Drakh — Bethlehem
The album is a collection of recordings made on the road. I’m not sure over what time period. The track titles all have a subtitle such as track 1 Norrskem having “North: Heading for some calm” or track 2 Confusing Fact having “Freeway: Following directions,” all the subtitles expanding on or explaining the title of the track.
This is basically an album of dark ambient pieces and the main stumbling block, I find, to me being particularly interested in this genre is it’s very much a formula based style. You write a slow minor key sounding keyboard riff using a sound that is not that far off a string section. Have it played in a fairly low register, perhaps add some vocal samples that you’ve found and maybe chuck in the odd extra unexpected sound here and there and you’ve got your basic template for dark ambient. That might sound a bit too dismissive of the genre in general and yes you could possibly write something similar about techno or noise but they wouldn’t be as near the mark I think.
And Bethlehem is very much based on this template. There are tracks that go beyond that track 5 Indiana introduces a little jazz drum beat and track 8 Back From Madrid makes a successful attempt at creating an atmosphere with its use of what sounds like it could be the sound of traffic roaring past or the sound of static and on track 10 Bethlehem there is a bit of guitar. The album closing with the more industrial sounding track 11 Walk of Life.
The tracks that you want to come back to are those four that I’ve just mentioned. The ones where Drakh uses the basic building blocks of dark ambient but then adds a bit of himself to them and comes up with something that actually makes you want to listen to that track again.
For a first solo album it’s not bad at all and if Drakh can come up with another album where he goes even further it will be one to take notice of.