Nolan Farmer and Chris Greaney are Beatnik Neon and, although they have been making music together for over 10 years, they have never officially released anything…until now.

Atramentous Part I: In Darkness Reeling is more than just a playlist of songs, it is a conceptual work of art, an audio movie so to speak.

A fictional composer, considered a great of his time, is caught in a recurring dream where he is lead around a dilapidated house full of disembodied voices by a girl with inky black eyes named Sephara.

Sephara leads the star composer to a tightrope extending from an upstairs window across an inexplicable abyss. The composer falls and wakes up in agonizing pain which grows in intensity until his latest symphony is finally complete.

Then the process begins again…

Atramentous is as sonically epic as the concept and story which fuels it. Beatnik Neon’s attention to the finest details, the layered arrangements, the pleasing textures and the emotional roller coaster ride created by these sounds and rhythms will leave you anticipating Part II of this story while you listen to Part I a second time.

Nolan and Chris were awesome enough to break down each piece for us. I want to do their creativity justice by including their descriptions of each song below.

1. Chromatic: The dream cycle starts again, our unnamed protagonist at first unwilling to cross the tightrope as he knows the pain it will bring him but of course relenting and resuming the familiar cycle.

2. Mistaking Shapes for Sizes: After secluding himself in his mountain cabin in order to concentrate on his work and ridding himself of the mounting agony within, he takes a walk at dusk and begins to see the first notes of the symphony present themselves in the contorted images of the stars above, blurred by his pained and watery eyes.

3. Crowded Sun: Another night of the dream, as the days become blurred by fevered composition. Our protagonist relates his composition as filling in the emptiness between his dreaming and waking states.

4. Winter: With the symphony not yet halfway complete, our composer wakes up to realize that winter has set in, his arrival having been at the end of summer. Despite his pain he goes for a walk, reflecting on the disparity between his inward tumult and horror and the idyllic winter landscape around him.

5. Anger Lurking Amidst Dim Spaces: As the composition progresses the agony only becomes more intense and that agony is personified here as malevolent twin of sorts, whom our protagonist constantly attempts to deny by finishing his composition but who will inevitably return.

6. Images Of: Near completion, the composer reflects abysmally on how his compositions inspire joy in others but only fear and terror within himself.

Beatnik Neon go above and beyond the call of duty to create something very powerful, impactful, refreshing and unique in the electronic/experimental/ambient/synth landscape.

I love a great concept and Atramentous is probably one of the best of one’s I have seen yet.

Support Atramentous Part I: Reeling In Darkness by getting your copy from Bandcamp.

Atramentous Part II is scheduled to be ready by second quarter 2017!