When he's not laying down his majestic, sky-reaching riffage and beautiful melodic gloom in his main band Year Of No Light, guitarist Johan Sebenne keeps busy with a couple of other projects that explore more droneological territory. Johan sent us the limited-edition full length discs for Altair Temple and Nexus Sun that came out earlier this year, two duos that Johan plays in, and both bands explore similiar realms of guitar-based drone music with slightly different approaches. Altair Temple is the duo that Johan shares with a guy named Fred, who plays guitar and manipulates effects pedals while Johan works with synthesizers, laptop and other effects, crafting gorgeous industrial drones that share alot of common ground with both Troum and Tim Hecker. The disc features ten tracks that range from soft Eno-esque ambience to muted roars of buzzing amplifier drone, fields of glimmering guitar notes sparkling above sheets of grinding bottom end, malevolent dark ambience and waves of crushing metallic drone. These are shadowy, bleak drones that sometimes move into brighter, more melodic shapes, but mostly remain cloaked in darkness, their amplifiers casting eerie shadows over the miasmic waves of delay and drone. Excellent amorphous ambience that goes from cosmic to crushing; these dark guitar-driven dronescapes are positioned somewhere in between the sounds of Byla, Fear Falls Burning, Aidan Baker, Troum and Main. Only 120 copies of this disc were made, and each one comes in a thick paperboard gatefold with silkscreened artwork.