Band: Nimheil

Album: Infocalypse II

Album Year: 2006

Label: Uncomfortable Records

Genre(s): Dark Ambient

Band Website: http://www.nimheil.org/

Download From: http://uncomfortablerecords.com/ur015net2006.shtm

Rating: 7.5/10

Track List:

1. Infocalypse II

"Nimheil is the sonic project of Padraig MacIain. A visceral exploration of soundscapes and textures, that can be seen as industrialized dark-ambient littered with fragments of noise. Night-mare realms and visions of chthonic places are given an audible form. Padraig uses the isolation of his home town of Perth, Western Australia as part of his inspiration, portraying its occasional loneliness."

"Infocalypse II is a concept album exploring the mind inside the doomed cult of Jim Jones. Abusing the final taped recording before they discovered kool-aid, Infocalypse II is intended as a mechanism to play with sonics."

Words from the artist himself do well to describe what can be found in this gem of a net-release. Going into the album with such a concrete concept outlined for the listener proved to be a nice map to navigate by, as I was quickly thrown into the mindset of the Jonestown cattle. Two distinct layers exist in this material: an observational (almost archeological) layer which uses actual auditory recordings of the final moments of life breath within the Peoples Temple and a layer which induces an almost first person experience of being a member. Nimheil has written an accompaniment to a horrific tragedy of mass suicide and in doing so documents the mindloss within not only the followers of Jim Jones but also the listener.

Analog tape hiss decays into a dark drone that binds the full 44 minutes together as if it were a harmonic snapshot of the brainwashed psyche. Voices bounce between speakers; voices of the departed. Slowly surfacing from the darkly lit canvas, the sound of Jim Jones himself is heard preaching mass suicide while off in the distance the cries of children can be heard. The album maintains this format throughout its entirety, occasionally taking a break for some unambiguous experimentation. Tape hiss is thrown into your face, pitch shifted voices delay, and drones morph and evolve as if to shake the subconscious back into focusing on the subtle brain-programming of the dialog.

There are some interesting layers to explore here, however I found that the slow evolution of ideas tended to cause my thoughts to drift outside of the material. Fortunately, Nimheil has done an excellent job of placing attention grabbers within the edited dialog and within the unique sound effects that it is quite easy to get sucked back into the atmosphere. There are some incredibly fascinating acts of the human race to observe in the material he used. There also seems to exist a few audible “pops” within the track; no doubt an artifact of digital equipment not getting along. This seems to be a prevalent phenomenon in the musical computer age and I really wish it weren’t.

Despite these minor hiccups, I’ve found Infocalypse II to be quite a solid release. It’s like watching the final moments of the cult of Jim Jones play out on the inside of one’s eyelids. There are a lot of emotions covered in this release, tranquility, chaos, detachment, and finally the bleakness of passing… all while maintaining a steady and constant drone. Download this album immediately and experience a piece of history that should not be ignored.

-Jason

February 2007