Label: Cold Spring – CSR196CD Format: CD, Album Country: UK Released: 28 Dec 2015 Style: Industrial, Drone
Z’EV completes an alchemical exploration of Concord and Dissonance that began with the cosmological equations of Sum Things and then clasped the elemental quintet of air, water, fire, earth and spirit in A Handful of Elements. Now, with Eleven Mirrors to the Light, Z’EV plays with the intersection of light and dark, catching waves of luminescence between prisms and mirrors that fragments particles into shimmering washes of sound. Z’EV’s trademark percussion transforms into glistening soundscapes and drones, one part subterranean and another subatomic.
Common Eider, King Eider – Extinction Label: Cold Spring – CSR219CD Format: CD, Album Country: UK Released: 11 Apr 2016 Style: Drone, Dark Ambient, Doom Metal
A new ritual from this long running doom/drone/ambient collective, offering up modern manifestations of ancient energies, channelled into smouldering swathes of ceremonial hypnosis and explosive gouts of blood-red radiance. Extinction is an extended ceremonial rite conducted below ground at the Wisp House (R.I.P.). A song suite of psychedelic devotionals assembled from reverb drenched industrial drones, billowing clouds of metallic throb, and churning, rhythmic bombast. Fields of ghostly incantations suspended in the ether, draped over metallic murmurs and moaning melancholia. The low end rumble of monk-like chants beneath the soft tangle of keening lamentation. A slowly evolving sensory sacrament, tense and harrowing, punctuated by dense dramatic swells and aching, mournful mantras.
Tracks: 1. Extinction (11:27) | 2. Black Bough (8:07) | 3. Crystalline Shores (9:16) | 4. A Wisp Of Smoke, And Salem Burns (12:36)
Vhril – Vortex Psysynthesis Label: Old Captain – OCCD23 Format: CD, Album, Limited Edition, Reissue Country: Ukraine Released: 23 May 2016 Style: Industrial, Experimental, Dark Ambient
In the name of Ulex, in loving memory of John, here comes Vhril! Vhril began life as Ulex Xane’s (Streicher, Zero Cabal fame) own solo project in 1991. He and John Murphy (rip) had been friends since the early 1980’s and had long wanted to do some duo recordings together contributing to each other’s projects on several occasions and playing live together. John became interested in the Vhril concept when Ulex had told him about its occult associations exploring Thulean esoteric paths and Vril energies in a ritual setting. Together they would record material during extended sessions/meditations and assemble it into specific tracks later: John often brought tapes of material he’d recorded elsewhere to be used as a basis to add other sounds in Ulex’s studio.
Later on when John went up to Sydney again he took the Vhril idea with him and morphed it into his Shining Vril project (but that’s another story, folks). In the vein of Ain Soph or Zero Kama, the present “Vortex Psysynthesis” record, originally released via Zero Cabal in 1992 as a limited tape, commemorates the dawn of early sparse and minimal ritual style music, using John’s tapes, bells and percussion and Ulex’s natural recordings, clay percussion and electronics. Enter the Janus’ psychedelic world of the two twisted minds to be immersed by ever-evolving Vhril sun that never rises.
Transcosmic Mutations (The Vile Vortices) 27:31 2. Sedona 05:50 3. Sedona 2 08:38 4. Ipsissimus 16:39 Total playing time: 58’39»
Vhril began as my own solo project in 1991, initially as a clandestine extension of my Thule Society music. John Murphy and I had been friends since the early 1980’s and had long wanted to do some duo recordings together. We had contributed to each other’s projects on several occasions, and played live together, but had not yet formed our own project. He became interested in the Vhril concept due to its historical and occult associations. Vhril explored the esoteric concept of the Vril topos, the Black Sun and Thulean paths in an improvisational ritual setting. I used the spelling of Vhril with an ‘h’ to emblematize it as our own version of the Vril-Gesellschaft and to avoid confusion with other forms of Vril already in existence.
So John joined me and we did two Vhril albums which were released on my label Zero Cabal. We had the idea that we were creating Vhril as a kind of symbiotic twin being, and decided to invoke and use ‘magickal’ royal names such as the Duke di Stortion, the God-King and Sir J. Arthur Ferrero (John apparently had some relational ties to the Ferrero Rocher chocolate family!). We would record material during extended candlelit sessions, to be formed into specific tracks later. John would bring tapes of material he’d recorded elsewhere and we’d use that as a basis to add other sounds to in my studio in Melbourne. Later on, when John went to live interstate in Sydney he took the Vhril idea with him and morphed it into his own Shining Vril project.
