Here is an odd album that might surprise anyone expecting more of the black ambience that Autumn Wind usually delivers. When I first heard about E.V.P., I assumed that the project was going to be black ambient that had something to do with the "voices from the dead" deathscape stuff that Crepuscule and Schloss Tegal have worked with, since E.V.P. take its name from the subject of "Electronic Voice Phenomena", the experimental field of recording disembodied voices on magnetic tape. That's not the case. This one man project actually creates a kind of bizarre, deathtripping cabaret-industrial music, instrumental pieces that are filled with orchestral instruments and skincrawling sound effects, ominous brass horns and fluttering woodwinds, a midnight symphony performed over phantasmal moans and pounding Industrial percussion. The first thing that popped into my head when I listened to E.V.P. was how much this reminded me of Danny Elfman's film scores for Tim Burton. There is a similiar element of whimsical dark fantasy in this music, but mixed with Industrial rhythms and demonic vocal samples, it becomes a kind of weird, evil Teutonic twin to Elfman's style of dark fantasy orchestrations. There are other elements that come into play on Postmortem Canticles as well: eerie neo-classical strings, shuddering industrial loops, flickers of drum n' bass and trip hop rhythms, and lots of dense dark ambience that is wrapped up in E.V.P.'s strange cabaret vibe. The music is pretty much all instrumental, and each song is steeped in visions of graveyard architecture, occult rituals and necromancy, and journeys through a Stygian underworld. The song titles by themselves are pretty rad, and any one of them could double as a black metal album title: "Mist Of Which Apparitions Are Made", "Tempels Of Azrael, Built Upon Bone", "Censecration De Profundis", "Death Posture Stigmata". I especially love "Death Posture Stigmata", even if I don't know what its supposed to mean. You probably have a good idea by now as to whether or not this sounds like yer cup of joe. Some other reference points include the Luciferian classical symphonies of Elend and HERR, and Christopher Young's grandiose scores for the Hellraiser films...fans of any of those should check E.V.P. out. Autumn Wind always presents their releases in terrific packaging too, and this is no different. Postmortem Canticles Of Necromancy is packaged in a DVD case with cool necro artwork and includes a big foldout insert with black on black printing and a freakin' Ouija board on one side!