Nigh/T/mare – Katharsis

Nigh/Tmare is the project of Italian industrial / experiment techno musician Giuseppe Sciretti. As far as I can see on the artist’s DIscogs page, Night/Tmare got his start in 2017 with the release of “Transition”, as well as taking part in record label Thrènes’ 2017 DJ Mix 011. After emerging onto the scene, he released three separate EPs in 2018 including “Empathy” on Lett Records, “Hypnagogia” on Thrènes, and “Parabola” on DVNTT. Following up another a DJ Mix via Thrènes, Night/Tmare has crafted his debut album “Katharsis”. 

“Katharsis”, then, is a ten track album featuring the likes of LAIR and Prophän with remixes from Pact Infernal and Torn Relics. Night/Tmare has stated in the past that he uses his music to express his personal feelings and experiences. He shares his stories this way and goes through “feelings of pain, anxiety, stress, and much more”. His debut album is a dark journey through dark ambient passages, noisy background textures, thumping percussive rhythms, and middle eastern influences packed in a high quality production. 

The album begins off with ‘Impure’. It’s a gorgeous, opening track that combines the previously mentioned middle eastern sounds and tribal percussion in a epic, cinematic edge. It doesn’t just go balls-to-the-walls immediately; Nigh/Tmare takes his time on this track to build up a wonderful visage. The following song, ‘Self Immolation’, is where we see Nigh/Tmare go back to his roots as it’s a straight up ambient, noise, and techno track. This is perhaps as standard as the experimental tracks on the album gets, but that’s a compliment. ‘Self Immolation’ has grand production and great rhythm. 

The best way I can describe ‘Anti Balaka’ is as if I were standing atop a train in a pitch black tunnel going one-hundred and twenty miles per hour. The only thing I can hear is the sound of the train screeching down the rails, haunted voices around me. And the only thing that I know is that this train is leading me straight into the depths of Hell. ‘Unarmed’ is off-putting. It’s a decent take at a dark ambient track. While well produced, there’s not much going on with it aside from a few stretched out synths and a couple of more epic, battle ready notes atop. Nonetheless, it falls into similar tropes that so many other dark ambient tracks fall to that make it so flat. 

‘Unavoidable Unveiling’ begins off slow, allowing the noisy ambiance and harsh percussion to work their way into my veins. As it continues, though, the track made me feel as if I could fight a God. Prophän joins Nigh/Tmare on ‘Doomed to Struggle’; this is the most ritualistic track on the album thanks to the hums in the background and powerful tribal beat. The collaborations continue with LAIR on ‘The Summoning’.  It’s an ambient techno song through and through whose spatial, cavernous sounds and echoed reflection never give up

‘The Path of the Moans’ is a bit of a better effort at a dark ambient track. There are more textures found within, but it still needs a bit more to stick out from the crowd. The final two songs are remixes from Pact Infernal and Torn Relics. Pact Infernal gives ‘Impure’ a bit of a cyber-vibe; I was very much reminded of the combat music I heard while playing through Cyberpunk 2077. Torn Relics strips down ‘The Summoning’; they focus on harsh whispers and rumbling percussion, keeping true to the spirit of the original while adding onto it. 

“Katharsis”, then, is a gorgeous album that takes me through a ritualistic and tribal journey every time I pass through it. The experimental and industrial techno aura that flows throughout the album is grand and the production is top notch. I did have problems with the dark ambient attempts ‘Unarmed’ and ‘The Path of the Moans’. However, they were not terrible, just boring. And if two out of the ten tracks on the album are not for me, then I’m still on board with a smile on my face. Eight out of ten! 

This review was commissioned through our Ko-fi page.