this takes in the lion share of the CDR at just over the forty-seven-minute mark. This track opens with a fading in blend of slowly swarming ambient, these weird nod & banging electro insect tones, and dense mesh of bouncing & disembody voices. As the track ebbs and shifts on- we move from a blend of deep vast droning & subtle clanging junk tones, pressing drone matter and moodily serrating tones bang, and thickly hovering ambience ribbed with eerier ringing & creepily reverberation shifts. The whole track nicely moves & morphs along in an appealing enough manner, and as long-form ambient industrial mood-setting goes it’s not bad- though maybe lacks its own identity.
The CDR finished off with the track “The Zodiac Light”-this comes in a just over the twenty-minute mark. Here we find a blend of flicking & hazed industrial-drone, ebbing & flowing dark ambience, and this junk rattling like texturing. As the track progresses you get hints of waving moans & bays in the background- with more pressing searing noise-ambient threatening to kick- yet it never does, but instead throws in sways of semi harmonic tonal bay. Again this tracks ok, though did feel a muddled/ messy in its execution.
As far as I can gather this is the second (?) release from this project who put out Nebula in 2016 , also on Spanish label Marbre Negre- and as follow-ups go After Dark isn’t half bad. So if you enjoy densely & space-bound dark ambient with low-key industrial/ noise elements give this a try- I just wish maybe it had a bit more of its own identity.