[releases] afe101cd
amon vs. mortar: amon vs. mortar

Track List:

1.  Part I  4:53

2.  Part II  6:17

3.  Part III  3:27

4.  Part IV  3:18

5.  Part V  10:47

6.  Part VI  8:06

7.  Part VII  24:58

8.  Part VIII  3:14

Description:

Amon is one of the earliest music projects of Andrea Marutti from Italy, also active under his own name and the Never Known alias, and also Afe Records label owner.

Andrea began his experiments with music in the early '90s using tapes and concrete elements. A few years later he also began to use synthesizers, samplers and other electronic devices, and founded the Lips Vago Digital Studio.

Several releases of Ambient / Dark Ambient music credited to him were published by labels such as Eibon Records, Amplexus, Silentes, Nextera, Drone Records, Taâlem, etc. on CD and other medias.

He is also responsible of many other projects dealing with different styles of electronic music ranging from Lo-Fi / Weird / Cheap Electronica to IDM (Wolkspurz & Ramirez, Lips Vago), Dada / Noise / Non-sense (Spiral, The Afeman).

He is part of Hall of Mirrors along with Giuseppe Verticchio (Nimh), of Sil Muir with Andrea "Ics" Ferraris (Ur, Airchamber3) and of Molnija Aura with Davide Del Col (Ornament, Echran).

Mortar was a side-project of Moreno Daldosso, mainly active in the Power-Electronics area as Murder Corporation.

Owner of the now defunct Murder Release label - mostly specialized in Power-Electronics / Noise cassette releases - he also released music under the Metastatic and Spiral aliases.

Mortar's trademark lo-fi sound can be easily filed under the Death-Ambient genre, we'd like to remember his ability to create horrifing soundscapes using low-resolution and time-stretched samples of classic music.

During its first years of existence, Mortar music was published - mostly on cassettes - by Murder Release, Slaughter Productions and Old Europa Cafe.

"Emperor's Return", the first Mortar CD album, was published by Fuoco (a joint effort between Eibon Records and Amplexus) in 1998, while a limited LP vinyl album entitled "From the Grave" was released by Oktagön Records in 2000.

Two CD-R releases on Blade Records and Anaemic Waves Factory were also published before the project was disbanded a few years later.

The "From the Grave" LP is now made available again by Afe Records in the form of this unlimited CD-R release aptly re-entitled "Amon vs. Mortar", here's what Andrea Marutti / Amon has to say about it in his own words:

"In late Summer 1996 I was asked for help by Mortar in order to edit and finish some of his tracks for a possible vinyl release on the Amplexus label. After de-noising and editing more than two hours of material I was given permission to choose what I felt were the best tracks and manipulate them, and so I did. In November I made my choice and added some Amon atmospheres to the originals, trying to polish their native roughness while keeping the tension and darkness; when I was asked for some "organ sounds" I also recorded a completely new track. When my work was finished it was not appreciated a lot by Mortar because the result was too similar to Amon's music... I don't know why, but this music was never released by Amplexus. Years passed and six of the tracks I worked on were finally released by Oktagön in 2000. You can't find anywhere a credit for my work on the sleeve, but if you carefully listen to the album you will be able to recognise many of the trademark Amon sounds used on the "Amon" and "El Khela" CDs. Quite a long time is passed and I have no hard feelings about all this, I think it's nice to make this work available again in a more suitable format."

"Amon vs. Mortar" also includes two extra-tracks - consisting of about 30 minutes of music - which were recorded during the same sessions but were not part of the original release on Oktagön Records.

All music was remastered by Andrea Marutti at Lips Vago Digital Studio in January 2008 from the original DAT tapes. The artwork was created by Abby Helasdottir / Gydja.


Reviews:

"..."Part I" introduces a deeply spacious electronic ambience. In metaphorical terms it connects us within the universe, suggesting the presence of a tellurian breath that surrounds us. As human we seem to vibrate with the divine (communion) and the music is the communicative medium. "Part III" is an almost goth-like ambient piece covered by micro-noisy injections, harmonious electronic echoes. "Part IV" certainly represents the highlight of the album with a superb ambient funereal theme dominated by detached-desolate-phantomatic organ chords (closed to Tangerine Dream's "Zeit")..."
Prog Archives [more]

"...This release has gorgeous droney sounds. Minimal modulations and additional noises generate the vulcanic atmosphere which we already saw on the cover. All tracks are created by both artists, except for two. The third part is a Mortar solo-piece, while the fourth part is by Amon... The album could perhaps use a little more variation at moments, but that's a matter of taste. A statement in minimal drone structures for everybody who looks beyond their imagination."
Gothtronic [more]

"...For those of you who already had the chance to taste some of his Eibon materials, here Amon tends to diversify a lot some of the passages even though the global sound of the work is quite uniform, but you have more sounds suspended in the background, sometimes lost in reverb, sometimes something strive to get to the surface, the impression is there's something beyond the steam... At the end of the day it's a really quiet and introspective CD and I think the desolated rocks Abby Helasdottir/Gydja has put on the cover tell us much more of this release than the majority of the words I've written."
Chain D.L.K. [more]

"...apparentemente più concentrato su insondabili oscurità era "From the Grave", collaborazione tra Moreno Daldosso, Mortar e Murder Corporation (BU#10), e Andrea Marutti, qui Amon, pubblicata da Oktagon nel 2000 ma risalente a quattro anni prima.... Quasi mezz'ora di bonus dilata il dronante continuum ora diviso in otto tracce in cui la mano di Marutti è effettivamente evidente tanto che non serve leggere i credits per cogliere che della "Part III" è artefice il solo Mortar..."
Blow Up [more]

"...Inutile dilungarsi sul contenuto, che si snoda in territori conosciuti agli amanti dei generi dark/death/ambient, mantenendosi sempre su buoni livelli ma forse al di sotto di altre prove soliste dei due, sebbene si tratti di un opera immancabile per gli amanti del genere..."
Sound and Silence [more]

"Il disco di cui si scrive è il remaster di un'uscita Oktagön del 2000... Pare che dall'edizione Oktagön non si evincesse la presenza di Amon nel CD, che invece è molto significativa..."Part III" dovrebbe essere a firma del solo Mortar, tanto che si sente uno stacco in termini di dinamismo, per una traccia inquietante alla maniera di alcuni dei primi dischi dark ambient di casa Cold Meat Industry: sembra di essere all'interno di una stanza buia con un vento fortissimo all'esterno che fa forza contro le pareti. Curiosa, poi, "Part IV", attraversata per tutta la sua lunghezza da una melodia minimale d'organo, che finisce per costituire un altro elemento di varietà in un contesto sì efficace, ma uniforme..."
Audiodrome [more]

"...A good part of the album contains deep bass drones that dominate the mix but there are times when other things seep in and take on a shape all their own too. "Part III" starts out with some haunting choir sounds that fade away into noise that resembles waves crashing on a shore. "Part IV" is probably my favorite chunk of the album because it breaks away completely from everything else and drifts away with some very nice organ work... I do think if you're a fan of dark, brooding droning ambient music that this is a release you may want to look into..."
Connexion Bizarre [more]