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Hiemis — Zothique
(Bandcamp Noctivagant no#, 2021, CD / DL)

by Henry Schneider, Published 2022-04-25

Zothique Cover art

Zothique is a collection of short stories by fantasy author Clark Ashton Smith written between 1932 and 1951 and published as a collection in 1970. Zothique is an imagined future continent as well as the title of the cycle of tales. Using Zothique as inspiration, Juan Carlos Toldeo AKA Hiemis composed eleven tracks based on various locations or titles from this collection: “Cincor,” “Yoros,” “Naat,” “Uccastrog,” “Solar,” “Xylac,” “Zul-Bah-Sair,” “Iribos,” “Ornava,” “Tasuun,” and “Chaon Gacca.” Even after reviewing his previous release, La Chose, Hiemis continues to be shrouded in mystery with his dark wave explorations of heavily processed sound sources: nature, acoustic, and synthetic. Unlike La Chose with its romantic poet ambiance, Zothique explores the mysterious and darker side of atmospheric soundscapes, approaching Jeff Greinke’s fog-shrouded harbors. In addition to the inexorable approaching somnambulist, the rumbling harbringers of doom, subliminal voices, and low frequency harmonics contribute to the nightmarish aural  experience. It feels like time stands still throughout Zothique, and thereby you don’t sense a lot of difference from track to track, which tends to wear thin over the album’s 60 minutes. So Zothique is best taken in small doses, or as background music.

Filed under: New releases, 2021 releases

Related artist(s): Hiemis

More info
http://noctivagantcollective.bandcamp.com/album/zothique

 

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