Lethe — Vomit In The Shallows
As with all Altar Of Waste release this double disc set comes in a see-through DVD, with a doubled sided cover. On the front cover we have a grim painting of a group of men stand around a huge dead & grounded sea-monster/ mammoth fish. The reverse sleeve takes in a old medieval print/ page from a book of a man vomit on to the ground, as a priest talks to him. Both CDR’s feature reproduction of rather bleak medieval drawings of torture & suffering on thier fronts. All told it’s a nicely fitting package for the stripped & oppressive slices of grey/ unsettling ambience with-in.
Each disc here takes in just a single & extremely lengthy slice of unwell sonic bleakness, with each of the tracks lasting between around the forty five minute to just over an hour. So this is certainly a release that needs both time & effort to play, take-in, and understand.
Disc one is taken up by “Vomit In The Shallows”, and this just over hour long track finds Strand utilizing these buzzing ‘n’ worming selection of deep snthy tones. The piece is built around these constantly sustained yet worming synth tones, which seems to be slowly burrowing their way deeper & deeper into your ears/ brain- filling one with a feeling of deep unsettlement, air-less-ness, and un-wellness. The tones utilized here feel very pressing & suffocating in their unfold, and as the track progresses Stand subtle shifts & oscillates their pitches to creating this feeling of been unbalanced & almost feeling psychically sick. As the move towards its last quarter the synth tones seem to haze ‘n’ blur back slightly in their attack, but I’m not sure if that’s due to familiarity, or the textures are actual blurring back. All told it’s a great & intense slice of compelling 'n' cruel ambience.
Disc two features the track “Fetid Wretch”, and this just under forty six minute track is built around slow moving, wavering, and very muffled ambient textures- which sort of slow fade back more and more as the track progresses. The piece moves along at a truly crawling pace, & features very undefined tones-with Strand weaving out these ultra bleak warbling/ greyly vibe like textures. For the first twenty or so mintues I quite enjoyed the wavering & ill-defined bleakness of it all, but sadly I found my attention starting to slip more & more as the track progressed. I can certainly see what Strand is trying to accomplish here, but I felt the track went on for too long, and really lacked too little structure & form to really keep you locked-in…but of course that’s just my take on it, and if you enjoy ultra stark & stripped back lengthy grey ambient studies you may well get something from this.
So to sum up Vomit In The Shallows- I found the first discs track most entrancing in it’s balance effecting & sick-ness enticing synth drone submersion. And the second discs track showed early promise, but ultimately it rather disappointed due to it’s lack of structure & form....so for me it was very much a game of two half’s, but as I said early if you enjoy grey/ troubling ambience you may get more out of this second track than I did.