SJUNDE INSEGLET, THOMAS KARLSSON – DE KLIFFOTISKA RITUALPOEMEN
(+ EXTENDED INSTRUMENTALS)
Let’s start with a disclaimer. If you’re not into Dark Ritualistic Ambient, you’d better stop reading. Because it can hardly get darker than this. And hardly any scarier perhaps, if you are sensitive to stories of potentially dangerous dark qliphotic magic “which offers an initiatory path with both the sharpest of thorns and the most beautiful of black roses”.
Qliphots, according to Wikipedia, are “the representation of evil or impure spiritual forces in Jewish mysticism, the polar opposites of the holy Sefirot”.
The liner notes promise a process “where the adept consciously aims to realize the promise given by the Serpent in Genesis.”
So maybe you’d better think twice before you trod this path, because the liner notes author “would not recommend working with the qliphoth in an unorganized way or with an unstable mind!”
Personally, I am not sure how seriously to take all this information, but neither the accompanying notes, nor the reference to the Dragon Rouge (international occult order and esoteric academia) leave any room for doubt.
“The music you have now accessed should be seen as functional rather than enjoyable, but
one thing does not exclude the other. I am humbly flattered if anyone finds them musically enjoyable, but fact of matter is that they were designed for magical work. […] The less experienced adept can, however, use these tracks for deep meditation and contemplation.”
Prepare yourself to dive into an overwhelmingly massive body of work:
The original release presents ten tracks, one for each Qliphoth, presenting the Qliphotic Poems by Thomas Karlsson. Karlsson is a Swedish Occultist and esoteric author, founder of the Dragon Rouge (and also known as the lyricist of symphonic metal band Therion).
The music accompanying the poems is performed by Sjunde Inseglet (which translates as ‘The Seventh Seal’). I do not know if this is a solo project or a performing collective, but I assume the latter. What I cán tell is that the music is overwhelming in sound and production. And scary, too!
Let’s just say that it sounds as if Midsommar was a documentary, not a fictional movie story.
The initial album also includes the instrumental versions of the tracks, which means this album adds up to 3 hours and 39 minutes. But that’s not all…
As impressive as De Kliffotska Ritualpoemen already is, the separately released Kliffot (Extended Instrumentals) are a must-check for every (dark) ambient fan. Here, the ten instrumentals are stretched up to 40+ minutes each, adding another 7 hours and 11 minutes to the original set (!!).
Somewhat to my surprise, the tracks easily survive their extensive stretch. The Extended Instrumentals can thus be seen as a collection of ten individual full-length ambient albums!
Needless to say, this is not the kind of Ambient music as Brian Eno originally intended.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you: if you dive deep into this set and into its occult background, you may not want to leave your house for all of the coming winter. But I dare you to try, since this is easily one of the best dark ambient production I know of.
“This project has been in the making for about 5 years. Initially, the recordings of this project was kept within closed circles of the esoteric order Dragon Rouge and the purpose was, and still is, to provide efficient ritual music for magical praxis.”