Released
1997
Label
Eibon Records
Reviewed by
Michael C. Lund
Contact
Via Folli 5
20134 Milano
Italy
Visit
Last Edit/Update
06 august, 1998
Ordeal
TRAUMENDE
Track Listing
1. Traumende
2. ....A Rift
3. The Never Raiser
4. Clouding
5. Dune
6. Bliss
7. As Without Light
8. Alle Sabbie
9. Opaque
10. Mirror Of Glares
11. The Capitulation Of The Clouds
12. Ultima Speme
Ordeal's debut CD on Eibon Records is not
inappropriately entitled Traumende -- a conglomerate of the German words for dream
and ending. The twelve tracks comprising the album are soundtracks for
somnambulistic wanderings through gothic cathedrals and nocturnal landscapes clad in mist.
Tense, grand, thematic synth structures serve as the foundation, over which flows elegant
guitar melodies -- twinkling, glittering, soughing and reverberating like the last visions
and sounds experienced by someone sinking into sleep; while deep, pulsating drums, beat in
time to the slowed rush of the blood through the sleeper's veins. The music presented here
moves beneath overcast skies -- often melancholy, at times even despairing, but also
filled with a sense of pathos and hope. This duality is further heightened by the sparse
lyrics that accompany half of the songs on Traumende; the words sparkle with the
light of transcendence, but it is a transcendence achieved through nihilism rather than
conventional religious faith.
The title track, "Dune"
and "Bliss" are perhaps most exemplary of the CD's sound. With its rolling
guitar theme, and background atmospheres like a universe moving slowly in reverse,
"Traumende" follows a cyclical pattern. The piece builds to grand proportions,
then abruptly pauses, only to resume its forward motion with renewed strength and subtle
variations. Ordeal establishes the mood and sound from the very beginning
with this piece, and its impact spreads ripples throughout the rest of the album.
"Dune" features the same expansive ambiance as "Traumende," again with
a streaming, perturbed guitar melody running through the entire piece, and crashing
drumbeats maintaining a slow, stately pace. Simple, but very visual, lyrics are whispered
in a coarse, male voice that seems to bleed out of the thick melodic fabric of the
composition. The transition from "Dune" to "Bliss" is almost fluid,
and many of the elements of the former song carry over into "Bliss." However,
the guitar themes on "Bliss" are lighter and more reflective, and the piece as
such is less dramatic than "Dune."
Two songs on Traumende
single themselves out by their use of soprano vocals. The first is "..... A
Rift," on which the powerful, yet frail, voice of Novella Bassano appears
alternately near and distant, as if borne on forceful winds. Towards the end, the very
aural quality of her voice becomes an instrumental element that soars above the piece like
the sound of some exotic wind instrument. On "Alle Sabbie," Bassano's
vocal performance is more operatic, and mixed rather deep in the sound picture, so as to
appear like a hazy mirage inside the intense, dark atmosphere of the piece.
The album also features a number of
instrumental compositions that seem to either set the mood for the longer pieces with
vocals, or serve as moments of relief. "Clouding" is thus a subtle piano
composition that appears all the more tranquil for its position between two of the album's
most dynamic songs -- "The Never Raiser" and "Dune." "As Without
Light" and "Opaque" are brief, and very dark pieces, absent of both guitars
and drums. Both appear towards the end of the album, and act like instrumental
after-images of some of the longer pieces earlier on the CD. The final track --
"Ultima Speme" -- is likewise without words, but a musically more diverse
composition, that throws sparks into the preceding darkness with its charged, treated
percussions, and closes the album on a less despairing note, with an almost joyful
keyboard theme.
Ordeal is above
all else the work of Gabriele S., who not alone wrote most of the music and
lyrics for Traumende, but also performed all chord instruments, keyboards and male
vocals. The voice of Novella Bassano is, as mentioned, featured on two songs; Maurizio
Landini added samples, and assisted in the writing of the music and words for a
handful of the album's tracks; and, Massimiliano Bianchi played the 'weeping
clarino.'
