AN NCS PREMIERE: INGURGITATING OBLIVION — “THE BARREN EARTH OOZES BLOOD, AND SHAKES AND MOANS, TO DRINK HER CHILDREN’S GORE” (PART 3)

(written by Islander)

It’s a standard practice for bands and record labels to preview forthcoming albums by releasing a song or two (or more) in advance of the release date. It’s extremely uncommon for anyone to do what the German avant-garde death metal band Ingurgitating Oblivion and Willowtip Records have been doing over the last few months: releasing three segments of a single song, one after another.

On paper, it looks like a risky strategy. Wouldn’t most people lose patience or get frustrated, hearing only a part of a song instead of getting the chance to listen to all of it, especially when listeners have to wait a month in between each part? And because even at the end all you have before the album release is one song, instead of several songs?

Well yes, it’s risky. But this uncommon strategy works for Ingurgitating Oblivion because the long song they’ve been rolling out in segments is itself so unusual, and because each Part has been as long as (or longer than) an individual track on most albums, but mainly because each Part has so powerfully seized attention on its own.

Moreover, the first two parts have succeeded in building an eager anticipation for the third one, to find out how this uncommon extravaganza is going to end — and today we bring you the answer.

photo by Ava Bonam

For those of you who are just now catching up with what’s been happening, we’ve been premiering Parts of a song from Ingurgitating Oblivion‘s new album Ontology of Nought, which will be released by Willowtip on September 27th. The name of the song deserves its own paragraph:

“The barren earth oozes blood, and shakes and moans, to drink her children’s gore”.

We began this mission in July by premiering the opening four minutes of the song, and then followed that in August with the next six minutes, and today (a month later) we’re premiering the final 8 1/2 minutes of the song.

If you do the math, you understand that the full song is more than 18 minutes long. But it’s the kind of experience that makes a listener lose track of time. We’ll venture the guess that when you listen to it from start to finish, you’ll have no idea how many minutes have passed — and you certainly won’t be staring at the ticks of a clock hand waiting impatiently for it to end.

I’ve already written quite a lot about what happens in the song, and in our premiere of Part 2 I even jumped ahead to provide impressions of what happens in today’s Part 3. Tempted as I am to just repeat all those words, I’ll refrain, and just offer this very brief summing up of a song that really can’t be summed up:

At its iron core, the song is death metal.  The song’s title envisions the earth drinking gore, and gore sprays in the music. Belligerence and brutality are present and accounted for. But what expands from that core is a dazzling and mind-warping musical nova that pushes the boundaries of experimentation and unpredictability almost to their breaking point.

Across these 18 1/2 minutes the music reaches heights of derangement and delirium; it ruthlessly pounds and pulverizes; it creates jaw-dropping sonic war-zones, horrible to envision; it often sounds too alien to be earth-born; it veers off into sprightly frolics and a phase of jazzy joyfulness; it becomes clobbering and cataclysmic; and at the very end, things dramatically decelerate and become soft, musing, and meandering.

I’ll also repeat one piece of information from an update to our premiere of Part 2: You’re going to hear an instrument, which reappears in Part 3, that sounds like a saxophone (or at least it did to me). But it’s not. Instead, it’s a flute (or more likely different kinds of flutes) performed by professional flutist Daniel Agi, who has a very impressive resume, and we’re told is also a metalhead (you can find him here).

And with that, we’ll turn you over to all three Parts of “The barren earth oozes blood, and shakes and moans, to drink her children’s gore”:

Again for those of you who might be catching up, the rest of the song titles on the album are also unusual, and also evocative of dark moods — and all those other songs are also expansive in their duration. Here’s the album’s complete track list:

1. Uncreation’s whirring loom you ply with crippled fingers (14:39)

2. To weave the tapestry of nought (18:47)

3. The blossoms of your tomorrow shall unfold in my heart (11:06)

4. …Lest I should perish with travel, effete and weary, as my knees refuse to bear me thither (10:24)

5. The barren earth oozes blood, and shakes and moans, to drink her children’s gore (18:18)

You will have a chance to hear all of the songs on September 24th, because we’ll be premiering the full album stream on that day, along with a complete review.

We’ll also repeat some additional details about the album that we first provided in Part 1 of this premiere for those who missed it:

First, we’ll quote the band’s preamble to Ontology of Nought:

“You have fully delineated the subject of a universe of finiteness and change as well as the knowledge derived therefrom // Why should you be despondent in spite of all this, thinking that you are undone?”

And here is the further comment the band have provided:

Ontology of Nought is the result of approximately five years of incessant work. It documents whatever has been instilled into Ingurgitating Oblivion and the two minds pulling the strings behind the scenes: Norbert Müller and Florian Engelke.

Trying to pinpoint some trite conceptual undercurrent would be to defile the beauty of creation. It feels alienating to us talking about our music and lyrics, as these stem from dichotomic dynamics of meticulous planning on the one hand and perfect intuition on the other. In like manner, the lyrics cannot be explained further here, but listeners are invited to do some work themselves and take a plunge into what could potentially encapsulate the world or denote nothing at all.

Musically, we just do our own thing, celebrating our Death Metal heroes, more progressive Rock, jazz, folk, classical music. We do not strive to stand for any particular brand, but we simply enjoy being torn down the torrent of haphazard ideas, premonitions, and visions.

And that’s that.

photo by Ava Bonam

Ingurgitating Oblivion consists of Norbert Müller (rhythm and lead guitars, sound engineering, mastering, all recording logistics) and Florian Engelke (lead composition, rhythm and lead guitars, vocals, Tibetan singing bowls), but the two of them also brought along an impressive cast of session and guest musicians to help make this album:

Lille Gruber (Defeated Sanity) – Drums
Ava Bonam – Vocals
Chris Zoukas (Mentally Defiled, Sacral Rage, Violent Definition) – Bass
Céline Voccia – Piano
Daniel Agi – Recorder, Flutes
Jan Ferdinand – Vibraphone, Guitars
Tom Fountainhead Geldschläger – Guitar Solos

In addition, Silke Farhat read portions of the poem “Je ne sais pourquoi” by Paul Verlaine (1844 – 1896), which appear in tracks I, II, and IV, and Mehdi Lachini read portions of ghazals 33 and 61 by Ḥāfeẓ (1315 – 1390), which also appear in those same tracks.

The front cover artwork was prepared by Dmitriy Egorov, and it includes an inlay painting called “Giuditta che decapita Oloferne” by Artemisia Gentileschi (1593 – 1656).

Willowtip will release Ontology of Nought on September 27th, on CD, gatefold 2×12″ vinyl, cassette, and digital formats. For more info, check the links below.

PRE-ORDER:
Willowtip ► https://bit.ly/ontology-willowtip
Bandcamp ► https://bit.ly/ontology-bandcamp

INGURGITATING OBLIVION:
https://www.ingurgitatingoblivion.com/
https://www.instagram.com/ingurgitating_oblivion/
https://www.faceboom.com/ingurgitatingoblivionofficial