ozymandias, "layla"

Working the World Serpent website for the last few years, I've become more exposed to a more darker side of the spectrum than just Current 93, Coil and NWW. It's not often that I find something that I'm terribly crazy about other than those few plus the various related entities that are intertwined, but for the last couple releases from Ozymandias, I have been captivated.

Ramses

Christophe Terrettaz is simply a pianist, who admits to watching Christina Ricci films, titles his songs in French and has pictures of naked female statues on his album covers. If you distance yourself from those facts, everything in record store blurbs, the painful pictures of the tortured soul on the website, and reviewers who use the word "melancholy" way too often, you're left with something simple, direct and amazingly pleasant. I find it's on in the background when I'm trying to wind down in the evening or do a little cleaning around the house late at night.

To me, there's nothing sinister, macabre, nor profound in these simple, tinkling piano melodies. Furthermore, while great piano composers like Liszt and Chopin have mountains of exponentially more complex works, I'm happy to hear something light and relatively uninvolved every now and again.