EOSTRE (21 March 2010)

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

13TH TRIBE (THE)

PING PONG ANTHROPOLOGY


Original Issue: 1992 Review (rere 174 cd)

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Margot-meter: 4 moons / 5

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1 Dream Hunters 10:02
2 Hawaiian Office 1 4:32
3 Khazar 4:43
4 Can-nibals I 5:28
5 Lofoten Part II 6:18
6 Can-nibals II 5:43
7 Ping Pong Anthropology 4:33
8 Hawaiian Office II 2:45
9 Exhausted Pipes 13:55

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from All Music Guide:

Ping-Pong Anthropology defies categorizations. Two members of the 13th Tribe, German Werner Durand and Norwegian Erik Balke, perform on invented instruments, mostly wind instruments without finger holes, which are actually assemblages of PVC tubes of various lengths. The third musician, Brazilian Silvia Ocougne, provides cyclic rhythmical structures on prepared guitar. Percussionist Pierre Berthet appears as a guest on three tracks. Durand and Balke play games of "call and response" (reproduced in stereo, they do sound like a ping-pong game) over Ocougne's cycles, each one moving at his/her own pace, periodically losing the others and catching up on them.

This process creates soft, unreal, slow-evolving textures belonging to both meditative and avant-garde music. Because of its ritualistic patterns and similarities between the Tribe's devices and such autochthonous instruments as the didjeridoo, the Alp horn, or even the pan flute, this music has a distinctive exotic quality. Somewhere between the Andes and Australia probably lies an island where the 13th Tribe's music may be used for the religious ceremonies of a postmodern civilization.

François Couture

FULL STURGEON MOON (5 August 2009)

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

ROACH STEVE & STEARNS MICHAEL & SUNSINGER RON

KIVA


Original Issue: 1995 Fathom (HS11056-2)

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

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1 Passage One (2:27)
2 East Kiva - Calling In The Midnight Water (13:42)
3 Passage Two (1:59)
4 South Kiva - Mother Ayahuasca (15:13)
5 Passage Three (2:12)
6 West Kiva - Sacrifice, Prayer, And Visions (17:27)
7 Passage Four (2:00)
8 North Kiva - Trust And Remenber (9:42)
9 The Center (2:33)

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from All Music Guide:

Ron Sunsinger, a Native American tribal artist and musician, joins two space music pioneers on Kiva, an atmospheric re-creation of sacred tribal ceremonies representing the directions of the Four Winds.

For the Southwest tribes, a kiva is a circular subterranean structure used for ceremony and ritual; other tribes may use a canopy of trees, the circular space of a Sun Dance, or a cavern. For this recording, Sunsinger obtained, with permission, field recordings of traditional ceremonies. The musicians then brought the kiva space into their music studio. Each wind direction is preceded by an atmospheric passage of chanting, nature sounds, and rattles. "East Kiva: Calling in the Midnight Water" features chanting with the rattles and rapid drumbeats of a peyote ceremony. The space music continues the ceremony to an expanded heartbeat, with horns signaling breakthroughs of thunder strikes. A more celestial space is heralded by organ tones and crickets. Hearing the overlapping layers of sound and the progression allows the listener's mind to travel, while still being connected to the ceremonial music and rhythms.

Ghostly voices usher in the passage to "South Kiva: Mother Ayahuasca." Here, breathy whistles and a hypnotic twang of a stringed instrument begin a trance that takes off on one of the most dramatic space blastoffs on record. It climaxes through shouts and ceremonial purging, a sacred song, and whistling; the organ/chanting drone background is very trippy with its sonic infinity pattern of organ tones, chanting, jungle birds, and distorted drumming. "West Kiva: Sacrifice, Prayer and Visions" includes the powerful powwow drumming, singing, and stomped bells of the Native American Sun Dance. The space music collides sounds and rhythms -- a dizzying and hallucinatory clash of reality and illusion.

The music then "passes out" and takes the listener on a voyage through a sonic tunnel where all time is suspended. The final "North Kiva: Trust and Remember," recorded in a cavern, thunders with resonant drums and the growls of the didgeridoo. This recording is an excellent introduction to space music and the shamanic experience. You'll find it's not a free ride.

Carol Wright

HALF MOON (medioriental musick)

RAPOON

VERNAL CROSSING


Original Issue: 1993 Staalplaat (STCD 082)

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

...lay back your head and drift...

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1 The Same River Once (10:35)
2 Sonol (2:41)
3 Yi (3:40)
4 Rains (6:02)
5 Bol Baya (9:07)
6 Dahina Ta (6:12)
7 Anatapurrah (7:47)
8 Vernal Crossing (11:16)
9 Yi-Tun (7:17)

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from The Wire:

Moving over to Rapoon (from Loop Guru), we've still got our ethnic trousers on but the spiritual vibe is less, shall we say, 'positive'. In fact listening to Rapoon late at night on your on can be pretty scary. I tell myself that it's just tablas fed through some kind of delay but the skin on my cocoa keeps shuddering...

The opening track is almost cheerful, tablas and rattles loping along in front of a long melody played by some sort of wind-up-the-chimney sound. Even here there's an ominous undertow. It's as though the music is heard from a car stranded in the desert with it's radio still playing.

The other tracks seem to be based on pulling Indian music to pieces - small drums play lonely abandoned patterns; fragments of voice float in and out on magic carpets of echo; buzzing clouds of drone spin from ear to ear; distant cries well up from the horizon...

Rapoon work against the usual sense of well-being engendered by Indian music to produce a menacing and fascinating piece of work. If you enjoyed being scared by :zoviet france: you should know that Rapoon is Robin Storey, one of their founding members.

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from i/e Magazine:

Former :zoviet*france: member Robin Storey continues his probing of the techno-tribal interface under the pseudonym Rapoon.

Vernal Crossing is more concerned with the exploration of esoteric rhythmic structures than the previous Raising Earthly Spirits, but it's still long on atmosphere and experimentation, and every bit as fascinating.

Storey combines the cut-and-paste sound designs of his former cohorts with the modes of Hassell, Roach, and mysterious, far-flung cultures in the realization of these multi-faceted works. As "Bol Baya" whips itself up into a frenzy of futurist gamelan and whispery electronic underpinnings, Storey then changes gears and abruptly enters a Middle Eastern / William Gibson twilight zone with "Dahina ta" or travels along a dirt road of tape loops and struck percussions during the surreal "Anatapurrah".

Gauge your acid drops as you embark on Rapoon's hallucinogenic

AUSSIE MOON (aboriginal musick)

ROACH STEVE & KENT STEPHEN & NEWBY KENNETH

HALCYON DAYS

Original Issue: 1996 Fathom (11072-2) Buy it here!

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

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1 Halcyon Days (10:20)
2 First Day (9:22)
3 Rainfrog Dreaming (7:56)
4 Snake Brothers (5:52)
5 Slow Walk At Stone Wash (9:22)
6 Riding The Atlas (5:28)
7 Calyx Revelation (8:00)
8 Kingfisher Flight (7:00)

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from Lastsigh�:

Roach, Kent and Newby began working on this CD in winter of 1995 during the time known as the Halcyon Days (around the Winter Solstice), in Tuscon Arizona, Sonoran Desert. What came of this gathering, is a beautiful blend of talent and skill of all three artists as heard in this: Halcyon Days release.

The music of Halcyon Days is another yet incredible piece of music that brings to the listener a well defined ambiance of indiginous and synthetic sounds. Halcyon Days, track 1 begins the voyage with sounds that seem to emanate from deep within an ancient forest -- water trickling, envision of a lost soul seeking passage through the dark winter days -- birds saluting the short daylight hours with their melodious song coupled with a backdrop of beautifully orchestrated symphonics and a constant chant-like drumming effect. These sounds within, sweetly reflect the Halcyon Days.

First Day reminds me of one of those sexy Marlon Brando films of latter mid-century where the saxophone slowly drones and sways a melody line that keeps my attention in wondering where I'm going next with the characters, in the heat of the night. Again the chant-like drumming effects the entire piece intertwined with the subtlety of various indigenous instrumental sounds inserted. Swirling, music in motion -- again the slow ambient sounds of a flute and/or the didgeridoo with the ching-chings of bells or metal pots resonate harmonics in this piece. This track [Rainfrog Dreaming] is a bit spooky, dark and rich in texture.


Snake Brothers brings out the use rattles with an Eastern harmonic droning quality. The beat picks up somewhat with the time keeping pulse of sticks being banged together in the background, picking up tempo toward the end. Is it the Didgeridoo that seems to express itself as if it were talking?

Take a Slow Walk at Stone Wash sounds like a good idea to me. This track again brings out the soft yet powerful qualities of sound produced by the trio during their time together to create this CD. The cresendo of rich expansive sounds dominate the piece, interjected with slow moving deep didgeridoo, flutelike basics, mello drumming and harmony.

Riding the Atlas begins with rolling drums, clicking, and sounds shaken not stirred. Set in motion with what seems to be a guitar and dreamy flutelike ambience combine to bring forth a vision of life in timeless ancient forests.

Quietly starting in a whirling motion that ebbs and flows back and forth, Calyx Revelation takes off for flight into previously unchartered intellectual aural territory. You really DO need to sit down and hear this track with no external noise, it's just too good not to hear uninterrupted. Slow vibrating drones, and swirling soundscapes create the atmospherics in this piece.


A bit higher in pitch than the previous track, Kingfisher Flight incorporates deep drums, the slow sensuous flute that enters into Roach's music often, and dry seed filled gourds being shaken at precisely the right times. Another beautiful work of art by Steve Roach, Stephen Kent and Kenneth Newby.

If you enjoy the more *organic* sounds of indigenous [darker] ambient intertwined with synths, make sure this release finds its way to your home.

BLACK MOON (the dark side of musick)

REYES JORGE

COMALA

Original Issue: 1986 Producciones Exilio (LEX 001)

Reissue: 1989 Mundo Music (MMCD 8801)

Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

1 Comala (11:33)
2 Adios Mi Acompañamiento (2:39)
3 Hekura (1:58)
4 Nadie Se Libra En Tamohuanchan (6:05)
5 La Diosa De Las Águilas (3:06)
6 El Ánima Sola (6:35)
7 Mi Sombra Empolvada (3:46)
8 Nadie Supo De Dónde Venía (5:10)
9 El Hechicero De La Dicha Tranquila (4:10)

from Amazon:


The album Comala is inspired on the surrealistic novel Pedro Paramo by mexican writer Juan Rulfo. It's a short story where "Rulfo's characters emerge gradually from a landscape of death and decay, as his tale offers testament to the enduring integrity of the human soul."

The music is designed to submerge the listener in a state of consciousness where boundaries between life and death disappear and the use of acoustics and chanting will transport you to Rulfo's mythic Comala.

The remarkable use of pre-hispanic instruments and real native american ritualistic chanting mixed with futuristic sounds and synthesizers creates an atmospheric limbo of the afterlife.

The old woman chanting is Maria Sabina, a Mazatec curandera / high priestess that used to conduct ceremonial mushroom rituals in the 60's and 70's. Maria Sabina lived in Huautla de Jimenez, a small village in Oaxaca, Mexico.

John Lennon, Peter Townshend, Mick Jagger, and Bob Dylan are some of the celebrities who traveled to Huautla, seeking the spiritual guidance of Maria Sabina.

In any case, Jorge Reyes work of art combines past and present, the old and the new and transports the listener to a world that exists only in a space in time called Comala.

Juan Ramirez

FULL STRAWBERRY MOON (18 June 2008)

The Musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

ZOVIET FRANCE

WHAT IS NOT TRUE

Original Issue: 1993 Charrm (CHARRMCD17)

Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

I've been often asked about my favorite-all-times-album; as you can imagine it is somewhat impossible provide a credible answer to such a request; when one's has listened to thousands of records it is a true nightmare trying to put them in any sequential order.

Without any doubt the same question, formulated once a day for one year, would receive 365 different answers.

Anyway Zoviet France's "What is not true" is for sure one of my favorite because it is made of my own essence - dark, ritual, ethereal, esoteric, mysterious - and has provided me with excellent out-of-body-experiences during all these years.

One record that MUST be present in every DEEP LISTENER's collection.

1 Public Service Announcement
2 Not Just What To Say
3 Cyclonic Sub Alien

from group website:

:z*f:'s live masterpiece, combining samples and atmospheric electronics into a work of what Phil England described as "unreserved beauty" (The Wire July 95). The extended, awe-inspiring Cyclonic Sub Alien, which accounts for two-thirds of the total duration of the CD ends the disc as it began - with a distant Shipping Forecast - over an endless, shifting drone: a truly transcendental experience!

from Trouser Press:

The far superior (respect to "Vienna") "What Is Not True" assembles three long tracks from shows in Sheffield and Nottingham into a work of album-like cohesion. The 54-minute closer "Cyclonic Sub Alien" is a masterpiece of shifting drones that develop slowly into an ungodly cavern of noise before ending with the ghostly floating voices of a distant broadcast. Magnificent head music, to say the least.

Scott Lewis / Jesse Simon

CRAZY MOON (incredibly strange musick)

ZERO KAMA
THE SECRET EYE OF L.A.Y.L.A.H.

Original Issue: 1984 Nekrophile (NRC 07)

Reissue: 1991 Permis De Construire (PER 023)


Margot-meter: 4 moons / 5

1 Death Posture (3:12)
2 Atavism Dream (3:52)
3 Night Of Matter (3:21)
4 Inaguration Of The Pleasure Dome (3:55)
5 Love Alway Yieldeth (4:03)
6 Azure-Lidded Woman (Pregnant Womb Of Non) (3:50)
7 Hassan | Sabbah (4:03)
8 Starlit Mire (3:53)
9 Winged Eye Hadit (5:12)
10 Love Alway Hardeneth (3:58)
11 Town Of Pyramids (Night Of Pan) (3:28)

From Reissue Liner Notes

All instruments to be heard on this album were exclusively made from human bones and skulls by the hand of Zero Kama. They never have been used since the time of its recording, which took place at the Secret Temple of Laylah from 5th to 28th of May 1984 e.v.

Remixed at Psychonaut Studio Vienna in November 1987 e.v., and dedicated to the symbol of Laylah, meaning night and death, as well as to its numerical equivalent, Oz, a goat or unrestrained sexual force of creation, thus showing the identity of the basic two opposite forces in this generous universe of beauty and strength, in which the Lovers my find ecstasy in Pan. Who wishes to enter this world of darkness, in which the Great Goat dwelleth, may pass through the sigil of Oz given at the front of this Cover.