Xerxes The Dark – Soundtrack To The Blind Owl (Album – Zāl Records)
Genre/Influences: Ambient-Noise, Soundtrack.
Format: Digital.
Background/Info: Morego Dimmer released this imaginary soundtrack during a shot session in 2005. The work is inspired by the Iranian novel “‘The Blind Owl” originally written by Sadegh Hedayat. Blind Owl also is a side-project of Morego Dimmer with whom he released an album back in 2008.
Content: This work sounds pretty different from the usual and familiar dark-Ambient style of the Iranian producer. He composed a Soundtrack made of different noises, creating a rather improvised work. The use of guitar sounds mixed with a waterphone, handy instruments, keys ao create a kind of apocalyptic style.Most of the tracks are pretty long.
+ + + : If you’re into improvisation and you like a rather soft approach of Noise, this album has something to offer. The work also appears to be a true challenge as the artists dares to explore different paths of this project. The experiment with noises resulted in a true apocalyptic atmosphere, which you are going to either like or hate.
– – – : I’ve never been a huge fan of improvised sessions. This work is a kind of ‘Noise jam-session’, which according to me is too far away from what I’ve heard from Xerxes The Dark.
Conclusion: This is not the album I would recommend to discover this project, which is definitely more exciting when composing its Dark-Ambient style.
Best songs: “Opium & The Bent Old Man”.
Rate: 6.
Artist: www.facebook.com/xerxes.the.dark
Label: www.facebook.com/zaalrecords
About Xerxes The Dark
Xerxes The Dark is the dark ambient project of Iranian composer and electronic musician Mohammadreza Govahi, who also records as Morego and as the noise project Nyctalllz. Discogs dates the project to 2005 and describes it as working with dark ambient, drone and industrial elements.
The early catalogue ran through Amduscias Records with “Dim” in 2006, “Artificial Hell” in 2007 and “AZOIX: The Kingdom Of All The Dark Ambient Moments” in 2008. From 2018 the project has released mainly through Zāl Records, with remastered editions of “Xenophillis” and “Transmutation” in 2018, “Tower Of Silence” and a reissue of “Dim” in 2019, and Xerxes the Dark – Final Crisis (Album – Zāl Records) together with the compilation “X-Theory (Best Of 2005-2020)” in 2020.
“Soundtrack To The Blind Owl” was issued by Zāl Records in 2021 as a six-track digital album. Later releases include Xerxes The Dark – The Rise of AI (Album – Zāl Records) in 2022, “Absurd” in 2024 and “Abandoned Station” in 2025. The musician spoke about working from Iran in the 2020 ‘Click Interview’ with Morego: ‘Some Great Record Labels That Didn’t Work With Me Just Because I’m From Iran’.
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