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Band: Monocube
Album title: Blue Dusk///Red Dawn
Release date: 15 December 2014
Label: Midira Records
Tracklist:
01. Blue Dusk
02. The Sun That Never Was
03. Red Dawn
04. Sea Salt
When it comes to dark ambient everything is different if compared with other stuff I usually review. Often you must be able to try entering the sick fantasy world of the artist behind the sound, often trying to decipher the vagueness of meditative soundscapes, to embrace the darkness itself, but only if the work permits it. Now, I'll close my eyes and hopefully this album with a very intriguing title will take me somewhere beyond the real world, into darkness.
Monocube is the first Ukrainian act producing this kind of art I've heard until now, the man who stands behind it and being the sole composer is Andrzej Gladuszewski and his compositions are not really something unique, we heard this kind or at least similar stuff many times before, but yet there's something exclusive lurking in this almost complete absence of light, there are shimmering flares in the distance trivially visible. The icy cold ambiance is similar to the one as we heard it on Northaunt's outcomes many times before, and the twisted sick dark minimalism reminds me of Taphephobia or Atrium Carceri, there's present also that particular ambient/drone segment that could be compared with something taken from In Slaughter Natives. Still, Monocube does provoke the listener with some kind of complexity, but most of the time with those vast horrific cinematic soundscapes sounds a bit too linear. Nevertheless, Blue Dusk///Red Dawn has enough density and subliminal noise in its core made by subtle bass vibrations and occasional strange sounds heard by an attentive ear.
The eleven minutes long opener "Blue Dusk" is a solid representative of glacial nordic ambiental music, but it doesn't let the listener explore vast lands, rather than that it encapsulates the one who dares to enter with its restrictions and throws you into the cellar of ice. The following one, "The Sun That Never Was", holds kind of a melancholy inside and is so terribly obscure, monothone and psychotic that you'll be begging for mercy. But "Red Dawn" doesn't come with it, yes, it's a bit more turbulent and diverse with all those endless moving sounds and noises, it has even kind of distant echoes of hope, a melody, but in the end is like being fooled by some perverse maniac whose intentions are... to throw you naked and wounded into the "Sea Salt". Now you are flying, pain is overwhelming, you can't feel it anymore... and the caressing melody that plays in your head is conjuring up the most beautiful images of light consumed by the darkness in the very end.
And so it goes, but after all we always wake up... for now... but look, what the heck is this artwork? The images in my head were something completely different, I haven't seen any half naked good looking ladies there, eh, I believe that this is just another one of those sick tricks by Andrzej who still leaves everything open to ones imagination. Monocube's Blue Dusk///Red Dawn is a good 39 minutes long effort, mostly done by manipulating guitar, field recordings, synths and alienated vocals conjuring up a twilight world. The artwork done by talented Ksenia Gladuszewska, together with music is meant to form kind of an artistical concept, even though I don't see any deeper connections, its intention is to illustrate human reflections in nature, architecture, music and art. Anyway, Blue Dusk///Red Dawn is a fine piece of dark ambient and it must be taken as one and those who are into the genre and like to be taken on such a grisly musical voyages across the darkest corners of human psyche will certainly know how to appreciate it.
Review written by: T.V.
Rating: 7,5/10
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