Mare Cognitum is Jacob Buczarski's atmospheric black metal act that stands above the crowd. His 'Solar Paroxysm' (2021) is a high point within the genre: inventive and intense, enthralling and a little bit scary at times - like floating off in space in the vacuum, until a meteor storm hits. And then there's Jacob extra secret weapon: great solo's! The whole album is amazing, like all his other work (don't forget the absolute massive collaborative album with Spectral Lore from 2020), but this song is really something else. It gives me goosebumps all over, every time.

Here's what Jacob says about it:

"The track was recorded in September, 2018 and was the third track on the album to be written. 'Luminous Accretion' and 'Ataraxia Tunnels' were written first, in that order. The lyrics are less vague than I usually do, telling a sort of sci-fi story of an advanced people bracing for the end of their civilization and lives as they have accurately predicted the end of their galaxy through some cataclysmic event. While they can't escape it, they come to terms with it and somehow transmit their knowledge and history into the rest of the universe in hopes that it will be meaningful to any other civilization that might find it, and to perhaps be remembered by it. Maybe we can draw some similarities to ourselves here. A behind-the-curtain peak: the introduction ambience is created at least partially by using a heavily edited clip of a boiling pot of water. Maybe now you won't be able to unhear it, like me!"

Mare Cognitum is:

Jacob Buczarski - everything