Llyn Y Cwn — Dinorwic
The CD is presented in a most fitting & darkly atmospheric digipak- that takes in moody monochrome of photos of Dinowic, on it’s outside the vast valley/ waterway, and on the inside gatefold a line of wall-less and overgrown houses that was once the village up on the hill above the mine.
This new album comes roughly a year after the project's first album( also on Cold Spring) Twll Du, and once again it presents a very dense & thick sound that blends brooding drones, creepy ambient shifts, and often very upfront in the mix field recordings. I reviewed this first album, and personally found the balance of dark ambience & grim field recordings often too overbearing, with at points move towards parody- but there where moments of promise. So it’s great to report that Dinowic very much a step up from the debut- with the blend of bleak drones & even bleaker field recordings been well balanced & blended to create an album that really does set you down in a barren, wind-battered & often rain-soaked landscape.
The album opens with “Dyffryn”- this just over six-minute tracks is a slowly shifting blend of deep deep drones, grim sway, or ebb tones- which could be either wind or sliding slate, and deathly warbling bleak harmonics. The whole thing does feel like you make your way around the edge of a vast & dark carven, where it sounds like something huge is slumbering-yet-slowly awaking in the thick 'n' dense shadows. By track three "Allt Ddu"- we find a barren & bleak mix of constantly lashing cold rain field recordings, and drones that shift from huge & ominous-onto-creepily & wavering. Track five "Llwybr Llwynog" is the second-longest track here at just shy of the nine-minute mark- and once again rain samples are used, but this time they are distant as if one is sheltering. The main focus here are blends of thick boring & spinning- to-hovering & simmering drone sways & ebbs- which mark out both a feeling of subterranean wonder and fear- as if you're now making your way deep into the brooding weight of a mountain. The album plays out with the longest track here "Vivian"- this just shy of twelve and a half minute track is an extremely well laid out & highly atmospheric mixture of buffeting 'n' baying wind currents, slowly shifting deep drones, and stretching-to-billowing bleak harmonics- making for a great & grimly bleak end to proceedings, as if you've finally fallen into the deepest and darkest chasm.
Dinowic shows Powell coming into his own as a great dark ambient artist- as through-out the album we find a wonderful mix of vast drones, creepy-but- subtly harmonic ambience, and grimly mood-yet-very well placed & processed field recordings. Added to this we of course have the great & grim monochrome pictures, and the theme of an abandoned village & deep dark mine…all making this one of the more memorable & worth revisiting dark ambient albums in many a moon.