raison d’être “Prospectus I – Sublime Edition” 4CD Boxset (229th Cycle)
30 year anniversary boxset of this contemporary classic of Dark Ambient soundscapes. Originally released in 1993 on the now defunct Cold Meat Industry label, the album soon became a staple of the CMI sound and raison d’être subsequently became a household name in the genre and an inspiration to many. Offered in this massive 4 CD boxset is a completely new re-recording of the original album, made in 2022, in order to obtain the highest sound quality and mix of this 30 year old opus. Disc II contains additional unreleased session tracks, also re-recorded in 2022. Disc III gives us the original album in a remastered version and finally Disc IV offers additional session tracks from the period in their original versions.“Prospectus I” is a stunning blend of modern ethereal gothic sonorities and the timeless chants of monastic rituals. A refined blend of melancholy touching higher realms. Archaic layers of string instruments, bells and choirs are intertwined with percussive elements and industrial loops creating an unsettling background atmosphere whilst spleen and bittersweetness form in the foreground. Co-Released with Yantra Atmospheres.Edition of 300 copies. 4 CDs in sleeves, housed in rigid box with lid, matt lamination. Includes a fold out 12 page booklet.
43 Tracks. Running Time; CD I 55:01, CD II 73:13, CD III 54:07, CD IV 71:12
EAN: 0679628554365
Release Date August 4 2023
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PAVOR NOCTURNUS “Ecatombe” CD / DL (214th Cycle)
“Ecatombe” is the fourth album from Italy’s Black Industrial act Pavor Nocturnus. Composed and recorded between 2020 and 2021, it serves as a vessel of offerings, it collects all the emotions and thoughts that stormed during the months spent in confinement, producing a personal display of uneasiness. Screams and funeral mournings echo in these tracks, accompanied by percussive rhythms that recall the strokes that cast the cattle sacrificed to the gods. There is no light in Ecatombe, except for a weak plea trying to unravel the unfathomable darkness of an abyss from which, for now, it seems impossible to escape. Pavor Nocturnus is the solo project of Eugenio Mazza, a Milan based musician and composer. Creating a skilful interweaving of electronic sounds and ritual, spiritual and esoteric elements.Edition of 300 copies in 6 panel Digisleeve, Matt Lamination. 6 Tracks. Running Time 32:12 EAN: 0679628554396
Release Date August 4 2023
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SHINKIRO “The Birth of the Gods” CD / DL (221st Cycle)
It’s with great joy that we welcome one of Japan’s most revered Ambient act. Manabu Hiramoto has been creating deeply distinct atmospherics since 2003. On this new album he’s combined ritualistic elements with lush, foreboding passages, creating an ode to his country’s unique nature worship.Based on Japanese mythology sourced from Shinto and Buddhism, “The Birth of the Gods” has at its core nature worship, that the gods exist in all of nature. Composed from deep drones, organic ethereal ambience layered with melodic guitar, piano and field recordings track express the unique characters of nature entities. These seven compositions tap into and reveal some of Japan’s most ancient mysteries. Artwork by Dehn Sora.CD Edition of 400 copies in 6 panel Digisleeve, matt lamination. 7 Tracks. Running Time 38:58 EAN: 0679628554358
Release Date July 21 2023
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CALITYS “Songs Of Unearthly Longing” CD / DL (206th Cycle)
Calitys is a collaboration between the Sardinian duo Mara Lasi & Daniele Sera, previously Chirleison and Medusa’s Spell, and Lithuanian sound artist Daina Dieva.United by a mutual respect and common interests, in 2021 they started an epistolary exchange of ideas, texts, sounds and voice recordings. These exchanges culminated in the album “Songs of Unearthly Longing”. Dialogical creative practices of the three authors, coupled with a profound curiosity in the natural world and beyond, became a journey through somber pluriverses.On sound structures that are formed by an elegant dance of guitars (Daniele) and piano (Mara), ethereal voices (Daina) weaves a world animated by intense and lemotional exchanges between human and non-human beings. The dialogue extends not only between entities and worlds but also between different modes of being. Field-recordings add to the voyage between these different modes in conveying a more grounded and nearly tangible terrain before the reaching surreal territories.The name of the band, Calitys, is borrowed from a beetle, Calitys scabra. This tiny beetle inhabits old spruce, fir and pine, in its larval stage feeds on mushrooms. The exoskeleton of adult individuals looks like tree bark covered with lichen, making them nearly invisible. Calitys is quickly losing its habitat due to human activities of deforestation. As most insect species, this too is faced with the threat of extinction in the near future of disastrous climate.The album was mixed by Simon Balestrazzi (TAC, Kirlian Camera, Dream Weapon Ritual).
CD edition fo 300 copies in 6 panel Digisleeve, matt lamination. 8 Tracks. Running Time 40:28 EAN: 0679628554273
Release Date July 14 2023
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SHIBALBA “Dreams Are Our World Of Experience” CD / LP / DL (222nd Cycle)
The flesh withers to the pulses of thunderous cave reverberations, while the spirit is united with the psalms of the Glorious Dead, the Ancient Entities that have conquered Death and become Life, dominant, absolute and victorious. This Work consists of a ritual deriving from the darkest corners of the Mind, the deathlike spheres of the Netherworld and the truest essence of the Afterlife, to become a homage to the Force of Life Eternal.Guided by Her Luminous rays, it is dictated to be experienced solely in chamber-like conditions, below the waxing Moon, accompanied with Myrrh and lunarian incenses and agharbattis, to be properly roamed within its uncharted corridors. Listen, experience and conquer, setting aside the mundane aspects of realities, explore the unmapped pathways, with every preconception burnt to the altars of this Magnum Opus.SHIBALBA’s music is saturated with the mysticism of the East. It’s richly detailed and multidimensional, while layered with chanting and broadly defined elements of traditional ritual and shamanic music.Apart from contemporary synths and guitar drones, the band makes use of bones and skulls as percussion instruments, Tibetan Horns, Tibetan Singing Bowls, bone & horne trumpets, Darbuka’s (goblet drums) as well as ceremonial bells and gongs, to name a few.The Spirits behind the Shamanic Halls of Shibalba are V.P. Adept & Aldra-Al-Melekh.CD edition of 300 copies in 6 panel Digisleeve, Matt Lamination. 7 Tracks. Running Time: 43:04 EAN: 0679628554341
Vinyl LP edition of 300 copies in 3mm sleeve with printed innesleeve, Matt Lamination. 7 Tracks. Running Time: 43:04 EAN: 0679628554334
Release Date July 14 2023
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SUTEKH HEXEN & FUNERARY CALL “P:R:I:S:M” CD / 2LP / DL (114th Cycle)
We’re proud to announce renewal of our relationship with raw black power ambient ritualists Sutekh Hexen in announcing the band’s colossal new 2LP “P:R:I:S:M”, a full collaboration with Canadian nightmare-weaving enigma Funerary Call (AKA field recording and experimental soundscaping artist Harlow MacFarlane), to be released this summer in collaboration with our good dearest frequent co-conspirators from the US Sentient Ruin.With “P:R:I:S:M”, magisterial sonic-alchemists Sutekh Hexen and Funerary Call join forces to deliver a fully collaborative album of eight highly experimental tracks. Throughout this octonary journey, concepts and unseen source energies are refined into spectrums of deeper consciousness. The resulting narrative guides the listener through a vastness of (dis)charging energies, rebirth through dissolution, and harrowing harmonic passages in tremendous spaces. Inner-workings suspend transformations in time. Pushing their respective boundaries, Sutekh Hexen and Funerary Call initiate the listener with the crystalline, static miasma of the album’s opener ‘Meridian غ’, only to enshroud them in the manifesting psychosis of ‘Infernal Folly’. The churning mysticism of ‘Perilous Shade’ offers temporal sanctuary, and ‘Toward the Eastern Gate’ calls forth tectonic-prophecies as the album’s centerpiece, tipping the scale into ‘Fractal: Void’—a blistering disarmament in a storm of guitars, scathing electronics, and the disembodied calls we all anticipate and fear. ‘Æscend Obsidia’ tests the preceding tension and overwhelms in shimmering radiance before declaring release in ‘Pangæa Ultima² (Dread)’. Closing with ‘Shores of Purgatory’, thresholds are breached anew with hectic guitar feedback, spectral synthesis and meditative melodic embellishments. Where the mirror blinds, the “P:R:I:S:M” offers vision—refractions of new perspectives, dissolving the shadow-self.CD edition of 400 copies in 6 panel Digisleeve, Spot UV + Matt Lamination. 8 Tracks. Running Time 53:43 EAN: 0679628554259Vinyl 2LP edition of 500 copies, 200 in clear red (200 units worldwide – direct label retail item not wholesaled or distributed) and 300 standard black vinyl inside a high quality matte laminated gatefold sleeve with black flood inside the pocket, spot UV gloss print, black poly-lined inner bags and download card. 8 Tracks. Running Time 53:433 EAN: 0679628554242
Release Date July 14 2023
Digital Available via BandcampShop