Two Sides of the Same Mirror: aRCANE aSYLUM Returns with VIOLENTLY UNITED and DEEPLY DIVIDED
When chaos and reflection collide, something powerful happens.
That’s exactly what unfolds across aRCANE aSYLUM’s two new companion EPs — VIOLENTLY UNITED and DEEPLY DIVIDED, released back-to-back this autumn under A Silent House.
Both EPs form a sonic diptych: two halves of the same fractured world. One is the sound of collapse; the other, the echo that follows.
“They came from the same burst of energy but spoke two different emotional languages,” says Emmet O’Connell, the Irish-born producer, sound designer, and founder of aRCANE aSYLUM. “VIOLENTLY UNITED felt external, raw, industrial, and confrontational. DEEPLY DIVIDED was internal, reflective, emotional, and quiet in its tension. They’re two sides of the same mirror.”
⚙️ VIOLENTLY UNITED — The Outer World Breaking Apart
BuzzSlayers described VIOLENTLY UNITED as “a ferocious blend of hard-hitting electronic, industrial-inspired elements… elegant while portraying disarray.”
Opening with “Never Spy On A Spy (In The Cab Mix)”, the EP drags listeners into a decimated soundscape where synths bite and percussion fractures under pressure.
From there, tracks like “If Anyone Builds It Everyone Dies (Audio Anomaly Mix)” and “Can You Hear My Silent Cry?” expand that chaos into something cinematic — vast, spacious, and emotionally loaded.
Each piece oscillates between mechanical precision and human fragility, crafting what reviewers called “the art of imperfection.”
Even the shorter interlude “Destroyer of Worlds” feels like a breath taken inside the storm before closing with “One Nine”, a pulsing, orchestrated descent into darkness and distortion.
VIOLENTLY UNITED is both protest and meditation, a mirror held up to the modern world’s fractured pulse.
💔 DEEPLY DIVIDED — The Inner World After the Dust Settles
If VIOLENTLY UNITED shouts, DEEPLY DIVIDED listens.
Built in parallel, its textures lean toward emotional dissonance and quiet unrest.
Where the first EP externalises conflict, the second internalises it, the ache after the noise, the solitude after the riot.
O’Connell calls it “the private aftermath, that quiet dissonance you carry when everything around you feels unstable.”
BuzzSlayers notes that together the two records feel “personal and social, representing both the state of the world and the state of the person experiencing it.”
🎛 The Sound of Imperfection
aRCANE aSYLUM’s signature is tension — between precision and decay, digital and organic, control and chaos.
Working inside Ableton Live 12, O’Connell sculpts his sound using a hybrid arsenal: Novation Launchpad, MOTU Ultralite Mk5, modular synth fragments, and obscure Kontakt libraries like Ashlight and Cycles.
He gravitates toward the “broken and imperfect”, glitching textures, distorted ambience, sonic residue that feels lived in.
“I’m not chasing perfection,” he explains. “I’m chasing tension, movement, and character, a sound that fights back a little. The cracks, the distortion, the breath before a note, that’s where the emotion hides.”
This philosophy – the art of imperfection runs through every second of both EPs.
🎥 The Cinematic Lens
Every aRCANE aSYLUM track feels like a scene from an unseen film.
Cinematic references thread through O’Connell’s world: David Lynch, Ridley Scott, Denis Villeneuve, directors who understand the silence between sounds.
“Even if I’m not composing to actual footage, I’m thinking in scenes and atmosphere,” he says. “Building tension as if the music were already part of a film.”
That’s why aRCANE aSYLUM is as much an experience as a sound.
Future live shows will merge visuals, projections, and lighting into immersive audiovisual installations, more than concerts, less than comfort.
🔊 The Next Chapter: Where The Dark Things Go + This Is The End Of The F***ing World
The creative surge behind these two EPs hasn’t slowed.
O’Connell is already deep in the next wave of releases, two companion singles bridging the world of the EPs and the forthcoming full collection COLDER.
- “Where The Dark Things Go” blends dark disco, industrial bass, and late-night pulse, a nod to KMFDM’s “Vogue (12” Mix)”.
- “This Is The End Of The F***ing World”** pushes into experimental techno and deconstructed electronics, echoing The Knife, Juno Reactor, and Flying Lotus.
Each single features alternate edits and unreleased material, serving as adrenaline before the chill of COLDER sets in.
Where The Dark Things Go.
Blends dark disco, industrial bass, and late-night pulse — a nod to KMFDM’s “Vogue (12” Mix)”.
This Is The End Of The F**ing World.
Pushes into experimental techno and deconstructed electronics, echoing The Knife, Juno Reactor, and Flying Lotus.
“Together, all of these releases tell one continuous story about conflict and reflection, chaos and calm, destruction and renewal,” O’Connell says. “You can play them back-to-back or out of sequence, they still speak the same language.”
⚡ Influences & Legacy
Rooted in the early ’90s London industrial scene, aRCANE aSYLUM has always blurred the line between underground aggression and emotional introspection.
The project was co-founded by O’Connell and Gerry Owens (Skindive, Lluther), and continues under the A Silent House label, alongside recent collaborations with David Michael Lawrie (The Royal Ritual).
Musical influences range from Cabaret Voltaire, Kraftwerk, and Throbbing Gristle/COIL to modern auteurs like HEALTH, Hildur Guðnadóttir, and Boy Harsher, all artists who, as O’Connell says, “create worlds, not just songs.”
🩸 Closing Thoughts
The BuzzSlayers interview called the twin releases “representative of our current state of unrest, the tension between the world outside and the world within.”
But more than social commentary, VIOLENTLY UNITED and DEEPLY DIVIDED are studies in contrast, a reflection of sound itself as it fractures and reforms.
They’re not meant to comfort.
They’re meant to awaken.
Listen now on Bandcamp → thisisarcaneasylum.bandcamp.com
Read the full BuzzSlayers review → buzzslayers.com
Follow on Instagram → @thisisarcaneasylum-com