"The expression of genius is always spontaneous.
How simple it is to acquire genius: you know the means, yet who will the take the plunge?"
-A.O. Spare
There is a lot of hype surrounding this self-titled tape (Cold Void Emanations, 2010) as is the case with anything that defies the confines of some pre-conceived aesthetical schema. Nevertheless there is a kernel of validity amidst the clamor. Murmuüre have a very clear artistic vision that's for sure. This offering ain't the inane end result of a weed-infused foray into the wilderness, there's pretty interesting stuff going on here and it demands from the listener a certain degree of open-mindedness. There are parts here which are supremely emotive in their mercurial spontaneity and function quite suitably as 'gateways' into some unfathomed part of the unconscious. You have to allow your mind to drift with no direction if you're to appreciate this piece of expressionist art fully. And though I have yet to experiment with this I'm sure given the appropriate surroundings there are further layers of experience to be unravelled. Now having said all that I'm still not quite sure where to place this; merely slapping the 'ambient black metal' label is making the band's sound a crude disservice. If forcibly pressed to give a description I would probably haphazardly mumble something like "an inspired effort to transmute some genuine, extraordinary state of mind unto an audial sequence" and then just stare silently with an expression of both awe and puzzlement.
Funeral doom has that interesting peculiarity in that it's a sub-genre which is as simple to execute as it is difficult to master and so unsurprisingly there are many followers and few leaders. Amidst the latter there were two bands with the crawling intensity of a tectonic plate whose mere name was enough to make puppies weep and flowers wither. I'm talking of course about down-under's Mournful Congregation and Worship from Deutschland. Of the two I am admittedly more partial to the former but I'll be damned if both don't offer two pieces of skull-crushing dirge which make this humble 7" seem as the most un-befitting medium in carrying these audial mammoths. If you like your doom straight from the mother of all hell-holes then this release, and pretty much anything on Painiac's Suicidal Doom series for that matter, is simply indispensable.
I became acquainted with Morgion primarily through their first couple of albums which solely comprised of soul-wrenching death/doom hellbent on throwing my Sunday afternoons into a world of misery. It's only recently (shame on me!) that I came across their first 1991 demo, Rabid Decay, and had my ass summarily handed to me. An unremitting, cavernous slab of premium quality US-style death metal and the most convincing affirmation of why I got into the genre in the first place.
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