Style: Dark/Ritual Ambient
Country: USA
Label: Autumn Winds Productions
Format: MP3@VBR V0
Size: 108 mb
About Release:
Black Seas Of Infinity is, like Vomit Orchestra, one of those projects which started out doing black metal, and then rapidly moved away into doing something else, in BSOI’s case ritual dark ambient, but still retains a page here, making a mockery of Encyclopaedia Metallum’s supposedly strict metal-only policies. But they still have one of those squiggly illegible logos, so that’s OK then. AMRITA is the second full-length BSOI release, following 2005’s Within Daathian Chasms and last year’s The Trinity Of Non-Being split release with Ugegi Aoiveae A Ser and Kaniba. BSOI is the solo project of Set-Heru, who resides in Salt Lake City, Utah, the cradle of Mormonism, which would be enough to drive anyone to making music of evil intent like this! ‘Amrita’ is a Sankrit word literally meaning ‘without death’ and it is used in various eastern religions to refer to a mythical ambrosia or nectar of the gods which confers immortality. In left-hand Tantric practice, it refers to female sexual fluids. BSOI’s album is deeply infused with these twin themes of esotericism and sexuality – according to the press release, AMRITA is ‘a concept album revolving around the vama chara or vama marg, otherwise known as the path of the left, or the path of woman, centering upon the Amrita, which is the sexual secretion of the woman in her oracular phase. These creations shall mirror the gates of ingress, congress, and egress that bestow the great magickal power.’ Six tracks extend over 65 minutes, with the lengthiest track, the 20-minute ‘Ajasram Abhichara’, opening proceedings. Droning tones boom out across vast chasms of emptiness. Doomy beats reverberate through the void as demon trumpets and devil trombones sound a baleful fanfare. The heavy electronic percussion recalls death industrial projects such as Archon Satani and Funerary Call, but around the 12-minute mark, the beat picks up and we’re transported into some sweepingly expansive electronica in the vein of Tangerine Dream or Vangelis, the song finally succumbing to a cascade of noisy howling tones. ‘Devourment’ commences with a shuffling, old-school industrial beat, much like something Throbbing Gristle might have used. It also features the first human voices on the album, in the form of a sampled news bulletin about some cannibalistic murders, and a sample of Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now saying ‘Horror and moral terror are your friends.’ The closing section of ‘Devourment’, after the ten-minute mark, is really funky and danceable, which isn’t what you expect from ambient music, but it retains a sinister, obsessive vibe. ‘AlShtLa’ is much quieter, a Coil-like composition of long swooping tones, slow drifts and distorted vocals. ‘Porta Vox Umbra’ is at five minutes, the shortest piece on AMRITA, an unsettlingly claustrophobic amalgam of sibilant whispers and mysterious shuffling noises leading into low mantra-like chanting and desultory drumming. Its uncomfortable intimacy reminded me of the Calcutta Gas Chamber album by John Watermann. ‘Daughter of the Bleeding Sunset’ is also relatively short. A dry funereal drumbeat sounds over moaning winds, as minor-key keyboards repeat a simple sequence of chords. I wasn’t so impressed by this song, there just didn’t seem to be quite enough there to sustain my interest. The closing track, ‘Anti Vital Interior of the Womb Exploded Moon’, is much more energetic, combining bouncy Vocoder-like sounds with busy rhythms and a spoken word contribution from the currently ubiquitous Kenji Siratori (search me what it’s about, it’s in Japanese!). AMRITA comes in a very nice foldout digipack sleeve adorned with the decadent artwork of Aubrey Beardsley and the occult sigils of Austin Osman Spare. It’s a limited edition of 1000 copies, and it’s a highly recommended release all round. BSOI have become a distinctive voice in ritual ambient, and I await their next release with interest. This review was originally written for Judas kiss webzine: www.judaskissmagazine.co.uk
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