Emme Ya - Chthonic Transmission (Abysmi Vel Daath)

I turned out the lights and settled into the Dragon Asana, lighting a stick of Japanese incense that I'd been saving from a temple in southern Kansai province. I was really looking forward to immersing myself in this album. It had been delivered to me along with a very professional press kit, which included the following cryptic description of the album's inspiration:

"The album itself is an Alchemical process, in which I am descending and ascending, in a series of ritual visualisations under the veil of daath, being all such 6 stages of personal spheres of transmutative inner magickal paradigms, which are just part of the development of my own personalities, sexual feminine energies evoked and transmuted, with the sole purpose to transcend this existential reality in which I am submerged. Trying to explore in the sea of nothingness, searching my own inner light of self-creative power. Transforming, mutating, developing. Once again and again in a giant cosmic ouroborus - entering my parallel worlds eternally"

I sat back and eased into the first track, "The Vortex Ov Primigenian Sun". Immediately a haunted, beastly voice echoed as though rising from a giant chasm before me. I instantly understood the intent - on the Qabalistic tree of life, daath is the illusory 11th Sephirah (or sphere), lying directly across the Abyss which separates the higher emanations from their more material manifestations below. This menacing voice was rising from that place, the point of no return where to cross that Abyss is to sacrifice everything that you ever were.

At this stage I was really enjoying the music. Well crafted Dark Ambient, punctuated by temple bells and droning washes of sound. My biggest criticism is that it is perhaps a bit too repetitive.

The title track "Chthonic Transmission (Abysmi Vel Daath)" expands upon the theme of ascending and descending, with a correspondingly subterranean feel. Again there is a heavily processed ritualistic voice, but this time it grates on me. The ambiences behind it seem repetitive and somewhat uninspired. I really think that dark ambient needs more evolution than this; it just has little to keep me interested after a while.

"The Light That Is Not (Consecration Rite)" is better - it's almost a twisted symphonic piece, with a brooding string section balancing tremolo violins with harsh scraping sounds. I'd liken it to Hans Zimmer's score to the Hannibal soundtrack, I could best describe it as arcane beauty punctuated by a mounting sense of horror.

I don't mind this album, but there's a few things that would prevent me from placing it amongst the dark ambient albums that I regularly listen to. For starters, my biggest criticism is that within the tracks, there doesn't appear to be enough of an evolution of the themes. Hearing samples repeated too many times just kills it for me. Another criticism is the actual sonic texture itself - it seems to lack any punctuation in the higher or lower frequencies. This tends to make the whole thing sound a bit muddy, especially given the waves of reverb that permeate the sound.

That being said, I think that the concept behind the album is very interesting, and in many ways the music is well crafted. Jul 28 2013