Artist: Ajna
Album: Algol
Label: Winter-Light
Release date: February 2025
Just over two years since the release of his previous album, The Enigma of Sirius, the equally enigmatic (sorry, I couldn't help myself) New York musician Chris F, better known under the moniker Ajna, is back with another release on Winter-Light, only this time it's a double album clocking in at almost 1h40m. A double album is a tall order for any artist, not least in the field in drone/dark ambient, considering the increasingly poor attention spans of today's audiences, so my interest was piqued.
Let me open by saying that I have rarely seen an album cover fit the actual music so well. Created by Patricia Schoonenberg (who was also behind the rather more minimalist cover art on Onasander's excellent latest album), the sheer number of visual components and the way light is refracted towards the observer makes the cover almost overwhelming. It takes a moment to get adjusted and take in the individual elements on their own merit: the sun, the snakes, the astral calendar, the alien inscriptions and in particular the masterfully executed bronze hue of the light. The music itself works in much the same fashion - the first few tracks on the album are veritable explosions of sound in the best drone tradition, covering the entire sonic spectrum from the deepest bass to the highest treble. Pulsing reverberations, the polyphony of heavily manipulated string-like sounds streaming in and out of dissonance, the choir of dreamlike synth passages - they all combine to create what I can best describe as a feeling of being captured in some kind of cosmic gravitational stream, overwhelming and inescapable, but fascinating to observe and to experience at the same time. Things start to settle down a bit after the first half an hour or so, exchanging the sheer rush of energy for deeper, more introspective soundscapes, culminating in the delectably obscure Mnar, which is the closest this album comes to pure dark ambient. The second half of the album (or what we would have called disc two in the old era of physical media) ventures into somewhat calmer, more cinematic waters that give more space for individual components of Ajna's sound to shine, perfectly exemplified by Cyclopean Cities and its almost neon noir atmosphere. The album closes with the track Suspended in Ringing Darkness, whose beautifully evocative title matches the music perfectly, as the tranquil scenery gives way to the discordant drone streams from the beginning of the album, closing it in a circular, culminating and almost cliff-hanger way. Overall, there are a lot of things that Ajna does remarkably well: the eerily dissonant soundscapes, the lush dark ambient backgrounds, the delicate balance between tranquil promenades through different levels of consciousness and the overwhelming outbursts of energy to remind us of just how puny we are in the face of cosmic forces.
This album is an artistic statement and is certain not to be everyone's cup of tea, both for its running time and for its inability to be appreciated as simple background music. It requires a certain level of headspace and commitment, but it's just as rewarding as it is demanding. In any case, the artist was fully justified in making this a double album, as the dualistic vision and the masterful combination of drone and dark ambient would certainly have suffered from any undue choices in terms of what to leave and what to remove. Ajna has created a fascinating concoction on Algol, one that in my humble opinion surpasses all his previous work, and I'm very curious which direction his sound will continue to develop in. In the meantime, Algol is sure to provide plenty of food for thought over repeated listens.
Rating: 9/10
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