I’ve been following Mondernte since the release of her debut cassette RÅ in 2020, captivated by her unique blend of dark ambient and black metal that she describes on Bandcamp as “aural Luciferian witchcraft”. It took a bit of effort but I was finally able to acquire all five of her tapes, the most recent addition to my collection being 2022s Canticles Of Ecstasy, which appeared here on Life in the Vinyl Lane back in May. When she announced her latest release, a split cassette with Woid, I shot her a note and made sure to secure a copy, which happily for me arrived in the mail the other day.
It’s a strange time of year to be listening to this type of music. As I look out the window the Seattle-area sky is a vibrant blue without a cloud in sight, the temperature passing through the mid-80s as it approaches the projected high of 87. Not exactly the kind of weather that fits the bleak darkness of these tracks – Woid’s side-spanning “Des Sturmes Klagelied” opens with the sounds of wind and thunder, harkening back to the cold, damp winter months, its later quiet vocal passages accompanied by gently strummed guitar conjuring a moody murkiness.
Mondernte, however, is what I came for, why I pressed ‘play’. The tremolo and not-quite-choral vocals of “Eiswasser” hint at desperation and longing. Even when they become more forceful and insistent, driven forward by faster music and cymbals, they remain lost souls, unable to break out of their sonic prison and emerge into the light. “Feuerfluss Und Erdengang” too creates a sense of longing, though as the song progresses a growled undercurrent conveys something more, a predatory hunger, an ache for something desperately needed but lying just beyond reach, the two vocal styles that of hunter and prey. The closing track, “Schwingen Des Sturms”, surprises with some truly dark vocals reaching out from the void, grasping with jagged, black fingernails, pursuing the other voice, which can be heard in anguish as it attempts to flee. The trilogy of tracks progresses sonically toward existential dread, though the closing moments of “Schwingen Des Sturms” hint that maybe, just maybe, there was an escape from the darkness.
While the cassettes appear to be sold out, I encourage you to give Mondernte a listen on her Bandcamp page HERE.