Artist: Amon
Title: Akh
Format: 2xLP / digital download
Label: Nashazphone
Cat. number: NP-42
Tracks: 9
Playing Time: 45:31 + 46:12
Release date: September 2023
File under: Dark Ambient / Drone Music / Experimental
You can stream the complete album and purchase it on the dedicated Bandcamp page.
Tracklist:
LP 1
a1. Regula #1 (9:06)
a2. Uhura Photons (6:08)
a3. Darkside Return (9:39)
b1. Mopula (16:30)
b2. She Touched the Stone (4:08)
LP 2
c1. Time Is Waiting (10:04)
c2. Tanit Zerga (12:10)
d1. Wasted (9:04)
d2. Hiram Roi (14:54)
Samples:
Credits:
All titles composed and performed by Andrea Marutti.
Recorded and mixed in September 1995, remastered in February 2018.
Vinyl master and lacquer cut by Frédéric Alstadt at Mont Analogue.
Artwork by Unglee Izi.
“Regula #1”, “Uhura Photons”, “Time Is Waiting”, “Mopula”, “Tanit Zerga” and “Hiram Roi” originally released on “Amon” CD, Murder Release, MRCD001, 1996.
“Darkside Return”, “She Touched the Stone” and “Wasted” originally released on “El Khela” CD, Eibon Records, AMN005, 1997.
Label’s press release:
Since the mid ’90s Andrea Marutti has been crafting his own blend of mind-expanding soundscapes, creating a strong sense of ancient mysticism and time travel with his Amon project.
His mesmerizing recordings of drones and tones, presented as a careful form of resonant minimalism pregnant with cavernous sounds and slow movements, reverberations and drifting elements, have always been intimately distant from the aesthetic form of Dark Ambient music which they have often been hastily associated with.
Taking inspiration from the mysteries and rites of Ancient Egypt, along with the vivid suggestions offered by Peter Kolosimo and other writers of the so-called Pseudoarchaeology current, after his debut on Murder Release in 1996, a few CD albums – mostly released by Eibon Records in Italy – and a 7″ on the german cult label Drone Records, were enough to consolidate Amon as a pillar among deep listeners.
Finally reuniting all the music Marutti spontaneously created in a short period during the very first Amon recording sessions, and bringing it to vinyl for the first time, “Akh” is a ticket for a trip back in time, a musical universe rich with impenetrable scenarios, a driving, grey space of ever-increasing numbness resounding all around and inside the listener.
In Ancient Egypt, Akh was most often used to mean a complete person, whether living or dead. While living, the Akh was composed of all five elements – The Body, Ba (The Personality: Humor, Warmth, Charm), Ka (The Life Force unique to every person) which stayed, The Name, and The Shadow. When dead, the Akh referred to the reunion of the Ba and the Ka, which they also believed happened each night. In death and every night too, Akh is the reunion of the self.
Mostly lacking any flash of light, the tracks featured on this collection open a subtly esoteric universe, which rises up out of the desert, leading through a profound and introspective path with their sonic stimuli, plumbing the depths of the unconscious with a hypnotic, mystical and arcane flavour.
Perfect to listen to during the late hours when distracting factors are few and the music may join forces with the night itself. Will appeal to fans of Roland Kayn, Thomas Köner, Éliane Radigue, Deep Listening, Minimalism and Isolationism alike.
Notes by Andrea Marutti:
I recorded all the music featured on “Akh” at home in just ten days during september 1995. I was 25 then and I must admit I don’t remember much about those days, except that I used to spend most of my evenings watching movies and reading books. A lot of them. And making music, of course. Social life didn’t mean much to me at the time. I was in a period of transition in which I had decided to change my acquaintances, I had been working for a few years and I was starting to build my own music studio.
The only proper instrument I used on these tracks is a Roland JD-800 synthesizer, sequenced with Cubase and mostly recorded on an ADAT machine along with a few samples courtesy of a primitive sampling application which I used to run on a 386 Personal Computer. Since I still didn’t own a DAT machine back in the days, the tracks were mastered to DAT tape for release with the help of a friend of mine.
The following chart shows the chronology of the recordings of these very first “Amon sessions”:
Regula #1 – 05.09.1995
Uhura Photons – 07.09.1995
Time Is Waiting – 08.09.1995
Mopula – 10.09.1995
Tanit Zerga – 12.09.1995
Darkside Return – 13.09.1995
She Touched the Stone – 14.09.1995
Hiram Roi – 14.09.1995
Wasted – 15.09.1995
Six of these nine tracks were chosen for the “Amon” CD, while the other three, namely “Darkside Return”, “She Touched the Stone” and “Wasted”, were later used on the second Amon CD entitled “El Khela” in 1997. Of course they were not ‘second choice’, it was just a matter of creating the right flow as the label could not afford the release of a double CD.
All the pieces were created in a very spontaneous way. I didn’t have exactly this type of sound on my mind when I began recording, and I didn’t take inspiration from other similar experimental / deep ambient artists simply because I was mostly unaware of any of them in those days. This just happened. I discovered that my machine – the JD-800, which I’m still fond of after all these years – could create these beautiful and profound layers of sound and I simply explored them for the first time.
During the following years I tried to expand and improve this type of sounds/drones and the general concept of the Amon project, also using different techniques and instruments, but when I recorded these original nine tracks I was somewhat a ‘virgin’. For me it was like some sort of a sudden miracle/magic happening for the very first time.
Reviews:
Boomkat, September 2023
Occupying a space adjacent to early Thomas Köner, Deathprod and Roland Kayn, this cult 1996 album of lightless dark ambient shows its elusive face on a first time vinyl pressing, augmented by three offcuts from the same sessions, and issued via Cairo’s exceptional Nashazphone label.
Amon is the alias of Andrea Marutti, practitioner of elemental ambient and tape music since the early 1990s. Among his decades of work, his self-titled 1996 album, here retitled as ‘Akh’, stands out for his almost mystical grasp of reverberant acoustics that hark back to prehistoric caves and spaces. Amon really gets inside his thing with literal, non musical inspiration from the mysteries and rites of ancient Egypt, factored by the esoteric writings of Peter Kolosimo and a movement of so-called “pseudo-archaeology” that guides and elevates his work in the imagination. It’s frankly terrifying gear, tempered by a slow-burning, introspective quality that invites the listener to succumb to its meditative formations.
Best consumed in the depths of night, the album takes on a vividly transportive nature. Over 90 minutes, it arcs from the Thomas Köner-esque tonalities of Regula #1’, to the subharmonic shadows of ‘Hiram Roi’, via the glowering ‘Darkside Return’ and into the chasmic phasing of ‘Wasted’. There’s little in the way of light creeping through, but Marutti’s occasional use of harmony is startling ‘Uhura Photons’ dense and suffocating noise eventually splits into a near choral synthscape, and on ‘Mopula’ you can just about pick up on the irregular harmony of each central note. On ‘She Touched The Stone’, we end with beautiful, chiming pads and bells echoing from deep below, an experience not unlike hearing Bohren and Der Club of Gore’s billowing melodies seep through the densest cloud of smoke.
Bradford Bailey for Soundohm, September 2023
Crossing the borders of ambient music, rigorous experimentalism and the mysterious mystical rites of the ancient world, Nashazphone returns with the first ever vinyl reissue of Amon’s 1996 masterstroke. Resting within a visionary middle ground between avant-garde electronic music, minimalism, and dark ambience, this definitive edition on black wax – aptly entitled “Akh” – expands the album’s original six pieces to nine, gathering the entirety of the original recordings sessions into a stunning immersive expanse.
For nearly two decades, Nashazphone – the Cairo based Egyptian/Algerian label, run by Sublime Frequencies collaborator Hicham Chadly – has continuously defied expectation, blurring the lines between numerous cultural and creative territories. Their latest, the first ever vinyl reissue of Amon’s seminal 1996 dark ambient masterstroke, does exactly this, blending rigorous electronic experimentalism with imagery and ideas drawn from Ancient Egyptian mysteries and rites. A central work in what has been termed by numerous writers as Pseudoarcheology, this stunning gesture of brooding, transportive energy and textures includes all of the music made during the album’s recording sessions, expanding the original six pieces to nine. An inevitable revelation for anyone that missed it back in the ’90s, and an absolute must for Amon’s many fans out there, this new definitive edition is sure to blow minds.
Amon is the long-term moniker of the Milan based electronic musician, Andrea Marutti, also widely known for his work as Never Known, Hall of Mirrors (with Giuseppe Verticchio / Nihm), Spiral, Sil Muir (with Andrea ‘Ics’ Ferraris), Molnija Aura (with Davide Del Col of Echran fame), and Lips Vago, as well as for noteworthy collaborations with Fausto Balbo, Carlo Giordani and Raffaele Serra, issued under his own name. Active since the early ’90s, an incredible prolific period for the artist that encountered him crafting mind-expanding soundscapes under the numerous aliases mentioned, Marutti has also been responsible for running the Afe Records label for eighteen long years, releasing an incredible amount of music by renowned Italian and international artists like Maurizio Bianchi, Bad Sector, Maeror Tri, Telepherique, De Fabriek, Ultra Milkmaids, Aidan Baker, John Hudak, Ellende, Bestia Centauri, True Colour of Blood, Dronaement, Brian Lavelle and quite a lot more.
Originally issued on CD by Murder Release in 1996 as Amon’s untitled debut album, “Akh” channels concepts of ancient mysticism and time travel, and draws its inspiration from imaginings of the rites of Ancient Egypt. Interweaving mesmerizing drones, other tonal elements, and bristling textures within sprawling cosmic resonances, Amon presents a fascinating and visionary middle ground between avant-garde electronic music, minimalism, and the realms of ambient music that began to bubble to surface during the ’90s, calling electronic dance music fans away from their hedonistic haze, and pushing them toward darker and more introspective realms.
In Ancient Egypt, Akh was most often used to mean a complete person, whether living or dead. While living, the Akh was composed of all five elements – The Body, Ba (The Personality: Humor, Warmth, Charm), Ka (The Life Force unique to every person) which stayed, The Name, and The Shadow. When dead, the Akh referred to the reunion of the Ba and the Ka, which they also believed happened each night. In death and every night too, Akh is the reunion of the self.
Pregnant with these ideas, spun into slow sonorous movements, reverberations, and drifting elements, the nine pieces on “Akh” collectively culminate as a free-standing otherworldliness, where gods meet humankind and life meets an eternal afterlife, rendered by a deft hand spinning abstractions in sound. Finally reuniting all the music Marutti spontaneously created in a short period during the very first Amon recording sessions, the album is a ticket for a trip back in time, a musical universe rich with impenetrable scenarios, a driving, grey space of ever-increasing numbness resounding all around and inside the listener.
Plumbing the depths of the unconscious with the hypnotic, mystical and arcane, Nashazphone’s first ever vinyl pressing of Amon’s seminal 1996 masterstroke – building bridges between everything from Nurse With Wound, Roland Kayn, Thomas Köner, Éliane Radigue, to deep listening, minimalism and isolationism – centers an artist of rare vision in our minds, drawing our ears back to a moment that feels remarkably prescient within our own.
This stunning double LP is issued in a very limited edition of 250 copies only and is not to be missed. Surely a contender for ‘best reissue’ of the year.