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DARK MUSE: Sounds from Beyond the Silver Wheel Release Year: 2002 Format: CD Tracklist: 1: Queen of the World of Spirits 10:10 Total Length: 59:34 min General Facts: Dark Muse is the project of Phyll Smith, an accomplished jewelry maker who is also into photography. The project was started in the summer of 2000 and the first album release came roughly half a year later, named Somber Antenna. After having doing some more underground activity including shows and MP3.com activitity with the project, Fossil Dungeon offered to release Dark Muse's first officially distributed album, which is the one reviewed here. It is limited to 1000 copies on multipanel digi-pack. Review: Every once in a while, I find a need to distance myself from the often very sterile realms of obtuse Dark Ambient and tense Noise to seek out something more 'beautiful'. Not that there isn't beauty in the extreme music, yet the perspective as to why it is beautiful I think is lost when it is just sounding ordinary due to one hearing it too much. On the contrary, the same reasoning - being that of 'variety' - can also be utilised when it comes to music of more euphonious beauty and I at least think that contrasts paints the clearest pictures, though one never must forget the whole of course. Sounds from Beyond the Silver Wheel arrived at such a moment as mentioned in the beginning. It is a experiment in atmospheric soundscapes, ranging from ethereal to more darkly oriented ones. It shares some simililarities to Aghast's one and only album, yet it it isn't nearly as wicked as Hexerei. Dark Muse's music is instead more dreamy, misty and extremly soothing with its gentle caress of serene veils of celestial ambience. Unlike many of today's Dark Ambient albums, Phyll has - just like Aghast once did - chosen to included vocals and lyrics in her music and perhaps it is here that I see the biggest similarity between the two projects. Lyrically these projects are miles apart however, as are there great differences between Nacht's decadent voice and Phyll's more sweet. Phyll's lyrics are more rooted in romantic / melancholic themes. Especially in Once Amid a Dream, listening to the vocals over the beautiful backfrop is a very soothing and relaxing experience. The music is sweet like the morning dew after a silvery fullmoon night. Sometimes the music takes on an approach that is more similar to Necrophorus/raison d'être or Alio Die, utilising ringing drones along with echoing low metal sounds, one example is the mesmerising Silver Wheel Flow. It is quite rare to find Dark Ambient with a slightly more 'feminine' approach these days, which is a shame. Yet this is one of the most beautiful debut Dark Ambient albums I have heard lately. I urge you to check it out if you are into this kind of music. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ - Click here to contact Dark Muse - Click here to enter Dark Muse's website |
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