melankolia-reviews

Review from This is Darkness

Thu, 24 May 2018 17:54:57 +0100

From: This is Darkness

Published: May 23, 2018

Melankolia is the dark ambient / neo-classical project of Mike O’Brien, also known for his work as Appalachian Winter, Veiled Monk and Ritual in Ash. Since the founding of his project in 2009, O’Brien has released three full length album, the last of which, III, came out in 2012 on Quartier23. Melankolia, true to the name, seeks to engulf the listener in a melancholic atmosphere. The strongest, most consistent tool in his repertoire is the piano. Often just a little field recordings and piano work is all that is needed for Melankolia to create a dark, lonely sort of atmosphere.

On their fourth release, Vividarium Intervigilium Viator, Melankolia paid painstaking attention to detail, allowing the creation process to run several years longer than on any of their previous releases. The album was picked up by Hypnotic Dirge Records, a label that specializes in a variety of music, which they call “An auditory palette for the estranged and eclectic”. Unlike on previous releases, Vividarium Intervigilium Viator is completely done by O’Brien himself, with no guest musicians.

Vividarium Intervigilium Viator is a diverse release. There are a number of different styles of music and mood being created here. These albums take a bit more consideration than the standard dark ambient fare, thus I’m reviewing this one six months after release, though I have been enjoying it since December. What makes this release hard to describe for a reviewer, ironically, should be just what would make listeners enjoy it. Tracks like “In the Garden Sleeps a Messenger” have sections that sound like they came right off something like Prospectus I by raison d’etre. Then, moments later on “Wellspring Labyrinth (Left Hand ’til Mourning)”, we hear an intricate texture of darker background soundscape, while synth, piano and choral voices give the track a more fantastical, ethereal feel. Then, on “The Murmur (Succour Midst Sorrow), Melankolia starts with a billowing wind and a guitar, before the piano takes over and O’Brien begins to recite an interesting passage, I assume of his own creation, which talks of the woes and disappointments of human existence.

In all these different sorts of tracks, Melankolia keeps the theme and mood directed consistently toward his goals. The heavy use of field recordings throughout the album adds greatly to its contemplative, melancholic nature. The piano parts all hold an emotional edge, and are reasonably diverse, in opposition to so much of the neo-classical styled dark ambient we hear which incorporates the piano, but not in any skillful or complex sense, often allowing several notes to repeat throughout, never using any actual scales or chord progressions. Not that most of that is bad, I enjoy many of these sorts of tracks, but it feels more authentic with Melankolia than with many of the other examples I’ve heard over the years.

This music is perfect for long lonely nights, sitting by the window reading, watching as the seasons pass, time slipping irretrievably through our fingers. The name Melankolia really tells the tale of this artist’s style. He treads that ground between dark and “regular” ambient very lightly. The album evokes a sadness, but of an indirect variety. We aren’t left imagining lost childhoods or ended relationships. We are not given such a direct sensory nudge. Instead the music leaves me feeling almost content in my solitude. It is that sort of calm darkness that one finds when all is pitch black, but a single burning candle or night-light. A sense that all the surrounding woes and hardships are fleeting, as are our own fragile lives.

I would highly recommend this release to anyone into the neo-classical side of the dark ambient spectrum. There will be quite active moments throughout the album, but they rarely if ever disrupted me when I am focusing on some other task. The heavy use of field recordings makes this a true pleasure as well, really adding a depth to the sounds of your environment, and their emotional pull on you. Hypnotic Dirge Records released the album in a beautiful 4 panel digipak with an eight page booklet of photography and thought provoking written passages. O’Brien really put together a polish gem with this one. We should definitely be keeping our eyes and ears open for whatever is to come next!

Review by: Michael Barnett

Review from Concrete Web

Wed, 31 Jan 2018 20:04:47 +0100

From: Concrete Web

Published: January 31, 2018

Original Link

Mike O’Brien is one of the members of Symphonic (Black) Metal act Appalachian Winter, he’s the guy behind the fantastic droning Dark Ambient act Veiled Monk, and he used to perform ritual Ambient Music too under the Ritual In Ash moniker. Another solo-outfit he runs is Melankolia, with a modest yet highly interesting discography.

Welcome Vividarium Intervigilium Viator, the fourth full length under the Melankolia moniker. The project signed to the fabulous Hypnotic Dirge Records roster, known for its happy and joyful releases, ergo Melankolia’s newest effort will surely fit! Yeah… No, seriously, this album is a nice addition to this label’s permanently growing roster, for it represents desolation, introspection and grief. Okay, it is not ‘Metal’ at all, but it is not the first time that Hypnotic Dirge Records come up with non-metalized material; it’s all about the concept of the atmospheres represented (which I just stated: desolation, introspection and grief – and more of these depressing aspects).

Anyway, Vividarium Intervigilium Viator is a ten-track creation, lasting for sixty-seven minutes, being released the digital way, as well as in a four-panel digipack. Music-wise, there are two directions being active, sometimes operating separately, sometimes acting in a beautiful symbiosis. At the one hand, you have those contemporary Classic Music compositions, based on piano especially. At the other hand, there are those mesmerizing Dark Ambient pieces, keyboard-played, occasionally including percussive elements. And then there are some crossovers too. Still, even if it’s the one or the other style being performed, there is a huge differentiation within that specific approach as well. On top of it, Melankolia add some samples and field recordings, strengthening the compositions by the depth of their meaning, or just creating an additional sphere on top of the deepest meaning behind each song.

Let’s take the opener Ambrosia, as representing example. Melancholic, yet truly beautiful piano melodies go hand in hand with dreamy, hypnotic and astral synth-based soundwaves, evolving into a floating, esoteric, even meditative symbiosis. Eventually, the use of simplistic yet prominent drums enter, adding a dimension of contemporary activities. The Crowning of Autumn, for example, is an example of integrity, and beauty, that typifies the pieces that focus on classical piano-based melancholy. This specific track, for example, also comes with violin-alike instrumentation and ‘heavenly’ female voices, and breathes an ethereal purity. Other pieces are rather focusing on Drone / Dark Ambient aspects, sometimes ominous and scarifying, then again transcendental, hypnotic, mind-escaping.

Vividarium Intervigilium Viator feels emotional and introspective, as if Mike wanted to tell a personal story, like an expression of feelings that characterised his raison d’être, as a contemplation, a reflection, or an explanation, if you want, for life-bound situations. He succeeded, for I am looking back on my past, and pondering about what’s next to come. This album is the ideal soundtrack for such introspection!

Rating: 95/100

Reviewed by: Ivan Tibos

Review from Disfactory Zine

Wed, 17 Jan 2018 22:23:58 +0100

From: Disfactory Zine

Published: January 17, 2018

Original Link

E’ un viaggio lungo quello operato sul quarto full-lenght del progetto ambient/neoclassico Melankolia. Un disco da mettere via per le lunghe notti autunnali ed insonni; per dar largo spazio ai pensieri e alle loro strane e quiete evoluzioni sotto gli occhi di Morfeo. Saranno previsti piccoli terremoti interiori per mezzo di note dalle tempistiche oltremodo dilatate ma comunque “pazienti” e ben propense a conferire quei timidi e preziosi brividi sempre auspicati. Con Vividarium Intervigilium Viator non ci troviamo davanti uno di quei lavori capaci di folgorare da subito (la lentezza regnerà sovrana, più che in molti altri dischi dello stesso genere), diciamo piuttosto che va ascoltato una prima volta e poi riposto con cura sino all’arrivo del momento propizio (che prima o poi arriva, nel frattempo gli occhi si faranno certamente ingolosire dalla splendida copertina, sarà lei con molta probabilità a farvi decidere quando sarà l’ora).

Melankolia poggia le sue assi portanti su ripetuti veli di tastiera e pianoforte, aspetti che andranno a sovrapporsi più e più volte all’interno dell’ora e dieci circa di durata. Troveremo la pioggia a farci compagnia, pioggia abbinata a fredde/spettrali strutture come nella traccia Between Heaven and Hell (la prima a farci togliere mezza testa dal guscio dopo l’elegante Ambrosia e la ruvidità naturale di Nyctophilia), i brividi portati da una The Crowning of Autumn o movimenti inquieti -in qualche modo anche rapido/limpidi- come nell’ottima In the Garden Sleeps a Messenger. Che dire poi dell’oscurità implacabile di Requiem che nei suoi undici minuti (la più lunga) traghetta l’album verso la sua rapida fine (qui troveremo un terzetto di brevi brani, dapprima l’omonima Melankolia e poi The Murmur –Succour Midst Sorrow– e Annie, Light in A Dying World).

Vividarium Intervigilium Viator non ci strizza mai l’occhiolino perché è frutto dell’istinto e della totale, libera volontà del suo creatore (è bandita l’impronta vocale con l’unica eccezione del narrato su The Murmur –Succour Midst Sorrow- , la totale immersione dovrà passare giocoforza attraverso questa scelta). Per “capirlo” al meglio dovremmo entrare nell’ottica della persona Mike O’Brien e di quello che può averlo smosso nei riguardi di una creazione talmente efficace -se colta- nel sfiorare ripetutamente alcune corde sensoriali di solito tenute ben celate.

Consigliato a chi ama trascorrere il proprio tempo sui primi di Mortiis, sui Vinterriket o sulle magnifiche fatiche di Arcana, Dark Sanctuary, Dargaard e Die Verbannten Kinder Evas anche se qui troveremo meno dinamismo e assenze vocali. Pazienza e propensione al genere renderanno Vividarium Intervigilium Viator una gemma da estrarre spesso e volentieri (per quei pochi).

Reviewed by: Duke "selfish" Fog

Review from Dark Undeground Music Zine

Tue, 12 Dec 2017 01:52:45 +0100

From: Dark Underground Music Zine

Published: December 10, 2017

Original Link

Melankolia are a solo project from Ohio that plays a mixture of neo-classical, ethereal and dark ambient and this is a review of his 2017 album "Vividarium Intervigilium Viator" which was released by Hypnotic Dirge Records.

Tragic sounding keyboards start off the album along with some elements of neo-classical while the music also mixes in a great amount of dark ambient style atmosphere as well as a great amount of programmed beats and most of the music is instrumental and always sticks to an instrumental direction, nature sounds are also utilized at times as well as most of the tracks being very long and epic in length and also sounding very different from each other and as the album progresses a brief use of spoken word parts can also be heard.

Melankolia plays a musical style that takes neo-classical, ethereal and dark ambient and mixes them together to create a sound of his own as well as keeping most of the music instrumental and the production sounds very dark.

In my opinion Melankolia is a very great sounding mixture of neo-classical, ethereal and dark ambient and if you are a fan of those musical genres, you should check out this solo project.

Rating: 8/10