Current mood:	ecstatic
Current music:	Hecate- The Magick of Female Ejaculation

Last child of Ungoliant to trouble the unhappy world.
Two recent reviews of the Sonic Visions of Middle Earth compilation. Proof positive that you shouldn't get people who don't like dark ambient to review the form. Still, there's props to Gydja (and that's what counts), and some of the criticisms are valid.

Also, the track in question, Torech Ungol, is playing on Aural Pressure Radio http://www.auralpressure.com/radio.html and can be voted for. Previous big vote winners have included Clear Stream Temple's Buried in Concrete remix of Pentagonium.

Review from Royce Icon (Industrial.org):
I've never been a big J.R.R. Tolkien fan. I've attempted to read some of his stuff, but i didn't like the style of writing and couldn't get into it. The most I've experienced of his work I guess would be the Lord Of The Rings films which I didn't much like either (Peter Jackson should still be making splatter films, not that trite hollywood shit, goddamnit!), So I'm pretty clueless to the references on this Tolkien themed ambient compilation. But I don't need that info to write this review, so lets stop talking about the old dead author and let's get on with the review.

With 6 tracks spread over 70+ minutes, I think it's pretty obvious to state that all the songs on "Sonic Visions Of Middle Earth" are rather long. The genre and tone of the audio here is all ambient in nature, some happy and some darker, a lot of it of the droning variety. I can get into some of it, but the majority of the material stays in the same place for way too long to get my tongue wagging. I enjoy a lot of the choir pads and sweeps that are used throughout this compilation, but I would really like to hear some different sounds in occasionally, especially if it's a 8 or 16 minute long track. There are some exceptions to the boring status quo of this cd, mainly the Gydja track "Torech Ungol", which sounds really nice and manages to keep up a lot of momentum, and the Jaaportitt track that, while not as cool as the previously mentioned track, still moves around a lot and sounds good. But as stated before, most of this stuff gets pretty old after the first few minutes.

Aside from the tedious nature of most of the songs, one of the other things that irks me a bit about this is the mastering. it seems that this was taken to an actual studio for mastering , but there are a lot of sound jumps on this disc, points when the volume gets way too loud, and it can be pretty irritating. Also at times there is a lot of static amongst the pads, not that static is a horrible thing, but it doesn't seem to be intended.

I feel like a bit of an asshole, but I just can't get into the majority of the tracks here. If you like droning ambient music that stays in the same place for 10 minutes, then you'll love this compilation. But I personally just can't get into it.

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Review from Fjordi (Tartarean Desire):
It's quite hard to make a review of a pure ambient album if there's not a particular interest on this music, so it's very easy to fall into tendencies of oblivion and depict this album as a collection of background noises that resound through the speakers and tell nothing to the listener. Anyway, this style is able to provide a lot of peculiar sensations to the listener and it's quite extreme in a certain way. Yours truly is going to try to do his best and analyse each song separately, despite bestowing a rating for the album as a whole. “Sonic Visions of Middle Earth” includes six tracks in 76 minutes of music. Yes, they are very long tracks... Maybe because each artist was eager to tell as many things as possible through his/her song. This could end in a lengthy fruit for the taste of our ears if the song was boring –something that has effectively happened in some cases. As the album title suggest, each band has tried to describe their own visions of Tolkien's world with different results, in my humble opinion. Let's see...

Leviathan's track is about landscapes in their extreme side. Not much variety can be contemplated in their music, but the steady slow crescendo in this song and the later fall into meditative sounds is effective. Too bad the sound is not clean enough, though. Ambient music is a style demanding a great clarity of sound, but that's something we miss in some songs of the compilation, too.

The second track here is Aidan Baker's contribution, and it's similar in performing to Leviathan's. A bit fuzzy, monotone sound as well, but less interesting ideas.

Then comes the mighty Jääportit from Suomi to break barriers with their unique sound. The combination of medieval tunes and ambient in this song is fantastic. One could expect nothing less than that, since this is a great ambient act with a wise songmaking and use of resources. The title of the song is hard to decipher if you´re not Finnish –just like the music, varied in its strong structure. Galactic landscapes like an astral sleep taking off Fangorn... Jääportit beat every challenger in the dark wave ambient scene and demonstrates again it's a band away from the rest. The best song in this album, as you may think.

As All Die is another act in the vein of classic ambient monsters as Mortiis and Burzum's synth tracks. Simple notes, not many different layers of music, and subsequent repetitions of two or three patterns of notes, easily structured. It´s not bad but it has been already done many times in the past.

Gydja's “Torech Ungol” is an excellent recording, showing the abilities needed to perform good ambient music, and without a doubt the highlight of this album after Jääportit. This New Zealand based act –a quite exotic location, really- is also in the good path and possess a consistent mixture of feeling and vision to make good music. The 15 minutes this song last are worthwhile, due to the clever use of layers juxtaposing each other and the dreamy atmosphere achieved, consisting of long resounding echoes instead of repeating short notes as other uninteresting bands do. The good sound helps a lot in this course.

And last, the closing song “Fires Of Mount Doom” is a very boring track consisting of a monotone background fuzz. The sound isn´t anything clean, so the sensation of dullness is accentuated.

A good approach and insight to the nowadays occult ambient scene: underground, extreme, her(m)etical music.