Description
M87 are a mysterious dark ambient drone outfit on the same label as Benighted Leams, Contra Ignem Fatuum, Drudkh, and Meads Of Asphodel. That alone should have you pretty psyched to see what sort of weirdness these guys conjure up. We’d be tempted to say M87 are an anomaly in Supernal’s predominantly black metal roster, but some of our favorite releases on Supernal were on the ambient side of things, the weird medieval drones of Dark Ages and the crumbling pummeling SUNNO)))-like dirge of Fall Of The Grey Winged One. M87 are a much blissier affair. An outer space drift that hovers and floats, wide open expanses of shimmering static hum and glistening effervescence. The liner notes proclaim “There are no keyboards or guitar synthesizers on this disc” so we can only assume this is ALL guitar, which makes it even more impressive. Released way back in 1999, and only now finally making it to the AQ list, M87 definitely explores similar sonic territory as Fennesz, Ambarchi, Tim Hecker, Dean Roberts and the like. The opening track is a thick static blur, like standing in the middle of a busy train station, the sound of the people, and the trains and the spaces cavernous reverb building into a massive swirling whir. This dense proto industrialism surfaces elsewhere on the record, each time, adding more to the mix, buried clangs, or muted melodies, but these caustic sonic clouds are just interludes, long ones granted, drifting darkly and offering an aggressive contrast to the rest of the record’s serene and beautiful soundscapes. Warm, rich, dark, dreamlike, ominous, otherworldly, each track, like some exploration of a barren alien planet, or some mysterious abandoned city, a series of abstract isolationist drones, whose textures and melodies, which once existed, have now melted, spreading out into thick pools of shimmering sound, each offering a twisting distorted reflection of the haunting world beyond. The concept behind this album is the galaxies MH (Lagoon Nebula), NGC 7538, NGC 6726/27 and Arcturus. Did you know there was an ‘Encyclopedia Of Electronic Music’. I checked this band there and they belong to a category called ‘Black Space (also known as Dark Space)’. The encyclopedia says ‘If you’ve heard Zeit by Tangerine Dream, you know the essence of this music, although this was made long before the term was coined. Or take the atmospheric moments of Phaedra as an example. This is basically Dark Ambient on space themes. Echoing, dark synths, bubbling effects, incorporating space ambiences like signals from celestial objects, noisy transmissions from spacecrafts, etc. Makes you feel as if you’re on a desolate spaceship orbiting a planet in the darkest region of space. At other times sounds as if you are locked inside the engine room of an UFO. Or as if you are staring at the night sky in awe. Or as if you’re looking inside Darth Vader’s dark soul. Ok, enough imagery, Black Space is the sound of space itself. Doesn’t it sound interesting ?
Track list:
1. Mu Cephel
2. M8
3. NGC 7538
4. Arcturus OQ172
5. OQ172
6. P Cygnl
7. NGC 6726/27