Zilverhill – “Laodicean” – [Adept Sound]

Continuous 45-minute piece comprising ten discrete movements. The sound of haunted, empty cities at night. The lonely glow of high-up windows on deserted office towers as something metallic and many-legged scuttles into an alley, what was that, where am I, is this how it ends for us all? This 2012 dark ambient release from British duo, who have been experimenting since 1981, drones and mutters and almost feels magickal in intent. Nurse With Wound, Altar of Flies, Coil, SPK. Most unsettling. They had synthesizers, and other things; a magician never reveals his secrets, huh? Sometimes it’s melodic (chords recur throughout), sometimes it drones, sometimes it’s a barely-there foreboding. At one point near the middle (the title movement, in fact) there’s a period of rhythmic Swans clanking and death-growling. Garbled voices occasionally try and fail to communicate with you thru the murk. The darkest movements are in the first half, the second half sounds more sad and detached. Obsidian beauty from a lesser-known member of England’s hidden reverse.