But this, too, is ambient, and I won’t be able to entirely explain what I mean by that; not this week, anyhow. It’s a theme I’m working on that will take some time to bear out completely. It has something to do with the anti-melodic nature of chord progressions that repeat themselves loudly & fuzzily again and again and again; it has something more to do with the record’s hard-won obscurity (Northern Heritage prides itself on sending out no promos whatsoever); it has a lot to do with the eventual historical invisibility of everything, and with the excellence of good things that opt for the quickest route possible to historical oblivion. Much of this rumination is a personal problem of mine, I know, which is why I picked these particular two records to harp on this week: of them I can say without hesitation that if they sound like they’re your thing, then they probably are. If you have any liking for dreamy ambient techno, you gotta love Shenzhou, and if you’re into black metal, then you’re a poseur if you don’t love Blood and War. It’s as simple as that. Sooner or later I will arrive at my Grand Unification Theory that brings ambient music, heavy metal, crust punk, and dub reggae all under the same umbrella, but until I get there, I have only this to offer: I listened closely to two ambient records this week. One of them was so caustic and loud that it scared the cats and killed a few flies. “Draw your own conclusions,” some people like to say; the more adventuresome among you are urged to do just that. |
