MINAMI DEUTSCH live im Knust + THE DRAWBARS live auf dem Lattenplatz, Hamburg (18. Juli 2023)

Dienstag war schon ein spezieller Tag. Er begann mit Morgentoilette im Halbdunkel, da im Dorf Stromausfall herrschte. Dieser wurde zwar glücklicherweise schnell behoben, doch zurück von der Arbeit fragte ich mich schon, ob es plausibel war, dass vielleicht irgend etwas passiert war, das nicht nur für den Energieaussetzer gesorgt, sondern auch meinen (nicht einmal eingeschalteten) Computer zerschossen hatte. Oder war es tatsächlich Zufall, dass er sich nun tot stellte? Zum Glück hatte ich noch einen Ersatztrafo im Haus und habe also die kurze Zeit, die ich zu Hause hatte hauptsächlich für die Reparaur genutzt, bevor ich nach Itzehoe zum Quartals-Checkup bei meinem Diabetologen musste.

Gesund as fuck zertifiziert fuhr ich dann früher als gewöhnlich gleich weiter nach Hamburg, wo ich gleich zwei Konzerte besuchte. Nicht schlecht, was man nach Feierabend noch so schaffen kann!

THE DRAWBARS

Ok, für die erste Show musste mich auch nicht wirklich lang machen, da sie für umsonst open air auf dem Lattenplatz, also direkt neben dem Eingang des Knust stattfand. Ein paar Stücke (vermute ich) verpasste ich allerdings trotzdem, da ich lange nichts gegessen hatte und unbedingt noch gegenüber vom Hochbunker dürümen musste.

Aber egal, ich sah auf jeden Fall genug vom saucoolen Schweineorgeljazz des hamburger Trios The Drawbars, um mir anschließend das Debütalbum "One Finger Only" in die Tasche zu stecken.
Als Hörer, dessen persönliche Jazz-Sozialisation vor allem durch Naked City, Colosseum und einer Prise Helge Scheider bestimmt gewesen ist, fühlte ich mich in den schmutzigen Tastensounds schnell zu Hause. Dass Bass und Drums zumeist sehr funky agierten, jeder Song sich ein stilistisch anderes Spielfeld suchte und man nach einem fluffig flotten Feelgoodsouljazzrockkrautfunkset die Zugaben mit rauchend auf dem Pflaster schlürfenden Detektivjazz abschloss, waren alles auch ganz und gar keine Minuspunkte. So ein Bonuskonzert nehme ich doch jederzeit gerne wieder mit! 

Sehr lässige Mucke mit Kultkinosoundtrackfeeling, die ich später auch gleich auf dem Heimweg in den Player schob. Eine Rezension werde ich zu diesem nun persönlichen Genrehighlight das Jahres 2022 nicht mehr schreiben, aber hey, es gibt ja das weltweite Interjazz, also lausch doch einfach mal in das Ding rein:

Tja, hätte ich gewusst, dass das drinnen stattfindende Konzert, wegen dem ich eigentlich hier war, noch eine halbe Stunde später als erwartet beginnen würde, dann hätte ich meinen Magen wohl noch länger grummeln lassen und diese Pause mit einer Mahlzeit überbrückt - zumal ja auch im Knust selbst an diesem Abend - passend zu Band und ziemlich feine Tokyo-bei-Nacht-Urbanklänge auflegendem DJ - japanische Küche serviert wurde. Kaizen Music Fest nannte sich das Ganze. Kann man machen, wobei für mich persönlich ein Festival ja gefühlt erst bei minimal zwei Liveacts beginnt.

Die eine Band, die es gab war, dafür aber richtig klasse: 

MINAMI DEUTSCH

Nach dem Fortfall von Kikagaku Moyo stehen Minami Deutsch wohl eindeutig mit an der Spitze des neuen japanischen Psychedelic Rrocks. Ich hatte sie bisher nur einmal vor fünf Jahren in spezieller Konstellation, sozusagen als Backing-Band für Ex-Can-Sänger Damo Suzuki gesehen und war gespannt auf die "reguläre" Performance.

Obwohl... nee, eigentlich hatte ich schon eine ziemlich klare Vorstellung davon, was mich erwarten würde, nämlich der Jahresrekord an durchgetickerten Hi-Hat-Anschlägen. Und darüber natürlich eine von starken, minimalistisch repetitiven Basslinien voran gepumpte organisch-automatische Rhythmussektion und die zum gemeinsamen Höhenflug verschmolzenen Gitarren auf dem Weg zur Nachbargalaxie.

Überhaupt steht bei dieser Gruppe selten ein Instrument vor den anderen im Mittelpunkt, fast immer geht es um die trippige Melange des Ganzen.

Trotz beinahe konstantem Uptempo wurde viel Zurückhaltung und Spannungsaufbau - hier und da mit sporadischem Gesang - betrieben, ehe sich die Musik traumhaft weiter öffnete und zuweilen überraschend überwältigend explodierte, nur um ganz unvermittelt wieder in entspannteren Krautrobotermodus zurückzuschalten. Alles sehr gekonnt und extrem gut aufeinander eingespielt.

Die äußerst rauschhaften und zurecht vom vollen Laden abgefeierten achtzig Minuten deutsch-japanische Musikfreundschaft gingen im Grunde schon viel zu früh vorüber.
Anderseits konnte man von der Band realistisch echt nicht noch mehr verlangen. Fantastisch!

JOHN COLTRANE with ERIC DOLPHY - Evenings at the Village Gate

Wenn ich hier gerade schon über bisher unveröffentlichtes Material großer Jazzerinnen rede, dann darf natürlich das neue Livealbum von Jahrhundertmusiker John Coltrane nicht fehlen, welches als besonderen Anreiz, der mich unverzüglich vorbestellen ließ, mit dem nur sehr kurze Zeit als Bandmitglied aktiven Namen Eric Dolphy ("Out To Lunch") prahlt.

JOHN COLTRANE with ERIC DOLPHY - Evenings at the Village Gate (CD) (2023)

Anders als das 2021 veröffentlichte, vier Jahre später aufgenommene Album "A Love Supreme: Live In Seattle", welches die Phase dokumentiert, in der Coltrane bereits komplett avantgardistisch explodiert war und sich vom legendären Quartett ColtraneTynerGarrisonJones hin zu größeren Konstellationen bewegte, lauschen wir hier durch ein Fenster in den August 1961, als jene Besetzung noch nicht komplettiert war und Reggie Workman noch statt Jimmy Garrison den Bass bediente.

Während einer einmonatigen Residenz im neuen New Yorker Club Village Gate, bei der es hin und wieder zu terminlich bedingten Besetzungsvariationen kam, war außerdem Eric Dolphy dabei, der mit Querflöte, Bassklarinette und Altsaxophon Coltrane an Sopran und Tenor gegenüberstand und von diesem oft sogar mit den längeren Soli ins Rampenlicht vorgelassen wurde, ähnlich wie Miles Davis vorher in seinem Quintett mit Coltrane umgegangen war.

Coltrane hatte zu dieser Zeit mehrere gewaltige Hits, von denen vor allem seine Version von "My Favorite Things" sogar über die Welt des Jazz hinausstrahlte. Doch statt dieses Momentum zu nutzen, um zum berechenbaren Mainstream-Star zu werden, war er im Kopf bereits mehrere kreative Schritte weiter, immer auf der Suche nach neuen Ausdrucksformen.
Hier waren jene Hits aber durchaus noch die Grundlage, von der aus er abhob. Bis auf den tieferen Cut "When Lights Are Low" lesen sich die für dieses Album ausgewählten Stücke wie ein Best Of dieser Karrierephase: "My Favorite Things", "Impressions", "Greensleeves", "Africa". Die Versionen sind wild und ausschweifend, finden aber immer wieder wundersam zu ihren Leitmotiven zurück.

Dabei ist es nicht nur das Zusammenspiel auf Augenhöhe mit Dolphy, sondern z.T. auch der Einsatz von zwei Bassisten, der die Dimension der Stücke noch zusätzlich erweitert.
An einigen Abenden war Art Davis einfach der Ersatzarbeiter für Workman gewesen, aber es gab auch Gelegenheiten, an denen beide zusammen auftraten, wobei einer die von afrikanischer Musik inspirierte dröhnende Grundlage übernahm, während der andere den melodiöseren Teil darüber spielte.

Zum Glück war dies auch bei den beiden aufgenommenen Abenden der Fall gewesen. Tatsächlich hatte es ja gar keine Pläne für Liveaufnahmen gegeben. Diese existieren nur, weil der Tonmann neues Equipment ausprobieren wollte. Hätte Rich Alderson offiziell den Job gehabt, jene Shows aufzunehmen, dann hätte er auch mehr als nur ein Mikrofon im Raum dafür benutzt.
Doch dieses einzige Mikrofon hatte es ganz offensichtlich mit idealen Bedingungen zu tun, klingt das Resultat doch verboten authentisch, als wäre man mitten drin im Club. Nach heutigen Standards perfekt? Sicher nicht. Anderseits vermisse ich hier aber auch rein gar nichts. Man versteht alles, die Atmosphäre könnte nicht greifbarer sein und vor allem haut das polyrhythmische Schlagzeugspiel von Elvin Jones irre großartig rein. Klar, objektiv ist es eigentlich zu laut, uneigentlich sei aber drauf geschissen, wenn die Aufnahme derart fetzt und fesselt.

Das die Fade-Outs sehr schnell sind und keaum Raum für Applaus lassen, finde ich zwar ein wenig schade, anderseits sehe ich aber auch ein, dass hierfür buchstäblich kein Platz mehr auf der CD ist, die mit einer Laufzeit von achtzig Minuten und drei Sekunden wahrscheinlich das längste Exemplar ihrer Art in meiner Sammlung darstellt. Ich wusste ehrlich gesagt gar nicht, dass eine Audio-CD so lang sein kann und hätte die Obergrenze eher um bei achtundsiebzig Minuten verortet.

Ob es hier auf der Doppel-LP-Version wohl Unterschiede gibt? Das kann ich aufgrund meiner Sparsamkeit nicht sagen. Ich finde diese Variante auf jeden Fall gelungen. Eine bessere Heirat von Quantität und Qualität geht nicht. Und auch bei der Gestaltung, und Bilderauswahl von Digipak und Booklet mit umfangreichen Liner Notes erfüllt das Impulse! Label zweifellos seine hohen Ansprüche.

Eine rundum großartige Veröffentlichung. Ich wüsste gar nicht, wie man irgendeiner an Jazz interessierten Person ausreden könnte, sich dieses fantastische Zeitdokument einzuverleiben! John Coltrane im spannenden Entdeckungsmodus ist zwar kein Alleinstellungsmerkmal an sich, geht aber selbstverständlich immer. Und dann natürlich noch der ja schon an sich grandiose Eric Dolphy. Come on! Mehr kann man von einer bislang unbekannten, über sechzig Jahre alten Liveaufnahme nicht verlangen.

Jazz in Britain: BARBARA THOMPSON - First Light / TREVOR TOMKINS' SEXTANT - For Future Reference

Jazz in Britain's mission is it to unearth unknown or undereppreciated treasures from British Jazz history. Now that's what I call a self-explanatory name.
I had become aware of the label due to their announcement of an album of unreleased material from late saxophone trailblazer Barbara Thompson, but I ordered another album along with it just to have more value for the shipping costs. Little did I know that both releases would be sent individually anyway, so I received the other double CD many weeks earlier...

 

TREVOR TOMKINS' SEXTANT - For Future Reference (2CD) (2023)

No, of course I won't complain about not having to wait longer, because this debut album - which is also a requiem - of Jazz drummer Trevor Tomkins, who passed away last September exactly two months after Barbara Thompson, is quite a revelation.
I could simulate a decent expertise and give you an overview of the prolific musician's activities, especially during the 1970's, but to be honest I would rather just spark your interest in the music at hand here rather than concentrating on the résumé. If you buy the digipak you get a very comprehensive booklet in which you can read more than enough about Tomkins' life and work.

One important observation through his whole career however is that he has always been a team player with little ego, someone who rather lets others shine and cares for the harmonious big picture than to push himself into the spotlight. It fits that picture that he became a teacher for drums and Jazz history in the 1980's.

In the beginning of that decade however he formed the first and only group with him as the band leader. With a couple of small line-up changes this sextet did several recordings in the four consecutive Mays of the years 1980 to 1983, which this double album has now pulled from his personal archives.
And even here in his own group, which mostly played local London shows and BBC radio sessions, he wasn't the central star of the music. Fellow Englishman Jon Hiseman probably had the total amount of drum soloing that can be found on here done after twenty-five minutes on most regular days in the office.
He also didn't claim songwriting credits on any of the fifteen tracks, which are either cover material from other artists or written by his guitar player Phil Lee or pianist John Horler.

But let's finally get to the music, shall we? Most times when I'm writing about Jazz and adjacent genres on this blog, the subject is Avant-Garde madness, Doomjazz or the combination with extreme Metal. There may be exemptions (mind that Jazz is my number one go-to genre when it comes to catching up on classic records, which I mostly don't cover here), but generally I seem to love my Jazz like most of my music to be adventurous and uncompromising.

So please don't misunderstand it as a devaluation of any kind when I say that in contradiction to that sentiment what I love about "For Future Reference" is exactly how good it is at making compromises! There is something "average", but without any negative connotation, about this band, which already begins with its instrumentation.
Besides the drums we hear saxophones (sometimes flutes), trombone, electric guitar (or 12 string), a sometimes also electric piano, yet a traditional upright bass.
This line-up allows Trevor Tomkins' Sextant to be very flexible, because it provides a sound palette which sits in a place between amplified Fusion, grand big band sound, yet also sweaty improvisational club atmosphere, without ever clearly committing to one of these aspects for long. This music, which is presented in an easily digestable average song length of seven minutes, flows between styles very subtly without you even actively noticing it during casual listening.

In a similar way this collection of foremost the British Jazz history from the Sixties to the Eighties sometimes ventures forth from London to Detroit or even Havana.
The seemlessness and of course just the enormous class of the players however turn this double CD into an experience which doesn't even wants to be painstakingly analyzed.

For me this is simply: Wow, awesome! Jazz! So awesome indeed that I included the album in the midyear ranking of my Top 15 albums of 2023 (so far). What a shame that Tomkins', who was involved in the development of this release couldn't see the beautiful result anymore. Drum in peace!

And before I forget it: Yes, even though he was such a team player his personal performances here, his vivid grooves and textures are absolutely fantastic!       

BARBARA THOMPSON - First Light (CD) (2023)

And now to the spectacular artist I've already been at least a little familiar with from her band Paraphernalia, Neil Ardley's New Jazz Orchestra and of course alongside her husband, the beforementioned Jon Hiseman, in both The United Jazz + Rock Ensemble and the Jazz Rock legends Colosseum! I was even lucky enough to see her perform live with the latter, twice in 2007 and once in 2014, when advances in Parkinson's treatment allowed her to tour again after what had already been supposed to be her goodbye from stage. It still took the disease another eight years to beat the saxophone player.

The fight of course goes on without her and "First Light" is a part of that, since all net profits from the album go to Cure Parkinson's.

It is a different kind of release than the Trevor Tomkins' Sextant album in several ways. These are recordings of three different ensembles (Group E, Barbara Thompson Big Band and Jubiaba) from the years 1971 and 1972. They all have in common that the original tape recordings were in dire need of restauration, and even though the result is listenable and enjoyable, there are still some sound mistakes and wobbly passages left. As a result you shouldn't approach this with the expectations of big studio or production or modern live recording quality, but rather as a bootleg. So as good as the cause of donating for medical research is, it's also needed to justify the physical release.

Musically though there's no doubt that this deserves to be heard!

Group E opens the compilation with its longest track. The fourteen+ minutes rollercoaster "The Tie Game" as well as the following only half as long "Threnody" are both the most dark and chaotic - or let's say late coltraneish material I've heard from Thompson so far. Led by her on tenor and soprano saxophones and flute, the band instrumentally is a classic quartet with drums, bass and piano. But what gives these pieces a special energy besides their wild and free performance is Barbara's back and forth with the fifth member, vocalist Pepi Lemer. Their crazy dialogue is the core of these recordings.

Barbara Thompson & Colosseum live 2007

The album continues with the big band suite "Awaking" consisting of the three parts "First Light", "Second Light" and "Daylight".
Conducted by Neil Ardley, who makes the twelve members sound like many more, the twenty-six minute epic bridges Jazz with Classical Music, Progressive Rock and other findings between those pillars. With Norma Winstone a different kind of Jazz singer is featured here, who does lyrical Vocal Jazz as well as impressive harmony or unison runs with various instruments.

The arrangements take full advantage of the available array of instruments, which includes of course Thompson's sax and flute, plus horns, trumpet, trombone, various strings, keys and percussions and the alternation between upright and electric bass as a backbone. And even with this selection to pick from the band still finds sounds you wouldn't even have expected in this constellation.
In proper recording quality this could have been a classic. Yet that being said let me repeat that this is still highly enjoyable to listen to! This recording in particular is also one of the rare instances in that time period, where we can already hear Thompson playing to the unmistakable drive of Jon Hiseman. The only thing which disappoints me a little here is that the third part just fades out way too early. (Maybe the recording just became unusable at that point?)

The last third of the album belongs to the other, quite different big band Jubiaba, which among others was influenced by Funk, Fusion and Afrobeat, but still featured many strong melodies and harmonies as you would expect in any of Barbara Thompson's works. Two of their five tracks here would reappear six years later on their studio album, on which by the way a certain Trevor Tomkins played the drums. On these older versions he's also participant, not on drums yet, but on percussions.
Each composition has its very own style and temper and at least from my not too educated perspective I'd say that this is the most typical Thompson material here, both in terms of her individual playing as well as the similarities to the overall impression of a Paraphernalia album.

Among the countless possible ways to get acquainted with her work this surely isn't a top-tier starting point, but if you're fan enough to look past the technical imperfectness (which for me only becomes a serious issue with the sometimes too shrill sound and occasional skipped split seconds during the final tracks), this is a very intriguing release, which presents the wide range of a great artist during a short span of time.

And it surely motivates me to dive deeper into any phase of her discography!   

DIVIDE & DISSOLVE - Systemic

It's not a stretch to say that Divide And Dissolve inhabit a very specific niche in Doom, with a sound you can only stray from so far without losing your identity. Or can you? Well, with the experience of having seen them perform at Roadburn last year and also owning their 2021 album "Gas Lit" I at least had pretty clear expectations of what I was going to hear on the duo's new work.

DIVIDE & DISSOLVE - Systemic (CD) (2023)

So lets check! Is the album rather short (a little over thirty minutes) and fully instrumental except for one track providing the backdrop for poetic narration by Minori Sanchiz-Fung? Yes, all true here too.

So what about the way they construct their tracks? Typically Divide And Dissolve start with atmospheric textures, made out of looped soprano saxophone and/or keyboards. Those then suddenly get crushed by droning Doom or dirty Noise Rocks riffs, while the loop still is around somewhere far in the background. The guitar tone is devastatingly crunchy, the interaction with the drums enormously heavy, but also quite loose in a chaotic, very primal way, which in its core is much more emotionally expressive than it even is Metal. And at some point, without a really concluding resolution... it just ends somehow. Sometimes that happens with, sometimes without the resurfacing of the initial loop. 
It's an approach which technically looks much more like putting raw pieces together in a default scheme than applying actual songwriting. Which makes it all the more admirable how good this works. Remember: I'm still talking about the expectation based on the past. And yay, all that jazz applies again on "Systemic"!

Divide & Dissolve live at Roadburn

So it's just another day at the office then? If it is than Black Native American Takiaya Reed and Maori Sylvie Nehill have surely established a productive and ambitious work atmosphere. They're doing all their weirdly specific things, but have refined them in all aspects.

The most obvious improvement to what was already great before are the loops, which seem to be more elaborated than before, especially regarding the more sophisticated saxophone arrangements. This part of the music is so strong that the whole album is confidently framed by the synthesizer introduction "Want" and the saxophone epilogue "Desire". So including the instrumental side of the sole vocal track "Kingdom Of Fear", which contains drums (yet also xylophone) and almost sounds like an Ambient score of modern day Swans, already a third of the album doesn't feature Metal guitars at all.

Following what I've already implied before I've only called the riffs Metal to negate that now and replace the term with Noise Rock - or at least add the Avant-Garde tag, because their impact is much closer to bands like Caspar Brötzmann Massaker or Insect Ark than to any pure Doom Metal doctrine.

With the juxtaposition of jazz-adjacent loops and quaking heaviness I could also imagine Divide And Dissolve's sound on this album to be a more raw and primitive version of an imaginary crossing between the solo works of Japanese American saxophone player Patrick Shiroishi and Sludge experimentalists Sumac.

So yeah, while this is neither perfect nor intented to be, it definitly is pretty great orignal stuff with an unexpectedly soulful core, which grows every time you listen to it. And given the short total playing time "Systemic" is of course an album which can easily be squeezed into most days' schedules. So I'm certainly looking forward to seeing how much I will love this several months from now. 

JESU in Heaven, it's GODFLESH! • Pity/Piety and Purge

Justin Broadrick is back with... nah, that's wrong. When has Justin Broadrick actually ever been away? Well, nevermind. Here are two new releases of his main creative outlets, both digging deep in classic periods of his own discography:

JESU - Pity/Piety (white with gold splatter 12") (2023)

Two sides, seventeen minutes each, so what is it? The official reading is that these two longtracks called "Pity" and "Piety" form an EP. The vinyl looks as rusty as that angel on the minimalistic cover. Wouldn't have called this a "gold splatter" edition, but it's cool anyway.

The music? Shoegazy, dreamy, yet also dissonant and emotionally crushing this release gathers a lot of typical Jesu elements. I hear the sad dragging of the split with Battle of Mice, the deliberate miscords of "Everyday I Get Closer To The Light From Which I Came", the hard electronic drums of those releases closer to the mechanical aspects of Godflesh. I guess I hear almost everything I wish for in Jesu. Especially the hypnotic second half of "Piety" which lets its motif rise to heavenly heights puts this EP easily at par with all the greatest stuff Broadrick has done with this project since 2004. Definitely not one a fan should skip.

GODFLESH - Purge (silver vinyl LP) (2023)

Similar to the pity / piety wordplay, the new Godflesh album echoes the title of the 1991 classic "Pure", and alongside details which would also have suited the late ninetees' works "Songs of Love and Hate" and "Us and Them" it definitely is the cold "Pure" sound which is revisited here the most.
BC Green's rumbling bass, the brutally sawing riffs and nastily screeching leads over agile programmed or sampled drums. Minimanihilist lyrics with an average count of sixteen words per track, which Broadrick is mercilessly shouting into your face or singing to his pained self.
The key element of repetition just in that dosage which has the desired effect of hammering the sound into your psyche, yet not overdoing it to a point where it isn't enjoyable anymore. Analogous to the Roadburn live recording of "Pure" has been updated to a sludgier, more guitar-centric aesthetic, but in its icy English heart "Purge" truly is the throwback it openly admits it is.

This means that this third post reunion album is neither as focussed on sheer brutality as "A World Lit Only By Fire" nor as experimental and innovative as "Post Self". But while its referential nature may lose it some originality points, the execution is honest and compelling enough to let "Purge" sit comfortably between both predecessors. And of course the world "comfortable" seems wildly misplaced in the context of the bleak force of existential anxiety like this.

The perfect soundtrack to the byeffects of the strong antibiotics I'm currently taking. Godflesh by the numbers maybe, but the numbers are still as staggering and uncompromising as decades ago.

MIDYEAR TOP 15: my favorite albums of 2023 (so far)

Oh shit, half of the year is already over again, so it's time for the ever impossible task!

Put this together rather quickly and already feel bad for half a dozen releases I omitted. No distinction between studio and live albums or EPs, only stuff I already own in physical form.
Tomorrow this would probably look different, but that's just how it always is, right? After a couple of places the order is as good as random.

One thing I can guarantee though: If you don't have a shitty taste, you should check all of these out!

1. BELL WITCH
   Future's Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate
   
   
   
   
2. LAIBACH
   Sketches Of The Red Districts
   
   
   
   
3. TEMPLE FANG
   Live at Slachthuis
   
   
   
   
4. BIG|BRAVE
   Nature Morte
   
   
   
   
5. ESBEN AND THE WITCH
   Hold Sacred
   
   
   
   
6. OTAY:ONII
   夢​之​駭​客 Dream Hacker
   
   
   
   
7. COLD DEW
   Yuyu 欲欲
   
   
   
   
8. POIL UEDA
   PoiL Ueda
   
   
   
   
9. TREVOR TOMKINS' SEXTANT
   For Future Reference
   
   
   
   
10. TILINTETGJORT
    In Death I Shall Arise
    
    
    
    
11. EDENA GARDENS
    Agar
    
    
    
    
12. HEALTHYLIVING
    Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief
    
    
    
    
13. THE END
    Why Do You Mourn
    
    
    
    
14. 李劍鴻 LI JIANHONG & 文智湧 WEN ZHIYONG
    & 鄧博宇 DENG BOYU
    歲​寒​三​友 Les Trois Amis de l'Hiver
    
    
    
    
15. GRAVE DESECRATOR
    Immundissime Spiritus
    
    
    
    

BELL WITCH - Future's Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate

Does any other band embody the genre Funeral Doom as much to perfection as Bell Witch? And has any other Metal band from a niché subgenre ever transcended that subgenre - and Metal as a whole - so impressively, just by following its core idea to the fullest consequence?

No, I'm already not talking about the eighty-three-minutes masterpiece for eternity "Mirror Reaper" from 2017 any more, but about its successor, which can't even be properly compared to the game changer yet. Because while "The Clandestine Gate" is yet again one single song, curiously with the exact same colossal length, it is only the first part of a cyclic trilogy, which is intended to end at its beginning, so it can be played infinitely into eternity.

BELL WITCH - Future's Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate (2CD) (2023)

While this song/album utilizes more organs and analogue synthesizers, which can almost all be performed live by drummer Jesse Shreibman with his feet (as proven during the full album premiere at Roadburn), it's all in all a purer, more reduced work, since the duo doesn't repeat the trick of structuring it in two very distinct different parts - and it's also the first Bell Witch studio album without any clear guest vocals by Erik Moggridge (Aerial Ruin).

However the small line-up only shows through in the deliberately minimalistic quiet passages. But even then you would probably need the information that you're only listening to two people, just because how massive the sound gets, once they switch on all the heavy distortion and Dylan Desmond, the Cliff Burton of Funeral Doom exercises his signature style of performing both crushing chords and delicate haunting melodies simultanously on bass. I've never heard anyone asking "Where's the guitar?" while listening to Bell Witch. It had always be really spelled out for you that there just were none on their records. And "The Clandestine Gate" for sure won't break that trend.

If you are able to listen to this album and seriously think about elements which are missing, then it certainly isn't made for you. I'm positive that no minute here is wasted and enough is happening to always keep you engaged. You only have to accept that in this kind of Doom beyond Doom everything is happening slow. So slow in fact, that the rare vocals (both Shreibman's distant gutturals and Desmond's aethereal clerical clean voice) are hard to follow even with the lyrics at hand, just because it's hard getting your head around someone singing that adagio.   

Yet the true mastership of Bell Witch doesn't lie in being technically able to perform this slow together and do it with a unique sound. Even though this already is a feat in itself, the most amazing aspect of this band is the songwriting. Their music has never appeared as  the result of some dudes just jamming and putting tunes together, but rather like the application of the Classical idea of arranging huge movements. And it takes a great compositional overview to work like that in this scale.

When you're hearing the first minutes of "The Clandestine Gate" - nothing but very minimal organ - for the first time, you might experience it as a dragging intro. But in hindsight and from the second run on you should understand how integral this beginning is for the whole song by establishing the glacial pace and rhythm of the whole piece like the station scene in "Once Upon The Time In The West". Bell Witch aren't slow to bore or torture you, they are just moving tectonic plates and taking the time it needs to do so. And what other approach seems adequate for an album, which sounds like the score to the sorrowful doom of the whole world?

And regarding the solo organ: When it is revisited much later in the piece, it marks the pinnacle of anticipation, giving us a long breather before the most mountainous and majestic crescendo. By now you should have long found yourself onboard a vessel floating far beyond the regular perception of time, life and death.
 
The one single moment which is not perfect on "The Clandestine Gate" is the very end, when after a whole passage of calming down with a sole clean bass, the piece just stops without a satisfying resolution. But then of course the end isn't even the end at all, but only the commissure, where Part 2 will continue. Such a giant album and you can't even have all the tools to ultimately judge it yet. So until the triptych will be painted completely, it must suffice to just embrace this first part on its own and as usual since "Four Phantoms" in 2015 (probably) crown it as the Metal album of the year.

Or wait, strike Metal! That term is too small for this dimension-melting behemoth.

As is the CD format for the fantastic cover artwork by Jordi Diaz Alamà. But for convenience and with bad experiences regarding the pressing quality of the last album, I decided to go for the double compact disc anyway. And it's fine. Maybe I should get the t-shirt to have a bigger version of that Hieronymous Bosch inspired artwork?