This is nothing short of perfect mood music for breaching the walls of reality. This is music for that dark hallway you have to walk down from time to time, every step an uncomfortable one. Feelings of unease and vague fear permeate both sides of this cassette. Sounds fall, trip up and collapse in on each other. Nothing is what it seems to be; everything changes in the darkness into the unfamiliar and alien.
This is the first of three planned collaborations between WM. Rage, Stan Reed and Matthew Waldron (this cassette will be followed at some point by an LP and a CD of all new material). Overall, the raw materials for these pieces sound like they have come from the boys in Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, but the construction of the music has Waldron’s signature all over it. Skeletal Imposition has more in common with older irr. app. (ext.) releases like Perekluchenie than with Waldron’s more recent albums, however.
“Skeletal Imposition Pt 1” is a fuzzy, grainy journey through the darker corners of sonic spectrum. Layers of dust clog up electronic noise, waves of sinister rhythms and blankets of unsettling drones give way to strange screams and moans, none of which sound like any living creature but perhaps something else that couls only be found in a story by H.P. Lovecraft or William Hope Hodgson. On the second part of “Skeletal Imposition,” a beast has arrived and guttural, animal vocals howl, trying to communicate across an unfathomable void. The sense of dread that I feel is very, very strong.
This is a terrifying record and a great introduction to this series of collaborations. This sort of dark mood music gets under my skin and leaves a powerful impression. It is not dark ambience; this is as far from that clichéd and dull genre as possible. I have only played this in daylight so far because I do not trust that I would be safe with it once the sun sets.
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