An
dorcha
Cunnartach
Airsnealach
Stoirmeil
Tiamhaidh
Coirbte
Duaichnidh
There’s
something decidedly cinematic about using the elements in ambient music,
it has an ability just to nudge drones away from creating transmogrified
realities toward transmogrifying your own current reality. So begins Invercauld’s
long awaited “official” debut on Canada’s dark ambient
monolith, Cyclic Law.
As the debut release, outside a smattering of CDR releases, this reviewer
only having the Stormy Night release, you can notice several themes that
have flowed into this the 6th release from Cyclic Law. Doyle Finley is
the man behind Invercauld whose album explores the misted and overcast
landscape of ancient Gaelic history; Invercauld itself is a castle itself
in Scotland, though the artist’s home country is America.
Downpours drench nearly every track pelting the ruins where ghosts linger,
blacksmiths clamour and the forlorn resonance of bells, under the growl
of a bubbling thunder roiling across blasted, miserable hills and lochs
long forgotten by an urban-obsessed world. The storm beetles its way into
the granite mountains feeling out tunnels and crevasses, rocks cracking
under the subtle pressure of the storm as it seeks out the memory of the
people who once revered the land and sky, where ritual and memory defined
a culture’s intimate association with nature and creation, as something
other than in/convenience – earth quakes, boulders tear and are
lost to vast caverns. Solace of the Celtic memory briefly pierces the
storm in vestigial drifts of pipes and melody, veritable evanescing phantasmagoria
that drive the seeking storm from despairing behemoth into one rancorous
at the affront of those people stolen under its immemorial slumber into
lands empty of soil and untainted sky. With that irremeable enlightenment
the rain ceases on the last track, the storm swirls back to the sky, menace
on its tongue as it reticulates a vengeful net of storm clouds across
the heavens, across the cities.
Released as an edition of 500 in a richly textured digipak, Tiamhaidh
will appeal to fans of Northaunt or other bleakly-inspiring dark ambient
musicians.