Harrogat - Sigillum
In the world of Dark Ambient music, listeners are taken on a whirlwind of imaginative journeys through the mind, where most of the action takes place in post-apocalyptic worlds, where humans are living off of the land and fighting for survival. The long droning soundscapes match the harrowing travels across desolate lands, looking for other survivors in order to make peaceful communities that will flourish in numbers. Although not always meant to have a positive outcome, Dark Ambient music gives the listener a means to cope with these situations in a seemingly virtual environment. However, for Harrogat’s latest release, ‘Sigillum’, I find myself drifting to a futuristic world, once ran by rabid machines, but suddenly abandoned, yet feared for an imminent return for a final invasion. Humans now seek shelter anywhere they can find before this total devastation occurs. The world is a cold, dark and quiet place. A small group of survivors stumble upon a cathedral with a mesmerizing seal (Sigillum) on the door and enter with the hopes to find solace. However, once they enter, they sense a demise of another kind. ‘Sigillum’ is quite short for a Dark Ambient album, clocking in at just thirty three minutes over six parts. However, these parts flow as a single track and provide a complete soundtrack for any chilling story the imagination can come up with. “I” begins with haunting keyboards that flow between deep sounds and lush drones, as if the worlds horizon is constantly colliding between daybreak and darkness. However, it’s apparent that darkness wins this encounter, as by the end of the track, the lush tones give way to destructive soundscapes. “II” is a short track, filled with beautiful keyboard tones that find the protagonist, peacefully walking the halls of the seemingly abandoned cathedral, in search of life, or at least a place to call home temporarily. However, as “II” fades into “III”, it is apparent that something is wrong and the group of survivors are not alone. There is another entity inside the cathedral, stalking them, without making the slightest sound. The music drones quietly and deeply at first and then adds layers of deep sounds, giving it an evil tone. As the sound thickens and grows deeper, the group of survivors come to a door with the same seal as on the outer door of the cathedral. As they inspect the seal, they realize, it’s an ancient artifact of calamity that represents malicious intent. “IV” has an eerie vibe and the drones dissolve in bizarre fashion as high-pitched soundscapes counteract the deep bass tones. As the group continues to inspect the seal, the door suddenly opens. It’s pitch black on the other side. Do they dare enter? As the distant drones of “V” make their way to the forefront, the group of survivors enter the dark room slowly and quietly. This ghostly track provides a path of sheer terror, as it contains a supernatural vibe and a horrific structure for the consistent flow of ethereal keyboard patterns. The door shuts behind the group of survivors and the room becomes pitch black. They crowd close together in agonizing terror as their final doom awaits them. The final track on the album, “VI” bestows a bleak, radiant sound that resonates from side to side, as the group of survivors suddenly sees a quick flash of light and then they all fall to the floor. The rabid machine had stalked and preyed upon them, and annihilated them all with a single shot. The time for the machines to reclaim their land is now. Harrogat has provided a wonderful platform for the listener to let loose with their imagination. “Sigillum’ not only excels as a masterful Dark Ambient album, it does so while relying more on minimalism than including a lot of external soundscapes and field recordings. Albums like this make listening to Dark Ambient music such an enjoyable experience. If you want to lose your mind and soul in another world and be rewarded with an excellent musical journey, then download Sigillum from the link below and support this inspiring artist! Please Like/Follow my blog so that you’ll get first hand updates every time I post a review. Thanks for visiting the Dungeon!!

Harrogat - Sigillum
Before you ask, it is entirely coincidental that I happen to have reviewed two releases back-to-back whose pieces of music are titled with Roman numerals: but that’s where the similarity ends however – Raven’s Global Warning Sessions was blistering noise, but Sigillum is firmly in minimalist ambient with a dark edge country. The music relies more on swathes of sweeping sound layering that builds up gently evolve over time to metamorphose into something else. Harrogat is a new name to me but he’s released five albums plus a compilation so far, beginning with Galeria in 2017, and now he’s given us Sigillum, released this month on the Lake label. This has the distinct flavour of Brian Eno in terms of approach and atmosphere, especially those he released in the latter part of the seventies and early eighties. I am thinking in particular of ‘An Ending (Ascent)’ as a reference point, but this explores beyond space ambient to embrace a less confined and more wide-ranging thesis. In terms of ‘space’ itself, it ventures beyond the heliosphere of our solar system to roam the interstellar space between the stars themselves. This isn’t a rushed suite of compositions, either; instead they take their own time to unfold, a function of universal time itself, as the vast distances render the concept of ‘time’ irrelevant and useless. The first track, ‘I’, finds us still within the confines of our home system, slowly making our way towards its outer limits, where our knowledge effectively ends. It glides in with slow steady tones, superseded by a choir of angelic voices harmonising, sweeps of bass drone and planes of soaring etheric chords, creating a virtual vehicle made of light for us to travel in. The harmonics soar and fly majestically, a fitting ship from which to view the wonders of the known planets. ‘II’ opens with deep drones, a sign perhaps that we are approaching the orbits of the outer planets, the realm of gas giants and icy little worlds. Passing by them, their faces so familiar and yet so alien, we can only gaze in awe; these globes have been circulating the central orb for billions of years just like Earth has, but it is only in recent times that we’ve come to know them in the detail we do, and yet there is still much to learn. ‘III’ is where the adventure really begins, where we encounter the truly unknown; beyond this point, past the heliosphere, we will be entering true deep space, a region where even the distance to the nearest star is so immense that we cannot comprehend its significance. We are treated to more grandiose dronescapes, but this time replete with much darker undercurrents than those in the previous two pieces, signifying perhaps our ignorance and our inexperience of the possible dangers ahead. Then a subtle segue into the next, appropriately titled ‘IV’, and the universe opens out before our very eyes – massive nebulae, star-clusters, huge clouds of dust and gas, some glowing and others light-blocking, and most of all, billions of other suns, innumerable and uncountable. It is both uplifting and terrifying – the infinity of the universe is made manifest, and the concomitant terror is all too real. At the very least, it leaves us breathless and dumbfounded. All about there is constant activity, although it is played out on a timescale unimaginable to us humans. Those pillars of star-forming dust are slowly being eroded by the vigorous light of newly-formed stars, some not even a million years old yet. The slow purposeful drones evident on ‘V’, heard as if from a distance, signify the aeons of time still needed before these already ancient and diffuse columns finally disappear to unmask the villains responsible for their demise. Billows in the clouds roil with infinitesimal patience, their movement elusive even to the keenest and most observant eye. ‘VI’ is the end of the first part of our journey, the prelude to perhaps an even greater voyage. It could be we’ve finally reached the edges of our island universe, the home galaxy we call the Milky Way, and we have left everything we’ve ever known behind. This is the perfect point at which to leave our travels, as imagination is the only thing we have to delineate the unfathomable distances to even our nearest neighbour galaxy. Perhaps we’ll stop off at one of the satellite galaxies before we make that ultimate leap, its quiet susurrations and hushed drones a signal that everything that lies before us is a true mystery. Overall this is like a Chesley Bonestell painting, a minutely observed canvas depicting realms of wonder that, whilst only existing in our imaginations, nevertheless inspire thoughts of what lies out there, beyond the limits set by reality, science, and the laws of physics. In the mind’s eye, infinite vistas of star-fields, most of which have no name, spatter the perfect black, their individual pinpricks of light beacons luring us to explore and wonder further. This may not be a long album, but the pieces on here are far bigger and broader than the time it occupies to listen to it – it’s expansive, just like the universe itself, and as colourful and as rich as any Hubble Space Telescope photograph. It’s also multi-layered, thrillingly bright but also undeniably containing darker and more dangerous elements along with them. To make a long conclusion short, it’s a beautiful, gorgeous, and exhilarating ride.

Harrogat - Conquer
Una volta tanto, partiamo dal fondo. Già perché per comprendere fino in fondo, un fondo, per altro, bello profondo(ok la piantiamo con i giochi di parole!) di questo "Conquer" di Harrogat bisogna proprio partire dall'ultima canzone, intitolata non a caso "Black Heart". Questo pezzo è infatti, almeno a nostro avviso, la summa al contempo più riuscita e più compiuta per descrivere il disco dell'artista romano che realizza un album di ambient a tinte dark molto interessante, specialmente se lo si prende per quello che è: ovvero non un lp "tradizionalmente inteso" ma un vero e proprio viaggio nelle tenebre. Partendo da questo presupposto, decisivo però per porsi nel modo giusto alla ricezione del lavoro di Harrogat, ci si troverà ad esplorare una terra mai baciata dalla luce del Sole ma non per questo spaventosa o che incute timore, anzi. Proprio l'assenza, totale, di luce spinge il visitatore sonoro a perdersi, in maniera del tutto naturale, nelle spire delle composizioni di "Conquer" che diventa ben presto la colonna sonora ideale per i pensieri. Specie per quelli notturni, ovvero quelli più sinceri. Ecco proprio la natura di sorta di colonna sonora della propria anima, meglio se nera e vagamente inquietante, potrebbe essere proprio la destinazione più, diciamo così, "felice" per un lavoro di questo tipo, certamente di non semplice fruizione. Però neppure i nostri pensieri, in fondo, sono così "dritti e semplici" no?