Review: Wolfskin - Ring of Spheres

Artist: Wolfskin

Album: Ring of Spheres

Label: Cyclic Law

Release date: December 2025

For all the nicheness of dark ambient as a genre, I still to this day come across artists having been creating music for decades who I was blissfully unaware of (to my discredit). Such is the case with the Portuguese musician Johan Aernus, who has been releasing ritual ambient works under the name Wolfskin for no less than three decades now. It took Cyclic Law releasing his latest album Ring of Spheres for Wolfskin to appear on my radar, and I can only say two things: (i) props to the label for platforming lesser known artists even after all these years and (ii) if you were as unfamiliar with Wolfskin's work as I have, it seems we have been massively missing out.

It takes a lot to create with little, yet that's exactly what this jaded scene veteran does on Ring of Spheres, whose seven tracks spread over almost 75 minutes of running time. Definitely not an album for the TikTok generation, Ring of Spheres is a great reminder of what made dark ambient so compelling in the first place - the artist's capability to create a captivating, enveloping atmosphere that makes you forget about track lengths as a concept. Utterly simple and analogue in nature, Wolfskin nevertheless manages to create an album of remarkable complexity, whose layers take multiple listens to appreciate and unfurl. Endless drones, varying in intensity and overlapping with one another, carry the listener through layers of atmosphere and towards the vast cosmos in one of the most transcendental, meditative albums I've had the privilege of listening to this year. Conceptually, Ring of Spheres extrapolates the Magnum Opus, or alchemical stages in the creation of the Philosopher's Stone, onto a cosmic scale, taking the listener through each of the sublimation processes required to yield the final result, whatever your interpretation of the latter may be. The qualities of the album are reflected in its deceptively simple, yet layered and powerful cover art, with concentric circles growing ever wider as they mutate in form. The album culminates in the mammoth 19-minute eponymous closing track that distils its qualities even further, revealing some of the details that may have been hidden at the beginning and shifting wonderfully from the almost epic middle section to the deep, circular, meditative drone of the final minutes of the album.

While Ring of Spheres isn't about to cause any revolutions in the state of dark and specifically ritual ambient as a genre, it's an incredibly refreshing take on it, clearly showcasing that there is an understanding of (and hopefully an audience for) deeply introspective music in the ADHD-riddled world of today. While its deceptive simplicity is inviting enough, its true consciousness-expanding qualities are probably only likely to be recognised by solitary dwellers on long walks, rides or drives through this mortal coil. Long may it swirl.

Rating: 8/10