Traveling through time, through interstellar dimensions, peering through rifts in space, in infinity, the Umbranauts, just like that, snap, pop into existence, like fundamental particles; where once they were not in existence, they, then, were; and they floated above the solar system, looking around, locating themselves, what was swirling around them, what gravitated where, what life, if any, was present, what new emptiness they would encounter in the infinite lifelessness of potentialities, searching for possibilities, searching for what the Umbranauts called “Soul”.
The Umbranauts, practically gods themselves, beings of immense technology and intelligence, observed from afar, like scientists, hidden in the shadows, in the darkness. They stayed hidden from the locals, from Hermes, the good shepherd; from Venus and Ares, and their children; from Terra Mater, and her blood; from the lord of the flies, Ba’al; from the child-eating Cronos; from Anu and his genitals; from Poseidon, the lord of waters; and from Pluto, aka Hades, aka Father Dis, aka Summanus, aka Februus, aka Serapis, aka Muth, aka the maiden stealer.
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To read the rest of this review — and more by Steve Schmolaris — visit his website Bad Gardening Advice.
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Steve Schmolaris is the founder of the Schmolaris Prize, “the most prestigious prize in all of Manitoba,” which he first awarded in 1977. Each year, he awards the prize to the best album of the year. He does not have a profession but, having come from money (his father, “the Millionaire of East Schmelkirk,” left him his fortune when he died in 1977), Steve is a patron of the arts. Inspired by the exquisite detail of a holotype, the collective intelligence of slime mold, the natural world and the suffering inherent within it — and also music (fuck, he loves music!) — Steve has long been writing reviews of Winnipeg artists’ songs and albums at his website Bad Gardening Advice, leading to the publication of a book of the same name.
