Nyodene D + Sektor 304

A compilation album is always a good thing, especially when it comprises two of the most well known names of Malignant Record's power industrial roster. Nyodene D and Sektor 304 collaborate here in split- each drawing on source material of the other. Sektor 304 draws from Nyodene D's excellent "Edenfall" album, while Nyodene D draws on Sektor 304's Radio Sonores Project.

Tracks 1, 3, and 5 are produced by Sektor 304. Tracks 2 and 4 are produced by Nyodene D.

The first track, "The Human Fractal", features wailing drones and cycling synths a plenty, but also an insertion of bone-like noise, like a xylophone of femurs. The sound is eerie and the drones only increase in noise and slams of distorted feedback.

The second track, "All Over All", begins with a sampled vocal track that edges into a full out aural attack. Vocalizations and crunched shouts blend together with whirring synths to create an eruption of dispelling noise and pure aural agony. Though it does drag on by a few minutes, the effect here is well produced and flows well to the drones barely heard in the background.

The third track, "The Shaft", sees the usage of more interesting elements not seen much elsewhere. Whirring electronics and mechanical parts blend together with steam vents and fast fading drones to create the feeling of a darkened scene of percussive oppression. The reverberating drones and whispered hoarse vocals add to the effect, forming a slow buildup to a distorted annihilation of furious intensity.

The fourth track, "Vulture (For Gil Scott-Heron)", begins with a droning cycle offset by a background of junky slams and watery hits. Smashes and blasts of noise and vocal brutality buildup gradually with the ever present cycles of synths and the perfect drone. The wind down here is almost as good, gradually layering off and slowing the oscillations until dead silence rushes in.

The fifth and final track, "Furnace", is a personal favorite. The noise here is more evocative and percussive, straying away from the distortion of true death industrial. The vocalizations are actually understandable (a fact which may be a grave sin to some listeners) but lend themselves well to the buildup of synths and screams. The drone here is less present but still here, giving the track depth and space to echo in. The buildup here is more pronounced, speeding up the tempo of the track in furious beats of percussion to a crescendo of bleak industrial drone and synth.


Nyodene D and Sektor 304 are one of the greatest and grandest collaborations of industrial noise ever done. The sweeping synths and depressive drones layered with virulent vocals create a terrific blend of death industrial and heavily laden power electronic. It seems almost sad that such a diverse album be limited to a mere 200 copies- yet for such special sounds it will surely be valuable for years to come as an example of both genres of industrial and electronic noise.

Xiphoid Dementia - Secular Hymns

Effectively the God is an Astronaut or Godspeed You! Black Emperor of post-industrial, Xiphoid Dementia serves as a good opener to the wider world of industrial and drone-based ambient noise. Xiphoid Dementia's production quality, which usually comprises multiple genres in a layering act of sonorous sounds, is meant to instill despair and bring to mind images of bleak misery

We see this fact well enough with the first track, Abortion Rites. Beginning with a cycling drone and edging into an echoing choir, the track diverges into a sonic attack of murderous wails and distorted alarms. Electronic walls of sound gyrate to the distorted shrieks and electronic whirs and almost mystical rasps. Suddenly the wall breaks down, and we are left with neat cycles of synthetic noise. The drones, synths and vocal samples here are masterfully done, and complement the track very well.

The second track, My Time Will Never Come, starts off with much the same way. A ticking clock, reminiscent of Pink Floyd's Time, quickly drops into a wailing echo of blaring sound. It is as if the very walls of reality are being burned away, set to the creaks and hums and subsonic drones of a ruined factory. The sounds used here are not as creatively layered as the first track, utilizing short samples and loops in ways that tend to become more repetitive than before. The thing that staves off true ennui here are the screaming drones and blasts of noise we are given, even though as the clocks increase in number and frequency, the aura of despair or hopelessness is partly diminished. The second part of the track is much more creative in this aspect, featuring a chiming bell and multiple other synths and cycling sounds. Most of the album features this duality of sounds that Egan Budd, the man behind the noise, has layered and orchestrated to his whims. This track in particular leaves off with a very masterfully done buildup to bells and whistles that instill an even more depressive feeling than the last- even though the sound is the complete opposite of one would expect to be saddening.

The third track, What You Believe, begins much more darkly. A whirring machine in the background is offset by an almost industrial factory ambiance, quickly giving way to an aquatic reverberation and metallic creaks and sounds. Stone grinds on stone and walls collapse as the city slowly falls to ruin. A helicopter or some other whirring device passes by after hovering for a time overhead. Gradually the sounds layer upon each other to the point where it seems as if the very building is about to come down, straining at rotted timbers and rusted bolts. Synths and drones come into the mix as this buildup to ultimate ruin never ceases, except in furious explosions of noise and the drone of klaxons and water. The electronic synths buildup to an explosion of vocal samples that fit the buildup well- breaking back to the previous buildup with not-human shrieks and screamed words.

The fourth and final track, Breathe, begins with a claustrophobic opening of various breathings. Gasps, moans, groans, hyperventilating rasps and sighs of release, all echoing and reverberating out with a background of lightly strumming noise. This all gives way soon enough to a drone not unlike that found on dark ambient albums, with sounds and noises consistent with something more focused. The album's proficiency in multiple disciplines shows itself well here- gaining ground with the application of a variety of genres that are almost perfectly blended together. Drones mix well into eddies of electronic hums and whirs that cycle back and forth. The entire sound here creates a large space of noise to build in, beginning to layer on the savage grunts and vocal undulations of ritualistic despair. Vocal shrieks and whines coalesce into a droning sonic screech of pure hate, ending in a furious explosion of devastating aural anguish that finishes the album on a thoroughly high note.


If ever there was ambient sounds to truly inspire the industrial artist, these are them. Xiphoid Dementia's "Secular Hymns" are unto the orchestrated patterns of a conductor progressing through movements of noise into choruses of screams and droning synths. "Secular Hymns" delivers on multiple fronts in a way that few other artists can hope to emulate, having something for almost every listener be they of the dark or industrial realms. "Secular Hymns" is not an album any serious listener will want to miss- breaking ground as much as it breaks the silence of life with echoes of a much darker place only seen in half formed dreams and the stuff of primal nightmares.

Maculatum - The Nameless City

It is not with any simple steps that one should approach any album of the dark ambient arts, especially one produced by such names as Collapsar or Rasalhague. After hearing both artists offerings on various other compilations, I was ready for more. A dedication to Lovecraft himself seals the deal, the master of horror incarnate being invoked for rapturous terror.


Part I conjures up instant scenes of industrial decay and ruinous apocalypse. It is as if we are venturing in a forgotten city of the Elder Gods, whisperings and droning wails on the howling wind. The sound here echoes and reverberates in a cavernous, cyclopean space- this is noise not meant to be beheld by man. A voice of foreign tongue or even more foreign incantation stirs on the wind, and a low drone commences and ceases in cyclic manner.

The Nameless City breathes, and with it beats the heart faster and faster. Shuffling echoes march out even as structural supports groan and creak with unspeakable weights. The water floods in once more as the wind blows unceasingly across the landscape. Enigmatic bubbles glisten in the pitch dark as a low, mechanic hum machines across space and time- simple and eternal. The feeling of confusion is a brother to fear.


Part II brings us right into the thick of it once more, with a fast fading, fast panning drone of mystical noise. Steam vents out of craven pipes of non-metallic alloys. Electric discharges spike and coalesce out of hidden alcoves. A drum of unsteady yet brutal beat charges out of the cavernous depths to blast our ears with the oppressive sinister aura of and chant of the unspeakable hordes that lurk just beyond the weak walls of our reality. Time is sundered and broken- scattered like glittering shards of glass on the wind even as hisses and cries in the demoniac night shriek and echo unseen dirges to only the most obscure of deific cosmic urges.

Like a veil smothering the screaming mouth of noise, the great drum ceases with static echoes and a low gasp of murderous silence. All is quiet. Soon we hear it once more- stragglers of the horde that we barely escaped, gasping and salivating in the darkness.


Part III brings demented chants amid abysmally antediluvian instruments of malign sound and shape. It is as if we are come into the court of the blind idiot god Azagthoth himself, face to face with the nuclear chaos who holds the entire cosmos within his mind. Dreaming in green chaos. The assembled shadows maligned howl and laugh and dance to the droning tune of flesh drums and echoing howls. In this noise lies something of a human element, a mortal sound of composition.

Yet anything true and understandable flees once more as the walls creak outward and snap their masts and rigging upon the gates of reality. Echoing chants and howls shriek forth in eerie unison and near-orchestral rhythm, creating a sound that is strangely beautiful to behold, the last vocal undulations fading before a deep growl.


Part IV begins with a sudden and repeating vibration of crystal and glass, movements of rasping tongues splaying over dryly shrieking and calling throats. Summoning screams presage a sudden chord of almost electrically heavy noise- like the slamming of great obsidian blocks of stone and steel in the uncharted depths below. Chants of Arabic and tainted English, no doubt inspired by the ancient Sumerian and texts of the Mad Arab himself, spill forth in infrequent bursts as the Nameless City prepares for the coming ritual. The shrieks and chaotic emanations cease and falter in the face of a hushed silence, the only sound a faint hiss of sinister intent.

The soundscape reveals itself to us with echoes of a space more vast than the mind could ever know, ragged breaths of whispering wails and shuddering creaks and moans creating distance and time for our mortally bound thoughts. A grasshopper, or what one would think to be a grasshopper, almost silently plays its chirps as an electronic sound of panning confusion sets in. Brief play on snare drums. Resonating pipes and ominous crackles of colossal amounts of unearthly energy. The very wind is charged with exotic particles. Ringing vibrations and paroxysms of crystal and glass return as a voice decidedly human sounds out from the depths. We do not exist. Strangely, the insertion of mortal noise is unreal when compared to what we have past experienced. Dim shades and half-remembered images swim before a woman's words, as if half remembered and half conjured from some other place.


Part V greets us with a sharp, contorted sound of straining noise. A buzzing, droning countenance of sighed breaths breathed in the dank dark gloom. The desert's wastes call out, as witchfire flickers and the souls of the dammned wail up from another world both terrible and horrible. The souls reach a crescendo, briefly creating sounds of ritualistic symphony that would not sound out of place on an Arktau Eos album. Drum hits in the deep- titanic and inescapable sighs the things that wait and creep in the darkness beyond sight.

The sound here is as overwhelming as it is all-encompassing. Blasts of strangely sounding drums intersperse with deeper noises and melodic sounds that don't quite fit the tone that has been sustained thus far. The increasing tempo of what sounds like a tabla combined with chaotic snares and a faint cowbell give a decidedly Arabic feel, fitting partially well enough within the mystique of Lovecraft's "The Nameless City". Wails and drums and all, there are some sectors to this area of the album that seem out of place, though perhaps this is intended- the Nameless City is by extension nameless and thus encompassing of all cultures as it is none of them.


Part VI calls and binds the daemon of the desert, echoing vast sweeps and synths of energy through the limitless space. Aegyptian melodies faintly stir among the deserted obelisks carved with forgotten runes. Undercurrents of force and lightning arc through the sky as the city falls to sleep, stones faintly shifting as a deep bass rhythm tolls out the dreaded paranoia of what should not be. The sound of a deep heartbeat pervades the scene, soon giving way to a vicious tear of sound. Silent and mystical crystals glisten in the rocks even as something in the distance shifts and shuffles amongst the elder stones. The heart beats once more, and the sound fills the space with a sort of mystical enchantment laid over grim desolation not unlike what one would find on a False Mirror album (Derelict World uses this sound style often).


Sounds fade and we are greeted with silence as the world waits with bated breath. Flickering and momentous sounds call out- a hiss there, a knocking on stone from there, a tumbling of rocks disturbed by something no man has seen before. The juxtaposition of the aural silence and noise here works wonders for the emotions of the track, creating one of the most ominous and awesome moments on the entire album. The sky grows darker still as the realms of things other than man fall to rest, and we are left with the stirring rip tide majestic triumph. Barren glory reigns supreme in the Nameless City.

There is a surprising amount of similarity between the various tracks on Maculatum's The Nameless City. Sounds blend together very well and the production quality here is top-notch. No artifacts or other irregularities can ever be heard, and faint whispers can be heard in the background of some tracks, heightening the portentous doom that seems to be approaching. In this way the entire album can be seen as a build up to the final act: the latter half of Part VI is the most ominously majestic piece of ambiance on the album.

The sounds of The Nameless City are mystical and vast- it as if we have discovered something new and compelling to add to the portfolio of human nature, a new type of experience akin to the subtle stab of horror we hear in echoes and dreams half forgotten. Rasalhague and Collapsar have succeeded beyond my wildest expectations, and The Nameless City stands in terrible awe as one of the best examples of dark ambient noise designed to invoke only the most primal of man's emotions. This is fear before anything was ever evil. A solid 4.5 out of 5.