Various - May The Plague Be With You... mp3 album

A very good 'triple slice' of dark ambient this, the first track is the most reminiscent of a 'warning' with high frequency repetition intruding on a dark rhythmic cascade. Track 2 is similar in some ways to Klaus Schulze's Timewind with regular white noise sleeting and string-like colour strokes. Track 3 is probably the lightest with lots of high frequency information tinkling in and out of the mix rather like Brian Eno's Shutov Assembly set. Again you cannot go wrong with this as the download was free!

Tumbling downwards. A creaking decent into a cold vast cavern. The sounds follow and echo themselves around-through the circle. The so-fat so-huge so-at-a-loss-for-words grinding machine. Its turning wheels do not flinch as their mathematical precision run through your body. The oscillations are too much as your body separates into pieces each time a fraction of the one previous. Each shape echoes the previous. Each group echoes the whole. Each cut each separation is at a point so precise we are talking subatomic. Now that your body is in pieces, it has somehow retained its shape. Energy leaks and bubbles upwards through the partitions. Downloading complete. Have a nice day.

Belgium's newly founded label, Plague Recordings, has brought to us one incredible dark ambient sounding release. The packaging alone, this is a strictly hand numbered release, is unique. I sat there for a few minutes trying to figure out how to open the CD without breaking the seal that has the hand written number (my copy is #33/69). Just for a moment, I felt like the primates in the beginning of Kubrick's 2001: Space Odyssey baffled by the black monolith. For the last week I've put this CD on before going to bed and find myself falling asleep about halfway through track #2. Track#2 makes me feel like I'm at some futuristic subway preparing to board a sleek train. Last night, I put on track #3 first for a change. This track has icy sounds that are suitable for the current cold weather. I suddenly felt my body temperature drop about 10 degrees due to these strange frigid sounds. For me, track#1 is the stand out with its opening eerie sounds, conjuring up some form of metallic beast. These sounds signal the start of an incredible journey through an ambient labyrinth. After 69 minutes of soothing beat-less sound-scapes, I find myself in deep sleep. Good night.

Plague Recordings gets off to an excellent start with "May The Plague Be With You". Its approach is dark ambient with a minimal bent but whose scope and power are real and evocative. The peaks and valleys of the composions are both soothing and emotionally lifting. The album features a sense of quiet determination, which is an excellent classic quality to have on a label's very first release. Anyone into minimal, experimental, ambient will love this album from start to finish. A truly fine 1st release which I would recommend.