The latest opus from this Gdansk-based composer is the final part of dark trilogy of albums that began with 2013’s Liebestod and continued with 2017’s Rite of the End. According to Wesołowski, the three albums are united by themes of “existential matters such as love, death, decay” as well as “an apocalyptic and Promethean ultimate end.” Given that ambitious scope, it is no surprise that Wagner was a major inspiration for the previous installments, but this one is partially rooted in W.G. Sebald’s writings on “the nature of memory” and “how thoughts and desires overlap and mutate over time.” That “Sebaldian nature” is most prominently manifested in Wesołowski’s decision to sample his own sketches and unused recordings, but the elemental intensity of these pieces suggests that the shadow of Wagner still looms large in his vision.
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In keeping with those outsized dramatic themes, Song of the Night Mists features field recordings from Tatra Mountains and organ recordings from Saint Nicholas' Basilica (played by the composer’s brother Piotr). Notably, the field recordings were used in a film by sound designer Michał Fojcik and Wesołowski notes that “you can hear cracking ice, streams, footsteps in the snow and the wind, and a real avalanche, recorded from the inside.”
The connection to the Tatra Mountains does not end there, however, as the title is a nod to a mountain-inspired poem by Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer and the music contains purposeful allusions to the work of Karol Szymanowski (a fellow Polish composer who studied the folk music of the region). Unsurprisingly, much of Wesołowski’s own music for this album matches the geologic immensity of his inspirations, but this album otherwise stylistically resembles the post-modern neo-classical artists like Jóhann Jóhannsson (it feels classical, yet distortion, electronics, and high-tech sound design are all fair game).
The strongest piece is the opening “Core,” which steadily builds from a promising intro of hallucinatory smeared voices and crackling ambiance to an absolutely killer crescendo of digitized/inhuman choral voices and shuddering, strangled brass flutters that sound like a dying and deflating marching band. In fact, I wish Wesołowski delved more into conjuring such uncomfortably dissonant and squirming sounds, as he definitely excels at it. Instead, however, the remaining four pieces all build towards their own varying array of set pieces and some work better than others. For example, the early frayed, wobbly chords of “Peak” evoke a spectral undersea fantasia. Elsewhere, the piece drifts into dreamlike string passages that feel like a spiritual sibling to Kassel Jaeger, Stephan Mathieu and Akira Rabelais’s Magic Mountain-inspired Zauberberg album, but it also has stretches that feel like a go-for-broke Carmina Burana-esque maelstrom designed to blow unsuspecting audience members right through their seats.
Lamentably, that degree of dramatic intensity is not quite for me, but I can easily imagine Wesołowski creating an immersive multimedia performance for this album that would leave quite a lot of jaws on the floor. Notably, the following “Stalagmite” flirts with a similarly epic and elemental scope, but I was far more fond of the slow fade-in of an opening motif reminiscent of Popul Vuh’s iconic Aguirre, The Wrath of God soundtrack. The closing organ piece “Wilhelm Tombeau” manages to find even more improbably wonderful terrain, as it amusingly evokes a vampiric Sarah Davachi damned to spend all eternity performing lonely organ concerts in a snowy mountain castle for an audience of wolves. Notably, actual wolves turn up in a different piece (“Glacial Troughs”), but they manage to stay reverently silent for the album’s eerie finale.
Admittedly, most of Song of the Night Mists is a bit outside my personal comfort zone, as Wesołowski’s vision is considerably more apocalyptic than my own taste, but there is no denying that this infernal symphony is one hell of a powerful artistic statement. He does quite an impressive job at conjuring simmering tension, unsettling dread, and enticing mystery throughout the album and had no shortage of compelling and unique ideas. Even more impressively, Wesołowski managed to unleash music of such gnarled and blackened intensity (and immensity) that it actually matched the mountain-sized ambition of his vision. While I would dearly love to someday hear Wesołowski harness his considerable talents in a more nuanced/understated direction, I definitely have to admire any album that unleashes enough volcanic intensity to evoke collapsing mountains and primal battle cries.
Listen here.
