Year: 2020/2026
Label: Transgredient Records/Zoharum

Released originally in 2020 only on vinyl, Zoharum’s recent re-release of Monocube’s and Troum’s collaborative effort finally makes the album available on CD (and tape). This re-release features one track not available on the original, expanding Contemplator Caeli to six tracks and about 42 minutes of music.

In its droning dark ambient expression, Contemplator Caeli once again puts the reviewer against the wall. What to say about music so inherently abstract and very obscure? The album’s name translates to “sky watcher”, and it is “dedicated to our psychic firmament” (apparently – the slipcase promo is sparse on information). There’s rather little to get to grips with here.

As I’ve written before, I believe music in general, and abstract music in particular should communicate directly with the listener on a level beyond rationality and concrete thought that can be verbalized. Music should communicate directly with the soul. This is especially important with abstract instrumental music (which is what this CD represents), as it is the only level of communication available. Things such as track titles and artwork should serve to set the scene, so to speak, but primarily the music should rely on its own ability to convey ideas.

To some extent, this Contemplator Caeli sets out to do. Its track titles, all in latin, are mostly references to stellar topics (track two, Precessio Aequinoctiorum, for example, translates to Precession Of The Equinoxes), but give context only in the broadest of strokes. The album artwork, a blurry image with a humanoid shape on the left and something that cannot easily be identified on the right, doesn’t however at least easily and obviously relate to the stellar thematics.

Switching over to the music from more metaphysical ruminations, Contemplator Caeli’s droning dark ambient consists of slow, humming layers of abstract sound, over which more active, tangible sound elements are layered. There’s even a bit of human voice. These elements never reach melody, but there’s a definite musicality to for example opening track Circularis Et Perpetua – what sounds like an accordion drones long notes with definite structure. Or Digressio; whatever stringed instrument it is that is plucked, it’s certainly far more musical than a lot of dark ambient, but the notes never really combine to make a melody as such.

The soundscapes are open and airy. In terms of the dark ambient spectrum, there’s nothing oppressive, sinister or foreboding about the album. This isn’t the darkness of terror or fear, but the beautiful darkness of the vast night sky, laden with the endless wonders and mysteries it holds. The long, humming, distant drones that serve as the backbones of the compositions, and the overall reverberating, echoing nature of the soundscape evoke the deep sense of awe one feels looking at the black night sky and all its stars.

In that sense, Contemplator Caeli’s music matches the name. This definitely is music for sky watchers. And perhaps the sense of awe, of standing at the precipice of boundless mystery, at the same time feeling infinitely separate from everything and connected to everything within the vast cosmos, is the psychic firmament. There are few ways as efficient to realize that there indeed are more things in heaven and on earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy, as Shakespeare put it.

That said, somehow Contemplator Caeli isn’t quite as evocative and powerful as I’d like it to be. In the end some of the music gets a bit too musical, too easy to fixate upon on a more conscious, verbalized level. And, to be frank, when Contemplator Caeli occasionally gets a bit more abrasive, such as on Stellae Errantis with its lower rumble, the album breaks the immersion it reaches on the more harmonious, subtle tracks.

The end result is an enjoyable album, one that potently conveys images and ideas through its abstract music. But at the same time, it is not all it could be. There are elements that grate and risk rubbing the listener the wrong way.

Visit Monocube on Bandcamp or Facebook
Visit Troum on Bandcamp