This split release features three tracks each from Polish project Atum and American project Roto Visage, with the six tracks totalling forty minutes of playing time. The unifying theme of Syndrom Cotarda is Cotard’s syndrome, a mental disorder first described by French neurologist Jules Cotard in 1880. Sufferers from Cotard's syndrome, also known as ‘negation delirium’, believe that they no longer exist, and that they have lost everything – possessions, form, identity, even life itself. This all sounds pretty terrifying, and the music of Syndrom Cotarda consists of impersonal, ego-obliterating dark ambient in the vein of Visions or Kammarheit – slow, immense, oceanic respirations, drones and reverberations through dark chasms and infinite abysses. The tracks of Atum and Roto Visage alternate, but stylistically they are very hard to distinguish from each other, which seems entirely appropriate to the theme of loss of identity, and all six tracks are simply entitled ‘Syndrom Cotarda’, just to ram the point home.  

Syndrom Cotarda is a limited edition of 200 copies, and it comes packaged in an oversized fold-out card sleeve with several inserts, including a portrait of the pessimistic German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Cult Polish label Beast of Prey is evidently in no danger of losing its own identity as a purveyor of high-quality, collectable ambient and industrial releases.  

www.beastofprey.com

www.atum.darknation.eu

www.rotovisage.com

www.myspace.com/rotovisage