Children of the Black Sun

Album review

Over the brief course of Children of the Black Sun, Non producer Boyd Rice segues from one dark ambient soundscape to another without losing any of his evocative sonic desolation. Beginning with "Arka," named after the so-called underworld realm where Cain was exiled after the murder of his brother, Abel, Rice pulls you deeply into his dark world of droning ambience, a world where you feel very alone and unsettled. As the songs segue from one to another, little changes. You feel a sense of relief as the droning commences, but it's only momentary. Without even a second of silence, the eerie droning ambience resumes, often with an even more foreboding sensation. By the time you reach the sixth track, "The Fountain of Fortune," you're consumed in what sounds like hellish fire -- crackling flames engulfing you from all angles while a distant chorus lingers in the far distance and waves crash upon an unseen shore far, far away. As mentioned, this is incredibly evocative music that feels both desolate and unsettling, and the rhetorical dimensions of the album showcased in the liner notes only further this feeling. Rice has mastered his style of dark ambience by this point in his long-running career, and Children of the Black Sun is one of his most accomplished works. Though it's brief, lasting just over 30 minutes, Mute released the album with an accompanying DVD 5.1 mix that only furthers the album's subtle qualities, accentuating all the quiet drones, crackles, and darkness to their most disturbing possibilities.
© Jason Birchmeier /TiVo