Night of the Ankou

Originally released as a limited-edition CD-R effort on the Finnish label 267 Lattajjaa before being expanded and re-released on Type, Night of the Ankou brings together two of the busiest folks on the 21st century psych/freak scene: Foxy Digitalis mainman Brad Rose in his North Sea guise and the U.K. trio Rameses III. The two pieces that formed the first release are extended efforts at nearly 20 minutes each, giving the collaborators a chance to really shine in creating the kind of electronic drone ambience that has characterized much in their chosen musical realms over the previous decades, going back to Ash Ra Tempel's earliest experiments. "Death of the Ankou," for all it has a downbeat title, feels more like a gentle benediction, guitars sounding more like ethereal reed instruments while other drones provide lighter swirls of sound in contrast, a slow bubbling roil gently concluded with a quiet keyboard figure. "Night Blossoms Written in Sanskrit" perhaps unsurprisingly continues in the general vein, but with a slightly brighter, warmer feeling all around, matched with a more straightforward guitar part here and there; the dawn to the previous track's dusk, as it were. For the re-release, a further cut appears via a remix by Xela, "Return of the Anjou." While sonically it flows perfectly from the original cuts, there is just a hint of additional tweaks and elements seeping through the core drones, as if alien radio stations were being briefly tuned in and let go again while tracking the background radiation of the universe.