Mondernte is one of those performers for who one day I randomly realize I have almost all their releases even without being sure how that happened. The one-woman black metal performer from Iceland first came to my attention via her debut cassette RÅ (2020) and I picked up all her other releases along the way with the notable exception of Canticles Of Ecstasy, which I somehow missed when it came out. So when a copy popped up on Discogs the other day I bought it, even though the shipping from France was literally more than the cost of the cassette itself. Such is the life of the obsessive. And because it’s Mondernte I knew it would be worth it.
Canticles Of Ecstasy is tagged on Bandcamp as black metal, dark folk, occult rock, and a handful of other labels, but one that’s missing IMO is dungeon synth. True, it isn’t heavily synth-influenced, but the overall feel fits. The dark, stripped-down aesthetic harkens back to a time when myths were real and unknown creatures roamed the earth and conjures Cthulhu-like horror images, not of the overt dangers of a hostile world, but more of things hidden in the shadows, watching, waiting, whispering. The vocals feel like they were recorded in a damp stone church, the microphones placed randomly to catch the echoes as they bounce from the walls and ceiling. But Mondernte throws some curveballs too, like the guitar folk of “Satan I’m Here To Build Your Church”, a song that would be perfectly at home in a quiet SoHo coffee joint on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Except for the fact that it’s about, you know, building a church for Satan.
Every time I play Mondernte I find myself thinking, “I really like this, I should play it more often”. You can check out Canticles Of Ecstasy yourself on the Mondernte Bandcamp page HERE. Physical copies are a bit tough to find – Canticles and her 2021 album Sacred Heart // Sacred Rage were each only released in editions of 66 cassettes, and the aforementioned RÅ in a meager 50 copies. But I think they’re worth the effort.