Ancient Metals, released in July 2015, combines field recordings from various international locales with drone organ and synth and distant melodies played on a 100-year-old “banjolin”, a banjo-like instrument that uses mandolin tuning.
Each piece is meant to conjure up a different ancient environment, or fictional in the case of Melniboné, which is the name of the dreaming island of evil in Michael Moorcock’s Elric mythos.
The primary musical inspirations for this recording were the early dark kosmische experimental music of Klaus Schulze ("Cyborg", "Irrlicht") and the avant-garde organ music of Eliane Radigue ("Adnos", "Trilogie de la Mort").
TRACKLIST:
1. Samarkand
2. Hokkaido
3. Melniboné
"Flat nr. A.Navoi National Park, Tashkent - rain cascade" by Internet Archive user Matthew Samson (CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0)
"takasaki, kaminakai, rice field" by Internet Archive use Frank Schulte (CC Attribution Share-Alike 3.0)
"Hayashi, Ritto, Shiga Prefecture, Japan - Wind in Young Bamboo" by Internet Archive user Greg Peterson (CC Attribution 3.0)
"Tarifa, waves, Atlantic Ocean" by Internet Archive user blackhole-factory (CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0)
Organ drones, synth, banjolin by Allister Thompson
REVIEW
Grayowl Point
"...recordings of a century-old instrument (a banjolin), mixed with the sounds of wind moving in bamboo, the rain cascading, and the ocean frothing against the shore; all of these delightful samples swirl, ghostly, together atop a bed of droning synths and manipulated melodic material. The Gate are playing with imagery of sinister, deep signification, drawing from mythological symbols of mystery."
Each piece is meant to conjure up a different ancient environment, or fictional in the case of Melniboné, which is the name of the dreaming island of evil in Michael Moorcock’s Elric mythos.
The primary musical inspirations for this recording were the early dark kosmische experimental music of Klaus Schulze ("Cyborg", "Irrlicht") and the avant-garde organ music of Eliane Radigue ("Adnos", "Trilogie de la Mort").
TRACKLIST:
1. Samarkand
2. Hokkaido
3. Melniboné
"Flat nr. A.Navoi National Park, Tashkent - rain cascade" by Internet Archive user Matthew Samson (CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0)
"takasaki, kaminakai, rice field" by Internet Archive use Frank Schulte (CC Attribution Share-Alike 3.0)
"Hayashi, Ritto, Shiga Prefecture, Japan - Wind in Young Bamboo" by Internet Archive user Greg Peterson (CC Attribution 3.0)
"Tarifa, waves, Atlantic Ocean" by Internet Archive user blackhole-factory (CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0)
Organ drones, synth, banjolin by Allister Thompson
REVIEW
Grayowl Point
"...recordings of a century-old instrument (a banjolin), mixed with the sounds of wind moving in bamboo, the rain cascading, and the ocean frothing against the shore; all of these delightful samples swirl, ghostly, together atop a bed of droning synths and manipulated melodic material. The Gate are playing with imagery of sinister, deep signification, drawing from mythological symbols of mystery."