Life Toward Twilight- Blood

ARTIST: Life Toward Twilight
ALBUM: Blood
LABEL: Self-released
REVIEWER: Matthew J.
DATE: 11-4-07

The latest release from dark ambient artist Daniel Tuttle is a brief EP devoted to horror film atmosphere. Extremely subtle in its composition, this is less like a soundtrack than the work of a Foley artist; it's not music for a horror movie, per se, but closer to the sounds you hear in the background where there isn't any music. While Tuttle explores multiple themes on this album, ranging from Japanese ghost stories on "Yurei" to shambling corpses on "Zombie Infestation," this EP feels less like a distinct collection of tracks than a single piece exploring fear from different perspectives and through multiple movements. While different sampled layers help to create different landscapes, with "R'lyeh" using soft splashes to evoke the sound of H.P. Lovecraft's undersea metropolis and "Orlok" using distant screams and labored breathing to conjure the Dracula analogue from the original silent film Nosferatu, Tuttle's commitment to subtlety and his use of lots of open space pulls everything together. While this is almost too quiet for fans of the more obvious, in-your-face scares that make people scream in movie theaters, Tuttle has created something gorgeously chilling this time around, and people who enjoy visiting the dark spaces built by such artists as Lustmord and Coil will find this a worthy addition to their collections.

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