Description
The Wire (#302 / April 2oo9)
UK magazine / Edwin Pouncey, http://www.thewire.co.uk
As well as their connections to the mysterious Finnish Black Metal / Ambient group Dead Reptile Shrine, both Cloama and Blutleuchte are recording and performing artists in their own right, each boasting a healthy (if obscure) discography with links to Sähkö recordings and power electronics label Neuroscan. Cloama has been active since 1997 while Blutleuchte began producing in 2000, and both probe the dark underbelly of existence by using Industrial and psychoacoustic noise to produce alien visions of power and depth that possess a ritual quality. This came to the fore on previous collaboration *From wasteland mausoleums*, where the duo produced a whirling, electronically induced hallusinogenic nightmare, housed in a cover that took on the appearance of a forbidden grimoire.
Originally issued as an extremely limited CD-R in 2003, this self-titled second instalment is constructed from a sonic labyrinth of equally dark, mysterious and unsettling passages. That said, C + B neatly avoid the use of blurred Black Metal guitar and death rattle vocals to allow a more textural feel to dominate. Fleshed out with an Ambient warmth and strong sense of space, the four suites thqat make up the record combine found natural sound recordings, insectile electronic glitch, an Aleister Crowley spoken word sample, Eastern European neo-folk instrumentation and swathes of multi-shaded synthesized atmospherics for a work that subliminally suggests a jam session in progress between Philip Jeck and Chris Watson.
