Thomas Stone: The Shunned Path – Album Review

Thomas Stone: The Shunned Path

(Cloudchamber Recordings)

DL | CD | Streaming

Released 10th April 2026

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Electroacoustic composer Thomas Stone leads us down The Shunned Path, an immersive album of strange and brooding experimentalism.

While some albums can be cut up and shared, The Shunned Path is a long-player that you really should listen to from beginning to end. For the uninitiated, Thomas Stone is a London-based multi-instrumentalist and composer. His work is inherently experimental and has seen him perform everywhere from the Tate Britain to a disused water tank in Lewisham. He’s the kind of artist who lets the music lead him where it may, and over the course of this brooding 22-minute offering we can join him on his latest sonic expedition.

This project began by exploring what occurred when an orchestral instrument was unmoored from its traditional context and placed in the midst of Stone’s latest electroacoustic experiment. Said instrument was the timpani (also known kettledrums), which would be blended with electronics, the contrabassoon, syncussion and an activated snare drum. Throw in the influence of doom-metal titans Sleep, Om and the Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich and we’ve got something undeniably intriguing on our hands. It’s a heavy piece of work, but perhaps not in the way you might expect.

The album is split into six movements, with each piece building on the last. Creeping up on the listener, the music feels inescapably dark, yet there’s beauty here too; beauty that appears like tiny cracks of light in the pitch black of the night. It’s for this reason that I’d highly recommend you take a seat and really let this one sink in. Like some slow, ceremonial procession through the woods; the blend of percussion and electronic elements soon create a subtle yet irrefutably foreboding atmosphere. This is curious, strange and deeply expressive music.

I’m reminded of artists like Kali Malone and Greek chamber doom ensemble MMMD. Both these acts do a fine job of taking an instrument – whether that be a pipe organ or a cello – out of its perceived comfort zone. The same applies to Poland’s avant-doom outfit Wolfmangler and their use of trombone on the album, Dwelling In A Dead Raven For The Glory Of Crucified Wolves. A real party starter that one. Like these albums and artists, The Shunned Path revels in its patience and decidedly ominous sense of purpose. It’s certainly not a record you can listen to in a hurry.

The album is all about the tone and texture, and the sonic world building created over these six intensely immersive pieces. It’s the kind of music that I’d really love to hear performed in its entirety, preferably in a dark room, the woods or – for old times’ sake – a disused water tank. In some ways, The Shunned Path is a cold, dark and somewhat austere piece yet one that still feels very human and organic. Stone is careful and considered with his compositions and you’ll likely find something new with each play. As clichéd as it may sound, this is one you really need to experience.

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You can find Thomas Stone on Instagram and Bandcamp.

All words by Andy Brown. You can visit his author profile and read more of his reviews for Louder Than War HERE.