[reviews] afe014rcd
never known: once in a lifetime [remastered edition]

"Once in a Lifetime" is the second Never Known album, recently re-issued on Afe Records (Andrea Marutti's own label). This album consists of dreamily-ritual excursions through ancient time and primordial elements. It starts with the two trancey-minimalism drones ("A Waiting" and "Through the Gate"), introducing us to liminal spaces.

"Day Two" represents the beginning of a voyage through the origins and the primal-ontological foundations of life. It is made of expanded organic chords floating in deep distance. Almost without transition it directly carries on the completely sonic-black mental-scape with its strange metallic "doomy-like" echoes and high-pitch fantom-like frequencies. From dark austerity it passes to a beatific state of ravishement with the intimate and dreamy "On the Beach".

This album is in the vein of the previous Never Known, continuously beautiful with intensively mythical tellurian symbols.

[Philippe Blache]