Adam has been experimenting in various genres and especially ranging from punk to a hybrid, “de-progressive” genre incorporating dark/black, ritual ambient, industrial, noise, doom, drone etc. elements.
The latter hybrid genre is well represented in its varying shades by Adamennon’s solo albums (two of them featured on Doommantia here and here) as well as by the author’s collaborations with acts like Null, Traumasutra, L.C.B., Beta (a.k.a. Mike in chaotic sludge-grind band Viscera///), Nessuno (a.k.a. Michele Carnielli in Kröwnn), or else, very recently, with the ultra-gloomy project Liturgia Maleficarum.
In addition Adam and his recording studio (SFR Studio) have been and are a key reference for issues related to sound engineering and production for several bands born in the deep underground and soon object of much deserved international attention. I may just mention the doom-death metal banshees SaturninE as well as the funereal necromancers Fuoco Fatuo and Black Temple Below.
With the albums Nero and subsequent MMXII Adamennon has been further widening and enriching the paths of experimentation started with his solo dark-drone ambient production. Adam has been progressively abandoning the once substantial industrial elements in favour of the incorporation of horror prog-like features typical of the Italian prog rock tradition. Adamennon’s most obvious references for this newer course are groups like Jacula/Antonius Rex and Goblin, i.e. bands/projects where keyboards, and particularly organ, are dominant. More than ever Adamennon’s music turned into “narrative” and evoking, obscure and esoteric as much as the music of those soundtracks for vintage horror movies that doom lovers dig so much.
Hence it comes as no surprise if this passion brought Adamennon to collaborate with musicians who are mostly into electronic music, i.e. a reference music genre especially for soundtracks to horror and sci-fi movies. One of the fruits of such collaborations is the recent split between Adamennon and Alessandro Parisi. Alessandro Parisi is a young, talented and internationally known Italian composer/producer devoted to minimalistic electronic music and broadly inspired by the cyber-punk culture and, in general, by anything esoteric and gloomy. Alessandro’s main sources of stylistic inspiration are electro-techno-house acts like Legowelt and Daft Punk and composers such as Jean-Michel Jarre, John Carpenter and invariably Goblin and that creepy, scary intro of album Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield (try and listen to Alessandro Parisi’s recent EP La Porta Ermetica – on Bandcamp …).
The partnership between Adamennon and Alessandro Parisi culminated into the release of the split 12”LP “Il Plenilunio del Fuoco” during May 2014 as ultra-limited edition via the British label Flight Recorder. The split LP is accessible in full streaming via Bandcamp. Apparently the album is sold out, however the label should be contacted about possible reissues.
The LP consists of music for the ideal creepy soundtrack to an ideal, definitely dark movie that doesn’t exist yet! The cover art is adorned by a typical medieval-looking heraldic symbol with shield and swords, rather simple style-wise but stained by blood. The very titles of the album and the tracks (in Italian and Latin) are like a jump straight into occult, necromantic ambience: e.g., “the Nihil is calling you”, “the ritual”, “baptism of blood”, “purification” … Each side of the split LP includes two rather short (never over 5 minutes-long each) but incisive tracks consisting of a solo song and a collaborative song. This is actually something different from most splits around where bands/artists contribute their separate tracks independently. This split LP is a way for approaching the essential features of each musician, Adamennon and Alessandro Parisi, and, at the same time, for observing how the two musicians blend their styles, experiences and creativity while composing together.
You may appreciate the alchemy of this mutual influence right from the first combined track, "Il Nulla Chiama A Sè”, whose title (“The Nihil is calling you”) is an ideal bridge with the “subject” of Adamennon’s album MMXII, dedicated to the Nihil and to the end of Everything. Immediately Adamennon’s keyboards lead the dances. The solemn and tremendously sinister sound of the organ is involved in braided constructions with a deep bass line imparting a tridimensional thickness to the sound. Over these sonic spires some malignant entities are fluctuating: their bleak, trembling voice stems from Alessandro Parisi’s electronic tricks and Adamennon’s piano touches … If the hypnotic rhythms numbed your mind, just a single creepy whisper is able to drag you into the story told by this soundtrack music, a story that doesn’t exist yet but that you are bound to build up while listening and being inspired by music.
The second combined track, "Aperiens Ad Lunam (Baptismum Sanguis)" brings horror in its very title (“blood baptism”) but it is surprisingly introduced by a rather intimate melody driven by a violin-like sound from the synth. If the first collaborative track is recalling the horror/sci-fi movie soundtracks from the 60-70’s, this second combined track is lead by a plodding, almost martial rhythm marked by the trembling cymbals, by the galloping vibrations of the bass and, above all, by the ancient, folkish, almost medieval/renaissance-like flavour. Here as well Alessandro Parisi and Adamennon seem to have good time in combining diverging melodic lines and electronic effects around the backbone of the vibrating cymbals. After a progressive growth of sounds into the core of the ballad, the leitmotif will gradually get simpler until the violin-like sound will be almost dissolved into silence, into Nihil, like a troubled soul which is recalled by a séance and then it is sent back to the otherworld dimension it belongs to.
In his “Rituale (Electi Initiationem)", Adamennon unleashes his beloved keyboards. This bleak and dreary lithany is lead by the piano possessing an almost painfully acute, crystalline sound. The resulting glacial, metallic, lower-key, piano-driven melody is dissonant and is growing over a gloomy and gurgling base of organ and unsettling electronic effects similar to rattles (often heard in horror movies). The composition of the “Rituale” is a sort of never-ending spiral emerging from silence for us and then gradually plunging back into silence. Alessandro Parisi is closing the split with his ballad "Caeli Rore (Purificatio)". Alessandro likes to lead the story by means of a heavy, dark and majestic drone carpet populated by his innumerable, insidious ghostly, Goblin-style electronic effects. These effects consist of obsessive sounds glued together by the dull and rapid tolls of the percussions in the background, as well as of sudden noise flashes similar to voices deformed by theremin. Alessandro’s own track is overly grievous, dominated by oppressive, tenebrous darkness, the same darkness which is eventually going to swallow all the sounds belonging to this occult ritual.
The ritual is officially over, but you cannot be relaxed because, sincerely, 20 minutes are far too short for exhausting the scary, morbid story that you have been building up, and plunging into, while transported by music …
Words: Marilena Moroni
Links
Full streaming: HERE.
Video: HERE.
Adamennon @ Bandcamp
Adamennon @ Facebook
Alessandro Parisi @ Bandcamp
Alessandro Parisi @ Facebook
Flight Recorder @ Facebook
Tracklist
Side 1
1. Alessandro Parisi & Adamennon - "Il Nulla Chiama A Se (Orior Omnia)" 04:04
2. Adamennon - "Il Rituale (Electi Initiationem)" 04:31
Side 2
1. Alessandro Parisi & Adamennon - "Aperiens Ad Lunam (Baptismum Sanguis)" 04:57
2. Alessandro Parisi - "Caeli Rore (Purificatio)" 04:50