*2022 stock. Special edition, limited & numbered to 176 copies including a mini-poster plus a bonus 3" CDR with three exclusive tracks.* The enigmatic scientist K. Meizter of Beyond Sensory Experience has left his murky laboratory to release "Dark Matters", a dark puzzle piece to his debut solo album "Travelling Light". K. Meizter's new album is a strong musickal reaction of dark ambient soundscapes with subtle and sinister melodies, catalyzed by pounding rhythms and distorted experimental electronics. "Dark Matters" comes in a stylish digipak.
"Imagine if you will a digital compact disc containing an array of disjointed sounds. Fragments of aural imagery. Dark and confusing. Difficult yet strangely compelling. It takes you on a journey whilst pushing you away. Welcome to ‘Dark matters’.
The featureless faces and the overexposed presentation of the CD artwork instantly reminds me of the Twilight Zone or even Mark Romanek’s classic movie ‘Static’. It’s the unknown and bewildering mystery of what the artwork presents that draws these comparisons and sets the tone for what promises to be in interesting listening experience.
After building up a well respected reputation as one half of the industrial duo Beyond Sensory Experience, whose 6 albums to date have all been immensely well received K. Meizter decided to go it alone and released the highly impressive yet decidedly different ‘Travelling Light’ in 2006. Following closely in it’s footsteps comes ‘Dark Matters’ his second solo outing that also seems a change of labels from Horus to the industrial institution that is Old Europa Café. So how does ‘Dark Matter’ fare, especially with regards to the highly suggestive and equally mysterious artwork that adorns the digi-pack it’s housed in?
Very well I’d have to say. Straight away I’m impressed which doesn’t happen too often. But then again I was Meizter’s previous release ‘Travelling Light’ so it shouldn’t really come as too much of a surprise or should it? I suppose it’s different to try and second-guess exactly where an artist/musician will go with a new release, especially with the confines of the post-industrial scene where the limitations are both predefined but the possibilities are endless.
Coming together as a more disjointedly abstract form ‘Dark Matters’ is an amalgamating of sound, noises and delectate structures that combine to achieve an instantly interesting and captivating release with a very organic yet structured feel and approach. Occasionally the music contains gentle rhythms against a backdrop of dark ambient-esque washes of sound to create a bleak and shadow-ridden reflection of Portishead styled trip-hop. Then again it’s harsh, rhythmic and powerfully punchy with littered samples and distorted scraps of noise. And then it’s a combination of both or neither but it still works immensely well if I have to be honest.
Moving away from the standard elements that you’d expect to find from his BSE days, ‘Dark Matters’ seems to owe more to the avant-garde/electronica genres of free-expression and projection than it does to the barrage of noise and haunting thickly, engulfing dark ambience that the post-industrial genres offer up. And yet with pirated elements from all of the above Meizter creates a highly enjoyable and decidedly listenable album that carries you along whist occasionally scaring the shit out of you. But of course you can’t stop listening and being fascinated by the constantly evolving, textured patterns of sounds that play out in front of you.
‘Dark Matters’ is another fantastic release from a musician I’m becoming more and more impressed with in his own rights and is a release that with each listen becomes more suggestive and enjoyable in an uncomfortable but still highly impressive kind of way. Do your self a favour – try it. Make the jump and fall into the distorted, confusing, abstract and Twilight Zoned world of ‘Dark Matters’. You well very well like it. - Judass Kiss Magzine
