ProtoU - Anomalies

Cryo Chamber: 2019

Her most popular album? Well, it's got the most scrobbles on Last.fm, which ain't too shabby seeing as how Anomalies came out much later than her earlier works like Lost Here and Khmaoch. Heck, even her collaboration with Purl, Sub Life, is dwarfed by how many plays Anomalies has garnered over a similar amount of time. You'd think getting exposure on Dronarivm would have yielded more plays there, but maybe I'm underestimating just how popular Cryo Chamber has gotten within not just dark ambient circles, but across other scenes as well. Or it just could be that literal eye-catching cover art luring folks in for a closer listen, unable to resist the hypnotizing glare of a burning sun over a concave valley. Truly one of the best from a label replete with captivating cover art.

And before any folks made of hay claim I'm just hopping on whatever bandwagon this album's gathered, I honestly always intended to grab it. However, as I postponed my latest Cryo Chamber bulk-buy for an unexpectedly long time, I missed the initial buzz over Anomalies. Or maybe not, those same scrobbling stats showing a healthy, consistent play cycle, at least among the Last.fm contingent. For a genre that has so many albums getting lost in the shuffle (just... so many albums), that's about as good as it gets.

And what has made Anomalies the runaway smash hit of ProtoU's discography (relatively speaking)? More of a focus on naturalist ambience, would be my guess. Not that Sasha hasn't dabbled in this field before, indeed this album treading similar ground as her debut Lost Here. However, she's taken many different paths in her dark ambient journey – sci-fi themes in Stardust and Echoes Of The Future; the occult with Khmoach, Metta, and Tomb Of Druids. Which is great if that's the dark ambient vibe you're down for at the time, but for most folks just getting their feet wet in the murky swamp, something that at least sounds grounded in our reality has some small comforting familiarity. Sure, you may be lost out in the woods with strange phenomena casting disconcerting visages across starless skies, but at least it's all natural, right? Right...?

Opener The Escape sure feels so, at least at first. Rather gentle and calming with soft, if chilly pads casting a mist over your earlobes, the drone does turn more mechanical and menacing, but not overbearingly so. And with such a tranquil piece of piano ambience in follow-up Transparent Clusters, such apprehensive thoughts are easily dismissed – the sound of rainfall certainly helps.

What's interesting about Anomalies is the back-and-forth of tone between tracks. Harsher pieces like Electric Grounds and Chamber Of Visions are followed by reflective respites in Lucid Sequences and Ghost In You , while ten-minute closer Pellucid Waters with Hilyard wraps everything back together. You'll come away feeling both confronted yet relaxed, challenged yet released. Like an intense Pilates workout, followed by a tender massage, for the mind and the soul.

Purl & protoU - Sub Life

Dronarivm: 2019

Oh my, this is a cross-over event I never even conceived of. Superman meets Spider-Man, sure. The Simpsons meet The Critic, absolutely. Dr. Octagon meets Deltron 3030? Well, I marked out. Purl and protoU though? Like, how did these two even cross paths, much less find time to collaborate on an album? True, Ludvig has had many pairings with musicians this past decade, though mostly remained within his domain of dubby downtempo techno. Sasha, meanwhile, has been dark ambient 4 lyfe, y0'. These are two scenes that almost never cross-pollinate. Yet here we are, a mega team-up extraordinaire of cosmic proportions, and other Stan Lee levels of hyperbole you can imagine.

Even more interesting is this happened on Dronarivm, the first time either have appeared on the ambient and modern classical print. Heck, it's the first time protoU has appeared anywhere other than Cryo Chamber. And while Purl has drifted among many labels (Databloem, Dewtone, Archives, etc.), he'll always be one of Silent Season's key acts in my mind. It's possible Ludvig would migrating to Dronarivm at some point, but seeing Sasha anywhere other than good ol' Cryo blows my mind.

Still, given the contents of Sub Life, I can't imagine this album appearing anywhere else. It certainly fits within the Moscow label's wheel-house, what with the atmospheric treatments and minimalist modern classical touches. It also sounds little of what I'd consider 'traditional' Purl or protoU music – no dense layers of dubby synths or cinematic dronescapes. For sure I can hear elements of both as Sub Life plays, but if I were to do a blind listen, I doubt I'd easily identify them, needing multiple hints getting there. (“Okay, one of these musicians has exclusively released music on Cryo Chamber...” “God Body Disconnect! Because guitars!”)

Five tracks averaging around a dozen minutes each makes up Sub Life, all following a relatively similar path. A moody bit of atmospheric ambient sets the tone, with field recordings and dronescapes creating a sonic setting rich in texture, but not so thick you feel suffocated by your surroundings. A mysterious, desolate valley in Trees And Stones, an open dale in Sub Life, the wind-swept dunes at the shores of a beach in Sacred Fluids, a crisp breeze through a billowing leaves in Recreating The Purpose. All quite lovely pieces of calming tones, sure to ease you into a deep slumber should you doze off to it.

But nay, the main thrust of each piece is a singular featured instrument, improvising away in that modern classical way this sort of music enjoys. You get the piano in Trees And Stones and Morning Light, acoustic guitar in Sacred Fluids, ethereal voices in Sub Life, and even a subtle mix of all three in Recreating The Purpose.

If anything, this album has the feel of a ballet, the two performers gliding among each other in fluid movements. Which is par for the course where Dronarivm is concerned, made more remarkable with the dancers involved.

ProtoU - Echoes Of The Future

Cryo Chamber: 2018

I've fallen way behind on this label. You may think two years isn't much of a gap, but Cryo Chamber remains relentless in its rate of output, over fifty albums Simon Heath's print has produced since I last splurged. It ain't for a lack of interest. Even glancing at their recent releases, there's a pile of items immediately catching my eye. Some things gotta' take a backseat though, and it'd be silly of me to snatch up a pile of new albums when I'm still sifting through the ones I picked up last time. Okay, maybe that new Sabled Sun CD, at the very least.

Even ProtoU, I feel like I've slipped on. She was among a handful of artists I'd kept pace with when she first debuted with Dronny Darko on Earth Songs. The streak was broken in my missing The Edge Of Architecture, and though I got her next two albums, she's released two more since. I think the only Cryo Chamber project I have gathered all releases of is Sabled Sun, which seems appropriate, given it was that project that lured me in the first place.

Sasha's hinted at an interest in leaving our earthly realms in her Stardust collaboration with Alphaxone, but Echoes Of The Future is a full-blown cosmic outing. Okay, not quite, more of a launching, as the remnants of whatever civilization remains on our planet hopefully seeks a better life than what they leave behind. Not that the 'music' within is explicit about it – not even the track titles are clear in their narrative. Nay, I had to scope out the Bandcamp PR blurb for the the album's concept. Even if some of these pieces are interesting in their own right, it helps having full thematic context when hearing atonal drone.

The first couple tracks are fairly typical of dark drone, though Interlinked fades out with the sounds of radio chatter, like receiving transmissions from abroad. 4325d shifts gears (heh) into the mechanical, as though you're wandering launch pads devoid of humans, yet filled with giant sentinels waiting to be sent to the stars, steam and fog gently floating from their frames. There's a sense of subtle awe in your surroundings, but sadness too.

Mid-track Drawings Of Nebula marks a sharp turn in choice of soundscape, a heavy synth drone almost pushing down on your ears. It carries on like this for a while, though once again, voices from beyond are heard as the track fades out. The next two tracks mostly get back to the dark dronescapes with some field recordings flourishes, though I can't help but zone out while they're playing. Vessels Of God, on the other hand, brings in a mournful melody that wouldn't sound too out of place in a 36 ambient piece. True, there's a fair amount of static and astro-chatter distortion, especially towards the end when the melody is practically subsumed by it. Still, a surprisingly hopeful ending to a generally bleak album.

ProtoU & Hilyard - Alpine Respire

Cryo Chamber: 2017

Uh oh, another Cryo Chamber album already? Does this mean that CD bundle I bought is gonna' be stupidly front-loaded in the next round of reviews? Heh, no, 'tis but a coincidence of alphabetical sorting. It shall be a long while before I return to this label, but hey, feels like I'm making up for lost time, having gone so many months without an obligatory look-in to what was shaking with Simon Heath's print.

Of all the items I grabbed in my recent splurge, this may be the oldest of the lot. In fact, Alpine Respire could have been included in my prior Cryo bundle, but that ten CD limit had to cap out somewhere. Albums from God Body Disconnect and Flowers For Bodysnatchers were of higher priority to me at the time, but when I came back to the Chamber for more dronescapes, this was gonna' be top of the pile, by g'ar. Can never get enough of those ashen vistas of cascade mountains at dusk. With molten lava rivers seeping out their sides like open, bloody wounds. Look, we have real volcanoes 'round these here parts, it's not impossible!

Sasha Cats (ProtoU) hasn't been too busy since we last glanced at her output here, a couple albums worth of material materializing in that time. She also officially paired up with partner Dronny Darko as Hivetribe, whom released a collaborative album with Purl (yes, that Purl), and ...two psy-trance albums? No, that's gotta' be a different Hivetribe. Crazy coincidence in the timing of releases though. As for the other half of this album's particular pairing, Bryan Hilyard is another relative dronescape scene floater, self-releasing some items while finding a home on Stereoscenic for others. As being on a label with that sort of name, his is the widescreen variety of dense ambient drone, with occasional field recordings treatments, and not so dark as the Cryo Chamber brand goes. Yet he not only found his way there in this pairing with ProtoU, but even released a solo album on the print this past year too. Ooh, that one's got galaxies on the cover. Will likely nab that, whenever I go on another Cryo splurge.

Alpine Respire is about as typical of the Chamber's output as you'd expect given the cover art. There's a loose theme built around traversing an inhospitable clime', taking in the field recordings scenery as moody tones blanket you in chilly atmosphere. There's the requisite suffocating gloom of tracks like Blood Grass Soujourn and Elwha Snowfinger, but other pieces (Cave Lights On The Bay Of Bengal, Final Refugium) provide something of a tranquil respite from the harsh elements beating down on you. Seems no matter how menacing or melancholic the music, throwing in the sounds of crashing surf never fails to bring about as sense of ease. Man, no wonder so little dark ambient sets itself along beach fronts. You'd think shores with tall cliffs and jagged rocks could harbour some sort of sonic malice.

Alphaxone & ProtoU - Stardust

Cryo Chamber: 2017

Now this is a pairing I wouldn’t have expected. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t have expected Alphaxone to pair up with anyone, beyond the now-obligatory yearly Cyro Chamber ‘Old Ones Tribute’ jamboree. He’s worked in conjunction with other dark ambient folks on thematic compilation albums, specifically Tomb Of Empires and Tomb Of Seers, but those are still solo outings from Mr. Saleh, merely contributing a piece of music for those particular projects. Lord Discogs tells me this is his first true collaborative effort though; across any alias he’s had this past half-decade. Maybe he’s done others even The Lord That Knows All doesn’t know about, but I kinda’ like Stardust being his first for a simple reason: it fits a narrative!

In case you missed all those Alphaxone reviews I did last year, there’s been a slow, steady conceptual migration in his works from terra firma to the great beyond above. Well, after leaving some alternate dimensions filled with graylands and some-such. However, it’s lonely in space [citation needed], so now that he’s finally out among the stars, perhaps a little company was called for. Enter ProtoU, fresh off her work exploring Southeast Asian crypts, joining in on a little solar surfing. I’m not sure how Ms. Cats knows Mr. Saleh, but I imagine after those Cryo Chamber Collaboration epics, a few emails were exchanged for future reference.

As the name implies, Stardust is a space ambient outing, and surprisingly not so bleak as the dark practitioners of this sub-genre go. For sure it’s got its fair share of isolationist drone, tracks like Sub Signal, Consumed, and Observing Quasars doing the ‘cosmic emptiness’ thing you’ll typically hear in this field. It’s tempered with subtle melodic passages though, plus a surprising amount of field recordings lurking just out of hearing range. Even the latter two tracks of the ones I just listed provide some synthy tonal counter-balance to the atonal nature of space drone, music that feels just as in awe of its surroundings as it does meek and insignificant. Nicely captures the whole ‘we’re all star-stuff’ notion, despite so often confounded by such implications.

If anything, this album feels less about exploring the cosmos at large (something of a daunting task), and rather chilling out on some fringe of civilization, far from contact but not impossibly alone. There’s still star-gazing going down, but more like being at an outpost, or remote colony, pushing the boundaries of our cosmic influence. Hence a track like Planemo Dreams, a lonely track with rainfall/static for sure, wiling the time away on some far-flung dwarf or rogue planet. Counter to that is Versus, which features the cosmic drone, yet also has tweeting birds, and an almost positive twist by track’s end. Then at the conclusion of Stardust, Alignments goes synthy old-school, and Returned’s drone gradually turns into brighter pad washes before fading out into static. Whatever this mission was, it’s safe to assume it’s accomplished. How remarkably upbeat for a dark ambient release.

ProtoU - Khmaoch

Cryo Chamber: 2016

The pace some of these dark ambient artists release material, I swear. Hell, since making their debut on Cryo Chamber alone, a few are already on their fourth and fifth LPs, the wait for follow-ups short indeed. Names I only discovered this past year didn’t waste time in keeping the creative embers hot, some releasing two albums within the same twelve-month span. It makes maintaining an ear on every producer that’s caught my attention nearly impossible, even the ones that I really, really like and stuff. I’m only now just getting into the last five-CD bundle I bought, and already Simon Heath’s print has enough new material available that I’m itching for another five-CD bundle. I suppose I should be thankful that I’m this deeply intrigued by only one such label – if the likes of Ultimae or Silent Season had a schedule at this clip, I’d be financially insolvent in no time (bankrupt? never!).

As ProtoU, Sasha Cats has been one of the busier, um, cats at Cryo Chamber, four albums now under her belt. Two of those are collaborative efforts, but for the year 2016, she stuck to the solo scene, releasing both items within the span of eight months. Lost Here was a shade lighter as far as dark ambient typically goes, and rather ambiguous in ideas at that – felt more like an introspective record compared to other albums on this label with clear narratives and definitive themes being the norm. It also made it one of the easier albums for a dark ambient novice to get into, since it shared enough attributes with ambient-proper without getting lost in ultra-dense, uncomfortable head-fuckery.

If anything though, Lost Here felt like a feeling-out process for Ms. Cats. She must have been satisfied with getting that debut out of the way to not only quickly follow it with a second album, but one that has a clearer theme in mind. For those not in the know, Khmaoch is a reference to those who died from unnatural causes (suicide, murder, genocide, etc.), and, according to Southeast Asia mysticism, are now wandering as phantoms or spirits lurking about abandoned areas. At least, that’s my best assumption, the word khmaoch surprisingly sparse in Google searches when it doesn’t involve ProtoU’s album. Leave it to dark ambient muses to unearth all manner of obscure macabre folklore.

Thus Khmaoch is a bleaker, creepier outing than Lost Here. Quite a few sections where ghostly whispers, veiled cries, and haunting tones permeate the atmosphere, and that’s just the first track Bridge Of Storms. With ample amounts of shuffling stones, flowing water, and claustrophobic echoes, it feels like you’re a crypt explorer, unearthing whatever calamity created this realm filled with khmaoch memories. There are moments of distant, soothing pad work, as though the soul is easing itself into a restful slumber (Stygian Vortex, Dai Robsa Preah), but sometimes cruelly snatched away into foreboding drone just as you’re settled into a state of peace. No rest for even the innocent.

protoU - Lost Here

Cryo Chamber: 2016

Yeah yeah, another Cryo Chamber album. I’ve said before such is the result of a label splurge, and when said label offers such lovely bulk deals on their music, label splurging is easy indeed. Heck, remember when I covered that pile of Psychonavigation Records material earlier in the year? Or even all those Fabric and In Trance We Trust mixes? And it’s not like I haven’t gathered massive amounts of material from other labels either: Hypnotic, Waveform, Turbo, Ultimae… um, Columbia. Of course, the difference there is that music was gathered over a course of two decades before taking on this blog in earnest, spreading their entries more fluidly as I trek through everything now. If Cryo Chamber had existed prior to 2012, we wouldn’t have such an overabundance of albums now. Then again, I wasn’t as open to a dark ambient label either. It still stuns me how my interest developed towards Simon Heath’s print.

On the other hand, ProtoU provides the sort of sound that might have eased me into the genre if I’d preferred a gradual transition from my general ambient interests. The lady behind the moniker, Sasha Cats, is relatively new onto the scene, almost completely barren of information at Lord Discogs. Last.fm does provide a bit more background, touching on her prior influences (violinist, choir, traditional classical) and some dabbling in contemporary genres (d’n’b, ambient, noisy experiments). T’was not long before she found kinship with dark ambient sorts though, soon enough making her debut on Cryo Chamber in the collaborative album Earth Songs. A short while later, Ms. Cats made her solo debut with this particular album, Lost Here, one of the few records on this label to have so much white in its cover art. Ooh, contrasts!

The titular opener features field recordings of flowing water and open spaces, all the while a rather calm and reflective pad tone drones in support. Hey, wait, didn’t the last ambient album I reviewed (The Longing Daylight) also open in a similar fashion? In what must be attributed to complete coincidence considering the disparate musical worlds between Mr. Norris and Ms. Cats, absolutely yes! Still, I’m always intrigued by common links within genres, so that was a cute coincidence to behold with my listening arrangement.

Similarities end there though, Lost Here much more vivid in the portrait it paints – it really does feel like I’m wandering about an empty area, alone with my thoughts. An abandoned city? The rubble of ancient ruins? A foggy seaside beach? Who’s to say, but there’s something strangely comforting about the tones ProtoU guides you along. They’re spacious, but never so empty you feel lost in desolation. Final tracks The Sea and Believe even offer hopeful tones, inching closer to the reflective nature of ambient-proper, though with a layer of gritty soot in this case. Lost Here isn’t reinventing any wheels, but should serve as an easy entry point for those looking to dip their toes into dark ambient’s opaque waters.

Dronny Darko & protoU - Earth Songs

Cryo Chamber: 2015

I find dark ambient’s at its best when it provides a narrative, a musical sequence of mood, atmosphere and tone akin to an audio novel or documentary. Okay, so I think all music is best served as such, but this genre seems tailor-made for it. Catchy earworms? Shuffle-tastic beats? Sing-along lyrics? Get out of here with such foolish diversions, we’ve a tale to tell, and have no need of dance numbers and staged musical distractions. Not when there’s outworld realms to explore, frigid tundra to trek, sojourns of the psyche to survey, occult rituals to observe, and ruined societies to unearth. Or, in the case of this collaboration between Dronny Darko and protoU, telling nothing less than the entire history of the universe! Talk of ambition.

I’m not even kidding. Earth Songs contains seven tracks, each demarcated by an approximate date of setting within this narrative. The opener is Explosion (13.8 billion years ago), because if your scope is all of Earth’s existence, you may as well start at the beginning of everything. No planet, no congealed mass of space rocks and dust orbiting a hot, young star, not even a molecular cloud or stellar nursery drifting in a galaxy. We’re at a time when the very elements of the cosmos were still being crafted, the building blocks of all that we see and interact with finding its form. The music, such as it is, sounds rather like the droning ambience of a science show describing such a scene, or the weird landforms that Dave Bowman flew over after the trippy light show was done.

Since nothing much else happens in the development of Earth for a very, very long time, track two time-jumps some ten-billion years to Life Beneath The Surface (3.8 billion years ago). Not only do we now have a planet, but stirrings of cognizant chemical reactions too! In something of a departure from Cryo Chamber’s typical bleak drone, this track is rather calm and soothing, ambient in its more traditional sense. It paints a promising, humble beginning for these songs of Earth, of unlimited potential. What’s with those sounds of footsteps though? Is some future explorer actually present? Aliens? Also, I’m not sure how scientifically accurate Darko and ‘U are being, considering next track, Riparian Forest (300 million years ago), has samples of song birds. I’m almost certain such animals didn’t exist that far back.

Desolate, ash-strewn Extinction (66 million years ago) is self-explanatory, almost a requisite track in this sort of album. Shortly after (astronomically speaking), we have Primate (50 million years ago), a bit more melodic and hopeful in tone, though definitely with an ominous edge to it. Something must have happened along the way, for we have Singularity (2045 AD) next, followed upon by Leaving Earth (2135 AD), as bleak of sci-fi drone as you’ll likely hear that’s not on a Sabled Sun album. Wait…, 2135… 2145… Oh my God, Earth Songs just might be a Sabled Sun prequel! (probably not)