Kreng - The Summoner (2015)

We’ve been waiting for this one for a while - one of the most talented and overlooked composers in the death-ambient/invisible soundtrack realm finally returns with a petrifying suite of doom-laced string compositions on this excellent new album for Miasmah; 'The Summoner'. In the course of three albums and handful of shortform releases, Pepijn Caudron has become a byword for Bosch-like visions of a soundtrack-quality calibre. It's perhaps a little odd that his music hasn't yet been used to score some ultra-bleak, mittel European horror flick (far as we're aware), but that's also partly where our fascination begins - his often near-silent aesthetic and the absence of associated imagery other than his striking sleeve art always prompts imaginative investment from the listener. In this void, he uses silence and volume dynamics as an uncannily effective tool to dismantle and probe the recipient, leaving us little to grasp onto other than the murmur of our thoughts, and the implications of his own internal dialogue. When we consider that 'The Summoner' is based around 5 stages of mourning, and was prompted by the death of several close friends, its gravity becomes almost chokingly impending. As the first Kreng album to entirely eschew samples in favour of 12 string players, it's also testament to his vision and fortitude that his ideas translate so directly and powerfully to the acoustic realm. Manifest in the nauseous rush of Ligeti or Gaber-like discord in 'Anger', and the downward-spiralling knot of strings in 'Depression', whereas the fifteen minute title track displays a a more brooding resolve with the accompaniment of doom band Amenra's slow, ravaging guitars, organ and drums giving way to his own, personal sixth stage of icy reflection with 'Acceptance'. An incredible album this, well worthy of your darkest, most sleep deprived listening sessions.