Mondo Macabro offers the listner a varied journey through the epic and diverse terrain of Des Esseintes. The album opens with two very intense noise filled tracks taken from the Muse 7” released on Fin De Siecle Media in 2000. Both tracks feature searing noise assaults that are accented by classical instrumentation and pulsating industrial rhythms. Beauty wrestles with agonized noise as one consumes the other in a cataclysmic ballad of brutality. Tracks three and four are taken from the Des Esseintes / Negru Voda split 10”. Track three titled “King of the Jungle” unleashes a torrent of angst filled rhythmic industrial music accented by wild howls of savage ferocity. Like a caged animal prodded and tortured Des Esseintes breaks the chains that bind and unleashes his demons. Track four retreats to minimalist domains as isolated industrial rhythms pound lonely beats amidst simple mechanical atmospheres that echo with industrial sounds that reverberate and bend in space. Tracks five through seven are taken from the spilt LP with Magmax and feature gothic tinged industrial that evokes abandoned monasteries and old school horror movie soundtracks. Tracks eight and nine are taken from the on/off 7” and offer a glimpse of Des Esseintes in 2002. Track eight illustrates a maturation in the sound of Des Esseintes that transcends the raw brutality of previous tracks. Elements of dark ambient and cinematic music can be detected as calm moments are cultivated out of churning vortexes of static ad eerie industrial isolationism. Track nine returns the music to its concrete industrial roots as slabs of distorted static drone forth while disembodied voices burst in recusant cycles. Like a short wave radio tuning into faded memories of the past the music slowly churns out a subdued broadcast. After a long passage rhythms impregnate the music before deteriorating into a dark drama of desperation and loss heard in snippets as if left grasping at a fading radio broadcast. Tracks ten and eleven feature two previously unreleased songs that were recorded in 1998. The music is noticeably underdeveloped compared to the other tracks on the album though these two tracks do illustrate the earliest origins of Des Esseintes.
Des Esseintes has welded the force of old school industrial with rhythmic industrial and cinematic music forming a powerful union that delivers both raw aggression and imaginative landscapes filled with rhythms from an apocalyptic tribalism. At times rabid and blind with uncompromising dissent and annihilation and at other times seeking dark grandeur and introspection Des Esseintes is a many headed beast. Mondo Macabro brings perspective and illumination to some of Des Esseintes more obscure releases and rewards the worthy with a concise CD that captures a horde of worthy tracks.
01. Muse 5:48
02. Succubus 6:02
03. King Of The Jungle 5:02
04. Fragments 8:45
05. Tension 5:50
06. Release 5:56
07. Aftermath 8:16
08. On 4:45
09. Off 3:47
10. Strange Tremors 6:46
11. Like Myself 6:25
12. Discontinued (Original Version) 4:59
Credits
Music By, Artwork By - Magnus Sundström
Notes
COLONNA SONORA ORIGINALE
"Mondo Macabro" collects all Des Esseintes vinyl releases in remastered form and 3 unreleased tracks:
tracks 1 & 2 are taken from the "Muse / Succubus" 7" ([C] & [P] 2000 Fin de Siècle Media)
tracks 3 & 4 are taken from the Des Esseintes / Negru Voda - "Split" 10" ([C] & [P] 2001 Fin de Siècle Media)
tracks 5, 6 & 7 are taken from the Magmax / Des Esseintes - "Split" LP ([C] & [P] 2001 Formosan Records)
tracks 8 & 9 are taken from the "On/Off" 7" ([C] & [P] 2002 Fin de Siècle Media)
tracks 10, 11 & 12 are previously unreleased.
tracks 10 & 11 are recorded in 1998.
track 12 is recorded in 2003 with Leblons.
The release comes in jewelcase with a 4-paged coloured booklet.
Track durations on the artwork are inaccurate. The correct track durations belowed are taken from a computer.
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