Released by: Self-financed
Release year: 2002
Tracklist
1: A Tame Heart in Cold Winter 17:21
2: Horbehutet 09:12
3: A Body Flees While a Mind is Imprisoned 06:10
4: Reluctant Memories of Conquest 06:28
5: Arise With Me in the Morning 04:19
Total Length: 43:30
General Facts:
Life Toward Twilight is a Dark Ambient project of Daniel Tuttle, who is also active in the Orchestral/Industrial band Ogun's Will. Catayo comes with a story based on the music, written by an author named Elayne Safir. You must have internet access to take part of it though.
Review:
It is not always one receives a story along with a CD and even when one does, it isn't always certain that it will be a good one. When it comes to Catayo though, I'm glad to say that I was left with a very positive opinion after having read the words, specially written for this release by Elayne Safir. It deals with dream as far as I understand but I also sense that there's a message - perhaps concerning escape from the modern, material world - confined within.
But let us not stick to much to the story; there is also a musical side of this CD which must not be forgotten. The first track clearly defines which genre Life Toward Twilight is moving within on this release. This is traditional Dark Ambient, mostly composed of drones, slow rhythm sounds, and samples entwined together in quite grim and bleak soundtextures. It has a quite discrete approach and it works perfectly as background music while reading occult, esoteric or horror litterature etc. Catayo makes me visualise haunted moors, eerie forests and newly uncovered catacombs. It has a very mystical approach for sure that seems to appeal to the midnight side of the human psyche.
I think the mesmerising Horbehutet is one of the highlights of this CD. It is composed of some very deep, oscillating drones that supposedly were mostly created from the voice of the composer. It almost feels as if the sounds are imitating the sweeping movement of the Aurora Borealis.
I wouldn't be surprised if this project is picked up by some label soon, otherwise it would be a shame since Catayo is a nice debut album.
Go to Life Toward Twilight's website if you are interested in ordering this CD. It costs $8.00 (includes shipping).
Ectonaut
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Five questions to Life Toward Twilight.
ECTONAUT: Please introduce your project to the Ortus Obscurum readers. For how long have you been doing this and for what reason?
DANIEL: Life Toward Twilight is a project I started working a few years ago. It was initially just some experimentation with sounds on a very primitive level. It filled a need for me that really wasn't being met in the music project I had been focusing the bulk of my attention. The band I spent most of my time working with, Ogun's Will, is a very lush, heavy and orchestrated industrial product. I wanted to create something much more restrained, and something that appealed to a more sensitive and poetic side.
Life Toward Twilight is, so far, largely inspired by dreams. The direction I'm heading is more about being awake.
ECTONAUT: Tell us something about the tracks on the reviewed release. Did you work with specific methods when you composed them? Is there a concept behind this release or anything else interesting that you think we should know about this release?
DANIEL: Catayo is about a very specific, re-occuring dream I've had for years. I assembled the tracks over a period of about 6 months. I have a great deal of information regarding the CD at http://ltt.bottle-imp.com/catayo
I tried combining a lot of orchestral and industrial themed samples. A lot of the weird sampling is actually from my voice, particularly on the track Horbehutet. The album is designed to be a background ambience, and it was released with a story that was written by a fantastic writer I met, Elayne Safir. Elayne did a wonderful job of interpreting the sounds and themes of the recording and putting a story behind it.
ECTONAUT: How would you describe your music yo completely new listeners? Do you feel that your project belongs to a certain genre? Are there any bands that you think you can relate to soundwise and conceptwise?
DANIEL: The CD, Catayo is background music for a disturbing dream about escape. It definately fits in the Dark Ambient category. Life Toward Twilight' as a whole varies a bit outside of ambient, but it's all moody material. Each period of music I have with this project marks it's sound by the music I was listening to at the time. Overall, I draw a lot of influences from Shinjuku Thief, Current 93, Coil and Dead Voices on Air. While Life Toward Twilight doesn't sound identical to these projects, I think the influence their music has on me definately reflects.
ECTONAUT: What is most important in music according to you? How do you define quality music and what are your musical influences?
DANIEL: Production is just as important as composition. I don't mean this in the "needs to be as high fidelity as possible!" sort of way, though. I simply mean, context of the music is important. Someone might write a really good song, but if it has no real context, I get little out of it.
I love high contrast imagery. I love the mixing of grating and soothing, or the mixing of beauty and ugliness.
And vocals aren't incredibly important to me. I have reached a point where I can't listen to a vocalist if I find their lyrics to be worthless.
ECTONAUT: What plans do you have for the future? Are there any new releases planned? Anything else you would like to add?
DANIEL: Right now I'm working on an album which will be a lot more orchestrated and melodic. It may even have some vocal contributions from some incredibly talented vocalists. This is still up in the air. I've also been working with another musician on some more Noise oriented material. We are doing this mostly to perform live, so I'm not sure there will be any releases with this project.
"DO NOT ADJUST YOUR MIND: IT IS REALITY THAT IS MALFUNCTIONING "
-Robert Anton Wilson.
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- Click here to enter the Life Towards Twilight website
- Click here to contact Daniel