SHRVL Limbus

With Limbus the world gets a definitive introduction to the absolutely brilliant work of synth master Peter Voigtmann. Working from the musical sketches of what would later become The Ocean’s upcoming 10th studio album Holocene, Voigtmann takes a deep dive down where the Berlin-based atmospheric post metal juggernaut shifted a gear up.

Limbus is a 45-minute long sonic exploration of the main themes of Holocene capturing them in a Bermuda triangle between haunting beats, swirling synths and an old Russian piano. With song titles following the different stages of major depressive disorder treatment, Limbus is a hidden chronicle of Peter’s ongoing journey on the path of living with clinical depression.

“The first notes and sounds you hear on the album were literally the first things I recorded after my very first therapy session,” recounts Peter as he divulges more about the recording process. “This record was a massive experiment to get to know my new studio - so pretty much everything you hear is based on real recordings of real performances with a real instruments.”

The first four tracks unfold as more subdued companion pieces to tracks from Holocene, uncovering recognisable themes and motifs, while distorting their features into obscure shapes. Dwelling in the deep and looking up, we are offered a rare glimpse of perspective on the bright lights that exist at the surface of our consciousness and which irradiate our daily lives.

Culminating in the 24-minute long closing track «Recurrence«, which sees Voigtmann tread new ground, Limbus is an ambient odyssey into the uncanny akin to The Caretaker’s "Everywhere at The End of Time“ albeit in a more accessible and digestible format. Melting together the electronic, the acoustic, the analog and the digital realm, Limbus is a warm but suffocating blanket that projects Kafka in technicolor and Massive Attack by way of Alice In Borderland.

1.Response 04:49
2.Remission
3.Relapse
4.Recovery
5.Recurrence