Aythis – ‘The Black Beyond’ Review

What does Aythis sound like?

Usually, ethereal darkwave music, but this time we’re doing drone experiments in the primordial ooze.

The review of ‘The Black Beyond’ by Aythis

Stepping away from her usual ethereal darkwave music, Netherlands-based Aythis turns her attention to a scorched landscape for her new album. ‘The Black Beyond’ is a dark ambient album. Don’t expect to find melodies or lyrics here. Instead, you’ll be subject to cinematic and panoramic soundscapes of drones, keyboards, and ghostly vocal calls like sirens in the mist. Whilst it fits the same darker tones that Aythis usually creates with her more song-structured darkwave music, this is a tonal piece rather than a melodic one.

‘The Shape In The Wind’ opens with dusty wind sounds and Aythis’ voice drifting in and out like an otherworldly being. My favourite thing about this album is how eerie yet inviting Aythis’ voice is. There’s a lot of production around her voice in this track, as it assembles like dusty particles on shifting sands and then disperses again. The actual drone-like noises are dense shrouds that evolve into a tearing, thin, searing sound of ‘The Silent Ones’. It sounds like a post-rock guitar hue and a pitched-down theremin got together in the post-apocalypse for a yearning moan. Aythis’ vocals are omnipresent here on two levels. The ghostly siren calls continue, but now we have some unfathomable lyrics murmuring like a witch’s potion over the top. Slightly unsettling, its dense and dry fog of war will numb your senses.

‘The Presence’ dials back the vocals for a cyclic throb of dark ambient sounds and sound effects. Creaking wood, water drops, and the noises of “something” shifting around a 3D environment intermittently surprise the listener. The main thrust of the ambience comes from distant whirrs of keyboards, synths, and percussive rumbles that have a strange radio-frequency bounce to them. If ‘The Presence’ was about darkness, then ‘The Vanishing’ is about ascendancy into light. Airy synths, washes of water, gusts of air, and a general lightness take over for this short piece. This track wouldn’t sound out of place in a Silent Hill game. The album closes with ‘The One Who Waits’, which is the most minimal piece. A rhythmic clicking echoes over distant drones of sirens, gas pipes, and escaping air. It is tonal, and an evil twin of white noise tracks to relax to. This didn’t click with me personally, as it is a long and static piece designed to place you in a numb trance state. I was hoping for more detail in the design.

As an experimental detour from her usual darkwave music, Aythis shows she can more than handle creating dark ambient soundscapes. Whilst some pieces are more interesting and intricate than others, Aythis’ voice is utterly captivating when she uses it in unusual ways. That made the first half of the album a stronger fit for my personal tastes, but if you prefer your dark ambient more drone-like, the latter half will appeal more. It’ll be interesting to hear if the next Aythis release will take any of this drone ambience with it, or if it’ll be a return to darkwave. Either way, I’m excited for it.

Recommended track: The Silent Ones

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