DÉHÀ – MUSIC FOR DESCENT

Belgian Black Groan Drone

An enigmatic and prolific one-person instrumentalist and ceaseless collaborator, Belgian mad musical scientist Déhà has a long and bewildering discography. Music for Descent appeared on Bandcamp recently and is over half an hour of blackened hallucinogenic drone.

Appreciating immersive ambience from any genre needs a particular frame of mind and usually demands the time and investment of committed listening. Even then, wandering soundscapes of this sort balance precariously on a tightrope between indulgent tedium and transcendental experience.

As the title suggests, Music for Descent is not chill-out ambience. It is, instead, a harrowing, otherworldly odyssey of rawness and barbaric mystique. Tortured shrieks, spectral howls, death metal roars and even creepy whistling are distantly audible, baked somewhere in the mossy, archaic density of organic drone. There is druidic, naturalist quality with reverberating implied violence behind inscrutable mists and wavering undulations of effects. Some of synths are evocative perhaps of ancient tribalism and there is a suspenseful woad-caked savagery suggested in parts. It is not strictly metal by any stretch but it is heavy, in sound, presence and psyche.

The drama constantly builds but never concludes; the dread refusing to reveal itself and instead remain enigmatic and threatening. Much of everything here suggested, implied and portentous rather than obvious. Music of this sort is easy to dismiss as tedious pretension – and in the wrong circumstances it will be – but Music for Descent is certainly arresting in its reliance on desolate cinematic impact that is somehow vivid yet impenetrable. It is an unnerving meditation into primal madness; it will put a different slant on your daily commute.

Check out Music for Descent at Bandcamp: https://deha.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-descent