.
The Bardo Thödol, or Tibetan Book
of the Dead, describes the experiences of the soul after death,
punctuated by three intervals known as bardo. Over a period
of forty-nine days, the text would be chanted to provide the
deceased with a guide to the Chikhaia Bardo (the time
immediately following death), the Chonyid Bardo
(where archetypal visions and karmic illusions are experienced),
and the Sidpa Bardo (where the process of seeking
rebirth occurs). As part of this otherworld progression,
on the thirteenth day within the Chonyid Bardo, the
soul encounters four orders of Wrathful Goddesses: Eight Kerimas,
Eight Htamenmas, Four Female Door-keepers,
and Twenty-eight Herukas. The Bardo Thödol describes
each of these Mamo, or witch goddesses, in graphic detail, with a
variety of animal heads and bearing numerous magickal objects, and
instructs the deceased not to be afraid, as these entities are, in
fact, emanations of their own being.
All
source audio provided by maru.
Sound
processing, concept and visual design by Gydja.
Sample
Please don't ask
me about the title - one of the best in recent times anyway - and go
straight down the dark boulevards of space with this cryptic duo, which
offers a nice helping of obscure electronica that, for once, sounds
instinctive and fresh instead of boring the listener to pieces with
festivals of presets and fake seeking of a non-existent truth. Divided
into four movements, "Ma-mo Rbad Gtong" requires attention: it's not
wallpaper ambient, there are all kinds of disguised figures and
translucent sonic holograms enhanced by pseudo-aquatic atmospheres and
resonating in caves populated by nicely decomposed throat singers who,
just like sirens, invite your brain to follow them in the middle of an
extrasensorial perdition. This well conceived, free-floating
architecture - no sequencers to tear your hair off - is like a giant
black shadow, only rarely illuminated by spurts of synthesized sounds
that soon disappear like shooting stars in the summer sky, giving back
our consciousness to the dominant sense of physical abandon.
Review by Massimo Ricci of Touching
Extremes
