OAKEAuferstehung

Winter is coming. Days become shorter, colder, darker…

Undoubtedly the best season to welcome an album like “Auferstehung”. OAKE is about to have their first LP released on Downwards Records, a 20 year old British industrial techno label that has constantly shown an edge to post-punk and dark music. Mystery surrounds everything in this act’s world, not just their music. Apart from the fact that they are a Germany-based duo, not much is known about them. However, their attractive sound is quite easy to identify — and to fall in love with… madly.

OAKE have put out a couple of absolutely recommendable EPs so far — “Offenbarung” and “Vollstreckung” —, which are seen as essential for any record collector worthy of the name. Consequently, highly awaited “Auferstehung” will appear like a thunderbolt in December. The album consists of eleven mesmerising tracks, all of which offer a dive into the profoundness of this act’s poetic and thrilling sound. The combination of dark ambient, ethereal percussions, dronish style and female voices, allows OAKE to create an overwhelming compound of shady soundscapes. Its shapeless epic composition is in itself an invitation to listen until the very end of the album, track by track, beat by beat. Maybe hypnotised by the superb production effort behind it, listeners shall be transported to enigmatic landscapes, desolated steppes, distant misty environments… Indeed, the duo have managed to give birth to a sound with Raime’s tension, Eno’s lyricism, Dead Can Dance’s mantras, but still incorporating their own experimental-techno perspective. From the opening track, “Vorwort: Umiha Sien” listeners shall feel like they are being told a story which will lead them to a breathtaking unknown realm. Songs like “Viertes Buch: Mortre Wrid” or “Fuenftes Buch: Dreloi Wechd”, for instance, are immersive, soft but powerful, and develop as minutes go by, just like the album as a whole. All in all, the myriad of effects, lyrical voices, reverberated elliptical rhythms and soothing — even psychoactive — layers make this killer eleven-track work one of the biggest surprises of 2014.

The debut LP from this mysterious duo can only be described as astonishing. “Auferstehung” is like a terrifying and intense howl from the core of the deepest winter forest. Cold but warm, this wonderful debut album provides listeners with a truly poetic and emotional dark sound.