The Berlin Requiem review

Autopsia
The Berlin Requiem
ITALY, OLD EUROPA CAFE OECD 084 CD (2006)

An excellent recording of a very high standard, realised by Autopsia with the help of the Dämmerung Orchestra and recorded in Prague in 2006. Everything from the stern typography on the red and black cover, and the grim titles full of funerals and death, manifests a certain stateliness in the unblinking contemplation of various morbid facts. The music does likewise; it's as well produced and layered as cinema soundtrack music, full of lush orchestration and dynamic effects. It conveys a sense of staunch and Spartan steadfastness, even in the face of defeat, which its protagonist accepts with stoic and manful pride. I realise some of these sentiments may verge on the Nietzschean, a school of thinking which I personally reject wholeheartedly; no abyss-gazing takes place in my house, I'm here to tell you, nor am I given to pompous declarations about the nature of good and evil.

However, this Berlin Requiem offers a lot more subtlety and ambiguous reflections, particularly on the cold and chilling atmospheres summoned up by 'Retorten Genese', whose deep scrapes and electronic wails contrast beautifully with tiny chimes and soaring angelic choirs. 'Radical Machine 3.0' even has a drum machine, and for a few moments we might almost have a slice of electro-disco-doom which Coil would've loved, were it not for the intensely suffocating sense of unreality which this cut summons up. Bad dreams in store for all mankind. And there's the grandeur of 'Funeral Music II', one of the strongest tracks here, with its sturdy piano lines, mournful horns, timpani, gongs, and whiney oboe sound playing an evil melody, all conveying that sense of the processional and ceremonial that could feasibly apply to so many things in life, and not just a funeral march. Try listening to it on your iPod next time you make the daily commute to the office, and just note how your perception of the world changes drastically. The Funeral March theme makes three appearances on this album, and by its last turn around it's severely attenuated, stripped down – little remains but bare piano and chimes, and a very sad wind instrument, all conveying the sense of resignment in the face of massive loss. It's soon joined by a massing sense of menace as further creepy electronics and string layers start to accumulate and shuffle around the door lurkingly.

I suppose I have to give up the ghost and admit this is a 'death' record without pareil when we reach the last cut 'Sounds for Remembering Death', which unlike some of the compositions which at least have a melody you can follow, is almost nothing but vapours, mists, and foggy atmospheres. Even this apparently shapeless murk has been concocted by a maestro who knows how to assemble his elements to achieve optimum effect; a composer in other words, and not just another Black Metal wannabee with two synthesisers, an echo chamber and a limitless supply of foul imagery to feed his misanthropic emotions. What's interesting is that this record has clearly been composed and orchestrated with great skill and precision, yet it manages to summon up dark forces and generate a profound sense of malaise in short order. Autopsia is clearly a musician who performs his tasks with ruthless efficiency.

ED PINSENT, The Sound Projector magazine UK 09/08/2008