A master of Nordic landscapes was Sweden's Peter Andersson, known as Raison D'Etre, experimented with both the "industrial folk" style of Prospectus I (1993), a set of psalms for string section and percussion instruments, and the "dark ambient" style of Within The Depths Of Silence And Phormations (1995), his most daring collage of samples, drones, monk-like chanting and futuristic electronics; a progression that led to the six neoclassical and mystical suites of In Sadness Silence And Solitude (1998).
The project debuted with the cassette Apres Nous Le Deluge (Sound Source, 1992), whose
elegant elegies (between three and six minutes in duration), set in a bleak medieval landscape, emanated a dark sense of desolation.
Apres nous le Deluge - Acte I borrows techniques from musique concrete: a
spoken recording buried in eerie percussion, with
ominous rumbles and an opera soprano in the background.
Raison d'Etre resumes the
spoken recording but coupled with a syncopated dance beat.
More found voices inhabit the suspenseful emptiness of The Final Wagon.
Moribund shifts gear with a tribal beat, a church choir, and sinister monk murmuring.
The murmuring/praying of monks permeates Ignesco Comburo.
The sources are warped and melted together in the droning De Profundis.
Ghostly electronic drones roam Death Brightens With Sorrow over a laconic ceremonial beat.
Memento Mori is the most tense and dramatic piece, where voices become echoes in a soundscape of pressing electronic patterns.
Apres nous le Deluge - Acte II ends in gothic bombast.
The nine sacred hymns of di Prospectus I (Cold Meat Industry, 1993)
present his bleak philosophy via an "industrial folk music" that relies on
percussion instruments and string sections.
Katharsis blends religious chanting, celestial breathing,
ominous drones and thunderous drums.
The "mass" turns to requiem with Ordeal In Chapel, that is a most
funereal piece of music, replete with dejected chants, church bells and
mournful strings.
On the other hand, the mixed voices of Ascension De Profundis, following
a technique invented by Karlheinz Stockhausen, become a menacing whirlwing in
Mourning.
The symphonic grandeur of Mesmerized in Sorrow boasts a
touching melody, but Cenotaphium is shaken by a frantic and crashing
sequence of dissonances, interlocking electronic melodies building to a
dramatic climax.
Voices filled again the space in Synopsis, but they sound like radio
broadcasts captured from another galaxy.
A martial beat introduces the solemn ceremony of Anathema/Apotheosis,
and Penumbra completes the cycle by dissolving
an electronic carillon into coulds of religious chanting and cosmic drones.
A more "ambient" sound surfaced on
Enthralled By The Wind Of Loneliness (Cold Meat Industry, 1994),
that indulged in orchestral arrangements (in particular, baroque strings) and
medieval stereotypes (choirs, bells, drums), while extending the sonic palette
to new avantgarde effects.
The eight-minute overture The Awakening pitted the wails of a
Japanese-sounding flute against waves of cosmic mantras and natural sounds.
The rest of the album is framed between
Spire of Withhold, that introduces the afterlife via
funereal strings, Gregorian chants, procession-like rhythm,
and
the eleven-minute Pathaway, that seems to descend into hell itself
via icy winds, thundering drums and mourning laments.
Andersson's gothic journey transformed into a metaphysical calvary with the
13-minute exotic fantasy The Narrow Gate
and the sixteen-minute suite Spiraal (sustained vocal drones that
slowly shift timbre over massive orchestral clusters, like a collective "om"
to eternal suffering).
The sense of mass is increased by the short liturgical "halleluja" and
"sanctus" that separate the major pieces.
The limit of this music is that it is based on slow, methodic repetition
of simple themes. But the effect is, nonetheless, powerful.
The cassette Semblance (Harmonie Harm, 1995) collects unreleased
material from 1988 - 1994.
(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)
The previously unreleased compositions from 1991 were collected on Reflections from the Time of Opening (Bloodless Creations, 1997), while the debut cassette was later included in the Collective Archives (Cold Meat Industry, 1999). Conspectus (Old Europa Cafe, 1994) gathers other unreleased material from 1991–94 (eight tracks from a cassette and five previously unreleased).
Within The Depths Of Silence And Phormations (Cold Meat Industry, 1995) pushes his "dark ambient" style toward atmospheres that are simultaneously more religious and more melancholic. The collage of samples, drones, medieval chants, and sci-fi electronica has by now become his trademark.
The seven-minute Ascent of the Blessed
evokes spirals of crystal powder drifting into an eternal darkness.
The ten-minute In Abscence of Subsequent Ambivalence
probes harrowing dark depths: first a tidal wave erupts, then
a mellow neoclassical motif soars, and finally a gurgling of cascading magma.
Fall of the Damned is the gothic highlight, a slow-moving mass of
tragic cosmic overtones a` la Klaus Schulze
intersected by shards of a children's choir.
Of Dying Relics is a more conventional excursion into monastery cells.
The highlight as far as chanting goes is the eight-minute Dream's Essence, where the angelic children's choir blends with almost psychedelic trance.
Unfortunately, Andersson often inserts spoken-word sections that greatly detract from the magic.
The Empty Hollow Unfolds (Cold Meat Industry, 1999) contains five long instrumental suites. After the monk-like invocation of
The Slow Ascent, the ten-minute The Hidden Hallows sets in motion
a claustrophobic theater of slow-motion chants, metal percussion and storm-like electronic drones,
with a funereal and macabre finale.
The eight-minute End of a Cycle is less successful at integrating monk chants and electronic sounds.
The nine-minute The Wasteland instead comes close to creating a schizoid atmosphere via grating metallic sounds and stentorian sopranos that collide and never converge.
The 20-minute The Eternal Return and the Infinity Horizon assembles a
sort of cavernous machine powered by a didjeridoo-like rumble and
chains-like percussion.
It is all elegant and cinematic,
but large sections feel dejavu and self-indulgent.
Peter Anderson's project Necrophorous debuted with the cassette
Sadness & Somnolence (1991). The relaxed and neoclassical sound of the
early recordings mutated into gentle ambient music and fairy-tale atmospheres on
Underneath The Spirit Of Tranquillity (Cat Heaven, 1996), which is divided
into two parts:
"The Spirit Of Tranquillity", including
the celestial Empyrion and Within Tranquility,
and "The Impressions Of Salvador Dali'", six homages to Dali's paintings.
The six suites of In Sadness Silence And Solitude (Cold Meat Industry, 1998) delve deeper into his familiar themes, with The Well of Sadness reaching new emotional nadirs. Yet there are also the classical-leaning touches of In Absence of Light and the tribal percussion of Passing Inner Shields that enliven the dark harmonies. His melancholic post-industrial mysticism remains virtually unmatched.
Lost Fragments (Yantra, 1998) collects unreleased tracks of 1992.
Atomine Elektrine is a side project, inspired by the cosmic music of the 1970s, launched in 1992 but only released on record with Elemental Severance (CMI, 1995), recorded between 1992 and 1994. The album effectively bridges techno (Severance, Atom) and new age music (the long Entrance Mirage and the finale of Hyperion), and later with Archimetrical Universe (Yantra, 1999).
Grismannen is documented on
Rymdbajs
(1994),
A Journey Through the Gain in the Pain in the Brain Again & Again
(1997)
and
Panus Anus
(2004).
Stratvm Terror is another side project, launched in 1993. This time Andersson is joined by Tobias Larsson, and the style of the cassettes Germinal Chamber (Old Europa Café, 1994) and The Only True Septic Whore (Slaughter Prd, 1996) is inspired by the most ferocious, percussive, and metallic industrial music. The first album, Pariah Demise (Old Europa Café, 1996), tempers the intensity, but Pain Implantations (Malignant, 1998) returns to the hellish atmospheres of the early days.
(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)
As Svasti-ayanam, he recorded between
1993 and 1994 the music of Sanklesa (Crowd Control Activities, 1998) in
a style that is more ritualistic and ethnic (and Tibetan).
Bocksholm was a collaboration with Deutsch Nepal.
The Necrophorous project continued with
Drifting in Motion (2000),
Elinros (2005),
Imprints (2007) and
Moments of Sleeping Sadness (2008).
As Panzar, he released Human Degeneration (2003) and Pratotypon (2006).
Perception Multiplied (Cold Meat Industry, 2001) is a sampler of
Andersson' multifaced career.
Subsequent Raison d'Etre albums include:
Requiem for Abandoned Souls (2003)
Metamorphyses (2006),
The Stains of the Embodied Sacrifice (2009),
and
Mise en Abyme (2014).
Andersson also released albums under his own name:
Music for Film and Exhibition (2007),
Sculpturing Time Fragments (2010),
Music for Film and Exhibition II (2010) and
Music for Film and Exhibition 3 (2013).
Andersson also released
Moonshining
(2013)
as Anonyma Alkoholister
and Timewaves (2018) again under his own name.
Tales From the Tabula Rasa (2014) collects recordings of 1988-91.
De Aeris in Sublunaria Influxu (2015) and
Xibipiio (2017)
were collaborations with
Troum.
Raison d'Etre returned with
Alchymeia (2018), which contains four lengthy pieces
(Nigredo,
Albedo,
Citrinitas,
Rubedo)
and
Daemonum (2021), which contains five lengthy pieces culminating with
the
16-minute
Daemonium.
