AN NCS PREMIERE: VOID — “SELF ISOLATION”

For people who suffer from paraskevidekatriaphobia today is a very bad day, a Friday the 13th, and one that dawns in the spookiest month of the year. But in the pentagram-loving world of metal, of course, it’s an excellent day to reveal new music, perhaps exceeded only by Samhain itself.

New music is indeed what we have for you today, a song from a new album by the UK avant-garde black metal pioneers Void, whose lineup features members of Dødheimsgard, Atramentum, and Dreams of the Drowned.

The album’s name is Jadjow, and it’s set for release on December 7th by Brucia Records. The song we present today is “Self Isolation“.

The genesis of Jadjow, which is Void‘s fourth full-length since the band’s formation in 1999, can be traced to the Dødheimsgard Void Dancers tour in 2019, when Void founding member and guitarist Matt Jarman and Camille Giraudeau (Dreams of the Drowned, Doedsmaghird) both played live guitar for Dødheimsgard. Also present were DHG‘s bass player Lars Emil Måløy (If Nothing Is) and their live sound engineer George Gregor Anagnostopoulos.

These four musicians decided to collaborate on a project, co-writing what became this fourth Void album, with the drums on the album eventually performed by Tariq Zulficar (Atramentum), a long-time collaborator of Camille‘s, based on Gregor‘s original arrangements. For those who have followed Void‘s previous recordings, it should come as no surprise that the results are… surprising.

With respect to the specific song that’s the subject of today’s premiere, we’ll share Matt Jarman‘s extensive comments:

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, many assumed introverts had an advantage over extroverts in surviving isolation because they prefer to be alone. The song “Self Isolation” is a direct and obvious reference to that historical milestone, written from the perspective of that misanthropic side of myself that was relieved to be able to take time away from the world. Of course that is not the whole of who I am or what I felt but it was definitely a very real feeling in the early days of lockdown that I wanted to express directly through music. It was also fun to ‘demonise’ that character. It’s safe to say that after three lockdowns the feeling deteriorated, but it’s archived here in this song. It’s not a political song or about the pandemic itself in any way – those ideas are explored further into the album.

“Self Isolation” was the first song that contributed towards the Jadjow project. Armed with newly honed guitar skills acquired through three months of intensive training to prepare for DHG/Dødheimsgard Void Dancers tour London live show (and the obvious influences therein) I was finally inspired to make music again. Lars Emil Måløy and George Gregor Anagnostopoulos had both been in touch after that show to express interest in working together and “Self Isolation” became the riffs I first presented to them. Camille Giraudeau was the obvious choice for lead guitar, given his involvement in the Void Dancers tour. His guitar work elevated the music to another level of kaleidoscopic originality. Originally Jadjow was intended to be a new project. The intention was to take what I was doing with Void and remove all constraints, doing the vocals that I wanted, making a playground of musical invention; but hadn’t that always been the intention with Void? To eschew convention and do whatever the fuck we felt?

So here it is, the song that started it all. The access drug into the psychotropic adventure that became Jadjow. A transition into musical adventure. A song about being alone, that brought me together with these talented friends. All clean singing.

Yes indeed, this song is an exception to the breakable rule in our site’s title, but it’s a bit of an exaggeration to say that all the singing is clean — we can hear some snarls, growls, and yells in the mix too — and in any case, the extravagant, high-flown singing and choral harmonies are quite diabolical. Which is fitting, because the song itself is thoroughly devilish.

The channel-separated guitars rapidly dart and dance around each other in exhilarating fashion, thoroughly wild in their escapades and glittering in their sound, fashioning mercurial harmonies that quickly enrapture the senses. While they work their Bacchanalian magic the bass often growls away like a rough beast and the drums frantically batter and pop, with a few stops and starts to keep you on your toes.

As the song progresses it becomes increasingly elaborate, intricate, and eccentric, with all the instruments exuberantly playing off each other (and interlocking) in unpredictable but constantly engrossing ways. To be sure, the music also becomes menacing and mad, but never less than dazzling — truly a fast-spinning sonic kaleidoscope. And the theatrical extravagance of the vocals seems absolutely right for such an eye-popping, mind-boggling instrumental tour de force.

 

Jadjow was recorded by Void at Bad Princess Productions, HVN, Guest Room and Perishing Plastic Studios. It was mixed by Raph Henry at Heldscalla, and was mastered by Benoit Roux at Drudenhaus.

The marvelous cover art, “Wandus: I think therefore I am,” and all inlay art, were created by previous Void vocalist Laura Weston.

Brucia Records will release the album on digital and 6-panel Digipak CD formats, and recommends it for fans of Dødheimsgard, Enslaved, and Ved Buens Ende.

PRE-ORDER:
https://bruciarecords.bandcamp.com/album/jadjow

VOID:
https://ukvoid.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/theunsearchablevoid