Coph Nia — The Tree Of Life And Death

The Tree Of Life And Death originally appeared back in 2008- as a double CD collection of fairly varied ambient soundworlds from Swedish project Coph Nia- who blend & merge together dark sometimes ritual tipped ambience, post-industrial moodscapes, and neoclassical elements. Here on Old Captain is a recent reissue of the release on Old Captain- which offers up the original two discs, with a third disc of  unreleased material.

The three CD’s come in a fold-out digitpak- with each of the discs feature round occultic symbols in red on a black backdrop. The packaging features a decidedly moody & creepy old painting of Adam & Eve around the tree in the garden of Eden- and other than this we get minimal black & red texts against a grey backdrop- so there’s no info on where/ when these tracks where recorded & by whom, which adds an extra edge of mystery & dread to the proceeds. The release appeared in May of this year, in a fairly small edition of 250 copies- with an initially ltd edition version featuring a T-shirt.

The release is sub-titled ‘A Collection of Dead Drones and Aborted Soundscapes’, which might suggest this is a haphazard & uneven collection of ambient odds & ends- but for the most part, this set is both quality bound, fairly varied, worthy & consistent. Each of the three discs takes in a seventy plus minute runtime- with untitled roman numbered tracks running between six & eighteen-minute mark. The material moves from slowly building and deeply foreboding drone scaping. Onto pared-back and slowed ritual black ambient marches, through to eerier and sparse dark ambience expanses.

I found the first two discs flowed & ebbed in a most satisfying manner- with an even blend of type of tracks, with each having effective elements at play. The third disc was a little less consistent and mixed in quality- though I  still did find a few appealing & effective moments here too.

All in all it’s great to The Tree Of Life And Death back in print, as for the most part it’s a great & varied collection of moody & atmospheric sonic fare. But as mentioned early it’s only ltd to 250 copies, so act sooner, than later- if it sounds like your type of thing.