NERATERRÆ – Scenes from the Sublime (Recommendation)

Artist: NERATERRÆ
Album: Scenes From the Sublime
Genre: Dark Ambient
Country: Italy
Release Date: 20^th March 2020
Released via Cyclic Law
Cover Artwork  © Cyclic Law

I am always interested in special ideas for albums. As an example for this, I can highlight the Toundra album early this year, which is a new interpretation of the music from “Das Cabinett des Dr. Caligiari”. With Scenes From the Sublime, NERATERRÆ crates a musical reception of ten famous paintings from the last centuries.

Some of you might say that writing a “soundtrack” for a single painting is nothing more than doing so for a movie. But I think it’s different. To me, paintings operate on a different level of anticipation for the viewer than a movie because there is more room for interpretation. The whole level of emotions, parts of the scene and the story background is speculative, more if you don’t know the artist. Some paintings I know, like “Ivan the Terrible and his Son” from Ilja Yefmovisch or Salvador Dali’s “The Disintegration of the Persistence”, because they are famous or work on a pop-cultural level, but some painting-inspired songs were complete new territory for me.

How does this kind of interpretation work for me, when I discover a “new painting” while simultaneously listening to this music? It worked very well for me. The songs are connecting with the pictures very well and it helps you to get sucked in more drastically. The Dark Ambient framework throughout the whole album is perfect for the chosen paintings, the ideas worked, the quality of the music is impressive, and the production is well done. NERATERRÆ did a great job with this album.

I must say, I would wish that this kind of ideas would get more attention in the world of the fine arts. Doing an art exhibition that gets special music produced for the paintings – I think that could work very well. The technical side is there, you’re sometimes given a player with an audio guide who show you the way through the exhibition or museum. Why not with music? Maybe this album will get you to see some paintings and maybe art in a different way.

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