Hierophant Nox - Extreme Metal Webzine
Muttley and I are rather intrigued by Syndrom Records, having previously enjoyed Crisis’s "Reactor 4" on the same label, and so I was particularly pleased to receive another entry from the catalogue, in the form of Elyseum’s first release, "Bipolar". This project is the work of UK artist Mark Angel, and is best described as electronic-ambient soundscape, created with the kind of equipment that causes my mind to boggle, but which summons otherworldly terror like no other hunk of plastic and wire can.

Sometimes it’s difficult to find technical and descriptive terms to throw at this sort of project, resulting in some really bizarre writing on the subject ("it’s like a robotic, manically depressed, sexually aroused tyrannosaurus rex stalking through a wasteland envisaged by Philip K. Dick, on acid, in the future, on MARS"), or the same old references to well-known bands (not everything sounds like SRF, surely?). I’m therefore always wary of contributing to this sort of drivel, but in the case of "Bipolar" there truly is a whole array of unorthodox hooks, expertly baited to snare the imagination. This is an album with the capability to open the door in your mind to whatever weird and wonderful pictures might be latent there, and even to the layman, it will be engaging and interesting from start to finish.

One of the reasons for "Bipolar"’s coherency is the sense of concept; the discordant chiming, high keening tones and loose, menacing spacey sounds of "Dead Inside" give the impression of genuine distress, whilst the fraught base tone and simply possessed noises that constitute "Despair" are an amazing representation of a sorrowful mind in overdrive. "Sub Harmonic Generator", "Grinder" and "Wrench" have these searing, razor-sharp, metallic edges and crests, like negative realisation dawning, and distorted voices and feedback loops add to this feeling of being claustrophobic within your own skull. At the same time, "Reflection", a warmer and more organic piece with a lovely clean piano shape, a calm, high tone and a balanced choral drone, offers a glimpse of hope, as does the progressive movement of shapes within the otherwise dirty "Suppression".

What I’m trying to express as sensibly as possible, is that as an aural exploration of mental disorder and fluctuation, "Bipolar" is stunningly effective. In addition, Mark has something that’s occasionally rare amongst this flock, which is a canny sense of rhythm. Via pulses, escalating clangs and just simple patterns of sound, he moves his tracks forwards with an unusual dynamism. It’s this ability to pack action into the usual parameters of analogue experimentalism that will ensure electronic fiends and the casual explorer alike will find great pleasure in the way he transmutes the inner workings of a miserable brain into an alien, post-urban adventure.
83/100
Ellen Simpson

Side Line - Music Magazine
Syndrom Records is a small label operating from the UK that already has some interesting releases from Nordvargr or yet Crisis. Elyseum is a new name to me. Set up in 2009 the project here launches a captivating ambient experience. From start to finish Elyseum brings us into a kind of electro ambient universe, which is quite anguishing. The production is powerful, which comes to accentuate every little note and detail from the writing. The title song invites us to join a kind of sonic abyss, which really comes to fruition on "Dead Inside". The track "Reflection" is less chilling, like accentuating the wide spectrum of influences handled by this project. "Emptiness Within" coming next moves on a similar path although we here get a more mysterious track. This cut reminds me a bit of the work of Philip Glass transposed into a horror approach. The real apotheosis comes on the final part. "Grinder" leads the listener back into the intriguing horror vision of Elyseum while "Wrench" is the absolute masterpiece for its pure deadly sounding arrangements. This is the kind of track that could awake the death! Elyseum is a dark ambient project with a terrific impact. Another main force from Elyseum is that the influences and tracks go much further than only dark ambient-like!
(DP:7/8)DP.

Darkroom Magazine
Nasce appena un anno fa il progetto Elyseum su iniziativa dell'inglese Mark Angel, autore avvezzo a manovrare loop e suoni pre-registrati. L'album di debutto "Bipolar" si presenta avaro di informazioni e scarno nel suo involucro esterno, lasciando la parola unicamente ai contenuti sonori. Mark utilizza tastiere e computer per creare sonorità che si ricollegano alla vecchia scuola industrial con esiti vagamente ambientali. La resa analogica e le sparute partiture ritmiche ("Despair") fanno da sostegno a droni metallici ed essenziali che richiamano alla mente vecchie immagini in bianco e nero estratte da oscuri film sci-fi. Le tracce hanno tutte sonorità diverse ma sono unite da strutture simili, basate quasi sempre su giri circolari ossessivi che riproducono la freddezza di macchinari in movimento. Nel particolare emergono passaggi più tipicamente industriali dotati di un suono stridente ("Suppression", "Wrench"), ma anche arie cosmiche dal taglio old-style ("Bipolar", "Electric Shock Therapy" e soprattutto "Reflection"). In generale sembra di essere dinnanzi a mantra cibernetici che ipnotizzano con la loro insistente ripetitività: il risultato migliore in tal senso arriva con la straniante e perpetua "Emptiness Within", una sorta di buco nero in cui perdersi in caduta libera. Tecniche e sonorità del passato vengono riviste con un parziale piglio moderno, tra citazioni stilistiche, atmosfere meccanizzate ed un'immancabile vena oscura: "Bipolar" è un lavoro che può attirare la curiosità dei patiti del settore.

Reflections of Darkness
If you like unusual analogue synth / noise music, then this album is certainly for you. Mark Angel formed this project in 2009 to give vent to his mad scientist side it seems for the flavour is definitively offbeat and quirky and somewhat sci-fi. It's an album full of texture and discord, merging sounds and music together to make a seamlessly eerie soundscape of wonderful morbidity. Despite this genre not being my usual cup of tea I found it interesting and clever, poking away at your emotions and thought processes until you latched into the mood that the music tried to convey. If you've ever seen the film 'Event horizon' that would sum up perfectly the flavour of this album with the title track 'Bipolar' grating and leering towards you like a yawning void. My favourite track is 'Reflection', sublime and engaging in its sombre awakening with fabulous choral interspersions and haunting distant piano. I find that track to be a real masterpiece, and in truth it's a thoroughly well conceived and thought provoking album.
8.5/10

Defecation On The Divine Radio
This is one of my new brilliant finds in the dark ambient/noise/industrial genre and although I haven’t had the actual album on hand to fully check out in detail I can comment on my first impressions of the work.
The sound is very mechanical, hypnotic, and almost hallucinatory, sort of like what the old main frame computers bleeping and chirping would sound like on LSD. Amidst the cold electronic whirrs and hums, rumbles and blurps, there’s an aesthetically warm, almost analog effect to the tracks like 'Neutron' and 'Strom' that remind me of some of Clusters darker moments.
Maybe some of the fuzzy electronic babble is some tonal alien lingo, that’s a definite possibility as these tracks really do somehow speak from within the feedback and variable frequencies, just listen to 'Evakuierung' with it’s muddled and incoherent speech and you’ll know exactly what I mean. It’s almost as f you’re waking up from a deep narcotic nap and barely able to clearly discern any environmental stimulus, but there are some definitely familiar elements, living elements. 7/10
Definitely check out the audio at: www.myspace.com/syndromrecords02

Vital Weekly
"Behind Elyseum we find one Mark Angel, who says about his compositions that they are ‘using a mixture of analog and computer based equipment’ and that ’some of the rhythmic textures within the recordings were made using an analog modular synthesizer’". "Elyseum however looks for the alien nightmare music. Indeed lifted on the old ideas of cosmic music I’d say, but enlarged, empowered and blown up to gigantic proportions. Not in a noise sense, but dark, alienated music. Imagine an empty, rusty space ship in a sci-fi movie floating through space, unbeknownst of what lies ahead. In ‘Reflection’, with its angelic voices, sun light bursts in through the windows, but its a forebode of more evil. With titles as ‘Despair’, ‘Suppression’, ‘Wrench’ or ‘Dead Inside’, you simply know life in space isn’t easy. Elyseum combines cosmic music with ambient and industrial music and does as such some great, yet not entirely ‘new’ kind of music." "Maybe seventy minutes is a bit long, but then that’s not the real length of a sci-fi movie anyway. A beautiful nightmare trip, earthlings beware. (FdW)"

Lux Atenea Webzine (Spain)
El sello discográfico SYNDROM RECORDS ha publicado recientemente el nuevo trabajo musical de Mark Angel, compositor y alma mater de este proyecto llamado Elyseum. El álbum 'Bipolar' contiene música experimental en estado puro como muy pocos compositores y grupos musicales son capaces de crear en la actualidad. Una vanguardia electrónica procedente del Reino Unido que será toda una delicia para los lectores de Lux Atenea Webzine más exigentes, en cuanto a calidad musical se refiere. Como un nuevo maestro alquímico de la música en este siglo XXI, Mark Angel realiza una admirable integración de la tecnología musical analógica combinada con programas de sonido para ordenadores. Y es precisamente el excelente uso que da a los sintetizadores analógicos en la creación y definición de cada uno de estos temas, lo que convierte a estas composiciones en todo un placer para los melómanos de vanguardia más exigentes. Una extraordinaria utilización de estos equipos a la hora de componer música que le permite dar un cuerpo y una textura única a cada una de sus obras musicales. Desde luego, puedo asegurarles que 'Bipolar' no les va a dejar en absoluto indiferentes. Más bien todo lo contrario quedando profundamente impactados por su complejidad y plasticidad.
Pasando a su audición, iniciamos la entrada a este mundo más propio del interior de nuestra mente con el tema 'Sub Harmonic Generator', una composición tan pulsante e impactante que es como si estuviéramos escuchando a un organismo musical que tuviera realmente vida propia. 'Bipolar' es mucho más oscuro. Más trágico en su carácter, inspirándonos miedo y atracción a partes iguales debido a ese opaco trasfondo que nos provoca intranquilidad. 'Dead Inside' es áspero y contundente, con ocho minutos en donde la eternidad se presentará condicionada por nuestra angustia. 'Electric Shock Therapy' es mucho más desalentador al ser el fin de la esperanza y la ilusión, el obligado pago previo para poder continuar hacia un futuro incierto. En 'Despair', esa inquietud irá en aumento ante la contemplación del vacío exterior y la fragilidad interior. 'Reflection' pasaremos a las pinceladas etéreas, a la contemplación de la expansión de las dimensiones como si fuera una ignición colorista. ¡¡¡'Reflection' es pura belleza!!!
'Emptiness Within' se muestra intenso, vibrante en nuestros oídos mientras el espacio y las distancias son imposibles de delimitar en nuestra mente. 'Grinder' es cortante como un peligro oculto que acecha implacablemente. 'Suppression' incrementará aún más esa sensación a través de una contundencia sonora cercana al espíritu noise (con ciertas pinceladas industriales), dejándonos completamente bloqueados y absolutamente paralizados. 'Wrench' es aprensión, es el miedo que se impone y acaba dominando los sentidos, mientras la razón queda al servicio de lo externo, de aquello que no es propio del ser. Un final musical de auténtico lujo para un álbum excelso. En resumidas cuentas, aquí tenemos setenta minutos de magia musical para melómanos que quieren disfrutar de lo último, y además, de lo mejor y más selecto. 'Bipolar', la magia analógica en la mejor música electrónica de vanguardia del siglo XXI. ¡¡¡Disfrútenlo!!!

kultur [terrorismus]
In unregelmäßigen Abständen entspringen der 'Wiege des Industrials' (England) noch 'neue' Interpreten wie Elyseum, die zwar vom alten Geist inspiriert sind, aber ihn in andere Bahnen lenken, welche auf 'Bipolar', dem Debüt des Engländers M. A., industrielle(n) Drones/ Ambient zutage fördern.
Nach Cold Spring Records kam auf der 'Insel' ganz lange gar nix, ein Zustand der sich mit Syndrom Records zum Glück änderte, welches sich auf das Auf- bzw. Verlegen von Dark Ambient-, Industrial- & Power Electronics Releases konzentriert, wo sich 'Bipolar' (CD) von Elyseum hervorragend einreiht.
Thematisch nimmt sich der Protagonist den manisch-depressiven Erkrankungen an, die in die Gruppe der Affektstörungen gehören und episodisch wie willentlich nicht kontrollierbar auftreten. Insgesamt ein spannender wie unverbrauchter Inhalt, der diesem Oeuvre einen zusätzlichen Pluspunkt gegenüber vielen anderen Publikationen verleiht, die meistens völlig 'durchgekautes' Gedankenmaterial offenbaren, das teilweise geistige Inzucht vermuten lässt.
In Punkto Musik erwartet auf 'Bipolar' Niemanden das große Feuerwerk der Innovationen, aber ein ausdrucksstarkes wie einnehmendes 'Gesamtpaket' aus Drones am 'Fließband' (Manchmal taucht beim Konsum der Verdacht auf, als hätte Thomas Park (Mystified) hier Pate gestanden!), welche entweder aus der industriellen oder aus der ambienthaften/ rituellen Ecke rühren. Gewisse Passagen neigen leider ein wenig zur Monotonie, weshalb sich die Ohren nicht immer nah an den Sounds bewegen ein Manko, woran der Engländer bei weiteren Opera unbedingt noch 'feilen & schmirgeln' muss!
Zum Anspieltipp erklärt meine Person den Track ‘Reflection’, der über eine himmlisch betörende Note verfügt, welche absolut in den Bann zieht! PS: Vom Aufwand her ist das Stück nix Besonderes, aber auf die Wirkung kommt es an, welche definitiv umhaut!

Fazit:
Individuen, die ausschließlich High End Ware kaufen, können von 'Bipolar' die Finger lassen, welches noch über kleinere Schwächen (Langatmigkeit) verfügt, aber ein Potenzial an den Tag legt, das für die Zukunft Hoffnung macht! PS: Wer in seiner Sammlung auch Plätze für hoffnungsvolle Newcomer bereithält, sollte Elyseum unbedingt antesten!