Search - Raison d'Etre :: Within Silence & Phormations

Dream's essence... a reason for being

yorgos dalman | Holland, Europe | 06/21/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Cold Meat Industry is a small independent music label in Sweden that solely concentrates on dark ambient, industrial and gothic dark wave. Think of the shadowside of Biosphere, Hazard and especially Lustmord and you'll get an idea.



CMI isn't afraid to experiment with very small but highly original acts like Gothica, Coph Nia, Desiderii Marginis and Atrium Carceri, but their main two artists are Arcana (the Swedish Arcana, not the other band with the same name) and Raison d'Etre.

These two pilars rise above all other CMI outputs and have build over the years a solide and powerfull body of work.

Arcana is worth mentioning for their first and most praised album "Dark age of reason" and later efforts like "Cantar de procella" and "Inner pale sun". Their latest album, "Le serpent rouge" is a strong deviation from their common sound and show more exotic percussions, in my opinion interesting but not quite the "real" Arcana.



But for now Raison d'Etre: Mr. Peter Andersson's solo act. From his first cd "Prospectus I" to "In sadness, silience and solitude" and "Enthraled by the winds of loneliness" his music touches the very voids of loneliness and dispair. But not without (literal samples of) fresh winds and gently flowing water.

Lyrical and etherical and yet with some solide grounds, Andersson clearly doesn't go for the cheap and obvious "new age sounds". Andersson is too much of an artist and at the same time someone with an chronic inner drive to express his moments of sadness and feelings of loss and alienation through his art.



Having said this, I don't want to suggest that Andersson merely uses his music as personal medicine, it's more of a catharsis which, because he is so gifted, he is able to share with the listener and offer his audience the same illumination.



Some of the more recent Raison d'Etre projects, which, I have to admit, are more among my favorites, are even more heavy set and dark and with less melody and moments of enlightenment. They are more "mental abyss oriëntated", they could be the modern day soundtracks of "madness movies" like Roman Polanski's "Repulsion", "Begotten", "Clean, shaven" or "Mulholland Dr."

Alas, most of these Raison d`Etre albums are not to be found on amazon.com. which I think is a shame. Check out the CMI website at coldmeat.se. for more information.



Worth mentioning are "The empty hollow unfolds" and "Requiem for abandoned souls". If you want to start somewhere, and you are in for the darkest possible music, start here. If you want to begin a little more at ease, I recommend "Reflections from the time of opening" or, in this case, "Within the depths of silence and phormations".

This last album is the perfect bridge between the light side and the dark side. A little more industrial oriëntated perhaps but mesmerising and beautiful in an awkward sort of way.



Slow drums and a slightly deranged choir set the tone in the opening track. Then something of a harpsichord enters. Tracks with meaningful titles like "Ascent of the blessed", "Fall of the damned" and "Inner depths of sadness" follow.

There is a terrific tension-build-up that never lets go. You're sucked into the musical maelstrom and by the sixth track, when voices are starting to speak and confess an unseen murder, you're caught and the only thing you can do is go with the flow and see where you'll end.



And where do you end? On the bottom of a seemingly bottomless abyss? Over the last edge? Lost in an eternal swamp? No, Peter Andersson's music is too multi-layered and complex for that.

You end up with yourself in the room you were sitting in and you're still alive. Yet something has changed, something unmentionable. Did you say you're feeling a little bit better than before?

It is you that has changed. Fiction or reality? Well, like I told you already, Peter Andersson is way too much an artist for not at least trying to.

"