Are Mundal / N.U.N. etc., artist since 1992:
Are Mundal: Compilation Vol. 1
Title: Compilation Vol. 1
Format: CDx2 (double CD)
Label: Telesterion Records (@)
Rated:
Beginning with the 2-track "Interloper" (presumably one track for each album side), the listener is treated to some really spooky, varied stuff. The rumbling looped percussion in the background gives the impression of a railway journey while other muted instruments and a moaning synth herald a bleak destination. Sure enough, the first stop is in the middle of nowhere and an overheard phone conversation leaves you with no doubt you don't know what the hell is going on. An echoey percussion track, strange foley sounds, and the emergence of a quasi-gamelan/Harry Partch-like interlude in a dream state makes for pleasantly uncomfortable listening. There's much more to this piece, but you just have to hear it for yourself. Side 2 is the stuff of nightmares, as Are Mundal ratchets up the tension musically and otherwise, with some dialogue samples pilfered from a radio broadcast about people who thought they're vampires. Ghostly voices and more haunt this realm and I wished I had opened this package before Halloween. Although there are percussive incidents on this side, it is generally less rhythmic than the preceding track. While still being along the lines of the preceding tracks, "Nocturnal Discombobulation" is a bit more playful on the A-side and more dour on the B-side with some samples alluding to an autopsy. The bonus track was nicely atmospheric, but non-essential.
CD2 begins with "Nocturnal Perambulation" a much more disjunct soundscape that is no less eerie but seems to wander all over creation on the first track/side. On the second track/side there seems to be more attention devoted to musicality but the dialogue samples (grim as they are) tend to detract from that, in my opinion. There are still moments of brilliance, but in an uber-dark way. Next comes "Kreis" in two parts (A-side, B-side) which are more abstract soundscapes. Some of it was quite interesting and all of it was dark, probably requiring more time to delve deeper into than I have currently, but if you like what went before, you will probably like it as well. Even though this comp is twenty bucks, it has good value for the dark ambient enthusiast, especially those of the more adventurous sort.
2 CD compilation, comes as 6-panel double digipak.
Norwegian industrial/tribal dark ambient presents strange and dark material mixing
industrial and Gothic classical elements.
The artist grew up around the early Norwegian black metal scene and contributed
intros to bands like Enslaved and Immortal. He was good friends with Varg and Euronymous and was responsible for introducing them to non metal music at the time. File with Throbbing Gristle and S.P.K.
The material for this release is compiled between 1990 and 2023.
Genre/Influences: Soundscape, Experimental.
Format: Digital,CD, Vinyl.
Background/Info: Norwegian project Are Mundal has been active since the ’90 and are releasing new stuff on an irregular basis.
Content: This work is featuring 2 extended cuts. The work is clearly conceived as a Soundscape or sonic collage. The first cut is more elaborated and diversified featuring freaky, spoken, samplings, electronic sequences and slow rhythms. The second cut is into pure Soundscape.
+ + + : I really like the first cut which is well-crafted and more accessible by the slow cadence and samplings. This track reminds me a bit of early, Experimental, work of The Klinik. I also have to say a word about the cool artwork from the vinyl format which is also including prints of artwork by the artist.
New review
A short retrospect on YouTube by Dereck Higgins regarding «Nocturnal Perambulation» LP (12:20): Dereckvon
Description from Shame file Music Australia:
Are Mundal - "Kreis" 12" EP
Norwegian industrial/tribal dark ambient presents 22 minutes of strange
and dark material mixing industrial and Gothic classical elements.
File with Throbbing Gristle and SPK.
Limited edition of 100 hand-numbered copies,
comes with three glossy colour art inserts.
New Ep out soon
#002 Interloper by Are Mundal (LP) Genre: Industrial/ sound collage/ experimental electronic
Are Mundal
INTERLOPER
(Telesterion Records 002) LP 44m.
NOCTURNAL PERAMBULATION
(Telesterion Records 003) LP 44m.
Hadn't heard from Are Mundal in ages, back in 1998 when I reviewed his MUSIC BY in Audion 40. So, it was a surprise to get a message from him all these years on wondering if I was interested in his new releases. The two LPs that turned up some weeks later seemed very macabre and gloomy looking, like releases that may have come out at one time from the likes of Current 93 or Death In June, or maybe Konstruktivits, and there is some slight relation to those in the music. Although nicely presented, with extra inserts and postcards, both releases are devoid of any useful information, except for the basics on the rear covers. No track details, no instrumentation. So, as each LP side is a segued suite of pieces, it simplifies reviewing a bit!
INTERLOPER opens by immediately transporting us to the dark ambient meets ritualistic music of the 1980s, with a mixture of O Yuki Conjugate and Muslimgauze at the start, with its gloomy dark sounds and ritual drums, which after a few minutes gives way to a voice on a telephone, and amidst sonic collage, with growls and vastly reverbed crashes, it then moves to a Throbbing Gristle / Konstruktivits like phase, twist backwards and over itself becoming like drone Organum in vast cavern, developing and moving elsewhere with lots of other strange sounds. Turning over side B, with have that near-on patented Zoviet France looping technique, exploited rather well, until it is interrupted by someone talking about having sex with a corpse! That bridges to a gloomy Gothic phase, with choral voices and a churchy atmosphere, joined by low-pitched chatter, electronics and suchlike.
NOCTURNAL PERAMBULATION kind of follows a similar formula, but for a while on side A, it becomes more musical and melodic even, with looped cello and other instruments, and what seems to be snatches of classical music. Again there are bridges, topped by voices of either casual conversation or on a radio or telephone, at first moving into a vast sound environment, with reverbed scraping and rumbling and guttural almost animal like sounds, followed by environmental effects, weather, etc., plus another Zoviet France like phase, ending the side with a full-on tribal passage that heads off into big walls of sound. Side B then pretty much goes through the same types of movements, if arranged differently, and thus rendering it unlike INTERLOPER in at least one way, in that it all tends to feel like an album length suite.
Adding up to a most interesting and spooky listen, the two albums both fit the artwork perfectly, and are sure to be appreciated by anyone that likes the music I mention in the review. With just 100 numbered copies pressed of each, they're sure to become collectable rarities!
Richard Johnson from Fourth Dimension Records writes about Interloper:
Are Mundal Interloper LP (Telesterion Records, Norway, 2021)
https://adverseeffectmagazine.com/reviews-2021/
This is the fourth album from this Norwegian artist since 1996, I believe. Following both a CDr and a CD release and a gap of 13 years since the latter, Are Mundal has started to become more prolific, having self-issued two limited edition (100 only) LPs during the past two years. Neatly presented in a gatefold sleeve housing also an insert and printed inner cover, Interloper follows Mundal’s penchant for kinda elaborate and mystical, post-metal, artwork that appears perfectly appropriate for the music ensnared within. Comprising two side-long pieces, the album delves deep into cavernous terrain where vacillating swells of an obsidian leaning form a vast undertow to ghostly voices, empty space station signals resounding to the point of no response, baby screams, garbled passages, rasped strings and hammer-beaten howl all jostling into focus before drifting away again. Submerged rhythms, whispers, brooding flutters and the groans and creaks of a very old man waking to another day of pain do their utmost to compete. Everything sounds measured and purposeful, with enough going on to evade the usual trappings of such music. Both compositions are actually quite busy; the attention to detail being quite remarkable. Outside the work of Hiroshimabend, this might well even be amongst the cream of the more crepuscular and atmospheric end of the spectrum right now. It will be interesting to see where this Norwegian next takes us. (RJ)
MUNDAL, ARE -- "Interloper" -- LP --
2021 Telesterion Records, 002, (ltd. 100)
Dark Ambient / Industrial / Experimental. Dark atmospheric Ambient / Darkwave / Experimental music from Norway's Are Mundal, who has written songs for albums such as ENSLAVED's "Isa" and IMMORTAL's "All Shall Fall", but who is probably best known for his photography of Fantoft stave church on the day it burnt down in 1992 which ended up as a cover photo for BURZUM "Aske" EP. "This album is dedicated to the fight against christianity, religion in general, and all destructive ideologies". Beautifully presented in a matt sleeve featuring cover paintings by Mundal. Ltd x 100 hand-numbered copies with printed inner sleeve and full size insert, plus an artcard with artwork by Stephen Fabian. [Cold Spring]
[youtube]
Are Mundal Nocturnal Perambulation LP (Telesterion Records, Norway, 2020)
An appropriate enough title for the third album by this Norwegian artist as we are treated from the opening snatch of phone dialogue on side one onwards to a molten percolation of late night murmur, rumbles from seismic crevices, mournful strings, swaying groans, more dialogue snippets and snatches of indiscernible sound perfect for a chilly, or even chilling, setting. This is well-crafted mood music that is a little more nuanced and deeper than your average so-called ‘dark ambient’ record. Although the packaging, adorned with quasi-mystical motifs befitting of a metal outfit, does little to belie such trappings, the two side-long pieces are laden with a richer sensibility somewhat more labyrinthine in its scope. Sombre in tone overall, this is a record clearly made with purpose and meaning. I’d only criticise, if anything, the way the music is presented (the paintings of Are’s also reproduced are suitably moody and rather fine, though) and the inclusion of the statement on the back cover making it clear Are stands against all organised religion. Not that I’m religious myself (far from it) or believe, indeed, any artist can’t put whatever the hell they want on their own work, but once any artist starts applying such grand gestures to their work it can become something of an albatross. Otherwise, a fantastic record. Hand-numbered edition of 100, too. Well worth hunting down. (RJ)
Review by Richard Johnson of Fourth Dimension Records 1996.
Are Mundal "Music by .... "
New. Debut (a couple of collaborative pieces aside) solo album by a Norwegian artist apparently quite adept in the loop, liquid churn, astral weaving & sonic fleck stakes. A remarkable slice of dreamscaped hypno-motion, pulled into shape by tapes, guitar, samples, Tibetan clarinet, "devices", singing bowls, synth & programming. Ltd to 660 and self released for max effect.
I'm not sure if Are Mundal is actually a group, a pseudonym or a person, though I'd guess the former. The pre-release promo CD of MUSIC BY ARE MUNDAL was sent by Ultima Thule customer Anders Moe (who guests on flute on one track) a Norwegian collector of esoteric musics. Basically, Are Mundal's music is dark ambient with a vivid unnerving edge. I'm often reminded of Lustmørd, more abstract O Yuki Conjugate, and such-like. Interesting, if a little indistinctive. Contact: Anders Moe, Kringsjå studentby 2a 515, 0864 Oslo, Norway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-MaU4H3-nc&ab_channel=astridforfaen
New single available soon, Telesterion #004
N.U.N. / Are Mundal - Nocturnal Discombobulation 7"
Review by Alan Freeman Audion magazine issue # 69 June 2022.
Are Mundal / N.U.N. Nocturnal Discombobulation (Telestrion Records 004) 7" EP 12m According to one of the inserts that comes with this, N.U.N. stands for "Nacht und Nebel", whereas the other insert says "New experimental/dark ambient 7" by Nacht und Nebel " - hmmm, okay. Yet the cover implies that it's an Are Mundal release! And, what does Discombobulation mean? "In a state of confusion" according to Google. So, aptly nothing is clear. Except for the Satanic and sado-erotic imagery of the artwork. The music is all of a bleak and gloomy nature, as one expects from Are Mundal, almost certainly inspired by dark ambient and industrial music of artists like Lustmørd, SPK or Brume. The A-side is based around deep growly sounds, dark tones, shuddery electronics, guitar/bass, some saxophone and voice fragments, plus sundry other elements, whereas the B-side starts with the narration from a dissection commentary over which string tones and ritualistic percussives grow. Each side is over too soon really, and I could well imagine the music achieving far more if it had been given the room to develop. Yet, for what it is, it must be one of the strangest 7" records I've heard in a while, and also a rather good one.
N.U.N. ‘Nocturnal Discombobulation (Parts 1 & 2)’ 7″ (Telesterion Records, Norway, 2022)
After an energy-sapping decade or two screaming sub-Crowley poesie and shaking their fists at the sky (to the general bemusement of passers-by), it made perfect sense for some of those in the black metal fraternity to set their basilisk glare towards marginally less fraught area of self-expression. Step forward death/dark ambient… though by now, hardly a spring chicken itself (still useful for a sacrifice or two, though…). It’s a sub-genre that’s as restrictive as a newly acquired choke-chain and our heroes, N.U.N., are trapped in it like a fly in amber, like so many before them. The sleeve art showing demonic entities, pentacles and a naked femme reclining on a penis throne (???) means that I can almost hear the contents before the stylus hits home.
Black clouds of deep foreboding (c/o crackly sampling ‘n’ drone ‘scaping), will inevitably fog up your contacts, and as for the real cherry on the icing – the group are dedicated to the destruction of Christianity and probably the local women’s institute, too. So, while we imagine baby Jesus receiving a devilish custard pie to his angelic features we can also muse on the amount of progress made by black metal and its satellites since Michael Moynihan’s Lords of Chaostome. Nun. (SP)
Fourth Dimension Mail Order:
N.U.N. 'Nocturnal Discombobulation' 7". Death ambient swirl from Norway's Are Mundal. 100 only. Released in 2022. 8.00 GBP + shipping fourthdimensionrecords.bigcartel.com
New double-cd compilation of Interloper Nocturnal Perambulation re-mastered out now:
Are Mundal ‘Kreis e.p.’ 12″ (Telesterion Records, Norway, 2023)
https://adverseeffectmagazine.com/2023/03/15/reviews-2023/?preview=true
The latest from Norway’s Are Mundal brings two pieces spanning around 11 minutes each that once again lock onto the murky paths initially traversed by 2020’s Nocturnal Perambulation LP. Crepuscular timbres embrace indiscernible electronic fragments, metallic clangs and other random sounds while dialogue samples and rhythms claw their way through to break things up. While the snatches of dialogue tend towards the predictable, I really enjoy where Are is going with the music itself. Its melding of a dark soundtrack-ish approach to more abstract sounds still points to something yet to come that will be deeply fulfilling. Limited to 100 in partly hand-assembled sleeves, just as it should be. Perfect. (RJ)
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