Release Date: September 18th 2026. Record Label: Obsidian Sky Records. Format: CD/DD
Forgotten Music - Tracklist
1.Snowdrift 07:51
2.William 11:37
3.Simulacrum 06:24
4.The Naked Floor 07:28
5.Rorschach 513 06:18
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Ken Wohlrob - Everything
Review
Forgotten Music is the latest record from Ken Wohlrob who is best known for his work with bands such as Eternal Black and Northern Heretic. This time round Ken is flying solo with his latest collection of experimental tracks that are superbly experiential but also have a personal energy attached to them. The whole record operates within a gloomy cinematic and soundtrack landscape with echoes of music created in the Seventies and Eighties with that instrumental approach having a dramatic slow-to-mid paced delivery throughout the whole thing.
The songs are quite hard to categorize as Ken moves between areas of Post-Rock, Ambient, Drone, Doom, Electronica, Movie Soundtracks and Progressive Rock with the exquisite opening track Snowdrift being painfully slow to listen to at first, However, by the end of that track you do feel quite quite refreshed listening to the heavily slow played Droned aspect of the whole musical journey. There’s a creeping sense of Psychedelic doubt appearing which thrusts the song further into video game / movie soundtrack territory.
Second track William is cautiously slow once more but Ken adds fractured instrumental passages with hazy guitars, keys and synths which remain unapologetically in the same musical lane with a low-key melody appearing. The song does have layers of distorted drone and blues doom sounds emerging but the highly unconventional tone makes this even more emotionally rewarding.
Third track Simulacrum is mostly from the Ambient/Post-Rock world with Ken feeling influenced by the likes of MONO, Russian Circles and SUNN 0))) in places. Though, the music is beautifully slow with strands of melodic Post-Doom and Psychedelic melodies forging an ice-cold alliance that's quite ethereal. The sound does become slightly aggressive and louder when some Shoegaze guitars enter the equation. This is perhaps where Ken shows a few tricks learnt for his other great bands for a great style of heaviness to appear but without being too heavy at the same time.
The final two tracks of The Naked Floor and Rorschach 513 doesn’t change course with the music becoming more withdrawn but also showing another level of uplifting Ambient soundscapes to emerge from the musical catacombs. Trippy Electronic sound effects and weird Psychedelic glitches offer a chilling emotional insight that’s quite hard to ignore with the music diving right into it’s creative core of Experimental music.
There’s some musical interludes inspired by the likes of John Carpenter, Vangelis and GOBLIN but that’s my own observations with the great music that Ken has written and played here. Forgotten Music isn’t going to be for everyone. It’s superbly stubborn with the music only changing creative course when the time actually demands this.
Forgotten Music offers a highly peaceful and meditative journey into the more experimental side of Ambient Metal and Post-Rock which shows a totally different side to Ken Wohlrob. This is the type of album that you can easily find “inner peace” with but one that does offer a challenging experience along the way. That's the sign of a great “solo” record for me.
Words by Steve Howe
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