Alessandro Barbanera (ROHS! Lontano Series) is a musician, composer, sound artist, guitar maker from Assisi, Italy. "In Darkness Let Me Dwell" is a quote from a piece by Renaissance lutenist John Dowland (1563-1626). In a dreamlike and nocturnal atmosphere, filled with rain and decaying sounds, the album deconstructs, reworks and wants to pay homage to the imagery and clichés of cinema noir, ranging from classic 40s and 50s movies, up to the works by David Lynch ("Twin Peaks", "Mulholland Drive", "Blue Velvet"), passing through films such as "The Element of Crime" by Lars von Trier, or "Cure" by Kiyoshi Kurosawa.

The first thing you will notice on the opening track, "When Darkness Drops Again" is the large amount of staticky noise and distortion in the drone atmosphere. It kind of comes and goes, receding and reasserting in waves. This must be intentional as with modern recording techniques no professional would release a mastered product with accidental distortion. There is a most pronounced rising and falling in the drone clouds, more lightly cracking distortion (almost like rain?) during the quiet acoustic guitar passage which seemed a bit distracting to me. Later in the piece synth voices emerge providing a light and minimalist ending. "Traces To Nowhere" sounds amorphously dream-like with a mild thunderstorm in the background, a brief, repeating, beeping monotone sequence, the sound of a bottle rolling, and other indefinable sounds. "Vanished Girl" uses some deeper, darker, more ominous drones with a variety of indefinable Foley sounds/samples, getting noisy at times in twisted sonic manipulation, then changing to a single drone-tone which changes, expanding over time into something nearly melodic. "Time Is Running Out" begins with sounds reverberating in a well with lighter drones emerging from the darkness. The drones open up into a harmonically rich ambience, maybe letting the sun shine through. It increases in intensity until it is nearly sonically too bright for ears, then subsides. Once again there seems to be some intentional crackling distortion on "Past Lives," with a a film noirish chordal sequence, some heavy breathing, and a generally creepy atmosphere. Other sonic elements emerge, as well as a more harrowing dronescape where metallic sounds are forged into ambient rays of malevolence. It dies down into something less abrasive but full of staticky residue.

Alessandro spends some time "Pacifying The Ghosts" with a more heavenly atmospheric drone piece, smooth and serene, eschewing static noise and Foley sounds. It slides seamlessly into "Chinese Box" (hey, I have one of those) which is comprised of seemingly random tones deeply chambered in reverb, tinging sounds (both forwards and backwards) and other Foley sounds. A lot of this album was really great, but I had a hard time getting used to the staticky noise found where mentioned. A nice find brought to me by Artem Ostapchuk (of Kryptogen Rundfunk), formerly of the (now defunct) Russian Zhelezobeton label who now runs Fonodroom. CD is limited to 100 copies.