Twilight Ritual's "Rituals" album is one of the best kept secrets of the synthpop/coldwave movement. Sinister, Dark and a bunch of touching melodies. Peter Bonne and Geert Coppens had already been playing for a few years in other projects such as Autumn, Linear Movement and in 1985 they managed to create this stunning album. Twilight Ritual was realised in Geert's mind during the first Autumn years. It was building integrity, clearer identity, and admittance of mystery and surreal impressions. During Autumn recording sessions, musical style and experiment varied strongly, which is recognized in the various tape releases. However, some tracks had clearly more 'spirit' or 'personality' than others. It became clear that a new project was born out of Autumn work: Twilight Ritual
This album was born at the
height of the analogue era, when Geert and Peter collected as much synths and
recording devices as they could get their hands on. Using the all-time
favourite TR808 as rhythm provider, sequencers and syncs effects formed the
basics for a unique sounding album.
Sounds were processed in every possible unintended way, recording layer
over layer with voices, guitars and doubled keyboards and solos. Instruments
included TR-808, SH-2, Teisco 7, Jupiter 4, JX-3P, Trilogy, Minimoog, Crumar
Performer, Roland System-100, syndrums, double cassette player, 2-track tape
recorder, 4-track cassette deck, tape echo, phaser foot pedal and manual
flanger, some self-built switches, splitters and other weird materials.
Highlights on the album
include I Never Called You A Dream, Rooms, Amorphous Materials, Closed Circuit
and.. well every other track. When the LP was originally released by some
awkward mistake the artwork was printed in reverse (black became white and
white became black). The artwork is now restored to its original form, how it
was intended to be.