Horologium – Le Paradis des Chasseurs

An endearing compilation, ‘La Paradis des Chasseurs’ will be sure to tickle and torture your musical senses in ways that are unimaginable. To this minute, I’m unsure of what exactly I’d gotten myself into.

Horologium is the brainchild of a Polish musician named Grzegorz Siedlecki, and this compilation consolidates two EP releases: ‘Paradise Inverted’ and ‘Songs for Hunters’, as well as an unreleased piece titled ‘De Caceria en el Paraiso’. I’m still confused as to what each piece on the compilation is aiming to achieve. Horologium are described as being a blend of ambient and industrial, though I don’t even think that’s an accurate way to describe Siedlecki’s sound. I laid myself down on the couch and decided to take a nap to this album. I figured I was going to be in for a rather relaxing experience, but this was purely nightmarish stuff I was being exposed to.

The compilation couldn’t be any further from ambient if it tried to be; it seems like the best way to describe the sound would be to call it a theatrical mashup of sorts. It’s most definitely an acquired taste, but not one of mine. It’s an innovative and forward thinking effort, but it fails to sound cohesive or likable. Just picture a person in the Middle Ages who decided to sample works from his favourite lute players and flautists, and then he decided to chuck in some percussion he recorded with a nomadic tribe. Yeah, you’d basically end up with an aural form of a madman’s racing thoughts. It’s far from pretty, far from appealing and it’s not something you’ll ever listen to frequently. Like a deformed man in a Victorian freak show, it has interesting features that stand out from the crowd but, when the day is done, it’s most probably only going to be liked by bearded women.

I must say that if Siedlecki’s EPs contained material that had emotive and moody traditional folk-esque songs like “Towards the First Circle” and “De Caceria en el Paraiso”, my ears would’ve devoured these as if they were a sugary treat. Instead, you end up feeling confused and even irked. This is music that is purely for fans of the unconventional. If you happen to fall into that demographic, you might have just stumbled across your new favourite album.