Mount Shrine Guides the Way Home (Rest in Peace, Cesare Alexandre)

Mount Shrine is one of the pylons of the modern dark ambient movement; one of the artists whose aural “vision” saw beyond the bleakness and decrepit industrialized aesthetics of the dark ambient scene and with the help of others in the genre (Atrium Carceri, Kammerheit, Dronny Darko, God Body Disconnect, et al) helped transfer and transfigure the genre into something more. Mount Shrine was helmed and configured by Brazilian artist Cesare Alexandre, whom the music world tragically lost last year in 2021. His passing is met with great sadness, and the void left by his work is still noticed, certainly by those with the ears to hear. It is in the spirit of remembrance and homage that Cryo Chamber has released the final Mount Shrine album, aptly titled, All Roads Lead Home. 

All Roads Lead Home is the final testament of Cesare, a final embrace of his stylized warmth that is seemingly inimitable save for Mount Shrine. Soft textures of laconic drones caress your mind, with dreamy synth and pluck atmospheres interspersing among the drone patterns. There is an almost “retro” feel to some of the patterns and themes during the tracks - many of these “songs” feel like organic extensions to a film soundtrack, but one that plays through the haze of memory. On the whole, this album has a calming, serene presentation, and it is a bittersweet memorial to the great artistry of Cesare Alexandre. While we weep for friends lost, we can still hear their spirit through the textures of their craft, and Mount Shrine is in fact, a spiritual shrine of beautiful sound design and elegant emotions through sound, and through this experience, our sadness slowly wanes and we only remember the happiness, ultimately looking beyond this fleshly prison, and hope to meet once again, perhaps upon a crossroad in the hereafter. 

Many thanks go to Simon Heath and Cryo Chamber for releasing such a beautiful commemoration to Mount Shrine, and you can pick up the CD digipak and digital copy of All Roads Lead Home on the Cryo Chamber Bandcamp page.