Yes, NASA only deals in facts and yes NASA only tells us what they feel we need to know, it's a conundrum but it's real. NASA has a poor track record of answering any Alien or UFO questions, in fact the public mainly relies on whistleblowers and retired personnel. That's how close NASA plays the whole UFO and Alien debate "to it's chest". We (the public) literally have to wait for the retired folk, the secret colluders and the people willing to betray it's whole everything just for what, the truth? Good luck in getting any real, quality and reliable answers from NASA because they will like I say, say nothing. They will back that up with long periods of silence and then they basically just go round in circles all the while carrying on as usual, lol. NASA will not confirm or deny Aliens exist. But for funding sake, Aliens might exist but we'll only know if we go and look - securing their wages and their "science" furthermore. I mean, anythings possible, right...
The short video in this post has had 45 million views and that's insane for what is effectively "something that doesn't exist" according to NASA anyways, lol. But, if you check out (just a few) of NASA's own images from their vast ocean of archived images and videos you'll see what all the fuss is about. That's why people go hunting for UFOs in NASA archives as there's millions to look through. Here's some Mars epic finds.
How Did It Get So Late Vol. 4: Northumbria, Mare Cognitum, Darkspace, Cryo Chamber Collaboration, Phobocosm, Dire Omen, & Bat Nouveau
(Consouling Sounds)
That’s exactly the kind of aural tapestries that Toronto-based soundscapers Jim Field and Dorian Williamson weave with their ambient project Northumbria. The duo makes maximum use of their minimalism, journeying into the hinterlands of consciousness, entwining tone, texture, and density on engulfing and meditative suites.
Northumbria’s self-titled 2012 debut was a superb example of drone being given room to explore and react to its environment. Recorded live in a 19th century church, Northumbria’s lengthy drones were all thunderously devotional, with Field and Williamson’s über-amplified bass and guitar improvisations using the church’s natural acoustics as another crucial element. That meant that Northumbria was a wonderfully organic and reverb-heavy album, but most importantly of all, it meant the album sounded alive and responsive.
<a href="http://northumbria.bandcamp.com/album/bring-down-the-sky" data-mce-href="http://northumbria.bandcamp.com/album/bring-down-the-sky">Bring Down the Sky by Northumbria</a>
That’s what makes for truly immersive drone. The kind that lives and breathes. The kind that you can feel a part of. And Northumbria’s latest album, Bring Down the Sky, is once again filled with just such enveloping and reactive drones. Comprised of five ür-drone instrumentals, Bring Down the Sky opens with the crystalline shimmer of “Transcendence”, before waves of both beautiful and bruising feedback arrive on “The Ocean Calls Us Home”. As with all of Northumbria’s drones, there’s that ever-present feel of loneliness and eerie isolation to Bring Down the Sky, and that’s set within plaintive and ethereal tranquility on “Ostara”; wrapped in sonorous gothic grimness on “The Silver Forest”; and battered by shuddering slabs of distortion on “Bring Down the Sky”.
Throughout Bring Down the Sky–from it’s darker depths to movements bathed in light–Northumbria use incremental layers and shifts in sound to summon different states of being. Where those tides of heavier distortion appear, the earth’s mantle cracks beneath your feet, and where the sun cuts through the clouds, there’s rays of utter bliss. Northumbria’s discography thus far is filled with just evocative shifts in tone and texture, and while the band hasn’t recorded a mammoth amount of work, especially considering how incredibly prolific some drone artists are, the key to Northumbria’s creative success is in that measured and mindful approach.
Rather than churn out an endless stream of featureless and underdeveloped music, Northumbria have simply concentrated on crafting lush and luxuriant low-end drones that offer a glimpse of the eternal. They’ve brought a sense of intimacy with their unfurling songs too, and Bring Down the Sky is no different in that regard. It’s an album made to connect. Whether Northumbria are taking a hike to infinity, cracking open the cosmic egg, or wrenching you away from modernity's madness, the band’s harmonic vibrations offer the prospect of healing the mind, body, and soul through a shared sense of journeying through heart-rending sound.
Mare Cognitum: Phobos Monolith
(I, Voidhanger)
As Carl Sagan rightly said, this pale blue dot that we inhabit is a “lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark”. The world of science has provided us with plenty of fascinating answers about the nature of that cosmic darkness over the years, but it’s often been the world of art that has granted us with the most unnerving sense of our insignificance in the universe’s vast, cold, and unknowable depths. Understandably, plenty of black metal bands have plunged right into that mysterious darkness between the stars for inspiration, and the latest releases from grim galaxy gazers Mare Cognitum and Darkspace show there are many different ways to journey through the far reaches.
One-man progressive black metal band Mare Cognitum is helmed by multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Jacob Buczarski, and the band’s debut, 2012’s An Extraconscious Lucidity, was filled with majestic and melodic cosmological observations that evoked those immense and chilling mysteries of deep space. Mare Cognitum’s latest release, Phobos Monolith, continues to tackle the inscrutable magnitude and mystery of the universe as well, and released on I, Voidhanger Records, the album is in good company.
I, Voidhanger Records has already released one of 2014’s most impressive black metal albums with like-minded cosmic voyager Spectral Lore’s tour de force, III. Mare Cognitum and Spectral Lore shared an excellent split release, Sol, back in 2013, and Phobos Monolith sees further honing of the songwriting and production techniques that Buczarski displayed on that release. Phobos Monolith’s epic-length tracks ride full-bodied, melodic riffs through the heavens, and with astronomic songs and astronomical arrangements, Mare Cognitum isn’t shy about exhibiting a grand vision.
However, as big as Phobos Monolith is, both thematically and musically, the album’s wretched howls, technical black metal bursts, and skyrocketing crescendos, are all seamlessly interwoven and never overly convoluted. That’s an important point to note. Because rather than being excessively self-indulgent, as many one-man black metal bands are, Mare Cognitum ensures that Phobos Monolith retains a sense of spaciousness with subtle use of kosmische synth and atmospheric passages.
Phobos Monolith is set against the backdrop of the ice-cold vacuum of space, and the album’s rising tides of intensity are aptly bleak, bitter, and foreboding. However, Phobos Monolith is never inhospitable. Buczarski’s songwriting is hot-blooded and fierce, bringing that sense of awe and wonder we feel when gazing at the skies above.
Darkspace: III I
(Avantgarde)
Swiss trio Darkspace have a few more releases under the belt than Mare Cognitum, and all of them have been on the receiving end of fairly universal praise. The band’s latest release, Dark Space III I, arrives six years after their last, and vocalists and guitarists Zhaaral and Wroth (sole member of the similarly cryptic Paysage d'Hiver), and bassist and vocalist Zorgh, haven’t made any changes to Dark Space’s patented black metal and dark ambient methodology at all.
Of course, that’s no bad thing. The cosmic chasms that Dark Space’s scrutinizes on Dark Space III I’s three tracks are fathomless and replete with mysteries that might well be ancient but they never get old. The album begins with “Dark 4.18”, a 27-minute jaunt that starts with a deep dark drone before the black metal and electronic bursts arrive to drive that feel of our isolation in a vast uncaring universe home. “Dark 4.19” and “Dark 4.20” provide similarly lengthy jaunts to the great beyond as well, and each mixes surges of turbo-speed riffing, programmed percussion, distant vocal howls, and unearthly synth to conjure the band’s hair-raising cosmic mysticism.
There’s no question that Darkspace are leading (if not the leading) purveyors of extraterrestrial black metal eeriness. Dark Space III I is a uniquely discomforting experience, and it travels well past the point of simply being a reflection of the infinite mystery lurking amongst the stars. Darkspace dive right into that boundless abyss on Dark Space III I, with howling abandon, and it’s a mind-melting journey well worth undertaking. I imagine that Sagan would have struggled with the sonic propellant of Dark Space III I, but he would have wholeheartedly approved of the album’s destination.
Cryo Chamber Collaboration: Cthulhu
(Cryo Chamber)
Sticking to those celestial byways mentioned above, it’s no surprise that a lot of the darkest outer space musical observations have found their inspiration in H.P. Lovecraft’s tales of cosmic horror. Black-hearted bands galore have drawn from Lovecraft’s pantheon of stories filled with forbidden knowledge, supernatural threats, and abundant philosophical and psychological dread. However, it’s Lovecraft’s famed Cthulhu Mythos that has arguably had the biggest impact of all.
The Cthulhu Mythos sees humankind as an irrelevant spec in the universe where mind-shattering entities like the Great Old Ones lurk, bringing the kind of metaphysical terror that understandably appeals to makers of music that seeks to get under your skin. Dark ambient label Cryo Chamber certainly has a roster of artists aiming to unnerve, and the label has tapped into Lovecraft’s sphere of trepidation and foreboding with the recently released Cthulhu album.
Cthulhu is a collaboration between 12 electronic grim-lords, and it’s an altogether fitting scene to see that it’s Cryo Chamber that’s gathered those dark ambient artists together on such a project. The label is run by Simon Heath, creator of disconcerting industrial and ambient works under the Atrium Carceri banner. Heath also helms Sabled Sun, a more futuristic and post-apocalyptic focused venture. But both Atrium Carceri and Sabled Sun craft cinematic soundscapes that summon the feel of desolation and decay.
Desolation and decay were clearly themes that H. P. Lovecraft was very interested in too. Humankind’s desolate place in an uncaring universe that’s governed by forces well outside our understanding was always embedded in his works. As was the rapidly decaying sanity of anyone who glimpsed or sought to commune with those mysterious forces inhabiting the abyss. Those elements feature strongly on Cthulhu, as you’d rightly expect, but the 12 artists contributing to the album are not presenting their own version of infinite unease on separate tracks here.
Instead, Cthulhu is a release where the contributions of artists such as Atrium Carceri, Sabled Sun, Mystified, Alphaxone, Sjellos, Aseptic Void, Cryobiosis and others are blended seamlessly on a single 80-minute track. Who contributed what and where is unknown–a apt nod to Lovecraft’s dark mysteries right there–and the track itself is incrementally more chilling and a fitting soundtrack to the kind of aura Lovecraft’s works convey.
Cthulhu features layers of menacing drones. Portions of the track creep slowly along, gazing at the threatening black gulf between the stars, while other sections slither and crawl. All the music is hair-raising and ice-cold–whether it be bound in static, or gossamer-thin electronics. Sounds rise and fall, and prowl around corners, with hushed and ill-omened whispers seeping through all. When the pitch-black atmospherics appear, that’s when Lovecraft’s creatures materialize. But what’s great about Cthulhu as a whole, is that it summons exactly the kind of dreamscape dislocation from reality that Lovecraft sought to communicate.
If you’re a fan of any of Cryo Chamber’s artists, or of the dark ambient genre in general, then you’ll know all about the medium’s ability to call to mind our deep-set fears. Lovecraft did that too, of course, which means Cthulhu is a fine tribute to the influence of his darkly dreaming deities on the world of tenebrous arts. However, Cthulhu is also an album that captures a vivid nightmare, and it delivers all the spine-chilling and unfathomable ominousness from the otherworldly realms right to your door.
Phobocosm: Deprived
(Dark Descent)
Underground Canadian death metal makes an exquisite mockery of the nation’s polite cultural stereotypes. Canuck demons like Paroxsihzem, Adversarial, Mitochondrion, and Antediluvian make some of the nastiest death metal around, and it’s much the same with Montreal “death metal cult” Phobocosm, and Alberta’s Dire Omen.
Phobocosm’s eight-song debut, Deprived, is mixed and mastered by Colin Marston (Gorguts, Dysrhythmia, Krallice), so you know straight away that the album is going to sound fantastic. Of course, if you ain’t got the tunes, no amount of production prowess is going to mask that fact. But, thankfully, Phobocosm delivers in spades. The bulk of Deprived sees mid-paced death metal devouring black and doom metal. But, for all the cyclones of suffocating noise on tracks like “Knives in the Senate House”, “Solar Storm” and “Drowned”, there’s a lot of technicality boiling away in all the dense and oppressive murk on Deprived. That shows a firm desire from Phobocosm not be bound by any specific sub-genre limitations, and if Deprived is any one thing, it’s certainly iron-fucking-willed.
Dire Omen: Wresting the Revelation of Futility
(Dark Descent)
Dire Omen are no slouches in the headstrong department either. The trio’s debut full-length, Wresting the Revelation of Futility, is a 10-song unrelenting fusillade of uber-guttural death metal. Black metal turns up, where Dire Omen throw dissonance into the malevolent concoction, and there’s the catacomb stench of Incantation and kin wafting from Wresting the Revelation of Futility’s abyssal depths. Dire Omen conjure nightmarish scenes, much like the macabre and unearthly chills that Antediluvian elicit. All of which means that within Wresting the Revelation of Futility’s swirling chaos lies a sure and steady beating heart of exceptional darkness.
<a href="http://darkdescentrecords.bandcamp.com/album/wresting-the-revelation-of-futility" data-mce-href="http://darkdescentrecords.bandcamp.com/album/wresting-the-revelation-of-futility">Wresting the Revelation of Futility by Dire Omen</a>
Once again, it’s no surprise to find that Phobocosm and Dire Omen’s debuts are both being issued by Dark Descent. The trusted label has already released some of the most formidable albums of 2014 courtesy of Thantifaxath, Sempiternal Dusk, Emptiness, Horrendous, and Swallowed. You can safely add Phobocosm and Dire Omen to the list of Dark Descent’s 2014 releases that are imposingly heavy, and saturated in sinisterness.
Bat Nouveau: Metamorphoses
(Hands and Moment)
For a band that’s been transforming into an increasingly more creative and compelling outfit, it’s rather apt that Australian duo Bat Nouveau have entitled their debut full-length album Metamorphoses. Bat Nouveau’s first EP, 2010’s Dust, combined a coldwave chill with lo-fi goth, post-punk and deathrock. But when 2012’s What Has Been Now EP arrived, although those same sonic elements were all still there, Bat Nouveau exhibited more sophisticated songwriting by adding a heavier dose of garage punk’s pummel to the band’s atmospheric songs.
What Has Been Now was a hugely enjoyable EP, and even more impressive for apparently being recorded in one 13-hour session. You can, and definitely should, seek out that EP out via Bandcamp right now. But, of course, the drawback to What Has Been Now was that there were only four songs on the release. Still, that’s no complaint really, because that certainly gave rise to heightened expectations for Bat Nouveau’s Metamorphoses.
On Metamorphoses, Bat Nouveau make another change to their sound, although it’s no drastic remodelling as such. If anything, Bat Nouveau have refined their approach by producing starker and more stripped-down tracks like “The Cry”, “Funeral Eyes” and “Slowburn”. That said, Bat Nouveau haven’t forgotten the importance of injecting the punk into post-punk, and “Dust”, “Hung High”, and the clanging and crashing “Wreckage” all feature plenty of dirty and dank deathrock.
Much like the fantastic Melbourne-based anarcho-deathrock five-piece Masses, Bat Nouveauʼs make music where the sonic and thematic influence of familiar gothic legends such as Bauhaus, Joy Division, Christian Death, and the Cure is strong. However, that influence isn’t simply being replicated on Metamorphoses. Sure, you’ll hear vocal similarities, and that same dark rhythmic pulse of those bands throbs visibly in Bat Nouveau’s tracks, but the band aren’t merely repeating the past. Metamorphoses retains the core signifiers of a darkened rock aesthetic, but Bat Nouveau are building on those by adding subtle shadings on the album’s more austere tracks, and adding more ill-tempered noise to its strident tracks.
Bat Nouveau cover a wider range of stylistic bases than you might expect on Metamorphoses. Of course, everyone of those bases is still darkly romantic, and often chilling, but it would be a mistake to presume that Bat Nouveau are just hopping on the deathrock or post-punk revival train. The band is bringing new ideas, and that’s right there in Metamorphoses’ diversity.
