TeHÔM – Phobos (Album – Zoharum)
Genre/Influences: Dark-Ambient, Industrial.
Format: Digital, CD, Cassette.
Background/Info: TeHÔM is a Croatian project founding their origins in the late 80s. When the core member of the project passed away, the project got reactivated a few years later (2010) by Miljenko Rajaković. Different albums have been released –featuring two noticeable productions on Cyclic Law. “Phobos” is the first full-length released by Zoharum. It’s a live album, which has been recorded in Wuppertal (Germany) during Phobos Festival in 2019. Notice by the way the cassette release has been released on Lithuanian label, Autarkeia.
Content: TeHÔM deals with a dark sound, which is carried by Industrial elements and Drones with some sung passages. The vocals have something of deep throat vocalists. It creates a kind of Ritual effect on top of the production, which also reveals a Dark-Ambient side. The tracklist is simply numbered from 1 to 8.
+ + + : Zoharum productions always reveal a great artwork and it’s not that different for this album, especially the inside picture totally fits with the dark sound of this live performance. The concert was directly recorded from the mixing board, which explains the great sound quality. Sound-wise there’s a true symbiosis between the different influences, but I’ve a preference for the opening cut carried by drones and the sixth cut, which is more Ambient-like.
– – – : I think a little bit more diversity would be an extra. You don’t really hear this is all about a live recording –especially right at the end, but that’s not really a point.
Conclusion: TeHÔM invites the listener to embark for an obscure and mysterious voyage throughout imaginary dungeons and cellars.
Best songs: “VI”, “I”.
Rate: 7.
Artist: www.tehom.altervista.org / www.facebook.com/tehom.croatia
Label: www.zoharum.com / www.facebook.com/zoharum
About TeHÔM
TeHÔM is a dark ambient, ritual ambient and industrial project from Zagreb, Croatia. Discogs traces it to 1987, when the four-piece metal band Ivor The Lord became Ivor Lord and continued as a duo of Siniša Očuršćak and Goran Terihaj, moving from metal to ambient and industrial. A first demo recorded between 1988 and 1989 was released on a DIY cassette as “Gospod Je Lice Naše”. The project took the TeHÔM name in 1991.
Terihaj left in 1993, leaving Očuršćak to continue alone until his death in 1997, after completing the second album “Theriomorphic Spirits” with help from Miljenko Rajaković. The debut “Despiritualization Of Nature” had appeared on Twilight Command in 1996; “Theriomorphic Spirits” followed in 2000 on Twilight Command and New European Recordings. Rajaković later reactivated the project and Side-Line covered the 2017 concert recording “Live Assault”, taken from the 2016 Brutal Assault Festival.
“Phobos” was issued by Zoharum on 30 June 2021 as a limited CD in a six-panel digipak, in an edition of 350 copies. Martin Stürtzer recorded the set at the Sophienkirche in Wuppertal on 16 March 2019, Višeslav Laboš handled mastering, Petar Pečur the CD authoring and Karl-Hendrik Tittel the photography. The business-card CDr “Crossing Over Moscow” followed on Loki Foundation in 2024.
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