Review Summary: Were-as before his ambience left the listener filled with the prescribed effect of anxiety and fear, “Unearthly Sun” focuses more on an unsettling cosmological mysticism and awe for the unknown.
Caustic Reverie is Bryn Schurman of ‘The Forgotten’, a one-man dark ambient desktop computer experiment. He graduated from the University of Miami in 2004 for ‘Music Engineering’ and since 2008 has been creating a steady discography of sequenced sound textures of horror and surrealism. This year he has released two albums,
The Descending from March 7th, and the subject of this review,
Unearthly Sun from June 24th. Prior to these two albums he has also released 13 other albums, an E.P., and a compilation. Unfortunately the rest of his history remains as much of a mystery as the function and meaning behind his music.
The basic concept for the album, as it was laid out initially by Schurman, was probably very comprehensive and intricately planned. Caustic Reverie has always been an outlet for his seemingly moot knowledge of music. Gratifyingly upon praxis he has, for the most part, been very successful in using his a priori skills. Unfortunately his latest attempt,
Unearthly Sun, lacks many of the ‘attention-grabbing’ formative hooks that are usually sprawled out amongst each of his highly extensive songs. These hooks, which on the album appear less frequently, are not only a key aspect of his music but also what made the listening experience so pleasurable and lead to the success of albums such as
Mute,
Mithridatium, and
Rust Shore.
However, like all of his other releases, there is a very heavy reliance on subtleties in the added effects that are delicately woven into the albums substructure. Caustic Reverie is unlike many of the other excellent contemporary dark ambient artists and (for the most part) does not utilize certain innovations such as the symphonic tendencies of Vladimir Hirsch, the droning of Bass Communion, or the neo-classical pianism and horrific samplings of Atrium Carceri. He thus has a tendency to cause a dependency in his music on whatever ostentatious deliverances he may use to capture the listeners attention. Unfortunately none of the used subtleties on
Unearthly Sun evoke the appropriate tone and sabotage any semblance of the usual ‘dark ambient’ emotive prescriptions such as stark dread. That said, there is no issue in respect to form but there is a severe lack of prominence which makes listening to the album in intervals arduous, and unpleasant in one full sitting.
Unearthly Sun upon careful listening also lacks artful characteristics in which the listeners may form some solemn cognition from each passing mode of darkness. In this way
Unearthly Sun is Schurman’s most significantly differentiating release in that it strays away from the typical conditioning of his prior works. Instead of keeping the straight-forward dark, horrific atmospheres prevalent throughout most of the ‘Caustic Reverie’ discography; he has adopted a much more formalist way of accruing his evil sounding expressionism. Were-as before his ambience left the listener filled with the prescribed effect of anxiety and fear,
Unearthly Sun focuses more on a cosmological mysticism and awe for the unknown. Darkness still enshrouds the album, but its emphasis is no longer the focal priority and the only true dark ambience is showcased in the 6 minute self-titled track. The 39 minute portion of the album that is “Longing for the Glow’ exhibits the new mode of sound and ratifies the presumably signature tone common to all artists lumped in the dark ambient genre.
Schurman’s journey in a new direction may be a healthy decision after creating the same music for over several years. At this point the worst course of action that Schurman could take would be to default to his old sound (which is now becoming increasingly mundane with each release) or continue with this composition of spontaneous precociousness. Hopefully
Unearthly Sun is not setting a precedent for a future release as
Mute did for most of the past 12. The album would serve well as a compendium and maybe even a point of reference to harvest certain qualities from rather than a source to draw influences. It is doubtful that any album taking after it will have more than a moderate amount of success. For people interested in this project, or dark ambience in general, pretend as though
Unearthly Sun doesn’t exist and instead, marvel at the brilliance of Caustic Reverie’s other works (which will always keep the standard high for sound).
