AN NCS PREMIERE: MALCONFORT — “STAIN (FANTASY)”

Some of us, maybe only those of us with too much time on our hands, like to play guessing games about the music of a new band before hearing any of it. In the case of the UK band Malconfort, the game was irresistible, but also a bit perplexing.

First, they took their name from a Deathspell Omega song off the Paracletus album, a lyrically fascinating song that speaks of a God who came to Babylon in malevolence, in remembrance of whom “they shall pray backwards,” and whose congregation “was cast out of humanity… like an abominable branch!”

Then we found that Malconfort‘s otherwise undisclosed lineup includes members of Sea Mosquito and Amaltheia, a fact that strengthens the speculation that black metal is in the mix… at least to some degree.

And then there’s the track list on Malconfort’s debut album Humanism, where each single-word title is accompanied by an intriguing parenthetical:

1. Compulsion (Ecstasy)
2. Cruelty (Elation)
3. Stain (Fantasy)
4. Rage (Indulgence)
5. Carnivore (God)
6. Inertia (Condense)

And then we saw this description from Transcending Obscurity Records, which will release the album on July 5th, and it kind of made a hash of the guessing game — while also increasing the intrigue factor: “They’ve seamlessly infused elements of free-form jazz, progressive and atmospheric music and changed the very composition of it…. There is nothing quite like it.”

Of course, if we’d just put greater weight on the album’s cover art from the outset, we would have realized the futility of a guessing game here.

With the slate sort of swept clean, and more questions than answers lingering about what shapes this “experimental black metal” might take, it is time for us and you to investigate the music. Our particular focus today is the song called “Stain (Fantasy)“.

The song does have a jazzy, funky, toe-tapping rhythm, but the throaty, snarling vocals sound like the utterances of a half-man, half-beast with murder on its mind. As for what goes on around those phenomena, it is indeed a fascinating but skin-shivering experience.

The music is like some sonic drug that at first is warm and seductive. As the notes mysteriously glisten and the drummer delivers a snapping syncopated beat, you might think you’ll get to float and dreamily fantasize, with eyes closed.

But no, that growling and gasping bestial voice arrives, and the music starts to whine and become queasy, to sear the senses and to ring like the pulse of a twisted siren, to make your hoped-for dream into an unnerving hallucination, which even the funky bass-groove doesn’t blow away.

The music reaches a zenith of shrill discomfort — and on the other side a saxophone wails and weaves, like a spider making its web and hungrily drawing us in: There’s venom in those sounds as well as seduction.

Or to go back to where we started, one might think of an opium dream that pulls the smoker in with caressing hands and then reveals visions that make the dreamer desperate to wake up… but he can’t. And like the drug, the song turns out to be addictive too.

There are three more tracks from Humanism available for listening now — “Rage (Indulgence)“, “Cruelty (Elation)“, and “Compulsion (Ecstasy)” — and we’re including those below.

They are definitely diabolical kindred of the song we’ve just premiered, but with their own strange facets and altered-state moods. The unhurried funk- and jazz-based rhythms remain compulsive, except when they vanish as the music detours into some unnatural nightside dimension. The vocals remain thoroughly unsettling, rising into strangled shrieks and falling into whispered words here and there, or cackling in displays of dementia.

As these songs (and more) show: Malconfort‘s avant-garde expression of black metal (which is really only tangentially black metal) draws not only upon jazz and funk, but also formulates a kind of chilling futuristic psychedelia, a perilous kind of “urban noir” for want of a better term, a musical wandering down smoky midnight alleys where the music beckons, bumps, and glistens from within the shadows… and then the devils come out.

No, there probably is nothing else quite like it, though T.O.‘s FFO references down below provides some useful coordinates of the vicinity on the musical map.

MALCONFORT:
Vocals – Nuun, Kopczak
Guitars and Bass – Fas
Synths – Kopczak

As usual, Transcending Obscurity is releasing Humanism in multiples formats — vinyl LP, 8-panel digipak CD, and digitally — along with related apparel. The goods all feature that curious cover artwork by Nuun Studio. You’ll find pre-order links below.

Transcending Obscurity recommends the record for fans of – Virus, Ved Buens Ende, Oranssi Pazuzu, Sea Mosquito, Emptiness, Gruzja, and of course Deathspell Omega.

PRE-ORDER:
https://malconfort.bandcamp.com/album/humanism
http://transcendingobscurity.aisamerch.com/
http://eu.tometal.com/

MALCONFORT:
https://www.facebook.com/malconfortband
https://www.instagram.com/malconfortband