Compilation, consisting of more than an hour of ambient/noise/neofolk. Truly high quality and interesting set where a possibility to acknowledge new projects goes together with well-know names. What's most important, all tracks in the album fits very well, despite the fact that they vary from dark ambient to noise and neofolk or neo-classical and the mood very smoothly transforms from one to another. Disc is packed in neat black digipack with insert and information about tracks, contacts of artists and so on in it. Ambient part of the compilation is opened by Dieter Müh. Dreamy sounds of synth and loop that gives birth to colder sounds and finally ends in drowsy calmness. Flutwach goes into darker places, but it drew my attention while listening to the disc for the first time. All in all just two elements - continuous hum of reverbed synthesizer and rhythmic clanging of metal, but these minimal means suits perfectly for the seanse of dark hypnosis. The track of N.Strahl.N seemed rather annoying at first because of weirdly plastic sound of drums, but when the track evolved and got louder, this feeling disappeared and the song became a dark, rhythmic industrial track. A project that has several albums released via Tesco, Galerie Schallschutz, presents a track about ECT (therapy of electroshock that was practiced on patients, sick with depression and other psychological disorders) - a track that drew attention with its description and sampled description of the method at first, but later the sounds seemed to fit the overall conception well too. Continuous howl and pulsating rhythm maybe does not get far enough to let you feel in the place of the patient, but not far from that. Oppressing track and nice acknowledgment with the project. Atrox presents a track that is like a bridge between ambient/industrial part to noisier. Melody gets more and more distorted until the absolute mutilation and the track transforms from a sad to noisy one. I cannot say that I was amazed by it, but as a connecting link between parts of the compilation, it worked well. Minamata's current passion for Russian politics was presented for the first time in this compilation if I'm not mistaken. It's the track called Soviet Time/Putin Time. One of the favorites of mine in this compilation. Waves of noise, interweaved with hopeless sounds of synthesizer and voice buried under the sounds. Le Syndicat presents manipulations of voice, field recordings and rhythm. It's a legendary band of bruitists and I didn't pay too much attention to them in this context. Vacio Perfecto sounds very good in this compilation. Remembering recently reviewed album of theirs and that they lacked something to be truly interesting, here with the only track, they make a very good impression. Kraftkammer - short insertion of loops, banging, crashing and controlled chaos in compilation. Leiche Rustikal - rhythmic manipulations with the sounds of trains or so. Dark and interesting track, sounding as if it'd be an excerpt from some sort of live performance. I liked that. Then once more the sound space of compilation is transferred towards more neofolk/martial/neo-classical. After some sort of development in the middle of the album, these tracks don't catch my ear. I could exclude Sturmkind, who presented a rather decent neofolkish song and the last piece by N.Strahl.N, which seemed stronger than the previous one. Metallic rhythms and monotonous loop of synth tones. And compilation ends. Interesting and versatile disc. 

Format: CD
Released: 2010
Label: Licht und Stahl
Edition: 300