Paris Transatlantic

Despite a rather colourful press release that raps on about monoliths, angels, queens, peasants, Persian (?) bread with peanut butter and lingonberry jam (that's Vaccinium vitis-idaea, an uncultivated member of the cranberry family primarily used in northern Europe to make jams and preserves, btw), The Amateur Hermetic starts out as another one of those Bolero-type pieces that starts out quiet and gets louder. But not for long. From what I can glean from the press release it seems the source material for this 41-minute span of music is Sundin's own voice, though there are some terrific thunderclaps, screes of white noise and some angry metallic drones in there too, as well as some pretty ominous gurgles (maybe the composer's digestive system hard at work on those lingonberries). Sundin's work is consistently evocative, if not always easily accessible; this is a little more so than his Antifrost outing, Hanging, but it's pretty dark stuff. Occult references, religious doubts, growing a beard. Isolation. The Philosopher's Stone, indeed