Netherworld: Kall—The Abyss Where Dreams Fall
.Angle.Rec. / Mondes Elliptiques

Though Alessandro Tedeschi manages the Glacial Movements label, Kall—The Abyss Where Dreams Fall is supposedly the first official CD production of his Netherworld project (assorted CD-Rs have preceded it). The material makes good on the title's promise: the CD's four tracks definitely drag the listener below ground for a journey into an ice-cold heart of darkness. “Kall Part I” starts the descent by burrowing deep into cavernous dungeons and grows increasingly gloomier as a muffled pound rumbles and monstrous whooshes exhale. The material would feel bereft of humanity were it not for the faint echo of a soft, anguished moan. The slow clanking rhythm that inaugurates “Kall Part II” suggests a wounded colossus dragging itself along wet ground, while the rattles and creaks sound like vestigial traces of a hidden torture chamber. Sirens howl and chains rattle during the even more merciless “Kall Part III” followed by violent metallic shrieks that slice through the center of the twenty-one-minute setting. A relative degree of calm characterizes “Kall Part IV” though even here ghostly rumbles and shudders hint that the spectre is merely rejuvenating itself in preparation for the next assault. It should be obvious by now that Kall—The Abyss Where Dreams Fall presents a nightmarish sound world that has as much in common (if not more) with “dark ambient” sound-sculptors such as Formication as it does the “isolationist ambient” style associated with the Glacial Movements imprint.

June 2009