Every year we do look out for the newest effort within the Lovecraft-inspired set by the Cryo Chamber Collaboration series. …at least, I do… Each time, the sonic experience focuses on one specific aspect, one singular entity within the mighty Lovecraft mythos. The Cryo Chamber label presented us the narratives of Shub-Niggurath, Tsathoggua, Azathoth, Hastur, Nyarlathotep and others before.
Well, this newest soundtrack deals with Ithaqua, which might be a lesser known demigod, yet still being one of the (legendary) Great Old Ones. Ithaqua is a red-eyed, man-shaped giant who wanders about the Arctic lands, menacing the Northern folks, terrorizing them with agonizing torture and unscrupulous menace. And his existence in the coldest region of our planet’s northern hemisphere acts as a pure sonic basement for the sonic content of this album.
Once again, and I will repeat it time after time, this is not a compilation or split album whatsoever. Cryo Chamber Collaboration is a musical collective, a mutual effort of same-minded artists, a collaborative with / by international Dark Ambient artist that are closely related to the huge Cryo Chamber family. I will come back immediately to the collaborating artists on this newest chapter (some of them being part of the series more than once before).
Ithaqua is available digitally, of course, but once again there’s a physical edition too. It’s a sixteen-page deluxe hard-cover double compact disc with, and I quote, ‘silky smooth high quality matte laminated pages’ making ‘the colors deep and preserved’. Once more, the visual art is courtesy by Simon Heath, Cryo Chamber’s CEO, and also ‘once more’ is the textual poetry, the ‘journal’, created by Alistair Rennie.
This twelfth instalment lasts for about 111 minutes and got created by not less than nineteen projects that are closely related to the Cryo Chamber community; in order of appearance: Council Of Nine, Northumbria, Alphaxone, Atrium Carceri, Skrika, RNGMNN, Ruptured World, Neizvestija, Planet Supreme, Keosz, Dronny Darko, ProtoU, Gydja, Ugasanie, Burma Project, Primal Era Worship, Sjellos, SiJ, and Kristof Bathory. In an organically fluent way, their collaborations float over into each-other, resulting in one huge, cohesive, all-encompassing, even wholesome sonic adventure.
The whole adventure is like a unique travel through aural dimensions both trusted and previously unexplored. The projects involved add their trademark with honesty, pride and craftsmanship, resulting in a magisterial opus that trespasses the borders of Ambient Music in all means. It would be a waste of time, of energy, and of comprehension, to analyze the whole package individually. Those trusted with the aforementioned projects know what to expect, I’m sure.
But let’s get a little deeper, because, well… After many CCC-collaborations, it might not obvious this effort to be, and to feel, so evident to continue that fabulous path of awe and reverence. Yet still… Once again the Cryo Chamber family did succeed to compose another splendid, unconditionally well-balanced experience. It’s going through spheres of Dark Drone, Cinematic Ambient, Film Noir Music, Occult and Ritual Ambient, elements from Post-Industrial, Psybient, Doom Ambient, and so on. And seen the coherent yet extremely diverse expansion, Ithaqua has become - totally in the vein of the former Cryo Chamber Collaboration efforts - a hugely captivating and mind-enriching auditive experience. Passages of enlightenment interact with chapters of utter darkness; long-stretched waves of dreamlike tranquility get transformed into fragments of ritualistic obscurity; martial segments communicate well with transcendental particles of serenity or admission; thundering drones get interchanged with hypnotic textures; gruesome electronic segments intercommunicate with floating parts of introspection and intermission.
This album is more than a sum of individual contributions. It’s a monumental work that touches, and trespasses, the boundaries of Ambient Music in many aural form(at)s. It is far more than a sampler or compilation of projects related to the label, because it is all about a huge aural voyage towards the imaginary worlds of Lovecraftian extraordinary elegance. …monumental…
https://cryochamber.bandcamp.com/album/ithaqua
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/cryo-chamber-collaboration
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/cryo-chamber-collaboration-0