[review] HALO MANASH – Language of Red Goats
Posted: July 24, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »
I had a period where the only thing I listened to was ritualistic Ambient and anything that came close. I almost literally devoured anything I could find and came across many great artists and albums. The ones that struck me most were Halo Manash and all other Aural Hypnox related projects. While most ritual Ambient is focussed on tribal influences (Voice of Eye and Zero Kama, as an example) the projects on Aural Hypnox focus more on creating beatless atmospheres through intense and all-consuming soundscapes that suck you in. At first, most releases of Halo Manash were a mixture of electronic sounds, traditional instruments like guitars (heavily manipulated, of course) and the more onorthodox things like bells, gongs and flutes. Nowadays it almost seems that they’ve abandoned the use of traditional instruments and electronic sounds, and are purely focussing on the use of the latter instruments. This is something you don’t see very often and definitely gives them an even more ‘real’ vibe.
Language of Red Goats is minimal in the sense of the word. They’ve limited themselves on this release to the use of a gong, horns, bells and vocals. This proves to be highly effective. The atmosphere present on this release is strange and otherwordly. This is all because of it’s ultra minimal nature. It puts the listener, when listened to with full attention, in a state of trance because of the ‘rhythm’ that is repeating itself throughout the entire recording. The whole slowly evolves into a being that will slowly devour your consiousness until you are stripped bare of all that you once were. After the journey you wake up, refreshed and awakened. A soundtrack to rebirth, if you like.
There is not much to say here, besides the fact that is an album that defines ritual Ambient pretty much. Language of Red Goats is part of series of three CD’s that are in the same vein, but still differ quite a lot from eachother. I thought that Language of Red Goats was the best of the three. Essential for those into ritualistic music, less essential for those who are looking for easy listening and ‘entertainment’.
Please support this artist and buy the album here: http://auralhypnox.com/
