A new reissue of Encomiast's self-titled 1999 debut, which has been out of print for years. The six tracks contained here are a far cry from the dreamy, guitar-based dronepop and sun-dappled driftscapes of Encomiast's Bathed in Sunlight CDR that came out on Crucial Bliss at the beginning of this year...this is a much, much darker version of Encomiast, the one that we first fell in love with when we witnessed them perform live at an experimental music festival in Providence, Rhode Island in the early part of the decade. The original lineup featured Ross Hagen and Nick Paul crafting surreal dark ambient compositions that melded together deep, ominous Lustmord style drift to weird musical elements that range from the looping carnival chimes and squelchy synthesizer textures of "Azazel" to the shimmering cymbal whirr and glitchy noises that flutter through the subterranean depths of "T Zero" and herald the crunching Industrial rhythm that emerges in the later half of the track. "Concupere" layers bursts of harp-like strings, heaving breathing sounds and trippy cosmic electronics over glacially churning blackened ambience, again razed by the brief appearance of a grinding machine rhythm halfway through. As great as the whole disc is, the final track "Amnios" is the standout as it veers right into old school krautrock territory with a muted cyclic melody repeating over and over atop a murky wash of wordless whispers, clusters of dark piano notes and spacious drift, like a Tangerine Dream piece draped in shadows and recorded on a melted cassette tape. It's barely five minutes long but I could listen to it endlessly. This disc is obviously pretty essential if you are already a fan of Encomiast, but dark ambient fans should check this out too even if you're not already familiar with the gauzy dark dronescapes of Ross Hagen and company. Recommended. The disc is packaged simply in a plastic sleeve with a single printed sheet on textured paper which is printed with black-ink artwork and the track information.