Shrine - Nihil

A certain element of tragedy presents in the life of many people. Ancient Greeks understood perfectly that it is a very important part of human existence, kind of a pressure relief valve or ventilation for the soul, a catharsis (emotional cleansing) or healing for the person through his experience. Tragedy can be even more important for the highly intellectual creature because sometimes its path can be really close to death when one can feel its suffocating breath on his distorted, agonizing face, when it seems that everything is already lost and there is nowhere to escape from the eternal suffering. One of the practices to survive this misery is to transform the energy of tragedy into some other form, to lead it into the channel that will absorb at least the part of it, which will be able to give an opportunity to think it against the background of accumulated experience.

Hristo Gospodinov, a Bulgarian resident of dark ambient scene, finds his channel for the personal tragedy inside his new album called "Nihil" where the listener is transferred into the world of nihilism and Freudian death instincts as a logical conclusion of some heavy forms of sensual drama. As soon as perfect drama always happens inside a highly developed, "great person" (Aristotle "Poetics") it usually involves such players like pity and fear multiplied on a deepest sense of guilt. That's why when the artist decides to manipulate with such strong emotions the result must be highly structural and bombastic in the same package.

And indeed, if you take "Nihil" for a closer listen, especially during a long autumn walk shrouded in a cloak of fog and monotonous rain, you will definitely hear the whole gorgeousness of this creation. Hristo opens the record with the "Shadow Puppets" and the listener is thrown into the storm of feelings without any foreplay. A very oppressive basic melody circles around me while lots of almost chaotic effects fill the air together with it. One of the most significant elements is a heavy scratching noise that implements a strong dynamic effect to the music, rising and fading constantly with many other mechanic pulses, creating a kind of a swallowing vortex. The sound system stays dynamic in the following composition "Scrinivm" where walls of different structures morph tirelessly alongside with a solemn background.

Instead of being a conductor of relief for negative energy, "Nihil" becomes its amplifier enhancing the effect of loneliness and sorrow. The third composition "Carnal Euphoria" proves the point when it opens wide the gate to endless melancholy charged by an airy melody and fractals of cold wind and stinging ice crumbs piercing the very depth of a suffering heart. It's beyond doubt that one of the most important elements of an ultimate tragedy is punishment and "Hellfire" appears just right in time to drag me into the pit full of demons. But even countless hell hounds cannot compare with the demons inside of a torturing soul when a hundred voices whisper words of anger and hatred, hypnotizing, petrifying the will, setting on the path of no return. Indeed said "Nomen illis legio" ("My name is Legion", Gospel of Luke 8:30) and maybe the only escape from the fire that devours a frail mortal shell is to kneel before "Paradise". A celestial pulsating melody forces to hold up the breath and listen eagerly to the voice of heaven before fading away into nothingness or so called "Nihil". This long composition converts the music to be even more atmospheric carrying the soul towards its reincarnation using a strong, a little bit harsh sound as a tool of spiritual manipulation.

The painful path of self-dissection approaches its logical end in "Disintegration of an Ego". This track appears to be much calmer than all previous highly multilayered compositions while my conscious is being carried by slow waters of Styx. This dark river of the Ancient Greek mythology can fit perfectly into a possible description of the process when everything loses its meaning, everything perishes without remains, when even your psychiatrist says that maybe life is not for everyone, and the only thing that matters is a malicious smirk of your last companion Charon.

If you look for a story with a happy end, this is definitely not the case. Yet, when the last tunes of "Nihil" fade away, the deep feeling of desperation still remains and even becomes much stronger due to the dark power brought by Hristo out of his intimate tragedy. I am sure that the record is totally not for public listening; it is that kind of music which has to be lived through in complete solitude. This is a sonic journey for lonely nights when the heart is frozen and full of bitter loss. Therefore, be strong my friend and embrace "Nihil" as the last friend that you have in this cruel world.
Jun 22 2014