Artist: Ka’Bael
Title: Mourning In A Twilight Age
Type: Album
Label: Digital
I think that it w from ould be fair to describe the latest album from Orlando based project Ka’Bael as old school dungeon synth, very much in the ‘take one synth and play it’ mode (here a Yamaha PSR-E383). This is certainly no criticism, nor is it intended to imply something that it stuck in its ways; quite the reverse in fact – this is to highlight the creativity and flight of fantasy required to weave something vibrant and intriguing with such self imposed restrictions. Dungeon synth’s very own haiku method in a way.
‘Entering A Twilight Age’ heralds this approach with a simple but gate opening sound; rich chords, slow and sedate rise and fall and a gentle melody threads its way through, to the top. The feeling is most certainly revelatory, your first steps in this land and to be greeted by something suggesting that this is a fading grandeur, that you are almost seeing the ghost of what once was.
‘Beneath An Ill Omen’ as a title lends its emphasis to the simple, deep note pulsing out of the shadows as trumpets follow the feeling of the slow descending of ill will. They still and there is a sparse and persistent crawl of sound. Is it lurking, moving beneath our feet, or is it in fact rising as we stare, frightened by the prophecies? Time, alas will not only tell but be of no help. ‘Under Crying Skies’ We Weep For A Lost Age’ probably the answer. Dark and beyond simply sombre, a melody of deep lament with a curious rhythm turns and twists with regret.
‘Fall Of The Last Refuge’ is the darkest of ambient. A slow menacing drone of synth and bleak shadow. I am immediatley brought to thinking of William Hope Hodgeson’s incredible, out of its time epic ‘The Night Land’ (if you haven’t read it, correct that – though even for 1914 the language used is painfully faux archaic it resonates with unimaginable horror and motives beyond human comprehension in a world brought to horrible life). A bell tolls but if there is anyone beyond the ringer to hear is unknown. Bleak, empty and blanketing us in despair it is marvellous in its futility and pain.
We hide from ‘Shattered Sky Horrors’, reduced to timorous vermin beneath a crackling cover. It passes but the the melody of relief is tinged with fear somehow. Things always return, and they do, louder, heavier, darker and swirling with chaos.
‘Harrowed By Bleeding Stars’ gives no respite from the seeming cosmic horror cracking apart the world. Dark synth waves fill the space as sharper chaotic melody and edged sounds crackle across it. It leaves ‘Ruined Cities Unmourned By Time’. The ghost echoes of fading trumpets clinging to broken stone and fallen archways. The short bursts of energy to the music seem to me to accentuate the idea of a broken place; you can feel what was once here but the music doesn’t rise and flow instead it is the cracking of the sound it once made, broken but still magnificent yet with no one to observe. Things come, things go, nothing made is forever.
‘Withering Beneath The Gaze Of Unholy Abomination’ is the inverse of the Imperial entrance. No one approaches, no one is feted. It is a simple, grim pulse, and observance of things moving beneath it for which it has little interest and no concern.
Finally it is ‘Entering The Twilight Graveyard’, a strangely, darkly beautiful sweep of grey cloth and cobwebs in the form of the melancholy synths. There is a deep beauty here though; there always is in the memory of loss. What was slowly dances with what has become of the place without it. Memory and funeral, synth sweep and organ sounds finding their steps and embracing for a last time.
I love music that, to steal a phrase ‘makes spirals in our mind’. This album by Ka’Bael is a simple moment of beauty. It takes the yard of the warp and the weft, simple things, and yet the weave is so full of vibrant colour and emotion. Dungeon synth created within a simple structure and painted with wonder and imagination.
Wonderful stuff.
Gizmo
https://kabael.bandcamp.com/album/mourning-in-a-twilight-age
Walking The Liminal Space 