Oakland, California-based synthwave act S.C.R.A.M. (Safety Control Rod Axe Man) unveil its latest creation with the ambient, sci-fi-horror-inspired full-length Coma Filament, confirmed for release on the Autumn Equinox (23 September).

Formed in the isolation of the 2020 COVID lockdowns, S.C.R.A.M. is the solo project of Pranjal Tiwari. Known for his work with long-running cult doom metal band Cardinal Wyrm, Finnish-language hardcore outfit Ransu's Revenge, psychotropic techno project Warday, and more, Tiwari uses S.C.R.A.M. to explore cinematic, experimental, ambient, electronic, and heavily instrumental soundscapes. His focus on tension and negative space creates deeply immersive atmospheres. With four albums, an EP, and a split with Gridfailure behind him, Tiwari now presents his fifth full-length: Coma Filament.

The inspiration behind S.C.R.A.M. has always been to compose soundtracks for the films playing in Tiwari's mind. The previous album, The Inner City, was steeped in retro-futuristic film noir aesthetics, drawing from Blade Runner and The Terminator. An earlier release, America, The Ritual, channelled the atmospheres of David Lynch and John Carpenter.

Coma Filament itself was sparked by a single image: a ghost ship drifting through space. The idea of travelling through the outer reaches of the cosmos—light years beyond any human presence—and encountering an abandoned vessel proved so evocative and terrifying that it shaped the entire album. Its atmosphere draws from Alien and Event Horizon: space horror in a broad sense. Yet beneath it lies a brooding, existential dread inspired directly by Andrei Tarkovsky's classic Solaris.

Tiwari performed all music on Coma Filament, utilising multiple synths, a sampler, guitar, bass, mini-saxophone, and an array of effects and pedals. Berlin-based American visual and musical artist, author, and spiritual leader of the Sethian Liberation Movement Zeena Schreck contributes ambient vocals to the opening track, "Forgotten Language". The album was mixed and mastered by Greg Wilkinson at Earhammer Studios (Autopsy, Ulthar, Leila Abdul-Rauf).

The fifth track, "UR.IDIM", arrives as the first preview of the album. Tiwari comments: "I asked myself, 'What if Andrei Tarkovsky directed the first Alien movie?'"

The album title Coma Filament refers to a galaxy thread forming part of the Coma Wall, one of the largest known superstructures in the observable universe. Many track titles are drawn from deep-space objects—planets, galaxy clusters, constellations. "The Hunter" is another name for Aries, familiar from the Western zodiac. "Seven Mansions Of The Black Tortoise" and "Flight Of The Vermillion Bird" reference Chinese asterisms from traditional astronomy. "Haris al-Sama", meaning "the keeper of heaven", is an old Arabic name for the red giant star Arcturus. For Tiwari, naming the album and its tracks after astronomical objects—and alluding to their historical and mythological significance—helped create an overarching structure and a backdrop of awe and dread: a setting for the space-horror narrative within the music.

The "Tarkovsky directing Alien" idea also indirectly led to the collaboration with Zeena Schreck. Tiwari explains: "Zeena and I have talked a lot in the past few years, over email and on the phone, about collaborating on a piece of music. Either that or one of us contributing music or vocals to the other's project. What ended up happening is something in between. I contributed music to a single called 'The Journey' that Zeena released this July, on the Summer Solstice. The lyrics to that single are words from an interview by Andrei Tarkovsky that we had both read, loved, and discussed a lot. Then, Zeena contributed vocals to the opening track on Coma Filament – the performance she sent me was so haunting and almost sounded like an alien language. It was so evocative that I used the vocals on their own to open the album, with no backing music. The effect of isolating the vocals was so strange and mysterious; I think the opening track really sounds like a transmission being beamed out from a ghost ship in space, a distress signal sent out like a siren song to lure unwitting travellers into its trap. Also, as a fitting mirror image to Zeena's Summer Solstice release, I'm putting out Coma Filament on the Autumn Equinox. I've admired Zeena for a long time, as an artist and just as a human being who has been on a crazy journey in the course of her life. I'm so excited that we finally got to collaborate on a musical piece together and so pleased with how it turned out".

Expect additional previews and updates in the weeks ahead. Link