Ominous Sounds is a young label from Iberian soil, run by Hiemis chieftain Juan Carlos Toledo, and specialized in the more ritualistic niche of Dark Ambient material and related Music. Beside releases from ‘individual’ projects (Monotone Murk, Rune Clausen, Altum), the label also focuses on compiled releases, i.e. so-called ‘various artists’ albums, compilations with projects that sort of wander around in comparable dimensions of archaic ritualism. Rituals From Ancient Europe (February 2024) and Rituals From The Ancient World (February 2025) gathered some of the finest names from the international scene (think: Ens Imperfectissimum, Hiemis, Ashtoreth, Alphaxone, Vrna, The Black Monolith and many more).
Ancestral Rites is the third part; this time collecting seven great artists / projects from our beloved planet. Once again, the theme is based on ancient rituals, practices, ceremonies, rites and magic crafted by our ancestors. The transmission and prosecution of this knowledge characterized cultures and civilizations all over Mater Terra, often connected to Nature, the elements, and everything that connects the physical world with the spiritual universe. Ancestral magic plays an important role in the culture and identity of many communities, providing a sense of connection to their roots and traditions. The essence of (ancient) magic can be seen as a series of techniques that allow one to modify or improve reality, cure illnesses, or restore order [or] a complex system for understanding reality. [phrases in italic are quotes that I stole from the label]
The seven acts gathered as Ancestral Rites offer their definition of ancient magic rituals through aural canalization, exclusively created for / contributed to this album. It’s a strictly limited release (a six-panel digipack CD printed in an edition of only fifty copies, if I am not mistaken) with remarkable visual art: a mysterious figure kneeling before the ruin of a mighty tower in a desolate landscape, covered in a black-and-white color palette. …totally fitting to the concept, evidently… The very same goes for the inner visuals, with colorless drawings of mysterious nature, and including liner notes about ancient rites and magic.
The album opens with Aninka (05:34) by [ówt krì], an outfit by Kenneth Kovasin from Suomi, the Land of a Thousand Lakes. It starts in a shamanistic manner, with both harmonious vocals and throat singing, meditative noise-waves, eerie sound effects (samples included) and additional percussions. Also strings join, while the vocal lines evolve into a rather scarifying format. Accompanied by different sampled sounds, semi-acoustics and haunting synth lines, this sermon grows into a psyche-twisting, evocative piece. Aninka is energy, it is the canalization of spiritual strength and ritualistic erudition.
Gydja is a New Zealand based outfit by Abby Helasdottir, who’s also known a famous visual artist for so many albums within the Dark Ambient genre (and everything related, from Electronic Music over Industrial to Metal). Gydja contribute with Frá Jötna Rúnum (06:02), initially mixing different vocals (whispers and sighs), alienated noises and doomed synth-lines; an abundant scala of droning and industrial sounds, waves, beats and textures - echoing, abyssal, ghostly, militant and gloomy. It is like the auditive translation of mystic signs, of ancient knowledge’s design for earth’s existence.
Second Howl by Croatia’s TeHÔM lasts for six minutes and starts in a shamanic way as well: eerie and enigmatically pugnacious tunes mingled with evocative elements (multiple vocal lines involved). Step by step things turn darker, with long-stretched drones and hints of ceremonial sound-scaping, but the overall atmosphere remains dense, oppressing, desolate and naked in a sense of aural purity. A voice of Nature, the speech of hidden buoyancy…
Next comes Ukraine’s Ugasanie with Vargin’s Exile (06:59), a characteristic work of profound droning and bleak ambience. Here too, the ‘leading harmonies’, for what it’s worth, are injected by different well-thought and subtly-interwoven touches, like spectral tunes, industrial details, and bizarre, sometimes fractured, field-recorded elements (like a crying kid?). The addition of that deep narrating voice adds a level of cinematic obscurity.
Handalien (Brazil), Ancestor Flame is a lengthy piece (08:43), covered in an almost asphyxiating air. Alluding towards Ambient Noise Wall, this creation delves deep into the voids of both onerous sphere-sculpting and esoteric splendor. With reverberating calmth, this sonic embodiment of icy clouds hovers and levitates in its proper shades, uncompromising, dazing, reflective.
Unexpected Arrival Of The Primordial Entity (06:59) by Illinois-based outfit insectarium (Joel Hinkle) contributes with a harsher piece, balancing in between grim, arduous Dark Industrial finesse and murky flows of blackened Ambient. With Lovecraftian elegance, electronic noises and frigid rhythmics enrich the rough-edged and mechanoid approach. Uncompromising, harsh, merciless, unforeseen…
Ancestral Rites ends with Ancestral Elixir, an epic by Italy’s (Dani) Kloob. This track (06:59) stands for purest hypnosis, for levitation and introspection. It is a long-form piece, monotonous in nature but rich in content. The long-wave harmony is veiled in a nebula of haunting, obtrusive and secret additional sounds, a trespassing through dimensions of the Inner Eye, generated by an immaterial potion of Old Wisdom. A walling concept of ambient drone-sculpting and prudent vigor somehow…
I am impatiently waiting for February 2027, hehe…
https://ominousounds.bandcamp.com/album/ancestral-rites
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/various-artists-rituals-ancient-europe
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/hiemis