Aural Hypnox - Underworld Transmissions I [Aural Hypnox - 2014]From February 2014 this C20 cassette release offers up two moody ‘n’ chilling ritual séance from members of the mysterious Finish Helixes/Aural Hypnox collective. The recordings were apparently captured in a subterranean lodge located in Oulu, Northern Ostrobothnia….and I guess it’s best to describe what have here as drifting & seemingly improvised journey into eerier ritual ambience. The release comes in a slight oversized brown cardboard tape box, which feature a cut out front cover in where you can see the inlay booklet through. The small booklet takes in a brown fold out art paper cover, which on it’s inside flaps features hand printed multi coloured ink spheres, and texts about the recordings. Then the inside of the booket takes in four pages of black printed riutal symbols on white parchment like paper. The release came in a edition of 50 copies On side A we have the track “Séance I / 2013 (November 2013)”, and this is centred around a dank /hovering ceremonial like organ drone sustain. Around this central texture we get swirling drifts ‘n’ ebbs of the following elements: various male vocal chants & calls to dark pray, brooding horn & pipe trails, and very subtle trails of static texturing. The whole thing feels very mystical, languid, and ritually tripped- out….bringing to mind strange Arabic tinged ceremonies taking place in the middle of a candle flicking & red moon lit desert.
Over on side B we have “Séance I / 2014 (January 2014)”. This track is built around a mixture of: brooding ‘n’ buzzing retro synth simmer, a chilling synth based melody line, and this billowing ‘n’ weaving pipe organ like texture. This track feels a lot more subterranean, earthy, and grimly doomy compared with the first track…and it has a very neat late 70’s/ early 80’s vibe, maybe bringing to mind the soundtrack to some gloomy & shakily filmed psychedelic horror movie…yet there’s still( of course) a very ritual air to the proceedings. On the whole I very much enjoyed this C20 tape, my only small criticism is I felt both tracks could have been twice their length, as by the time I’d fully & total drifting off into the tracks, the tape soon after clicked off…but I guess that is the down side with shorter releases. Anyway this well worth checking out if you dig very heady & eerier ritual ambience. Roger Batty
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