Susurrus Inanis - The Shadowless Shining demo 1997

Susurrus Inanis - The Shadowless Shining demo 1997
1) Now I Know...
2) Such as This Water
3) In My Memory
4) Keep the Sun
5) And I Shall Never
6) Left Shallow
7) Nam Lux Sum

Rusfolder / 4shared

Bandcamp

Chillout zone presents a request today. Eugene asked me in January if I would rip and scan my copy of Susurrus Inanis' only demo as it seems to be somewhat hard to find presently (it actually isn't). I hesitated for a bit and then thought why not so here we are. After a usual delay, that is. Jason Walton (of Agalloch fame) and Daniel Breyer (former Agalloch member, nowadays a professor) were the men behind this project, both playing keyboards and sharing the vocal duties. I had some sort of an insert to go with this, or maybe even two, with lyrics I think and some kind of a bio/assorted background info but unfortunately I didn't come across it. If it happens to be found I'll scan it/them too.

Very good sound combined with the coloured covers and printed tapes give this a very professional appearance and could make one think this'd be a cassette EP or mini-album but it was quite explicitly stated to be a demo. Opening piece is a pretty instrumental intro piece and the following song is rather gloomy and gothic, complete with deep vocals by... one of the guys, I don't know how they shared the vocal duties, the extra material I had might've shed light unto the matter. Anyways, the vocal presentation varies throughout the release but I'd consider these to be one of the main vocals. Somewhat reminiscent of late mr. Steele at times. Next song features the other prevalent voice, a more subdued and emotionless spoken voice that on a later track also sings some lines. Other variations include vaguely black metallish whispery hiss, a more jaded sounding version of the second main voice and so forth. General feel is more darkwaveish rather than ambient really and not much dungeon synth to be found in my opinion. After actually having a proper look I also noticed that JW has this on a bandcamp page so you might want to consider supporting him by getting this from there. But I encourage you to give this a shot if you enjoy atmospheric gothy sort of keyboard music/darkwave, are an Agalloch fan and so on.