In The Mouth Of Madness

About Release:

The Hieros Gamos is the marriage of gods and men, it is through this particularsacrament that the mysteries are merged and born through the vehicle of man andwoman conjoined in secretive ekstasis, it is the apotheosis of the nephilim, orfallen angels, it is the temptation of the serpent to Eve. Awakening theformulation of the daemon withing the blood of the chosen.Limited to 1,000 copies

Black Seas of Infinity - 2008 - Invokation

Release type: Live Album

Style: Dark/Ritual Ambient

Country: USA

Label: Autumn Winds Productions

Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps

Size: 69 mb

About Release:

This is a performance of Black Seas of Infinity recorded live in Salt Lake City, Ut on the 28th of July 2007. There are three different version of this release one come accompanied with a consecrated bone amulet, one with a consecrated red jewel and one standard edition. all come in DVD packaging

Black Seas of Infinity - 2008 - The Wordless Aeon has Awakened

Release type: Full-length

Style: Dark/Ritual Ambient

Country: USA

Label: Death Posture Ritualis

Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps

Size: 156 mb

About Release:

The Wordless aeon has awakened Being an articulation of the monstrous, unknownpotencies of the eye of the serpent unveiling the aeon which bears no name, forit is beyond the speech and utterance of the human tongue. The black flame whichis concealed within the womb of its mother. The title track is a reconstructionof the first three offerings by Akhkharu, being the first original material theyhave released since Nos Noctium Dominarum This has been released by DeathPosture Ritualis and comes contained within a velvet pouch with a specialisedsigil adorning each as received by Marchozelos of Grauen Pestanz. Within each isalso contained various physical keys of meditation that unlock the wordlessaeon... These keys include human and animal bones, consecrated grave soil andvarious other accoutrements....

Black Seas of Infinity - 2007 - Amrita - The Quintessence

Release type: Full-length

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

Black Seas of Infinity and Aymrev Erkroz Prevre - 2006 - Split

Release type: Split

Style: Dark/Ritual Ambient

Country: USA

Label: Ravenheart Productions

Format: MP3@CBR, 320 kbps

Size: 99 mb | 96 mb

About Release:

The CD edition under review is a 2006 release by Sonic Tyranny productions and contains just three tracks - one by each act and a third on which the members of both acts collaborate under their individual names Set-Heru and Meldhkwis. Although Black Seas of Infinity only is listed on this website because of its former black metal background, I think it's worthwhile to review the whole CD and not just BSoI's part, seeing that the other act Aymrev Erkroz Prevre takes up at least half the listening time. I'm sure lots of people look at Encyclopedia Metallum as a source of recommendations and as an alternative to print-based music media whose agenda isn't always about music and musicians, and many if not even most of the website's visitors also listen to ambient, noise, improvised music and industrial, and these are represented on the CD as well.The entry by A.E.P., "Kamarupa III", is an all-instrumental dark ambient drone piece with perhaps some industrial influences. Some of the ambient and droney effects may have been done on piano. Those familiar with experimental and improvised music may have seen or know of musicians who put various gadgets including large clips or electric fans on strings of guitars or pianos to change the quality of sound that comes out these instruments, and possibly Meldhkwis may have done something similar here. The track has a very open, spacey feel which can be threatening and is very like what industrial / dark ambient musician Lustmord (this guy was a former member of the Australian late 1970s / 80s industrial band SPK and also collaborated with the Melvins on "Pigs of the Roman Empire") has done in his solo career. There are strange things that go bump underfoot here and metallic drones seem to reverberate through your head forever and ever. As the track continues, Meldhkwis starts stabbing out a deranged piano melody that often goes off-key and lifts the music into a completely different world. Drones and seething clouds of tone and grit build up into a sort of vague monster entity that almost but never quite engulfs him.The BSoI entry "As the Pythoness strokes the Lovely Sword" is a strong soundscape that starts with deep shifting shimmers of sound suggesting an inner turbulence that can't be understood by human senses. Metallic spidery lightning strikes alternate with high-pitched siren-like calls whose edges are muted by the cloudy atmosphere but occasionally come close to being screechy and jagged on the ears. Towards the sixth minute a droning aeroplane noise develops and the mood becomes a bit more serene though a metal siren intrudes. Suddenly everything erupts and becomes nearly chaotic with a gritty crackling edge, an echoing clanging tape loop, something like a tambourine that's been treated with echo banging in the background, and metal drone stomrs ebbing back and forth. This part of the track is actually quite repetitive but subtle variations in all the sound elements operating in parallel suggest an increasing build-up of turbulence and tension and keep your senses off-kilter and always guessing if and when things will really explode. This is the loudest and "noisiest" part of the track and of the whole split album.The collaborative piece "Betwixt the Words of the Dark Grammar ... lies the Gate of the Secret Horizon" is a secretive space-ambient tone work in two sections: the first part has a constant scratching rhythm in the background as though someone is combing through grass and soild looking for something while overhead dark clouds of drone pass. About the sixth minute all this changes into the next section: a piercing sonic laser leads into a different universe where ghostly sound images float in space plasma. Fragments of sonic flotsam and jetsam, all appearing to be part of something bigger and meaningful but lacking the means to connect them, pass by, not doing very much.Of the three tracks here, the BSoI contribution is the best: it's a forceful track with an inner rage and intensity that maintains tension in the last part of the piece by a combination of repeating tape loops of music and noise elements working in parallel and Set-Heru making changes here and there as they go. This track has got me curious enough to think about checking out some of BSoI's other releases. The A.E.P. track is also enjoyable, more so when the piano melody really gets going so that the piece becomes a soundtrack to some Gothic Grand Guignol play where the puppets murder each other in a frenzy and throw fake blood at each other and at the audience. (Ah, those must have been the days before people decided puppet shows were really for children and so had to be cleaned up ...) As for the collaboration, it's very subdued and too well-behaved compared to the rest of the CD and I get the impression the musicians erred on the side of being polite to each other and respecting one another's work too much to do very much apart from gilding it. It's possible the musicians simply exchanged pieces of music and worked on the other guy's stuff without doing something very different on it, then put the results together and released the combined work as is: a lot of musical collaborations these days are of this nature, without the people involved having to meet at all. This probably explains why the collaboration piece seems to divide into two phases quite neatly and isn't more what it could have been.If you are keen on dark ambient music with strong leanings to experimentation and improvisation, and you don't mind forays into noise and industrial, this split release would be of interest, though it's not the kind of album you'd necessarily keep in your collection permanently. I see this split mainly as a way of introducing people to the work by BSoI and A.E.P. and once you start listening and collecting their other releases, you'd probably pass this split on to other people who might be similarly inclined towards this kind of music. The bulk of the rating I have given for the split is for the separate A.E.P and BSoI contributions.

Written by NausikaDalazBlindaz on August 26th, 2007 (metal-archives.com)

2006 Tape Version

2007 CD Version

Wednesday, 23 June 2010

Black Seas of Infinity and Kaniba - 2006 - The Trinity of Non Being

Release type: Split

Style: Dark/Ritual Ambient

Country: USA

Label: Autumn Winds Productions

Format: MP3@VBR V0

Size: 99 mb

About Release:

Tracks 1-3 by Black Seas of Infinity Tracks 4-5 by Kaniba Track 6 by Ugegi Aoiveae A Ser.

This was my induction to the ‘ritual ambient’ genre, and it took me completely by surprise. The album seemingly has no relation to black metal whatsoever; combining typical dark ambient with a repetitive ‘ritual’ touch it summons images of moonlit rituals or a walk within the deep, labyrinthine tombs beneath the ancient pyramids. The music itself is completely electronic with no guitars or vocals aside from a few spoken words. The songs are long and based around repetitive drum patterns accompanied by random bursts of noise and obviously have no instantly catchy melodies or anything of the like, as you would of course expect and they will either lull you into a trancelike state or have you banging your head against a brick wall after ten minutes of constant repetition. Although Black Seas of Infinity is in my opinion the noisiest of the three bands featured on this release, all the projects are relatively similar to some extent. Kaniba takes a slightly more meditative approach while no less hypnotic and repetitive and Ugegi Aoiveae a Ser is a little more dark ambient orientated. Overall, this album is an interesting while not entirely captivating listen. I advise you know what you are getting before you commit to buying the release as it could easily be a wasted $15 for someone who prefers typical, guitar based black metal.

Written by Vakshay on July 22nd, 2006 (metal-archives.com)

Black Seas of Infinity - 2005 - Within Daathian Chasms

Release type: Full-length

Style: Dark/Ritual Ambient

Country: USA

Label: Autumn Winds Productions

Format: MP3@CBR, 256 kbps

Size: 138 mb

About Release:

Black Seas began in '93 as a raw USBM horde and has since evolved into an ambient, ritualistic black noise unit. This is the vision of one Set-Heru, but sometimes includes a co-conspirator known as Amprodias. I would be hard pressed to place BSoI into a "sounds like" box, but this will definitely appeal to fans of MZ.412, Profane Grace, Ravens Bane and even Goblin. Within Daathian Chasms is a journey to hell and back. From the industrial tinged beginnings of "Vortex Of Awakening" to the crashing waves of "Path Of The Void", the listener is pulled through soundscapes of beauty only to be pushed to the brink of terror and back again. This is the soundtrack to the horror movie in your mind. Total ambient beauty like "Blessed Sacrament Of Levanah" puts you in an alpha like state, while others like "Retromingent Periodicity" had me jumping out of my fucking skin. These are complete contrasts of dark and light, the aural Tao. In reality, "Daath" is the Hebrew word for "Knowledge". 11 tracks to that end. The cassette includes an extremely beautiful full color cover. If you're looking for something out of the ordinary, an escape from your daily grind and blast, this comes highly recommended. Check out www.myspace.com/blackseasofinfinity for some samples. Well worth the money. Order it direct from Autumn Winds.