[reviews] afe030lcd
a.a.v.v.: no abiding places

After a long working, the "No Abiding Places" sampler finally sees the light, which could easily give way to a mediocre pun, since this is pure, unadulterated dark ambient.

The disc features Non Ethos, Moan, True Colour of Blood, Ornament, Bestia Centauri, Amon, Etere-o, Canaan, Subterranean Source, Bad Sector, aal and Subinterior. Most of them have one or more releases in the Afe catalogue, and are featured here with unreleased or rare recordings.

Far from being the usual sample, this collection has a HUGE work behind, both in terms of selection (even usually "brighter" artists like aal or True Colour of Blood are particularly obscure) and mastering - Andrea "Afeman" Marutti has skilfully blent each full track with selected fragment from all featured artists, so that the CD sounds like one enormous monolith.

This could serve both as a deepening of the Afe roster, and an introduction to dark ambient - fans of dark drones will surely rejoice in their catacombs.

[Eugenio Maggi]