Location: Oakland, California
Country: USA
Genre: Synthwave
Full length: Coma Filament
Format: Digital
Label: Independent
Release date: September 23, 2026
Pranjal Tiwari who has been cutting his teeth on hardcore, doom metal and psychotropic techno, began the solo project S.C.R.A.M. (Safety Control Rod Axe Man) in 2020, writing instrumental pieces in isolation, taking enough time and space to manifest his imagination through ambient, electronic, cinematic experimentalism with immersive tension and vibes of horror and science fiction.
The isolation Tiwari worked in gave him enough room to envision entire movies and consider soundtracks that would most effectively work. In one of these sessions of thought he found a place where horror and science fiction met: light years beyond where mankind had traveled the cosmos. There he found an abandoned spaceship, just floating out there where no abandoned spaceship should be. No reason, no explanation of how it reached that far. An unexpected find that gripped his mind, becoming evocative and terrifying to where it became the inspiration for “Coma Filament.”
The idea he had sounds like a movie you’d have to exercise infinite patience to watch in its entirety. But it may also have elements of pure horror that would keep you fixated on the screen all throughout. Where constant hard-hitting action that seeks to grab you right from the beginning may be absent in such a movie, there’s existential alarm and dread stemming from the possibility that what’s floating in the farthest reaches of space may be a ghost ship of some kind. This sensation was inspired by the mystery and potential danger that was present in Andrei Tarkovsky’s sci fi film from 1972, “Solaris.”
Tiwari has a history of brainwaving through slow-moving, tension-building sci-fi and horror, inspired by films like “Blade Runner,” “The Terminator” and the works of John Carpenter and David Lynch. Drawing from “Solaris” for “Coma Filament” represents another step in his pursuit of the quintessential soundtrack. Also stimulated by composers Vangelis, David Horner, Brad Fiedel, and Eduard Artemyev, each of Tiwari’s releases has its own distinct sound and mood. The most bizarre of these is 2025’s “Desolation Radio: A Found-Footage Broadcast” which features instrumental pieces of varying durations. Lo-fi ambient and electronic tracks arranged so randomly, classification is impossible.
Named after a galaxy filament forming part of the galactic superstructure known as the Coma Wall, "Coma Filament" features songs named after actual planets, constellations, and galaxy clusters, likely to evoke a sense of realism on top of awe and dread. Seeming to borrow from each release over the past six years, the soundtrack composed for it unfolds scene by scene. The overall effect could also lie somewhere between the soundtracks of Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and Fulci's "Zombie."
A disembodied, mesmeric voice (contributed by artist/author Zeena Schreck) calls out across an insurmountable distance in the universe, beckoning across millennia until it finally reaches us. And a lone traveler follows this voice, signal, or whatever it is, toward whatever may be waiting. Tiwan records his material in a way that evokes both the mystery and the potential danger he intends you to feel. Finally reaching the ghost ship after what seems an eternity, he begins to make contact, or experience hauntings. As the soundtrack progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that Tiwari masterfully crafts tension and suspense, carefully selecting instruments and effects to heighten these feelings during recording sessions.
As you continue to listen, certain parts of the songs make you start slightly. It's not a jump scare reaction, but something more subtle, more implied, as if you're being watched by an invisible something from an unknown place. "Coma Filament" has a chilling effect very similar to that of darkwave, dark ambient, and dungeon synth art displayed in the 1990s, multiplied by a factor of ten or higher. Resulting from an infinite amount of thought and planning, "Coma Filament" is an album that Tiwari professes to be quite proud of. –Dave Wolff
Track list:
1. Forgotten Language
2. Derelict Spacecraft
3. The Hunter
4. UR.IDIM
5. Seven Mansions Of The Black Tortoise
6. Great Dragon Rouses
7. Haris al-Sama (The Keeper Of Heaven)
8. Flight Of The Vermillion Bird
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