Melancholy Death

Finnish melancholy death-doom metal masters SWALLOW THE SUN release their new album, "When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light", on January 25, 2019 through Century Media Records.

Exposing the trio’s love of all things retro with a nod to everything from Fun Boy Three to Orchestre Poly Rythmo de Contonou, while still roaming somewhere between an ambient Eno and Cocteau Twins at a late-night soiree. A unique, individual sound: Longer, more plush and pampered; more hypnotic and haunting, mixing mellotron and affected guitar with a refined rhythm. Electronic melancholy at its most evocative, riddled with super-memorable motifs and melodies that nestle in reflective echo.

The Sablé festival, held annually in Sablé-sur-Sarthe in France, has its own recording concern that it uses primarily to expose young early music artists and to support the most interesting of their projects; the Zig-Zag Territoires label provides an outlet for this endeavor. Here is a wholly worthy enterprise: the group Gli Incogniti – led by the fabulous young violinist Amandine Beyer – in a program drawn from various works of mysterious late seventeenth-century violinist Nicola Matteis, its title, False Consonances of Melancholy, fashioned after one of his publications, but not limited to its contents. As Matteis is not a household name, some summary of his place in the scheme of things is not out of order here: born in Naples, possibly contemporary to Heinrich von Biber, Matteis was an itinerant musician in Germany before making his way to London about 1670.

From the title, one might expect that this release by Norwegian Baroque violinist Bjarte Eike is an exploration of the well-trodden theme of melancholy in British music in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. In fact it is that, but it's much more besides. The Image of Melancholy is an experiment with the form in at least three ways, and it should appeal greatly to listeners of a speculative frame of mind. First, Eike and his small Barokksolistene ensemble expand the historical picture in both space and time, mixing traditional music from Scandinavia and beyond (even from Slovakia) with compositions by Dowland, Holborne, and Byrd, and adding Baroque pieces such as one of Biber's Mystery Sonatas that are not precisely "melancholy" but certainly play off the concept in arresting ways.