Another stunning piece of dark ambience from Malignant Records. What else is new? I had actually put off sitting down and writing about this 2008 album because up until now, I knew almost nothing about either of the artists that make up this collaboration. It turns out that Caul is one Brett Smith, who has previously appeared as a member of the ambient/industrial groups Blackmouth and Tertium Non Data (the former of which some of you may remember as a one-off project that included Swans chanteuse Jarboe). He records his solo dark ambient work under the name Caul, with a number of releases that came out on Eibon and Malignant back in the 90's. This is the first time that I've heard his work under the Caul banner, and here Smith teams up with the long-running dark ambient artist John Gore, who records under the name Kirchenkampf and also runs the noise/experimental label Cohort Records.

The two artists combine for an harrowing descent into dark symphonic ambience with Sleep Night Death. The seven tracks all lean towards bleak electronic dronemusic, but the sounds are interesting: Caul and Kirchenkampf create sprawling black driftscapes formed from strange Nullsonic-like electronic detritus, cthulhian whispers, huge shimmering slabs of industrial drone, heavily processed synth-based orchestral strings, the combined influence of cinematic soundtrack music and cosmic krautrock (with more than a few passages that remind me of classic Tangerine Dream, only much darker) and terrifying realms of cavernous subterranean ambience all come together on this album. Several tracks suggest Lustmord combined with dissonant Ligeti-like strings. Others remind me of Sleep Research Facility flecked with Tangerine Dream-style dreaminess, or Goldsmith's original score for Alien stretched into infinity. It's pretty great. Not as heavy and malevolent as some of the other Malignant titles that I've been getting in stock lately, but dark ambient/drone fans will be pleased. Packaged in a slimline gatefold jacket with black-on-black spot-varnish printing, and limited to 888 copies.