Caravans to Empire Algol

Neptune Towers was a side-project made by Fenriz of Darkthrone. Being dubbed as "Deep Space Alien Astral Avantgarde Synth", Fenriz not only wanted to pay a homage to ambient artists like Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream, but also kind of doing something different from the raw black metal he was doing in Darkthrone. The first album, "Caravans to Empire Algol", does start the project on a good note. While not the greatest ambient release ever, it does offer some pretty interesting ideas.

The album begins with the track "Caravans to Empire Algol". There is a loud buzzing sound that plays in the background, and it lasts for much of the track. However, while that is going on, we hear all kinds of other sounds in the foreground of the track. This ranges from winds, spacey synths, and other sounds that give off a spatial atmosphere. The overall composition on this track is rather minimalistic and lacking in structure, so it's really just 24 minutes of random sounds playing. However, the spacey synths in the track are no doubt a highlight, as they are fitting to the theme of traveling to another planet. As for the second and last track, "The Arrival at Empire Algol", this is where things get weird. The overall tone of the track is darker and slightly less atmospheric than in the first track. Instead, we hear darker spacey synths and eerie noise play in the background. Things only get even crazier near the end of the track, as we hear noisy wind take up much of the space, implying that a ship is landing on a planet. While it might not have the vastness of the previous track, I still found it to be a good closing moment, as it finishes off the arc of traveling to Empire Algol with the ship getting there successfully.

There isn't much to talk about here since both tracks are very minimalistic in nature and have an avant-garde composition. However, the dark, yet atmospheric nature of both tracks are very strong, and is effective at paying homage to the ambient artists as well as even some film soundtracks to an extent. If you're in the mood for some spatial ambience, then this is an album I highly recommend you check out.

More than 20 years after I had this CD and its companion "Transmissions from Empire Algol", and sold them both to a secondhand record shop when space at home (and in my head) ran out because I had more CDs and tapes than I thought I had, I never thought I'd be hearing them again - but then, little did I think all those years ago that they'd become cult items in their own right and not just because their maker Fenriz happens to be a black metal icon. One big surprise about these recordings, given that Fenriz had recorded them mainly as a tribute to his favourite German cosmic rock bands (in particular, Tangerine Dream and early 1970s Kraftwerk), and the music was recorded with old analog synthesisers among other instruments, is that they don't sound dated or worn out at all, and still retain a raw, robust feel and intensity.

The title track consists of a hard-driving, often throbbing, deep drone that spears its way through your brain from back to front and forcibly orients you to follow its relentless journey into the far reaches of the sonic universe in the quest for Empire Algol. The strangest and often most Gothic sounds, from throbbing bubble effects to searing and sickly synth tones to sinister organ, wrap around the drone and your head; while they ebb and flow, they stubbornly refuse to let go and the drone continues to collect space flotsam and jetsam as it travels farther into space. While the music's structure appears quite simple, as it continues it reveals dark and intensely oppressive moods and atmospheres, trippy and hypnotic in their own way, with a rich palette of textures and tones that might evoke spiritual themes. Some stabs at melody develop quite late in the track.

Second track, "The Arrival at Empire Algol", comes as icing on the cake that is the title track: it is just as bleak and desolate, if a bit thinner and slightly less expansive and rich in its sound, though the textures and the volume dynamics can be incredible listening experiences in themselves.

Faithful as a homage to the likes of Tangerine Dream (especially Klaus Schulze) and bands of its ilk, "Caravans ..." does not attempt to interpret the music for a new audience but presents its offering as is, as if the album had fallen out of a wormhole leading back to the Kosmische Musik of the early 70s, somehow undergoing a production clean-up to get rid of the old hissing and white noise what-not while it was in free-fall. Being familiar myself with early Kraftwerk recordings, I can tell "Caravans ..." is not structurally sophisticated stuff but perhaps because of its simpler style, the sounds and atmospheres, and the moods and feelings of being alone, floating perhaps forever in an indifferent universe, seem all the more deep and intense. The love and reverence that Fenriz must have had for German Kosmische Musik can clearly be heard.

As well as Celtic Frost and Bathory, it’s a well-documented fact that the black metal movement of the early 1990s took a lot of influence from ambient and darkwave such as Dead Can Dance. It’s also no secret that they listened to a lot of film music, most notably the work of Ennio Morricone and horror films scores. So it’s hardly surprising that once the initial buzz of black metal had worn off, some of these artists would down guitars and try their hand at ambient music.

In the case of Fenriz of Darkthrone, this resulted in his brief passion project Neptune Towers, an homage to German ambient of the 1970s. Neptune Towers sits somewhat uniquely in this history. For the most part, the hallmarks of these black metal artists are immediately recognisable in their ambient and electronica projects. More often than not they were an extension or re-imagining of their music using different tools. Neptune Towers on the other hand is best considered as something completely separate to Darkthrone or Isengard.

Fenriz sees himself as something of a music historian of late, unearthing old school gems on his radio show and championing the values analogue to anyone who will listen. This grew out of his disgust for a scene and aesthetic that he had a very big hand in creating. Hence why Darkthrone pride themselves on acting the Motorhead of black metal in recent years with their admirable refusal to develop as musicians. But looking back on Neptune Towers it’s clear that there has always been genuine passion for music for its own sake beneath Fenriz the self-styled sage and traditionalist.

And so in 1994 he released ‘Caravans to Empire Algol’ under the name Neptune Towers, the first of two LPs. Even ignoring the sleeve-notes explaining his inspiration, it is clear that this work is not to be treated as anything other than an homage to the work Klaus Schulze in the 1970s. The title, the artwork depicting a grainy Horsehead Nebula, the two tracks clocking in at nearly forty minutes, it’s clear we’re not to think of this as anything other than a tribute album. It opens with one extended, low end synth note, that gradually pitch bends in either direction, followed by a very simple bass refrain not unlike Burzum’s ‘Rundgang um die transzendentale Säule der Singularität’. We are then taken through a serious of gentle transitions, that announce themselves through tone and pitch rather than key or tempo (pretty much the definition of ambient music then!).

For those familiar with the work of Tangerine Dream or Jean-Michel Jarre this is a very familiar journey. A series of simple harmonies come and go, gradually building up a subtle tapestry of moods designed to invoke the sensation of solitary levitation in the listener. A musing on the void. Fenriz is surprisingly competent at evoking the 1970s sci-fi vibe and one can tell he really is passionate about this music. It is not breaking new ground, but then again it never claimed to. If one listens to Klaus Schulze’s 1975 offering ‘Timewind’ (as Fenriz recommends in the sleeve notes) one can truly appreciate not only the technological skills he applied to his craft, but his knowledge of melody, harmony, and counterpoint. While Neptune Towers is musically somewhat simpler, and benefited from the synthesiser revolution of the 1980s, one cannot dock points from him for lack of atmosphere.

Whilst not exactly breaking new ground, this does what it sets out to do, and ticks all the right boxes for the spacey ambient music it apes. And who knows, maybe it has introduced a generation of younger black metallers to the likes of Tangerine Dream along the way. I am sure Fenriz-the-scholar takes pride in this thought.

Originally published at : Hate Meditations

We all know Fenriz as the main man behind Darkthrone, the seminal band that helped kick off the Norwegian black metal scene. While most people associate the works of Burzum to ambient music more, Fenriz also, to my surprise, had released two ambient albums himself in the ambient genre. He eventually lost faith in the project and I have no idea why, as the albums, Caravans to Empire Agol and Transmissions from Empire Agol are chalk full of “Astral Avant-garde Synth” awesomeness.

The first track, Caravans to Empire Agol, starts off with a fairly dark ambient feel, sort of reminding me of the first track off Lustmord’s Heresy. Continuing with some empty atmosphere with a deep, dark, horn like droning, It eventually picks up when some warm, Tron-like beats pick up the mood, leading into a more psychedelic, chilled area of the song. Filled with whirling oscillation and warm beats that act as a sort of “technological” beeping representation combined create a feeling like quote: “tripiing baaaallllls maaaann”. It eventually breaks down into some empty, dark droning again, and when some more warm beats come in to sort of uplift you, they fade and it once again breaks into some dark, evil sounding ambient, similar to the works of the aforementioned Lustmord. This carries on for awhile, leading a sort of hopeless atmosphere and that of fear. The track then fades into the next part, Arrival at Empire Agol. The darkness from the previous song continues to flow through and is then layered with various spacey synths, leading one to imagine being stranded in space, just floating. Eventually it just cuts back to dark droning and continues on until it picks up the pace with a rather bad ass bass riff and laser like oscillating. This continues until it fades off into a more depressive, soul-sucking, empty droning and ends the song.

Fenriz described this project as: "Deep Space Alien Astral Avant-garde Synth”. I don’t know about avant-garde, but it definitely fits in with a spacey ambient genre. It combines mostly Ambient, Drone, psychedelic and dark ambient elements, to leave a very dark and depressive, yet also atmospheric and euphoric. As Fenriz's words may imply, it’s assumed that this is supposed to be sort of alien/abduction themed music, using the aforementioned attributes to tell a pretty freighting story. I can see how it can work in that ideal, but in my opinion I imagined a story like Space Odyssey 2001 or maybe Aliens, rather than alien abduction. But I assume the story goes along the lines off: person(s) is abducted, aliens bring them onto ship, Aliens treat them well, everything’s all trippy and alien like, then Aliens start experiments on them, people try to get away, the ship then gets to the aliens planet, shit goes down, somehow the people escape the planet and then they get lost in space; if you want a very abridged idea...

The production on this is pretty standard, it’s ambient so rough recordings would sort of defy a lot of the elements and sort of contradict the atmosphere, so there’s no Transylvanian hunger-esque, low-fi work on this. It really is a roller coaster of emotions, as I mentioned and it really is completely different to whatever Varg was doing at the time as I assume he was more concerned with Odinism then cosmic, acid space trips. All in all, I listened to this decently stoned and it was AMAZING, a pretty interesting journey and totally complemented to the video game my brother was playing next to me(Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask, quincidently it was a part of the game when aliens invade a farm...). Highly recommended.