Necropolis - Necrosphere Zhelezobeton, 2003 1 track, 29:06 playing length You lost your way in the lone and isolated wasteland of Siberia... Beaten by icy gales and bitten by the remorseless frost you roam through barren lands, looking for a way to escape this nightmare. The wind howls, and underneath its solitary drone you hear something else, or imagine to hear it - a voice, desperately calling, moaning, longing to return to the world of the living... For hours upon hours you stagger through the waste, until eventually you are semi-blinded by the snow, frozen to the core and almost mad with fear of dying. Suddenly, you perceive dim silhouettes of buildings on the edge of the storm. Could it be...? Sanctuary at last? The closer you get, the higher your hopes - but when you reach the city, you wander through empty streets, and only the hollow windows gaze upon your futile search for life. And while you hear strange sounds rise and fade from far away, the deep whistling of the wind fills your senses and eradicates conscious thought. All the while, the voice beneath the wind follows you - lurking and shapeshifting beneath the surging darkness, it distorts reality and beckons you from beyond. And thus the ghostly voice calls you deeper and deeper into the endless maze of Necropolis, the city of the dead... "Necropolis" is a hauntingly beautiful dark ambient gem. Warped field samples merge with rare, most sparse, highly emotive, mysterious synth melodies. Like a solid stream of darkness, the single long track shifts from raw, heavily reverbed emptiness towards the sad, subtle melodic parts and back again. The strength of this composition lies with the impressive way dynamics and climatic structuring is used. The different parts blend very well into each other, and the whole recording attains a very vivid, dark and haunting quality. Mostly due to the way field samples - taken in the taiga and in missile shafts - are used, there is an impressive, serene, otherworldly atmosphere that lingers long after the last drone has faded and the listener returned from the city of the dead to the profane world of the living. Floating, cold, raw at times, wonderfully and subtly melodic at others, "Necropolis" is an immensely captivating and amazing release. Just as remarkable as the music is its accompanying artwork - a handmade dark blue cardboard case sprinkled with tiny silver specks and adorned with a gold-on-black logo patch protects the airbrushed disc. Two inserts on blue, translucent paper contain photographs made by the creator of "Necropolis". This beautiful Russian release is sadly limited to only 85 hand-numbered copies and might well be impossible to get by now. However, collectors of fine dark ambient can still hope - Cold Spring Records will re-release this stunning piece of art later in 2004. Written 20/05/2004 by O.S.