Nocturnal Emissions
The World is My Womb
Soleilmoon
Track listing
Nigel Ayers' and Caroline K's 1987 album is an early example of the
spiritual ambient-trance music that has proliferated in the European underground
throughout the '90s. Nocturnal Emissions' affinity for ancient folk songs
adds a distinctive accent to the music's ritualistic grandeur.
Alternative Press
From 1987 comes this CD reissue of one of Nocturnal Emission's best ambient albums. The World Is My Womb comes from the beginning of their "NEotantic" style, pursued on later releases Spiritflesh (1988) and Invocation of the Beast Gods (1989). Nigel Ayers and his longtime partner Caroline K were then making quasi-ceremonial music, after their founding noise and band-oriented albums.
On The World Is My Womb, treated instruments, drone loops and environmental recordings created similar atmospheres to contemporary projects by Zoviet France and SPK. In music and spoken word pieces Sealing A Phase, Vegetation Narration, and Blended Senses Nigel Ayers (rather seriously and dryly) spelled out his new age philosophy - part gnostic holistics, part tantric imagery - while staying traditional when borrowing religious Church Of England signifiers (organ sounds and liturgical chants) on tracks like Clear Bells and the prayer-sampling Lighten Our Darkness.
Mixing the old with the new is also the feel of Jangled Senses where a simple piano melody recalls an old time hymn, while ringing bells signal something more revealing.