From Enochian Apocalypse.

The United Kingdom isn't famed for producing Dark Ambient, and its nice to see that there are some artists from these shores getting releases out.
Nathan Clemence has been working hard at this project for some time and through numerous demo releases good to see someone finally welcome this Brit act into their stable.
I was very curious indeed.  Early demo's had promise but there was always something decidedly lacking mainly on the sound front.  This appears to have been cleared up effectively upon first listen.
'A Lonely Place' isn't a Dark Ambient album if truth be told; mainly just hanging around in the same circles flirting with soundtrack appeal.  The influence of Tangerine Dream filters through pretty damn strong and reminds me in part of the score to early 80's mess of a movie 'The Keep', which sounded better than it looked.
That said I am viewing this album on its own merits and not what it reminds me of, which is pretty lucky as I abhor Tangerine Dream.  What I do like is the way Nathan pieces his music together, kind of like John Carpenter in a way.  It's simplistic, it's not incredibly challenging, but it is easy to listen to, and more credit to Grimbergen for that.
Personally I would like to see this project use more organic sounds rather than early 80's type synth, but then maybe I am missing the point.
An interesting debut with a niche market, that wouldn't sit out of place with fans who like the music to 'Escape from New York'; A solid debut to be taken in context.
7.8/10 Tony Young.

steinklang industries             

simon collins 3/6

Thanks to Tony Dickie from Compulsion webzine.

Grimbergen - A Lonely Place
Much of A Lonely Place is built from the subtle layering of electronic drones, often shadowed by thick bass chords, and the occassional appearance of lighter synth melodies. The entire thing envelops like solid, grey mist creating an oppresive and downbeat atmosphere. It's especially true of the opening track, 'A Lonely Man' where rhythm is confined to intermittent lashes. The following track 'Without Hope' is all quavering and undulating synths, it's unfolding drone punctuated by spacey synth melodies and heaving slabs of electronic shudder but here the rhythm, when it finally appears, is much more ritual oriented, even though the dark ambient electronics remain the focus. There's an obvious affinity with the cavernnous rumbles of Cold Meat Industry acts, the deep drone of Lustmord and seventies Krautrock electronics.

'Waiting For Better Days' is much more focussed as layers of synths continuously fold in on themselves and accompanied by deep plucked bass it adds a degree of momentum to the track. It almost becomes neo-classical as the synths rise and fall, as beaty rhythms take it onwards to something more victorious, something more palpable than the deep rooted melancholia that enshrouds A Lonely Place. It's only right to point out that A Lonely Place was composed during a period when Nathan Clemence aka Grimbergen was recovering from a broken relationship. And that general feeling of malaise and despondency infects much of A Lonely Place.

A number of tracks feature wordless chants, a series of elongated harmonies consisting of thick, heavyset backings. At times, like the opening track, it gives the music a human element, an emotional pull often absent from dark ambient releases. At other times, such as on 'Unable To Escape' the vocal element takes the form of a solitary monk-like feel. The entire album is dark and moody, and all quite unobtrusive that it lends itself to quiet contemplation. Though if you're predisposed to dark thoughts you might want to give it a miss. I was listening to this late at night and even then I sought out something more upbeat before retiring to bed.

A Lonely Place follows a number of self-released CD-Rs, and marks the first full length album from Grimbergen. Two additional tracks have been appended to the track list that comprised the original CD-R run. With its lighter spacey melody 'We Are The Dead' is much more in the vein of seventies electronics, even taking on a part sci-fi, part Halloween type soundtrack feel at points. Sieben aka Matt Howden offer a remix of 'Drainage', his violin scrapes and soars heightening the dynamics of this beaty electronic track. Both the extra tracks are vastly different to the forlorn atmosphere of the earlier material and while they break the cohesiveness they do, at least, illustrate well the different styles Grimbergen are capable of. Still A Lonely Place is dark ambient with a melancholic undertow. For more information go to www.myspace.com/grimbergen or www.steinklang-records.at

This person doesn't seem to have written many reviews before but in the end there are soem compliments!  The review of the demo there was much better!

Heathen Harvest

by "ZG" (Zmei Gorinich)

Grimbergen is a one-man project of Nathan Clemence, once resident of North of England and now dwelling in Czech Rebuplic. Four demos, that were given various appraisals, and a few live shows preceded "A Lonely Place", which became a debut album, issued on a well-known old (since 1992) label, focused on Industrial–Noise music – Steinklang Industries.

Actually it is quite difficult to classify this kind of music, to say nothing about the thing that classification is always difficult and I'm not very fond of it generally. But still. It is not pure dark ambient as it may seem in the beginning, because in some tracks your ear catches a clear "timpani-like" rhythm, which is peculiar to neoclassical music. Then Dark Ambient can be very different too, divided in some subclasses according to the sound and influences it has. If Bad Sector, for example, is closer to noise music, then Grimbergen is closer to such acts as Raison D'Etre in its atmosphere. However, sometimes it seems music addresses to metal (for example, track seven – We Are The Dead – the synths are so simplistic and sometimes even seem so childish, plain and inexpressive, that it makes me think to the music that former metalheads produce when they suddenly turn away from metal or just want to show their "versatile nature") and to electro music (the moment at 3:27 and further made me think to some electro act when I listened to the track for the first time. Later I realised it was Fix8:Sed8 – Killing Field from Humanophobia album. I think this kind of mode is quite popular among electro acts). But as far as the strongest influences this album got from Dark ambient and Neoclassical, I'd prefer to classify it this way. I don't know what makes people write this kind of music: eternal clinical depression, some inner and outer problems..I don't think it is just the urge to create for the sake of creation, but rather a way out for emotions, feelings, an attempt to say, maybe not always in a way easy to understand or maybe it is a feature of one's perception that depends on the mood of the person, his condition, the state of things around, emotional balance, anything else on the moment of listening to the music piece.

The means of expression are really different: there we have synths, samples, timpani-like drums, deep voice which sounds as if it is reflected from the rocky walls of a cave or travelling through the huge hall of some monastery (here I catch myself on the thought about Raison D'Etre again). The sound is really deep, filling every single part of the space, multilayer – the things I really like. The artwork completes the atmosphere of the album: the pic of old metal gates, colours of rusty metal, ground and old dirty stones give a feeling of ancient, something that once was forgotten and now raised from the ruins. Maybe it is one of the stories about a man, imprisoned by his own will or with the "help" of human cruelty (or both) in an aforementioned place with neither ability nor wish to escape. Maybe this "Lonely place" indeed is a human mind or human soul with the doors closed, with walls covered with dust and moss, so that nothing and noone could enter within a long time. Why not?

I got "A Lonely Place" reviewed for Wounds of the Earth zine by Simon Marshall-Jones; it's an epic!  (P.S. I am English but I'm sure that will be amended soon).

 

Grimbergen "A Lonely Place" Steinklang Industries SKD19


Grimbergen is Scotsman Nathan Clemence (a self-proclaimed miserabilist) who has ensconced himself within the Czech Republic and upon listening to this album that country's aura seems to have seeped into his very bones, albeit unconsciously – what you get is an incredibly visceral slab of isolationist electronics that is quite numbing in its exploration of loneliness and pain. Nathan himself explains that this was the state of mind he descended into after the break-up of a long-term relationship and the concomitant feelings that episode triggered formed the basis and inspiration for these six slices (+ two bonus tracks) of grim drone and dark ambient soundscapes. Couple that with the upheaval of hauling himself from the northern realm of the UK to central Europe to insert himself into the life of a strange city in a strange country and what results is the perfect recipe to produce the bitter confection this album constitutes.

The first six tracks on this album have an overall coherency that gradually pulls the listener in to the wretched emotions set forth here (the track titles give it away with such epithets as "Without Hope", "Unable to Escape" & "Of Frustration and Disappointment") and the ingredients used to effect this consist of deep sweeping bass drones, chanting vocals, percussive and rhythmic passages, all produced with cold electronic precision but with the added spice of bass guitar, both plucked and Ebowed, resulting in accents of organic warmth. All tracks are played at a funereal pace, which lend a hint of sorrow for things lost and never to be regained and also an introspection dwelling on what might have been. And the pace also explicates a need to bury deeply the ability to feel these destructive emotions and to shut oneself off from them. The wordless vocal passages, a single voice, deep, melancholy and monk-like, echoing in vast empty cathedral spaces, further enhance the cloak of utter despair and isolation that envelops the lonely man, pushed out of his proper orbit – this is especially effective on the first track, appropriately titled "A Lonely Man". You can literally feel the wish to withdraw from human contact, to forsake the world that brings only pain and sorrow, and to live a life devoid of human emotions and the experience of them.

I got pulled in from the very first percussive note of the opening track, feeling the sheer weight of the claustrophobia envelop me and getting heavier as each track progressed, the dread continuing into "Without Hope" and "Waiting for Better Days", spiraling ever downwards through "Unable to Escape" & "A Constant Feeling" and finally concluding with "Of Frustration and Disappointment"– the music is unwilling to let go, wants to smother any joy that you may be feeling and demand that you share and empathise with the deep blackness the rejected is feeling. There is no light here, not even a sliver, in fact the sheer gravity of this black hole of despair has sucked it all in to itself, hating the light for what it represents AND for what it shows up.

The bonus tracks, "We are the Dead" & "Drainage (Sieben Remix)" have a different air about them, being less droney and more symphonic, more cinematic even but still with a catacomb atmosphere, and even reminded me of Goblin, especially the first one. "Dead" features more electronics and repetitive figures, building up the atmosphere slowly over its 10:25 length, the shuffling zombies amassing to forever snuff out the last remnants of life and warmth. And the Sieben remix is straight-up gloriously stompy martial industrial, a positive antidote to all the negativity on the rest of the album.

This is a wonderfully coherent and 'together' album, that both tells a story and is an exorcism of some demons that overshadowed the creator, and even though the emotions portrayed are entirely negative, I for one am glad that they led to the creation of this fine album

Rating: 8.5/10

-[S:M:J63.]

In the absence of any reviews of the Grimbergen album here's an extract from a really epic one of the Steinklang Industries III compilation off Heathen Harvest.

04. Grimbergen's "A lonely man" is a twilight sunset of death, blood, and despair. with its dark yet brightening hues in a dense intermix with gregorian-like chanting, droning vocals underneath monological synth string lines, and these start to buzz more as they proceed and process. other lines ar brought in as to an evidence of transmutations coming form within and from an internalized claustrophobic sphere marked by some very sparse echoey percussion way underneath. This is the sinister soundtrack where the caves, caverns, and cathedrals meet inside the mind of the"lonely man".

(Demian Mikeypup)

The second album is coming on nicely.  New things will be found in it.

Out 24.04.07 on Steinklang Industries, the debut album from Grimbergen - "A Lonely Place".

1. A Lonely Man
2. Without Hope
3. Waiting For Better Days
4. Unable To Escape
5. A Constant Feeling
6. Of Frustration And Disappointment

7. We Are The Dead
8. Drainage (Sieben remix)

 

It's quite good!

It was quite good.

Heathen Harvest

Artist: Grimbergen

Title: A Lonely Place

Label: Self Released

GRIMBERGEN

"A Lonely Place" demo EP

40 mins of loneliness and frustration!

Enjoy three of the six emotional and atmospheric compositions here! 

Contact me via messages if you want a copy of the CD.

cheers, Nathan

(P.S. Now will MyWaste let me upload my tracks without destroying them?!)