Another older Malignant title that I'm finally getting in stock here, The Nacrasti is the excellent 2001 album from R|A|A|N, the solo death ambient project from Cali artist Stig Berg. I don't know if R|A|A|N ever followed up this amazing album as further information on the project has been difficult to come by online, but The Nacrasti remains one of my favorite dark industrial ambient albums (and Malignant releases) eight years on. The gorgeous album packaging suggests secrets buried beneath desert surfaces, ancient maps and symbols printed in spot varnish, the R|A|A|N legend embossed in gold foil, this cryptic lunar aesthetic hinting at the bleak, crushing dronescapes contained within. The album is made up of nine interlocking pieces, and this is no mere by-the-numbers Lustmord rip-off; R|A|A|N travels through deep valleys of minimal metallic whir and echo-drenched prayer bowl tonalities, distant foggy washes of metallic percussion and ritual horns blasting across windswept wastelands, absolutely crushing waves of distorted low-end heaviness, flickers of strange electronic garble, swarms of malevolent insect buzz, smears of time-stretched piano, chimes, the muted thunder of tympani being pounded in slow motion miles away, deep reverb-drenched ambience, monstrous chants emanating from somewhere deep below the earth, pounding machine rhythms, the first two tracks almost suffocating in their feeling of abject hopelessness. But then we move into the washed out orchestral ambience of "Sandrin", walls of melted, muted strings smeared across grim and beautiful kosimiche synths, like Tangerine Dream drowned in tape murk and joined by booming industrial pound and swells of subterranean ultra-heaviness. The rest of the album features heavy hypnotic tribal rhythms, ghostly vocalizations, dessicated field recordings bleached by a hellish sun, massive subsonic drones, clanking metal textures and psychedelic Middle Eastern horns stretched into fearsome infernal ambience, giving this a weirdly jazzy feel on "Mirivm" and "Festival Of Surmelk", like some futuristic noir jazz soundtrack for the end of the world. Then there's "Lilin", with its crushing low-end doomdrone that explodes into cascades of chimes and Sunroof-esque raga in the later half. Yeah, this is so much heavier than just another Lustmord clone. While Lustmord's isolationist terror does figure into the raw DNA of R|A|A|N's sound, this is much heavier, more exotic and alien sounding, like a cross between Inade and Heresy-era Lustmord and flourishes of pounding ritual industrial and grim darkjazz (on the later tracks). Highly recommended.