Short introduction… ElectronicDeathBlackDogs, aka Electronic Death Black Dogs, are a productive project from Scotland, UK, run by Roddy Graham. Once again, Roddy wrote and performed everything himself, and he took care of the production too. The mastering duties were done by the label, Ontario-based Dark Odyssey Records, and so is the artwork; the latter being an ominous female figure at an apocalyptic background, a vision of burning filth, desire, ruination and celebration (yes, all in once!) fronted by a darkened silhouette.
This entity represents Hecate, or Hekate, an ancient, sometimes tripled-bodied goddess (from Greek mythology) who got, and still gets, associated with witchcraft, the balance of light and darkness (as well as Life and Death, a trespassing that requires guidance by Hekate, being a Holder of the Key), crossroads (an important metaphysical approach, referring to opportunities and choices, as far as I am concerned, and connected to the aforementioned Life-Death equilibrium), the Moon and the Anima Mundi. Fire (torches) was a symbol inseparably related to her divine existence, hence the cover artistry.
Cthonia, referring to the spiritual guidance of the Underworld, is a forty-seven-minutes soundtrack though the Netherworlds where Hecate, as Chthonian entity, resides. It ‘follows the listener into the dim glow of her lantern, where reality thins and the familiar dissolves’. The album is an emphasizing invocation, a reflective representation of a descent into these worlds, dimensions, areas, beyond and beneath our surface, behind portals that purport no escape, no return, no redemption. All eight chapters narrate about the stories behind these gates, about souls being confronted with that symbolic crossroad, an option for choice, which path to continue. It’s there where Hekate awaits the wandering spirit…
Short but succinct delineation… This soundtrack, divided into eight individual yet cohesively related chapters, defines the aforementioned post-existential descent into the realms where the shape of shadows elongates, in aural form. It means that Cthonia is the score of that journey into darkness, oblivion, void. As from Gateway, one gets overwhelmed by a deep, oppressive sonic experience. Eerie and ghastly drones, industrial statures and hypnotic waves-of-sound morph into, and towards, an uncomfortable, uncertain encounter. Percussive samples, seemingly haunted voices, and both monochrome and reverberating tunes cover this anti-harmonious structures with a sense of discomfort, unease, anxiety and agony; of awe and reverence too. Like permanently expanding, then again withering sound-sculpting, this album continuously focuses on this almost asphyxiating sensation, through an exorbitant equilibrium of bleak Dark Ambient and Industrial-injected Drone. The abyss-risen ‘melodies’ are penetrated with these many subtle sound-injections, sometimes mechanical and hybrid in nature, then again done with drum beats or field-recorded elements, semi-orchestral passages or enthralling mysterious escapes. It results in a mostly Lovecraftian atmosphere, if you want to, that identifies this dystopic and evoking work.
As said, this obscure octaptych consists of cohesive compositions, yet all of them have their very own character. It fortifies the captivating capacity of each single section, resulting in a(nother) remarkable listening event.
(PS: a review on The Bornless One will follow soon[er or later])
https://darkodysseyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/cthonia
https://electronicdeathblackdogs.bandcamp.com/
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/chaigidel
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/dark-awake-0