Xerxes the Dark – “[Ab]Solution” Album Review

a2471722981_16 — *[Ab]Solution –* magical dark ambient from Iran

Xerxes the Dark creates some of the most dense, yet vast dark ambient soundscapes that you will ever hear. For you new listeners, the project was founded by Iranian artist Morego Dimmer in 2005.

[Ab]Solution is the latest release out on DMT Records which we bring to you today.

Xerxes the Dark is not only a new well-respected figure in the style of dark ambient, but he’s also helped to establish an interest in an otherwise overlooked scene of similar artists coming out of Iran. Cold Spring should also be credited for this with their recent Visions of Darkness 2CD release which we recently reviewed.

In [Ab]Solution, fine planes of noise and sometimes spectral voices seem to appear and briefly grow out of the walls of sound – most often dense, but sometimes appropriately thin. Instead of guiding the listener through some ethereal lateral path, Xerxes the Dark tends to use a combination of various sound and noise layers to create darkened mini-scenes. He then breaks them apart either through the likes of sonic light beaming through the ceiling or through the opening of the skies. Perhaps it’s the yearning of escaping an oppression like in Iran.

From Bandcamp: “He lived about 2 hours not on earth nor hell, but in a gloomy place like a limbo, after seeing many things and suffering from unknown disorders, experimenting flashes about his past and his death, he gradually came back into life by a mysterious cosmic power that changed the game.”

Perhaps the best example of the above-mentioned description is the extraordinarily deep and vacuous track, “Limbo (Opus 2-Lost & Lorn).” The deep scenery and wave-like forms coming from the left and right sides, the sound of dragging and unlocking of chains (perhaps a reference to the coming back to life?) and other various noises add another dynamic. A more static/noise/wind effect appears in track 4, “Realizing Flashbacks,” perhaps a symbolic veil of life/death in regard to the above-mentioned story? It’s like a short trip through radio static waves from life to purgatory and back to life again. In “Longing to Return,” a static-like foreground mimics the sound of leaves rustling or a fire crackling and a soundtrack to the return to earth.

Xerxes The Dark creates something with [Ab]Solution that one sees only with the cinematic dark ambient likes of some of the Cryo Chamber artists. While he creates dark scenes that turn from intimate and claustrophobic to vast, there is also a personally human feeling as well. You take a look at the photo below and you have to wonder though… how one person with that minimal setup can create dark ambient atmospheres that can at times be some of the most vast and dense around?

That’s Xerxes The Dark for you…