Monocube & Troum — Contemplator Caeli
Contemplator Caeli is a five-track collaboration between these two respected German dark ambient projects. It was first released in 2020 as a vinyl-only release; here, from Poland’s Zoharum is a CD or tape release of the album- I’m reviewing a CD promo of the release. The reissue has been remastered by James Plotkin.
As an album, it feels very fitting that it was released in 2020- the year of the COVID pandemic- as all of the tracks have woozy/ from another time quality- like music for the end time.
We open with “Circularis Et Preptua”; the just over eight-minute track is built around what sounds like a slowed-down & glumly stretched-out folk melody played out on an accordion/ something similar. The track mixes sadly warbling hovers, slowly shifting tonal rises and falls, and a generally grim feeling of sombre drifting grimness.
As we move on, we have “Stellae Errants”; we come to the wound-down beat purr/ billowing organ submission, bleak darting keys drones, warbling ebbs and sub-aquatic churns. With the album playing, the bonus track “Via Astrorum” finds glum bell-tolling drones, malevolent bass-tone glides, and shadowy tonal twists ‘n’ turns.
Contemplator Caeli pushes its listening into a slowly ebbing & flowing stream of melancholic. It’s great to see it get this recent CD or tape reissue from Zoharum.