Transmissions from Empire Algol

After the release of the first album "Caravans to Empire Algol", Fenriz would release another album from Neptune Towers a year later titled "Transmissions from Empire Algol". This one still follows the same spacey ambience of the previous record, but there is a noticeable change in direction. Not only do the ideas of the previous album seem more well established, but the new ideas would even bring more life into these ambient tracks.

At first glance, the album looks like it's gonna be the same as the last, as both tracks are in similar lengths and is just slightly shorter to the previous record. However, the first track, "First Communion. Mode: Direct", proves this wrong. Here, there isn't much noise included on this release, and instead, the spacey synths and sounds are at full force. Not only that, but the synths are in higher quality than in the previous record, so they sound more professional. The composition is also a bit more structured, so the flow between the different sounds is more smooth and fluent. The piano at the 11 minute mark in particular is probably the strongest moment on this track, as it enforces the spatial atmosphere the best and makes the listener truly feel like they're floating in space. And as for the next track "To Cold Void Desolation", that one is not only better than the previous, but it's also my favorite track from Neptune Towers. Those synths at the beginning do bring in a more somber tone to the track, and brings in more of a cold and chilling tone in the track. This track also includes more noisy sounds than in the first track, which only strengthens the darker tone of the track. Despite being the shortest track in the band's discography, it does have the best executed ambience.

Overall, this album is more well thought-out and enhanced than the previous track. The sounds and synths that play in both tracks sound less amateurish and more professional, and execute their spatial atmosphere better, especially with "To Cold Void Desolation". Fenriz planned on releasing another album titled "Space Lab", but never got around to finishing it, for he quitted the project due to a lack of interest. Despite this, "Transmissions from Empire Algol" is a great closing album to this short, yet interesting side-project, and it is an album I highly recommend to even those who aren't as interested in ambient music.

Perhaps because these recordings weren't originally intended to be more than tributes by Neptune Towers man Fenriz (of Darkthrone fame) to his favourite 1970s German space-rock bands, the Empire Algol works end up possessing more endurance as works in their own right than might have been expected of them. I had the original Moonfog CDs over 20 years ago, and to be honest I didn't really think - because the music was fairly simple in structure and had been recorded on old analog synthesisers - that the music on the CDs had much staying power. But with the passing of time, people's interest in older generations of synthesisers and other electronic instruments has increased, and more musicians these days are playing them and discovering there's still a lot of creative potential in them. New generations of music fans are discovering music once dismissed as disposable but retaining the freshness and intensity it had when first released decades ago. And so these CDs have found a new life being reissued by Peaceville in 2012, with their sonic rawness and intensity and their bleak vision intact.

As might be expected given the album's title, compared to "Caravans ..." this sequel is a much more alien and amorphous being, less single-minded and as a result perhaps less obsessive and intense. What it might lack in focus, "Transmissions ..." makes up for by being otherworldly, dreamy and mysterious. On the first track, floaty synth drones alternate with simple church organ melodies in parts, calling to mind the mysterious planet Solaris (from the film by Andrei Tarkovsky; I haven't seen the Hollywood version) which reflected in apparent physical form the unconscious desires of human visitors to that planet. Synth swirls and clouds, more organ tones and even more background atmospheric wash, through which sound effects swim and bass melodies wiggle, envelop listeners and carry them away to realms outside the immediate material dimension. You become even more aware of the vast expanse of the cosmos, and of its alien nature even more so. The realisation that humanity is on its own on one tiny planet circulating with a few other planets a small star can be a humbling, perhaps even troubling experience. Latter parts of the track become melodic, even a bit poetic, in contrast to the dark noise drones blowing in the background.

"To Cold Void Desolation" starts as a surprisingly bouncy, even happy piece that reminds me of early Kraftwerk recordings (before that band went Euro-disco pop) that, once removed from its moorings at the Empire Algol space-station, becomes a peaceful synth tone poem embracing moods ranging from melancholy to wonder and acceptance of the universe as it is. Where the space journey goes next is not clear and depends on what the listener brings to this audio experience. You may not necessarily return to Earth but then after this journey, with all you have heard, learned and gained, you'll never be the same person again and in this respect you are no longer an Earthling. You've found your place in the cosmos.

While less raw and intense, and more contemplative, than "Caravans ...", this is still a sonically rich recording with a surprising variety of moods and dark atmospheres, in spite of the simple and unstructured nature of the music. Both recordings should be heard together to get the full rich spectrum of moods, emotions and atmospheres, and to experience an inner journey that embraces all the highs and lows of existence.

There was a period in the mid-90s when it seemed that every black metal musician had to have his ambient or faux-medieval project. Let's be frank: most of this stuff was terrible and is best forgotten by everyone. However, Neptune Towers is not like anything else produced by anyone involved with black metal, I'll wager, and furthermore doesn't sound like much ambient fare created on synthesisers today.

This is the second installment of what we might call the "Empire Algol" saga, which was created by Fenriz of Darkthrone, reportedly under the influence of "cold void visions" inspired by "magic mushrooms". I don't know what kind of equipment he used to record these albums, but I sure would love to find out. Fenriz stated in interviews that the value he saw in this project in later years was that it might succeed in interesting listenres in the early 70s work of Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream, and while I doubt he had access to the kind of gorgeous old synths and organs and tape machines that the German pioneers helped to introduce to the world, his work is almost cut out for him here. The debut was a rather monotonous if still fairly evocative affair, making use of a very few effects and drones awash in delay and a sparse variety of sound. On "Transmissions from Empire Algol", Fenriz has expanded his palett to include very real and analogue-sounding organs, crazy modulating tones and almost aquatic burbles, while still playing with pitch control and some edgy rumbles that wash in and out like stellar waves. You will, if you enjoy such things, instantly be reminded of what Tangerine Dream was doing up until 1974 or thereabouts, and of their various compatriots in the German scene at the time. If you're not familiar with this marvelously eclectic and often incredibly psychedelic exploratory period in ambient music, you must trust me when I say that this is a very good thing and that it doesn't hurt at all to have more music in this vein. Some modern progenitors, such as Arc, may be a bit more professional and expansive with their soundscapes, but it really doesn't matter, because for thirty-four minutes here, Fenriz transports us into the lonely desolation of outer space (that is, the interstellar void) and compels us to marvel at the vastness of the cosmos, and not once, if you are a receptive listener to this sort of thing, will you get bored with what is going on. You see, there is actually quite a bit of movement taking place in these two sections, and despite the necessarily slow shifting of such things, for this is ambient music after all and not some sort of bombastic and fruity symphonic thing, which is the sort of stuff Tangerine Dream succumbed to in the 80s, there are fragments of very memorable melody to be found, especially as we move closer to the latter half of the album. This isn't as bleak and starkly desolate as "Caravans to Empire Algol", because it seems that we now know there is in fact life around the Demon Star, hence the "First Communion" track obviously refers to some form of contact with alien life, while the oscilating tones Fenriz enjoys playing with (can't you just picture him excitedly twiddling all those knobs?) must symbolise an attempt at communication. At one point toward the end of the first track (this was clearly meant to be heard on vinyl, but I don't know if it was ever pressed to wax, sadly) a huge-sounding organ begins to play a captivating melody and it is like the first step on an oxygenated planet that is not your own ... a relief, in a way, as you've been drifting in space for so long, but tense and disconcerting, because you don't know what awaits!

There's not much else to say about this. You either like this sort of thing or simply find it boring or tedious. Personally, I have Fenriz to thank for getting me into this kind of music, and I believe that he succeeded in creating something wonderful, even after hearing how the originators managed to concoct this spacey brew ten years before I was born. Obviously, I like this one a good deal more than "Caravans to Empire Algol", and will always go for "Transmissions" if I want to listen to a single Neptune Towers entity, but I find that the two albums work well in tandem, back to back, and that the frigid minimalism and endless drone of the debut feels right alongside the more elaborated and vibrant successor, if you have an hour of time to kill. It'd be good to see a vinyl release of both albums in a double-LP set, I think, with tasteful packaging that people could stare at while listening to the albums .. but I sure as hell don't think Satyr will do it!

When most people think Fenriz, the words "Psychedelic Ambient" generally don't come to mind, the words "Darkthrone" and "Black Metal" generally do (either that or they don't know who he is, but sucks to be them..) Anyway, I guess the point I'm making here is that no-one's really heard of Neptune Towers. And to put it bluntly, that's not terribly surprising, because the best thing this project has going for it is the rather awesome name.

This is some very minimalist ambient, to put it kindly, and while I do very much enjoy ambient, this is very sloppily made, to put it lightly. There's no structure and the songs don't really progress. Now, that's not a huge problem in Ambient, but it is here, because dudes like Tim Hecker and Eluvium can get away with lack of structure within a song by performing beautiful, jaw-dropping soundscapes, and that's where Neptune Towers falls really short.

It's a shame, really, as this could've been promising, and indeed there a few promising moments, especcially in the first song, where there's just the organ going on while some other subtle synths float around in the background, and it's genuinely pretty, and with the subtle pitch shifts going on you get the feeling that Fenriz does very much know his stuff, but that's generally not the case. Whether it's the pointless, long sound fx intro of the first track, the early-video game style synths of the Cold Void Desolation, or the sheer cheesiness of many of the synths he uses, this album falls short on many levels. Conclusion? Well, it's not really terrible, but unless if you're the most diehard Fenriz fan ever, you don't need to own this album.