NORDVARGR / DRAKH "Infinitas In Aeternum" CD Reviews

From Aquarius Records (U.S.A.)
For now, the AQ list / site may not reflect it, but we have been MASSIVE, almost obsessive fans of the work of one Nordvargr, who we first discovered as the driving force behind the mysterious black metal dark ambient outift MZ412. He would later go on to record some of the most gorgeously bleak, martial ambient / drone musick as Folkstorm, Toroidh, and under his given name Henrik N Bjorkk. H e is a modern master of dark ambient death drone. Most of his records have been really tough to track down, so we were super excited to be able to get enough of these to list. The name Drakh may be even less familiar to you than Nordvargr, but some of you may immediately recognize him as Nordvargr's partner in MZ412! So the hopes were quite high for what basically amounts to a new MZ412 record. And thankfully, you dark ambient death drone doom fanatics will not be disappointed. This is a crushing black souled threnody. Massive sheets of dark sound, shift and shimmer, disembodied voices crumble into sonic shards, oppressive walls of suffocating rumble, roll endlessly into the dark oblivion. But what sets this apart from other dark ambient / drone records is the guitars. Yep, guitars. About halfway in, bookended on either side by bleak shimmering lowend ambience, sirens wail, and drones creep slowly onward, as huge downtuned guitars unfurl slow motion riffs, lugubrious and lum bering, so distorted, and tuned so low you can hear the chords crumbling into pieces, while the whole thing lurches forward, through a cloud of black tar mist. It's like a Sunn 0))) track stuck in the middle of a Lustmord record. Like endless blackness being painted even more black. Like dropping a black hole into another even blacker hole...

From the Side-Line Magazine (Belgium)
Those 2 members of the MZ412 collective already collaborated together, resulting in the “Cold void of nothing”-album. They here strive back with a new obscure trip through the infinite dark thoughts of the inner self. Darkness rules over the imaginary ambient sound universe of those Swedish composers, which compose a quite elaborated and varied ambient epos. The long and frightening corridors are often splintered into different parts, which is a bit comparable to pure classical pieces. The “Black emitting oven” is a very good illustration of their work. This piece goes on for more than 15”, but sounds like different parts of a puzzle, which have been reassembled. You perceive dark humming by electronic arrangements, but also by guitar. Playing this album loud isn’t without risks. The “Scotopic vision”-track will procure you pure fright, feeling the trembling windows of your flat reacting to the deep humming vibes of the sound. This is a new obscure experience in the infini te ambient fields for lovers of the genre! (DP:6/7)

From the Aural Pressure webzine (U.K.)
The dawning of another new year sees the return of the Great Bearded One in another extravagant musical endeavour. After releasing five…count them…of the best recordings in 2004 with Merzbow vs. Nordvargr - "Partikel", L/A/B - "Psychoacoustics", "I End Forever", "On Broken Wings Towards Victory" and his last collaboration with Drakh - "Cold Void of Nothing", the duo have teamed up again and hit pay dirt once more. What people may not realise is that Drakh is not some bit player dragged in to make the odd sound or two. As well as being a prominent member of MZ412 he has also released a fantastic trilogy under the Beyond Sensory Experience moniker. Two titans working together to release another black ambient master class. For that is what essentially "Infinitas In Aeternum" is. Starting off with a repeated spoken sample stating ‘there’s nothing to be afraid of’ the music develops into a heart of darkness odyssey into the blackest regions of the soul. Over the six tracks the path to damnation is fully realised as the tension in the muggy surrounding sounds envelopes in a cloak of despair. The music highlights the escalation of foreboding by actually toning down the electronic effects creating a far more believable nightmarish landscape. It’s all in the subtle touches applied that separates this recording from the myriad of others being released. Uncompromising and doom and gloomy it may well be but there’s a freshness in the ideas expressed within the music making it a veritable pleasure to lose yourself in. It is in a word…indispensable. A must have for black ambient connoisseurs and fan boys / girls of both artists.

From the Chain DLK webzine (U.S.A.)
As with many Dark Ambient projects, simple verbal technical descriptions fail to convey the impact of the artistic work as a whole, or even in part most of the time. I find Dark Ambient music to be more of a ‘feeling place’ than most other genres of music. Perhaps that is why it took me nine or ten listenings of this CD to experience the full impact of what the artists were trying to achieve. Even then, the vision of the artists vs. the perception of the listener may only be casually coincidental. NORDVARGR/DRAKH (Henrik "Nordvargr" Björkk & Drakhon) is a duo from Sweden (where else would you expect?) who established a reputation in MZ.412, if that is any frame of reference for you. This is cold, bleak isolationist territory on "Infinitas In Aeternum" to be sure, but it wasn’t until I experienced the CD under certain conditions that I realized the full impact of its aesthetic intent. Lately, there has been an abundance of snowfall in this Upstate New York terrain, and I decided to get the jump on the weather by setting out to shovel the white stuff at 1 AM one stormy night rather than join the neighbors in the morning pre-commute "shoveling party". I selected this CD to listen to via wireless headphones and experienced it without distraction or interruption for its entirety. From the start, I heard a distorted alien voice repeating an unintelligible phrase a few times over a public address system, then disappeared, only to return a little later even more garbled. Meanwhile, the bleak background ambience ebbed and swelled borne on an ill wind. Stray, distant whistling oscillations streaked the atmosphere. I felt like a prisoner on some cold planet galaxies away, without hope of release or reprieve. Very chilling indeed. The ambience becomes more "industrial" without being mechanical as I continue laboring at my task- shovel-full after shovel-full of cold wet snow. The atmosphere is static- only punctuated by intermittent stabs of electronic energy, still at some distance. It has gotten even colder, yet I’m sweating through exertion. I want this to end- I want to finish clearing the damn snow and get back into my nice warm house, yet there is no reprieve for me as the snow continues to fall. The longest track on the CD, "Black Oven Emitting" has a hint of a dirge while a feedback tone wails like a siren in the distance. No, there is no hope. This winter may never end. I am becoming tired. Now I hear a vocal sonority like a Buddhist chant from somewhere- I must be hallucinating. The wailing continues. I grow even more despondent. Everything sounds fuzzy, and soon slow, sludgy distorted guitar chords arise (think: Morthound’s "The Goddess Who Could Make the Ugly World Beautiful" ) I am beginning to feel ill, yet somehow sanctified. What if I die out here and they find my corpse buried under a mound of snow in the chilly light of morning? What if they don’t find me until the snow thaws in spring? The sludge guitar is eventually absorbed in a rising miasmic tide of sonorous voices and tones, which is shortly punctured by sporadic electronic drilling. Some type of alien probing. I am grateful when it ceases. Now this inhospitable landscape seems vast and uncompromising. The gloom is impossible to describe. The foliage stares at me with icicle eyes- silent, unmoving, yet somehow sentient. I think I hear a whispered human voice, am I alone and hallucinating again? The atmosphere grows even heavier and darker, yet there is a burning light on the horizon as this "Scotopic Vision" envelops me. Snow-blind and impassive, I carry on my mindless task no longer anticipating its conclusion or outcome. A high piercing tone invades my audial senses followed by puttering and muttering. I no longer dread the alien influence. I am numb. I am assimilating to the otherworldliness of this environment. There is no turning back I find myself standing on the precipice of an abyss. The void of space is no longer silent. The tinkerings of inhuman beings continue. Adjustments are made. I have been retrofitted with the equipment necessary for survival. I am imbued with knowledge that goes deeper than the intellect will allow verbal expression. The outlanders depart, leaving me on this brutal planet to continue my work. Again I am alone, but now with a gnosis of inexpressible profundity. There could be no other way. This release, in a black & white cardboard slipcase with a few pages negative image photography taken out of doors (yes, it does look like alien landscapes) is limited to only 1000. If Dark Ambient music interests you at all, you DEFINITELY want to pick this one up. Review by: Steve Mecca

From the Ikonen Magazine (Germany)
In Kanada ist das inzwischen weltweit etablierte Label Cyclic Law ansässig, das vor wenigen Jahren mit ambitionierten Darkambient- und Ritualmusik-Veröffentlichungen von sich reden machte. Cyclic Law greifen so etwa das Erbe der frühen Staalplaat aus Holland auf, wobei sie ebenfalls immer neue CD-Verpackungen eruieren und mal mit beigelegten Fotokarten, mal im edlen Strukturkarton usw. liefern.
Nordvargr / Drakh Infinitas in Aeternum Fans des schwedischen Musikers Henrik Nordvargr Björk haben es nicht leicht: Seine Kreativität treibt ihn zu inzwischen zahllosen Veröffentlichungen mit seinen durchaus unterschiedlichen Projekten Folkstorm, MZ.412, Toroidh, HH9 usw. - aber in letzter Zeit auch solo. Auf seinen mit eigenem Namen gekennzeichneten Veröffentlichungen versucht er in letzter Zeit vermehrt, die Untiefen elektroakustischer Experimentalwelten zu erkunden. So auch auf dem vorliegenden eher finster-ambienten Werk "Infinitas in Aeternum". Wie gewohnt hat sich Cyclic Law wieder eine eigenständige Verpackung einfallen lassen: ein Heft aus schwarzweißem karton, das ins Negativ verkehrte Fotos schwedischer Waldidylle enthält und auf den letzten Seite die CD eingeschoben hat. In den Credits finden sich die Namen John Cage und Oskar Sala, zwei Pioniere der Klangkunstavantgarde (siehe Artikel über Cage in :Ikonen: Heft 5). Die CD verlässt sich nicht auf die aus dem Darkambient-Bereich gewohnten Drone-Strukturen, sondern bietet ein reiches Reservoir an Lärm und Stille, in dem selbst eine monoton angeschlagene E-Gitarre nicht deplaziert wird. Insofern haben wir es durchaus mit einem frischen, originellen Sound zu tun, der sich nicht leicht nebenbei konsumieren lässt. Die Titel - etwa "Black Emitting Oven", "Decomposition of Forces" - kreisen in Wechselwirkung mit den Fotos um den Verfall der Welt, umspielen und kokettieren mit einer apokalyptischen Lus am Niedergang... Für den Einsteiger in die weite Welt der Darkambient-Musik ist diese CD weniger geeignet, für den eingeweihten Fan des Cyclic-Law-Label jedoch setzt sie die Tradition ungebrochen fort. Frédéric Arbour bietet uns ein Kleinod nach dem anderen. :ms: