If Tele. S. Therion sound familiar to regulars of this site, then it’s most likely because two more of their CDs were reviewed last month, however due to some technical difficulties out of my control this one had to be put back. As my colleague mentioned last month (link at bottom of page), Tele. S. Therion play a type of music they call acousmatic black metal. Now, I’m not sure if the black metal tag is an accurate representation of their sound although to give you the 411, acousmatic music goes back to the 1940s and was a term first used by musique concrete composer Pierre Schaffer. It’s foundations are built on the theory of acousmatic sound, which is basically “sound one hears without seeing an originating cause.” Pretentious? Well, maybe a little but while I will often knock yawn-inducing egotists whacking one off on their guitar as being pretentious, in my opinion Tele S. Therion are doing something really quite clever and very much up my street.
So how does it all work? Well these two discs are designed to be played simultaneously – in theory it’s not as impossible as it sounds and all I did was play one disc through my stereo, the other through the computer and hit the play button at exactly the same time. If you get it right then it is really quite an experience although get things a couple of seconds out and it can be a bit of a mess. Given that my stereo conveniently packed in shortly after, I have resigned to simply listening to them individually which works just as well. From the opening moments of ‘3’ you know you are in for an incredibly unsettling ride into the dark recesses of the unconscious, and the first thing that does come to mind is just how much this one, with its spooky hushed chanting over an ethereal wind blowing, reminds me of the opening track to the stunning ‘Om’ by Negura Bunget. This is certainly not the sort of album to give a half-assed listen and thankfully I uploaded this to my MP3 player and a 7 hour coach trip meant I could really sit back, close my eyes and truly experience this with no distractions.
It doesn’t take long before I’m drawn into a subterranean lair of darkness, as the demonic gurgles and howling, resonating whispers swirl around my head drawing me further in to the pitch black abyss, taken through dank underground passageways where demons dwell and you kind of feel everything on Earth has already burnt to a crisp along with all of humanity and the rafters are gradually caving in as you dodge falling pieces of flaming wood. Oh, aagh shut up! Shut up! The voices, they are laughing at me, go away! GO AWAY! There is really no let-up on ‘25aIIas’ which just rattles and shrieks and sends all kinds of unsettling sounds flying around the atmosphere creating the kind of backdrop where evil can truly prosper and it truly leaps out at you and yells in your ear. Last month I reviewed an album of a similar nature and explained how I really enjoy this type of music when it’s done well but the album in question just failed to invoke any sense of fear or unease in me and didn’t inspire any kind of visualisation further than a bloke pissing about with an FX pedal – this on the other hand has really conjured up a vividly terrifying imaginary sequence in my mind and has well and truly succeeded in what I am quite sure it set out to do.
The chaos drops momentarily on ‘xp17BAT3cva’ although it still has that sense of foreboding underlying the fuzz which occasionally gives way to some hideous screeching noises and what sounds like an airplane engine flying overhead. If you are wondering, there are no vocals as such on this album, more chants and gurgles and I really have to wonder how they create such sounds at times it ventures into a kind of Mongolian throat singing and it’s really quite incredible. This is perhaps the most fascinating piece of…music (? I use the word loosely) I have heard in a while, it has reached deep into my psyche and truly bonded with whatever demons are lurking in there. This isn’t going to be for everyone, but I personally found it to be a thoroughly engaging, unsettling and terrifying ritual and one that if it was a more recent release I could easily see winding up in my top 5 of the year. If Hell has a soundtrack, this is unquestionably it!
http://www.myspace.com/telestherion
