CELEPHAΪS – Tir n’a n’Og

Living in an extremely fast-paced city like Shanghai, every once in a while you might feel the need to take a break from its crowds, cars, and polluted skies. If you don't have chance to travel far from it, there are some other options and seeking refuge in music is one of them, trying to get back in touch both with your inner self and the outside world.

The young German band we are dealing with this week — named Celephaïs after the dream-made city mentioned in Lovecraft's story of the same name — tried to provide an answer to this, an escape from reality through the power of dreams. Lovecraft's short story also comes in handy to describe the band's attitude towards music:

[…] and alone among the indifferent millions of London, so there were not many to speak to him and to remind him who he had been. His money and lands were gone, and he did not care for the ways of the people about him, but preferred to dream and write of his dreams.

This disc is entitled "Tir n'a n'Og" and was re-released in digipak by Pest Productions in December 2012 after a first self-release in September. According to Celtic myth, Tír na nÓg is a world that begins after what is known to man, a land of dreams and beauty where legends dwell, where there is no sickness and music is everywhere. This myth has lately come back in strong fashion in the music scene, in this specific case especially through Alcest's track (spelled as "Tir Nan Og") on the influential 2007 album "Souvenirs D'Un Autre Monde".

The French act is clearly the main influence behind the work on guitars and on the general atmosphere here, although the German band seems to prefer green to blue in visual terms. The structure is quite straightforward: the first track "Wisdom" is a seven-minute meditative introduction to "Tir n'a n'Og", the core of this work, none of the tracks features vocals.

In the title track we actually get in touch with the Otherworld, where birds and water welcome us and take us away from the horrors of everyday life. Percussions come in, layers of guitars intertwine, and around the middle of the album the first blast beats and distortions appear. However, the atmosphere never becomes raw: all of the instruments strive to lift us towards Tír na nÓg, where all our efforts to leave reality behind will be rewarded by a paradoxical explosion of tranquil dreams.

There is nothing new or astonishingly surprising in this album, but Celephaïs made it clear from the start; this work is recommended to fans of the "dreamy" side of contemporary atmospheric post-metal bands "à la Alcest".