IANQU'S SOUNDS OF PANUC

Adarcah Ianqu has plunged into a symbolic sea, abetted by an addicting ascent, in his latest audio exploration, panuc. That means the musical content moves at a neurotic pace, prompted by self-inflicted injection. (On the official source, the title and tracks are listed in Greek, but for this review, I present them in English.) 

The first entry, "injury", alludes to the choking chambers from out which one swims. This slow but ravenous rise adduces subversive, environmental crimes, with many wounds left behind.

Through the ever raping regurgitation, it's easy to become incensed, as the second track, "press our hookah", proves: an austere, puffing anthem that promotes the release of some great, unhinged beast. In fact, within its roll of gagging whispers, the listener becomes synonymous with the virulent creature, relishing its moment of cool but dubious liberation.

This savage progression conceives the third entry, "words written in mud", which trills of blinded hate, as the listener trudges through the liquefied muck, claws and tail swatting, mouth geared to devour. 

For the fourth track, "jack knife", an uncanny revelation slashes and gashes, culminated by impenitent, iron-lung confinement. Communication is strained, perhaps forever stifled, but still the sooty sounds gurgle, nagging one forth.    

With the fifth and sixth selections, "me and my bouzouki" and "cocaina-cocaina", one engages in opposing, narcotic forces, the conjoined, comparative chords dangling like ripe, tit-for-tat bait, as a magnetic moon pops from out a blood-red sky.

"With my cigarette", the big breakthrough finally hits but also sputters: a smoky summit upon which divergent notes douse one's gills, rendering one a hapless, blackened puddle. 

Upon this sad conclusion, one realizes that Ianqu's sojourn may have sprung from aspiration, but was burned by beguiling defeat. 

Panuc's fruition is worth an audible gasp. Dive in (and then dive up) at

https://adarcaheancu.bandcamp.com/album/--26?fbclid=IwAR0TFIuH06fGfIA2I4qDDK5KkHGUmC96IV96H29mXDvxdbMPBK4Ul8aBDP0

IANQU'S OR DARK

 

Adarcah Ianqu's or dark leaves the listener no choice but to move from the gray and into the crunching brightness of industrial gears. It calls upon transformation and not turning back: its compositions derived from coercion, cleansing, hope and fear. 

For this review, I find it suitable to separate Ianqu's  selections into three clusters, based on their moods and subtexts, even though their arranged assessments will be juxtaposed: sometimes light or depending on one's audio view, dark. 

In the case of "chlorine", "cu", "red-blooded" and "laboratory", the tracks reference the stirring sticks of forbidden formulas, whether fabricated or organic. They also reference lightning rods, bubbling beakers and energized electrodes: Frankenstein/Jekyll-Hyde/Invisible Man stuff. However, as much as their analytical industrialization repels, they stay identifiable, like Churchill's paraphrased blood, sweat and tears.  

"Saw you", "bullying area", the clustered "002 - 2021 mix a 001" and "002 - 2021 mix a 001 b" are as factory-bizarre, but more refined as they spiral from their whirlwind centers. They're a lot like spotlights beamed on exposed, dirty deeds: embarrassments wracked with recognition, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but in the end, all essential. 

For the final set, "begird" and "the bell sound of south", we gain the chance to shave the aforementioned's edges, though these examples still deliver great sting. On this basis, they are high-flying, even if blanketed in sandpaper grit, invoking flight while anchored, cruel yet kind for their subtle, steely intent.

The mechanisms of or dark are intricate but free-flowing enough to make this one of Ianqu's most expressive productions, presenting a theme that's theme-less and so full of meaningfulness that it becomes a blessing and a curse within the same aesthetic cycle. 

Listen to Ianqu's contrasting darkness at

https://adarcahiancu.bandcamp.com/album/or-dark

CTHONIUS C: AIRKTOO'S ELECTROCUTING TRAVELOGUE

There's an anti-Olympian sector called cthonius c, in which sparking sounds saturate a vast grid...a realm represented by Airktoo the darkar, who rolls each treacherous strand with circuited craze.

The voyage begins by "barefoot": a trek that's anything but grass-soft on the soles, for its queued with bolts of cutting glass. 

The resulting pain is "basic", symbolized by sounds that slice and spurt slowly and ever deeper, into every wrong turn and panhandling passion. Before one realizes it, "humiliation" has set in, along with all the wired woe one can stand, with notes that shriek of chaotic tension. 

To save face, one becomes a screaming "scoundrel", doing bad deeds per the pretense of choice and desire. Throughout it all, one hears the fearsome strokes of one's devilish change, from humble hermit to crackling charlatan. 

"La flesh" is the place one then frequents, with cat-calling chambers of wanderlust and self-degradation. For a moment, one considers finding a new hiding place, but "neither society" is welcoming enough for that, and from this mocking rejection, a scratching fills one's ears--weighed with heavy hunger. 

But no matter where one connects, there's "no food" in sight, and the noises inside this expanding void are as full as they are empty. 

One has no "alternative" but to plug into the gluttonous sweeps and just "deserters". One roams with all the other cowards and crooks, in a vacuum vibration that sucks one in ever farther, ever further, straight into the behemoth bowels of cthonius c's cold, inescapable core. 

Shock the senses by visiting Airktoo's electrocuting travelogue at

https://adarcahianku.bandcamp.com/album/chthonius-c?fbclid=IwAR0PR5-WXcD9gbVfGHc78Cdd1BqjPLY_IYO083yH25Jx-T8-fk8cmUuNjNQ

IMPRISIONED EXISTENTIALISTS: AIRKTOO THE DARKAR'S STORMY SOUNDS

Questioning one's existence (i.e. life's pressing hows and whys) has inspired many philosophical essays over the years and on those most daring occasions, musical compositions. 

As one such strong case in point, Airktoo the darkar (aka Ianqu Darkah) grants a probing, emotional analysis, though done in an industrialized (and therefore calamitous) declaration that comes straight from the artist's thunderous heart. The magisterial Airktoo calls the album, Imprisoned existentialists. 

"Food, sleep and cigarettes" ignites the compilation, building the sort of storm that any industrial experiment should feature: the essential content simultaneously diffident, obstreperous, mollifying and rough.

This lathers up the listener for the composer's epic, subsequent set, "the thoughts I may sold you" and "the thoughts I don't think anymore". From these electronic bookends, one comes to suspect that rumination leads to revelation; and the key-pushed noises invoke an existential breeze, which bounces between promising pitches and reckless rejections, all within a single breath. In this respect, Airktoo's inhalation and exhalation (two sides of the same coin) kiss at each end.

"There for the esoteric electrons" becomes a third, breathy response, but its solemn notes summon an intrinsic cause. Eccentricity becomes one's false fulfillment in this phase, its inclement rumbling sowing a severe safari, especially when its admonitory signposts clash and clap. 

"Frau Dietrich" is Airktoo's concluding, thematic supplement: a symbolic mistress, concept or place that teases choice and as such, a gleeful glint. However, no matter how long the chords tickle, one finds the frau fickle. There's no release; only imprisoned, ceaseless searches. So be it; for at the end of any stormy sojourn, existence for existence's sake is (but of course) good enough. 

Inspect Airktoo's existential tempest at

https://adarcahianku.bandcamp.com/album/imprisoned-existentialists?fbclid=IwAR3TyeLwsvXqNqd9KNy8Jyj8wqyPyRXQ75HiKaGa1TMjjbbMVTidQRs3xDI

AIRKTOO THE DARKAR'S (TWO) DAYS IN MANILA

Under the alternate name, Airktoo the darkar, Adarkah Ianqu carves a new, allegorical journey, (two) days in manila. 

The album presents danger and mystery, addiction and exoticism: not mainstream by any stretch, unless one's mainstream is based on ambivalent whimsy. 

The journey kicks off with "last train from Athens": a symbolic start where one embarks on a new life and a new fix for fulfillment. The track's notes are swooshing and sweet, but beneath, Airktoo's sardonic, pessimism seeps.

One exits the train and wanders toward an "opium den", its melody tangling one's cerebral threads. Of course, opium is a grand deceiver, and in its lure, danger isn't blunted. It grows instead. 

This harsh revelation leaves one crushed, as one suffers the coarse consequences that a "humiliation of the Mondays" can bring. One's woe whirls of aimless confusion with no viable end.

Unhinged, one searches again for that calm exoticism, and to "the nu Negress" one lands, begging for love and empathy, but her reply is sharp with betrayal. One may as well have fallen into the lap of a demon, for all that her seductive song signals.  

As one slips from her mortifying grasp, "opium den {secret lake beings}" penetrates. Its chords cut deeper than those before. Within it, a splurge of sirens splash, but their warning springs too late.

. 

One must now "lay down" the two-day quest, for in Manila all things come full circle. To win is to lose, and to lose is to win, and so is the journey of life's double-edged sword.

Experience Airktoo the darkar's dual exploration at 

https://adarcahianku.bandcamp.com/album/two-days-in-manila?fbclid=IwAR2ZzydqF3CnfYpjBUwBZpA-ySUmlCKZvmXOr-UTxqKy8goQwXnH74i5WLE

SWEET DREAMS, UNDERWORLD BY ADARKAH IANQU

A new, Adarkah Ianqu creation launches October, entitled Sweet Dreams, Underworld. 

The sojourn is once again industrial, and though concise, it bangs with the basic yearnings for epic escape.

"As as" is a blunt prelude, featuring punched buttons and computerized dictation: a work-place serenade of forged fate from out which one dares to liberate.

As such, "I'm done" denotes a rationalized resignation. In this example, Ianqu filters vibrations that represent arms thrown up and tasks tossed down, all in a raging refusal to play life's gargantuan game.

However, when prolonged inactivity proves too torturous, "Liqueur" becomes a re-calculated reply, as more buttons and dictation round the inebriated bend, but despite how hard one punches, computes...swallows, the solutions skid away.

Soon there's only "slippage", with crazy clamors that allude to clogged pipes and gurgling drains: a drilling, spiraling descent into the most paralyzing depths any nightmare could contain. 

And in that elated, putrid place, one stays "in trance", stuck in the mud, fringed by unabated waste, making no impact, but in the instigating interval, nevertheless letting one's departure stand as the greatest possible stance: defunct, perhaps, yet oh-so-sweet in taste. 

Visit Ianqu's illusive, underworld dreams at 

https://adarcahianku.bandcamp.com/album/sweet-dreams-underworld?fbclid=IwAR0fdOE-aRS2NS88K-UomuMaBdVIar8laVMbXy25pp5wmGHQfyjCXo50178.

ADARKAH IANQU: UNCONDITIONALS (OF THE RELIGIOUS KIND)

I was still entranced by Adarkah Ianqu's Valhalla,  (in particular its track, "a thousand prayer songs {for abraham}), when the composer shared with me another queue of similar, thematic works, packaged under the redoubtable label, unconditionals. 

Ianqu's unconditionals are scriptural for sure, with all six concepts beaming throughout the composer's electronic hiss, creating a Judea-Christian core. 

The initial segment, "Jesus Christ" invokes a tangible tranquility within its intertwining chords: modern, indeed, but as with the spirit of Christ, contemporary for one's absolute needs. 

However, to counter the track's impregnable placidity, a brash and severe persona follows, and why not? Doesn't Biblical doctrine contain a wayward side? For example, in "Nebuchadnezzar", the transmission is lumbering yet light, magnanimous yet foolhardy. Ianqu even injects an insane skid (with strokes of possible rescue) into the composition, and for those familiar with the eponymous legend, the technique jives.

The third and fourth selections, "Torah" and "Hebrew Bible" are more branding: righteous representations of Moses and his before-and-after lore. Also, in honor of these tremendous texts, traces of good and bad (of levity and coarseness) appear, allowing an idealized balance of belief, morality and choice to enter one's ears.  

The fifth and sixth selections, "Solon and Croesus" and "Cyrus and Darius" are perhaps the most austere in execution. In these foreboding sectors, one is granted the debate of affluence versus humility. (Should wealth or faith be pursued and at what great or causeless cost to one's lot in life?) Either way, Ianqu's sounds depict one's hills and valleys, signaling what one should and shouldn't do or be: the inspirational undercurrents behind all enduring allusions and philosophies. 

Unconditionals rises to the occasion because its seeds (its notes) are inspired by insightful commands. The album may be newfangled in its experimental scope, but its attributes reference important, ancient roots, with lessons deep and ripe. And Ianqu's chords do more than highlight these eternal truths; they embodying them on all sacred and profane fronts. 

Receive Ianqu's unconditional blessing at

https://piarabatzis.bandcamp.com/album/the-unconditionals-blue-shell.