Pulsefear - Perichoresis
I often listen to dark ambient before I go to sleep. Sure, most dark ambient isn’t exactly relaxing, but usually anything sustained and drumless sends me off to never, neverland. However, the first time I heard Pulsefear’s Perichoresis (Profound Lore, 2007), I lay there not only awake, but stressed out, my heart racing, my body in a cold sweat – an apt response, given the artist’s name.
Gauze (excerpt)Lighthouse pt. 1 (excerpt)
Pulsefear is the dark ambient project of Michael Blenkarn and Brooke Johnson, who are part of English industrial black metal outfit The Axis of Perdition. AoP has strong dark ambient tendencies, so this project isn’t such a large leap (Blut Aus Nord is similarly binary in ethic, though not in sound). But while Axis snarls forth some of the most hostile ambient I’ve ever heard, Pulsefear is more subliminal.
The bio’s namecheck of the Silent Hill video game is spot-on; indefinite atmospheres swirl around sans arcs over time, waxing and waning at will. The resulting soundscapes are off-kilter and unpredictable. Imagine musty, decaying dungeons crossed with Bladerunner (the smoky futurism, not the soundtrack) – the vibe is vaguely and distantly foreboding, but with an edge born of technology and sound design. Oddly, old drum ‘n’ bass comes to mind, like early Technical Itch or Modus Operandi-era Photek.
Evidently, “Perichoresis” is “the existence of multiple divine persons in one another, such as the Holy Trinity of Christianity.” The term is fitting, of course, for a side project. But such multiplicity also applies to the sound – it’s quite alive, with detail and movement, yet on a macroscopic level, it’s a portrait of extremely slow death. Some of the best sci-fi combines the retro and the futuristic (e.g., City of Lost Children); this would make an appropriate soundtrack.
Perichoresis is available for not much from Profound Lore and The End. Those who invest in the digipak artifact will be rewarded with exquisite photographs of abandoned buildings by Melanie Rhys.
