April is looming which means Alaric will soon be bringing their darkened punk alchemy to European shores. This marks the Oakland collective’s first European visit following the release of their latest full length, End Of Mirrors (Neurot Recordings, May 2016). The tour consists of fifteen dates across eight countries, including a scheduled appearance at Roadburn Festival - and you can now watch a trailer for these dates below:
Support comes from American experimental duo Pinkish Black. Here are the dates in full:-
TOUR DATES
19-4 - Willemeen - Arnhem - The Netherlands
20-4 - Roadburn - Tilburg - The Netherlands
21-4 - Doom Over Leipzig - Leipzig - Germany
22-4 - Klub Poglos - Warsaw - Poland
23-4 - Collosseum Club - Kosice - Slovakia
24-4 - Dürer Kert - Budapest - Hungary
25-4 - Klub 007 - Prague - Czech Republic
26-4 - Divaldo Pod Lampou - Pilsen - Czech Republic
27-4 - Kulturbahnhof - Jena - Germany
28-4 - Die Friese - Bremen - Germany -
29-4 - Northern Discomfort - Copenhagen - Denmark
1-5 - Hafenklang - Hamburg - Germany
2-5 - Antwerp Music City - Antwerp - Belgium
3-5 - La Zone - Liège - Belgium
4-5 - Stumpf - Hannover - Germany
Alaric features within its ranks current and former members of Dead And Gone, Pins Of Light, Noothgrush, Hedersleben, UK Subs, and Jello Biafra and Guantanamo school of Medicine. They began their voyage in 2008 with an eye toward creating moody and compelling music unlike any other. Alaric’s previous releases include a debut single Animal/Shadow Of Life (FYBS/ Buried In Hell Records, 2010), a self-titled LP (20 Buck Spin, 2011) and a split 12” LP, with Atriarch (20 Buck Spin, 2012). They released End Of Mirrors on CD, vinyl, and digital formats via Neurot Recordings, and on cassette via Sentient Ruin Laboratories in May 2016. The record was captured and mixed by Skot Brown at Kempton House Studios and provides an emotional and deeply physical journey via their shadowy sounds - beginning with influences from such progenitors as Killing Joke and Christian Death to the darkest, heaviest punk bands and psychedelia.
"Its a brave new direction that brings to mind the kind of electronic atmospherics that Tom Constanten added to the sound of The Grateful Dead at the height of their psychedelic San Francisco period during the late 1960s. Here, however, the Kool-Aid has been spiked with battery acid and the vibe is mean, lean and bristling with something that sounds like a hybrid of Motorhead and Genesis." - WIRE
“As a whole, it’s a dark, almost apocalyptic sweep of sound. Sitting alongside the recent releases by Se Delan and Madame Mayflower, 2016 is starting to look like the year goth is reborn. Forget darkwave and all that cal: emerging from a protracted period of social and economic turmoil, uncertainty, unrest, fear, and an all-pervading sense of existential trauma, we’re back in the late ‘70s and early 80s, and this is the real deal.” - AURAL AGGRAVATION
Following the recent news that Neurot Recordings will release the fourth full-length from Harvestman, – one of Neurosis vocalist/guitarist Steve Von Till’s solo ventures – titled Music For Megaliths, we today unveil the opening track from the album, ‘The Forest Is Our Temple’. Resonating like an instrumental drone scripture with ritualistic tones, textures and tempos, layers of gorgeous acoustic strings fuse and expand with ominous, distorted amplified undercurrents and a constant hurdy-gurdy hymn. In turn, ‘The Forest Is Our Temple’ sets the hue for Music For Megaliths as a transformative passage of music, evoking realms of welcomed immersive introspection.
As with prior Harvestman and other solo releases by Steve Von Till, Music For Megaliths sees the artist handling a wide array of instruments and approaches, including vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, bass, synthesizers, hurdy gurdy, effects, and more, fully performed, recorded, and mixed at his own The Crow’s Nest studio in Northern Idaho. Neurosis’ Jason Roeder also provides drums to the album’s fifth track, “Levitation.” The seven sonically and mentally expansive tracks were mastered by James Plotkin, and the album completed with artwork by Thomas Hooper.
Album to be release on May 19th, artwork, track listing, and more can be found below.
Music For Megaliths Track Listing:
1. The Forest Is Our Temple
2. Oak Drone
3. Ring Of Sentinels
4. Cromlech
5. Levitation
6. Sundown
7. White Horse
“Ruins, monuments, and ancient sites of worship are multi-sensory experiences – at once residues of the sacred, the parchment on which the passage of time has been inscribed and templates for imaginative reconstruction, spaces in which to invest and immerse, to trade your bearings for an inexhaustible state of transition.
Over the course of three albums, Steve Von Till has, under the guise of Harvestman, provided the sonic analogue, casting his net for what might have been and yet still be. Both a personal meditation and a tuning fork for the most ancient and enduring of resonances, his latest album, Music For Megaliths, further expands his journeys along the sonic ley lines that run between folk, drone, psychedelia, the “kosmische” outposts of krautrock and noise: not as an act of eclecticism, but of divination, giving voice to an underlying continuity that binds them all.
Recorded over a period of several years in the dawn hours of creation, Music For Megaliths is an aggregation of moments and recordings that have allowed themselves to spell out a greater whole. Utilizing repetition, manipulation, and modulation, it’s a hallowed frequency dial that ranges across the pulse-regulated drone of “The Forest Is Our Temple,” revving up like a generator powered by arcane currents, the blissful gaze of “Ring Of Sentinels,” “Sundown”’s ominous waves of interference and “White Horse”’s rite of dissolution and regeneration, nomadic and devout. Music For Megaliths is a crossing over, whose multiple routes are testament to a singular and sensuously dilated vision.” – words by Jonathan Selzer, 2017
Speak to any purveyor of the darkened heavy sonic and they’ll recommend UFOMAMMUT. Masters of melding uncompromisingly heavy magic with psychedelic swirls, it is now with the heaviest and most immense pleasure to announce that the Italian alchemic juggernaut will be offering a new album this September 22nd via Neurot Recordings consisting of eight darkened gems, aptly titled 8.
Sonically and symbolically, 8 is not only wickedly limitless in its heaviness, powerfulness and commanding nature, but how it arrests the listener’s mind creating a wholly unbounded and impenetrable sensory experience. Laden with symbolic nuances, 8 most obviously gestures towards this being Ufomammut’s 8th offering, comprised of 8 stunningly immersive tracks that flow into each other without interruption. This flow can also be seen when you tip 8 horizontally, thus it morphs into the leniscate from algebraic geometry - ∞ - a plane curve that meets at central point - or more commonly known as the infinity symbol. A continuous stream of movement reflective of the uninterrupted nature of the album but also the continued togetherness of the essential elements of the band – Urlo, Poia and Vita – since the beginning of the band’s history. ∞ tipped vertically sees us return to the number 8. It must be stressed there is no singular pronunciation of the title, 8 is to be spoken in every language e.g. “eight” in Engish, “otto” in Italian, “acht” in German and so on.
As stated, 8 is a continuous flux of music, a singular entity, which can be defined in micro measurements by its 8 satellite songs. Each track expands upon the preceding song, unfolding into an exceedingly dense, malevolent and formidable journey, resulting in this being Ufomammut’s most extreme venture yet, with no permittance for breathing space in the 48 minutes. The album’s predecessor Ecate has now been put to rest and we can be assured that 8 is an essential turning point in the infinity that is Ufommamut’s sonic.
Watch a video of Ufomammut's 8 recording session
Recorded at Crono Sound Factory in Vimodrone, Milano (IT), 8 is a major turning point in the heavy alchemic arts, with the elements of Ufomammut’s recording constellation being re-aligned. Although the musicians within Ufomammut’s collective remain unturned, a change in recording approach saw the trio playing and recording live together in the same room, even utilising their live sound engineer Ciccio and his project FEMORE for production purposes, with Fabrizio San Pietro on mixing duties. Overdubs were used only for vocals, synth sounds and small details with the result of such endeavor being a stricter focus on the soul, darkened groove and overall cohesion of the music and themselves as musicians. In turn, 8 clarified to Ufomammut who they are as a unit now and their new sonic path…
8 is due for release on September 22nd on vinyl and CD formats via Neurot Recordings and on a limited and regular edition vinyl via Supernatural Cat. Pre order information, album tracks and more to be revealed over the coming months.
UFOMAMMUT LIVE DATES
16/06 - Freak Valley Fest (Netphen, DE)
18/06 – Hellfest (Clisson, FR)
04/08 – Disintegrate Your Ignorance Fest (Giavera del Montello, IT)
06/10 – Up in Smoke Fest (Pratteln, CH)
13/10 – Korjaamo BlowUp Vol.3 Festival (Helsinki, FI)
Keep your ears and mind open for more news about 8 in the coming weeks…
Roadburn Festival 2017 curator, John Dyer Baizley, announces that AMENRA will perform a set at this year's festival.
Roadburn and the Church of Ra are certainly no strangers; and there's no doubt they’ve left an impression on the wider music community.
“As I round out the lineup for my curated stages at the upcoming Roadburn Festival 2017, I’m again thrilled to announce one of the last acts I’ve booked: the uncontested visionary of monochromatic heaviness, AMENRA. The last time I witnessed an AMENRA performance was at Roadburn 2013, when they could still fit (barely) inside Het Patronaat. The line out the door was hundreds of show-goers long, and I was somehow able to force my way inside to see the band perform. To say they blew us all away would be a grossly undersold miscalculation. They set a new standard for me that afternoon, demonstrating just how forward-thinking and discovery-rich DIY music can be; a transcendent marriage of heaviness, artistry, non-linearity, energy, and soul which vaulted from AMENRA’s stage and through the audience.
“It is with the greatest pleasure that I announce their 2017 performance will be the first “heavy” set they've done in quite some time. They were at the top of my list of invitees when I was first asked to curate, and I wouldn't skip their 013 set for any rational reason. They are the penultimate Roadburn band; they’re a modern band, they defy categorization, and they are single-minded in their commitment to an unwavering artistic vision of beautiful cacophony. If this music could take physical form, it would render mountains to dust. Those faint of heart attendees beware, this is music that leaves a trace. I’ll see you all there.”
AMENRA have recently completed work on their upcoming album Mass VI, which will be released later on in the year via Neurot Recordings. To tide you over until Mass VI surfaces, the ever prolific creative forces behind AMENRA have teamed up with fellow Ghent musicians, Raketkanon to create AMENRA X RAKETKANON X MICHAËL BORREMANS — a split 10” released in May via Consouling Sounds.
Colin Van Eeckhout will present a short documentary filmed throughout 2016, entitled Noisey Meets: Colin Van Eeckhout as part of Roadburn Cinema. Directed by Duco Coops for Vice/Noisey this short documentary follows AMENRA’s frontman at various points throughout 2016.
Colin comments: “I wanted to put emphasis on the human aspect of being a musician; everybody always pictures us living in cellars drinking blood from skulls, but there’s more to our lives than that. You see my mom, my kids, my work, rehearsal space, some spots where it all began for AMENRA in the skatepark...you see what its really like behind the scenes. The free moments we have in our lives we dedicate it all to art, creation and music. We want to give form to that world inside our heads.”
AMENRA will perform on the main stage at the 013 venue, as part of John Dyer Baizley’s curation, on Friday, April 21, 2017. Meanwhile check out remaining dates below for previously announced shows...
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