.
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
