Cindytalk

Subterminal

Boomkat Product Review:

Post-industrial shapeshifter and collaborator with members of Cocteau Twins and Ministry, plus acts diverse as Abul Mogard and Somatic Responses; Scottish enigma Cindytalk poetically invokes dankly absorbing atmospheres in the flesh tickling timbres and hallucinatory silhouettes of these 2021 recordings, dispensed on False Walls.

A go-to artist for those who prize presence, ambiguity and mystery in their dark ambient music, Cindytalk remains among the most reliable in their field for atmospheric shadowplay. On ’Subterminal’ they place nearly 40 years of intuitively guided work, and honing a distinctive electronic palette, at the service of sensually rich sounds that pique the 6th senses. It is said to evoke “environmental, social and psychic breakdown” in its suggestive narrative arc from “hope to collective delusion, then to hallucination, and finally to escape.” Whether that manifests in the eye of the beholder remains to be heard/seen, but for us it’s an invitingly barren listen, open at all the edges as far as the ear can hear, and recalling a certain quintessence of the best Scottish music (or northerly ambient musicks by Biosphere or Deathprod) that reminds us to trips in the primordial landscapes of Sutherland and dark sky parks of Galloway.

They’re all satisfyingly durational, best to get right into it, forget your immediate surroundings - suspend disbelief - and transport from the mind-quarrying bleakness of See Seer Seek’ to phosphorescing beauty of ‘Where Everything Sparkles and Shines’ and the high register aurora borealis like illuminations of ’Systems Are Spiralling’ and off away into its 17’ minute panorama ‘We Fly Away With The Birds’, glistening with field recordings and pangs of dark bliss, negative ecstasy.

CD (4)