But, he admits, “I never quite felt at home at Cold Meat Industry. The music that Heath made to soundtrack his Kult sessions gradually evolved to become Atrium Carceri, and between 20 he released a handful of records under that name on the influential Swedish label Cold Meat Industry, home to death industrial acts like Brighter Death Now and Mental Destruction. It was kind of a framework explanation for the world-almost like a belief system. “It was packed not so much with gore-although there was a lot of that too-but spirituality, philosophy, conspiracy. “The mature themes of Kult really got to me,” reflects Heath. A particular favorite game was Kult, a notorious Swedish pen-and-paper RPG that abandoned the swords and sorcery of Dungeons & Dragons et al in favor of a modern-day setting influenced by gnostic Christianity, occultism, and the transgressive horror of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser. When Heath first started making music in the early ‘90s in Stockholm, it was to provide the soundtrack for roleplaying game sessions between him and his friends. But the idea that sound can create a rich, detailed space in the imagination is one that has inspired him since his earliest creative excursions. Heath makes music under a few guises-including Atrium Carceri, Sabled Sun, and Krusseldorf-and since 2012, he’s been the proprietor of the dark ambient label Cryo Chamber. Sounds are just a means to help transport me somewhere interesting beyond the mundane.” When listening to techno, I visualise the bass pulsating through interdimensional space. “When I listen to black metal, it takes me to abandoned castles and deep northern forests where I can visualize every cracked stone or broken twig. “I have a quite visual relationship with music, and I tend to close my eyes when listening,” says Simon Heath.

How to create dark ambient music