Atrium Carceri is a Swedish musical project by Simon Heath, initially released by industrial record label Cold Meat Industry. Twelve full-length albums have been released so far, as well as ten collaboration albums together with other artists of the genre. In 2011 Atrium Carceri left Cold Meat Industry and started the Dark Ambient label Cryo Chamber.[1] Simon Heath also released ten albums under the name of his side project Sabled Sun.
The project name means "prison hall" in Latin; however, "carceri" is in the wrong declension class. The proper declension would have been "Atrium Carceris" [2]
Atrium Carceri is typically described as dark ambient, black ambient and ambient industrial music. Similar to projects like Lull and Lustmord, Atrium Carceri uses synthesizers, sound effects, samples from films and anime, piano and other instrumentation to create slow rhythms, bitter melodies and complex textures generally based on themes of desolation, loneliness (solitary confinement) and environmental decay. Atrium Carceri has been praised by music critics and embraced by a cult audience for its depth of atmosphere.[3][4] According to Heath himself, each of Atrium Carceri's solo releases are centered around specific 'story arcs' within a 'grand story,'[5] and following the releases of Reliquiae and Void in 2012, has made a flowchart detailing the story progression up to that point.[6] The exact nature of the concept behind this 'grand story' has been intentionally left ambiguous by Heath, stating it's 'up to the listener and his/her interpretation' to piece together this story.