Mitochondrion
(written by Islander)
With my wife out of town visiting one of her sisters and me having gotten a head-start on the premieres I’d committed to write for today, I found myself with a rare chunk of time to go musically exploring yesterday, and to prepare this rare mid-week roundup.
Entirely by coincidence, most of what I listened to was head-spinning in different ways (as you can tell by the post title). I think it’s fair to call all of the following songs unconventional, and maybe even experimental in some respects, including the ones that feature singing (and yes, some of these are “exceptions to the rule” around here).
But lest you think I’m about to load you up with many melodious things, let’s incinerate that assumption immediately.
MITOCHONDRION (Canada)
Being neither a mind-reader nor a surveillance expert, I was left jaw-dropped and bug-eyed when seeing the news that Mitochondrion will be releasing their first album in 13 years, their first since the tremendous Parsignosis in 2011. And man, my jaw hung lower and eyes bulged bigger when I saw this about the album’s dimensions:
VITRISEPTOME is 11 Alchemical Death Metal works, split over 17 tracks, to form a trilogy of 3 parts, in two phases, which elapses nearly 90 minutes in length.
Talk about making up for lost time.
I wonder when this work began. To write and record something of that length without the word prematurely spilling out must have required a kind of dedication to secrecy rivaling that of the codebreakers at Bletchley Park.
An even more important question of course is what did all that cloistered and colossal work produce? What kind of ambitions did the band carry with them through their labors? Other than “enantiodromian obeisance to the Abraxan force under Saturn’s guise”, which is what the album’s Bandcamp page cryptically discloses.
The first clue comes in the first advance track, “The Protanthrofuge“. Now, you’ll remember my earlier assertion that today’s roundup is full of headspinners, and this one is like the head of the demonically possessed Megan in The Exorcist, going all the way around.
The raging, mind-scarring violence in the music is undeniable, but from the strangeness of the opening notes and all the way forward, it’s also a wild, technically extravagant spectacle, packed with writhing, spiraling, and screaming fretwork, barely held together with sanely formed drumwork (albeit with riotous fills) and bursts of gut-slugging groove.
The vocals combine monstrous roars and unhinged screams, adding to the violence, and they always seem like they’re on the verge of exploding in their own convulsions of orgiastic savagery — which they eventually do at the end. But there’s really nothing in the song as completely freaked-out as the fretwork, a non-stop high-speed centrifuge of exhilarating madness.
I can’t imagine that the album is going to give us 90 minutes of this — who could survive it, whether performers or listeners? — and so I’m extremely intrigued to see what else these folks have cooked up.
Vitriseptome will be released by Profound Lore on November 1st.
https://mitochondrion.bandcamp.com/album/vitriseptome
https://www.facebook.com/mitochondrion137
AVHATH & KUNTARI (Indonesia)
I impulsively checked out this next song because I had a faint memory of reacting positively to past music by Avhath (an experience that turned out to be 5 1/2 years ago), though I had no idea about Kuntari. And yes, this is a collaboration between two creative forces, not a single band named “Avhath & Kuntari”.
Avhath can be found at Metal-Archives, which characterizes their music as “Post-Black Metal/Crust/Shoegaze”. Kuntari can’t be found there. A little researching reveals that it’s the solo project of West Java musician Tesla Manaf, who made a name for himself in jazz and then decided to move in more experimental directions with Kuntari as the vehicle.
You’ll find an interesting article about Tesla and Kuntari in The Jakarta Post here, and a video for a startling Kuntari piece called “Larynx” here, which amalgamates various ancient Indonesian rhythms, a distorted cornet, and percussive baritone guitar (among other things). From that video, you’ll see why it’s not entirely surprising that Kuntari would collaborate with a metal band.
The name of the song on which Avhath and Kuntari have collaborated is “to my disquiet“, and they released it with a lyric video. It’s described as “the lead single from Ephemeral Passage“, which I assume is a forthcoming Avhath album. It’s further described as “A visceral journey through fear, sorrow, and the courage to transcend,…carving a dark yet hopeful path through inner chaos”.
What’s head-spinning about this one? Well, the chiming notes that open the song set the stage in an eerie and unsettling way, and the gigantic drum-beats that follow are even more out-of-the-ordinary. The song’s Javan rhythms manifest Kuntari‘s contributions, while Avhath bring out the shredding screams and the menacing and mayhemic fretwork — which spins up like fire-tornados of insanity.
The song also continually morphs, with the music slowly chiming and dismally wailing, frantically twittering and grimly musing. Both the bass-work and the drum-work are excellent, both of them bringing in interesting variations — and they manage to stand out even when surrounded by so many haunting and harrowing guitar permutations and all those wrenching screams.
At the end, things really change, giving the song over to fervent shamanic cries and Indonesian percussive patterns. Fascinating stuff.
https://avhath.bandcamp.com/track/to-my-disquiet-2
https://bfan.link/to-my-disquiet
https://www.facebook.com/avhath
https://linktr.ee/KUNTARImusic
RINTRAH (U.S.)
In July of this year we hosted the premiere of a demo by an unusual band called Rintrah, described as “a new project that pays tribute to Romantic period art, poetry, and music (circa 1798-1837),” in part by drawing their lyrics from “classical pieces by Romantic era poets, presented unaltered and unabridged.”
The participants in Rintrah are Otrebor (Botanist, ex-Lotus Thief) on drums and vocals, Arsenio Santos (Howling Sycamore) on bass, Billy DuPlain (aka Cynoxylon, ex-Botanist) on vocals, and acoustic classical guitarist Justin Collins.
Just yesterday Rintrah revealed another demo track, this one named “Angels with Wild Beast’s Eyes“. The lyrics to this one are from Charles Baudelaire‘s chilling poem “Le Revenant” (“The Ghost”), which you can find here along with various translations.
The vocals, which are primarily performed by Billy DuPlain on this song, are striking. The harmonized expressions range from kind of woozy wailing to bursts of sky-high extravagance that get very raw when they hit the ceiling. What goes on around them is also striking, from the slowly meandering distorted acoustic notes, which are smoky and jazzy, to the grumbling tumult of the bass-lines, the vibrant percussive racket, and the bright crystalline ring of other tones.
Ah yes, this unusual collage does sound like the soundtrack to ghost sex, a seductive, sinister, and supernatural sonic experience.
Eventually, Rintrah will release an album. If you’re interested in keeping abreast of developments leading up to it, including maybe discovering more new songs, click the “Follow” button on Rintrah‘s Bandcamp page.
https://rintrahtheband.bandcamp.com/track/angels-with-wild-beasts-eyes-demo
THE HOLY FLESH (UK)
By chance, I listened to this next song right after listening to Rintrah‘s new demo track, and it seemed like a very natural progression forward, even though the music is more extreme.
The song, “Advocate I,” is the opening track to Advocate, Martyr and Redeemer, a new album by the UK one-person black metal project The Holy Flesh. The album is described as “a kaleidoscope of hallucinations brought back to the realm of the living”, and that certainly suits this first track.
Sole member Entity brings an ugly snarl, a bit of sandpaper distortion, and lividly bouncing beats and blasts to the proceedings, but the riffing (which still rings through the grit) exotically sways and swirls like a cobra entranced by a snake charmer.
As the song unfolds, those exotic fretwork maneuvers begin to levitate as they whirl and dart, backed by a fiery sheen, but also become softer and more ethereal. The guitars also indulge in more frenetic and exultant frolics, skittering and blaring, squirming and screeching, but also fluidly rippling like sonic sorcery. The experience of this spell is both sinister and joyful, but those pernicious snarls keep it tethered to a hellish realm.
Advocate, Martyr and Redeemer will be released by Caligari Records on October 25th.
https://caligarirecords.bandcamp.com/album/advocate-martyr-and-redeemer
https://www.facebook.com/theholyflesh
HIGH INQUISITOR WOE (Belgium)
The next song, also just released yesterday, is probably the most conventional of all the tracks in this roundup, but that’s a relative conclusion, based on everything around it in this column. It still has aspects that I think are unusual.
The name of the song is “He Who Wards Off Wolf“, and it’s described as “a tribute to the ancient Roman ritual of the Lupercalia”. High Inquisitor Woe‘s vocalist Glenn Stappaerts has a fine voice for trad-doom, and his quavering, warlock-in-command singing on this one is a key feature of the song, but the swirling and jabbing riffs have a mercurial, diabolical quality — sulfurous and narcotic, revelrous and nefarious. And on top of that, their hooks are equally fiendish.
Eventually, the guitars become even more hallucinatory and menacing as the vocals fly high (here there be wolves!), though the punchy drumming maintains a visceral drive, and in the finale we get a bit of soloing delirium.
The song is the second single off of High Inquisitor Woe‘s new album Painted Vision of an Era Forlorn, which will be out on October 28th via Gio Smet Records.
https://highinquisitorwoe.bandcamp.com/track/he-who-wards-off-wolf-single
https://www.facebook.com/woedoom
DUKH DÄKOMPOSITA (Ukraine)
When I read the e-mail we received from Dukh Däkomposita, I admit I was skeptical about the music. At Bandcamp, it’s described as a “Heretical mix of old school BM and Hip Hop”. The e-mail said: “It features gritty, ominous soundscapes that evoke a sense of foreboding and unease. The lyrics delve into themes of existentialism, darkness, and death, creating a haunting atmosphere….”
Well, I obviously decided to tamp down my skepticism and give a listen, in large part because I have a soft spot these days for bands from Ukraine — and the first song set to play at Bandcamp hooked me.
I am only a marginal fan of hip-hop and largely ignorant about the various styles that have evolved within the genre, hence my skepticism about whether this music would appeal to me, but “Commemorate Me Dead” — the first song set to play from an album on Bandcamp — is in line with what the e-mail said.
The riffing poisonously and ominously sizzles, and then sears, and the vocals assault with screaming and scarring ferocity, but the big thumping beats veer away from black metal, and words get solemnly spoken in the native tongue, a huge contrast with the unhinged, throat-ruining intensity of the screams. Altogether, it’s a dark and angry song, capped by an abrasive, shred-tastic solo that sounds despairing.
Having been intrigued by that first song set to play on Bandcamp, I kept going through the balance of the album and remained gripped. The harsh vocals are relentlessly shattering; the black-metal riffing is piercing and disturbingly dark and deleterious in various shades; and the big gut-thumping and skull-smacking beats keep jolting the spine.
The deep, clean-spoken vocals didn’t always make me think of hip-hop, because they’re not always rhythmically calculated, and often they create a haunting, revenant-like impression, though sometimes they quickly trade off with the shrieks or join together with them to spit the words.
The guitar-work is also not consistently bound up with ’90s black metal; at times it extravagantly wails, eerily blazes, or becomes a channel for pernicious psychedelics or the blooming of infernal grandeur, but it’s always pretty dark and unsettling. Additional exhilarating and anguished solos also lie in wait, and variations in the beats also show up to add to the music’s dynamism.
The name of the album is Revenant / Black Hop. It was released on September 15th. I think it’s a good discovery, and hope you’ll keep your mind open and give it a chance.
https://dukhdkomposita.bandcamp.com/album/revenant-black-hop
https://www.instagram.com/dukh_daekomposita