SILENT LOVE OF DEATH: New act has been signed for HCD

Silent Love of Death is the Spanish band formed by the brothers Toledo (Juan Carlos and Miguel Ángel) settled down in the south part of their country.

They began to make music around the year 1996 with another musical project called “Lament” publishing the following demos: Lament (1996), Grey Age (1996), Resting in a place like this (1998). “Lament” moved between gothic rock and dark pop with different influences.

Their musical maturity causes that in the year 2000 a change of musical registry was made. Silent Love of Death was born. So at the end of the year 2003 SLOD finished “The Poet´s Senses”, their first album (Palace Of Worms, 2005). It´s a calling to the rebel spirit of the romantic writers of the centuries XVIII & XIX. Blake, Baudelaire, Espronceda or Bécquer contribute with their artistic essence covered by the cold solemnity and the decay of the band.
Some time ago SLOD colaborated in the compilation of spanish bands “My Dear Freaks” (Caustic Records, 2004), a colletion of musical jewels of the spanish dark scene.
At the moment the band finishes their second album “Donde Habite el Olvido” dedicated to the poems of »amor & horror« of Sevillian poet Luis Cernuda that shall be released at HORUS CyclicDaemon in early 2011. You can read its detailed reviews at .: La Defunción :. as well as Mentenebre.

There is also a provisional art-work using the famous picture by Salvador Dalí nevertheless already now we can disclose that art-work and pictures shall be provided by well known Czech photographer Václav Jirásek (he designed previous V/A compilations such as Chaos 333, Lust From The Underworld), especially from his portfolio of Mexican pictures and stylised »black death« scenes.

You can watch two versions of trailer of future Silent Love of Death's tracks, Como la Piel (1 & 2), and Atardecer en la catedral trailer.

Ossaserpia: Interview by Ivan Racheck

Chain D.L.K.: Please tell us how you got the idea to make the album "Music For Solve et Coagula".
Ossaserpia: Firstly it was a collection of tracks I made at nighttime sitting in a small studio... I liked to make covers of old baroque lute composer´s but the tracks finally were too different from the originals, sort of alchemy... The name was inspired by "Magick In Theory And Practice" by Aleister Crowley.

Chain D.L.K.: I think the artwork for that album must be one of the most ambitious ones I have ever seen. Some might say it is too much. Speak to us about the artwork and booklet.
Ossaserpia: Yes the artwork is unusual for musical format. I'm not a designer and all ideas were developed my Martin (Mrskos) with paintings by Madeleine. We had never corresponded with her and I think it was good idea to let one person feel individually, to watch from different angles.. Anyway I felt a bit nervous if the artwork would be too "gothic". But in contrary it is too "classical" which is really great as it brings a touch of ancient art.

Chain D.L.K.: Do you have any musical education?
Ossaserpia: No and I´m thankful for it. Musical education in Russia is absolutely ill and useless. It stopped at teaching music of times of Tchaikovsky and Glinka and has nothing to do with music now... I like mathematics instead, it's modern forever.

Chain D.L.K.: What are your main music inspirations?
Ossaserpia: They are different from year to year, I liked Depeche Mode in school and was astonished by The Cure's "Head On The Door". The next revelation was Throbbing Gristle "TGCD1" and then Current 93 " Of Ruine Or Some Blazing Starre".Presently it is classic industrial of 80s - Eric Random, Test Dept, Zoviet France and especially Bourbonese Qualk, Legendary Pink Dots. But I don't like to divide music in styles; there are great artists in each kind... It's stupid to restrict yourself in a kind of a style like metal heads do and then try to get out from your own restrictions trying to invent something new.

Chain D.L.K.: Any other inspirations you like to mention?
Ossaserpia: Michel Houellebecq.

Chain D.L.K.: How have the changes in the Russian government, political ideology and the current Russian economic situation influenced you?
Ossaserpia: I live in a strange area; this land is under Russian government 60 years only. Alas old Koenigsberg is almost demolished by war and communists but anyway it's great to live near the borders of Europe. I really don't like the post-communist government of Moscow who do nothing for integration of this region into European Union. There's too much propaganda about times of war and enemies from Poland and Germany, etc. It's really disgusting to spend funds on it when 50 percents of Russia live in poverty...

Chain D.L.K.: Do you like "Stalker" (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)?
Ossaserpia: Rather "Solaris" if to speak about Tarkovsky.

Chain D.L.K.: For me your album breathes sci-fi and space. I also felt some of that feeling in the K.Meizter release prior to yours. Did you have thoughts about sci-fi when creating your opus?
Ossaserpia: I'm not too much into sci-fi. Maybe Lovecraft or Houellebecq "La possibilite d'une ile".

Chain D.L.K.: What is your opinion on K.Meizter´s album "traveling light"?
Ossaserpia: I very rarely listen to fresh releases, usually new albums of artists I liked before, for example it was nice album from Current 93 or new Nick Cave's Grinderman release.

Chain D.L.K.: Another very good album release on Horus CyclicDaemon is Musterion with "The black lodge". What do you think about Musterion? Outside of Horus CyclicDaemon (but in the scene) what do you like (music)?

Ossaserpia: I'm not too much into dark ambient releases. Probably early releases of Nocturnal Emissions or Maurizio Bianchi, Zoviet France.

Chain D.L.K.: What is next for you? Any new releases planned?
Ossaserpia: There's some new material but it let's say more psychedelic... I'm not sure if Martin will like it...

Chain D.L.K.: If you got unlimited funds what would you do with your music?
Ossaserpia: Nothing. It's not pop/commercial music. It has nothing common with funds. A.

Chain D.L.K.: Talk to us about Martin Mrskos (the mind behind Horus CyclicDaemon). How did you get in touch, how is your contact today and how did you get him to create such a deluxe booklet/release?
Ossaserpia: I met him around 10 years ago; he promoted a concert of Ordo Equitum Solis, a great Italian band. I was for the first time in Czech Republic and wanted to see a concert of them. So we met in Trebic, a small town near Brno and it was a great time. Since that I have met Martin a couple of more times, I like his beautiful shop in Brno. But now as a Russian citizen I need visa to go to Czech so I haven't meet Martin in around 5 years. We discussed everything by e-mail and all concerned artwork was his ideas...

Chain D.L.K.: Your Tracklist is weird. Talk to us about it please.
Ossaserpia: Everything is very simple; the material was recorded around 5 years ago. So I used just file names of the tracks left in the computer.

Chain D.L.K.: Madeline von Foerster made art for you. How did that happen?
Ossaserpia: It's all the idea of Martin, I never met her.

Chain D.L.K.: Anything to add?
Ossaserpia: I really like the town I live in, old Koenigsberg... And the scene here... Romowe Rikoito, Kratong, etc... 

K. Meizter shall not design art-work for LINGUA FUNGI: Melankhton (CD)

K. Meizter unfortunately shall not design LINGUA FUNGI: Melankhton album due to a lot of work. We will keep you informed who will be a new artist for this project.

[Read our previous article: LINGUA FUNGI: New act has been signed for HCD].

LINGUA FUNGI composes an intelligent and intelligible ambient electronics and all of you shall be surprised be the exquisite tones and sound colours. What a beautiful melancholy!

It shall be released in late summer 2010.

New Reviews: MUSTERION: The Wondrous Journey Through the Catacombs of Life (CD)

A couple of new reviews can be found on the internet:

Mentenebre*
Gothtronic

*) If you do not know Portuguese you can read the translation by Simon Kölle here below.

MENTENEBRE


»Following readers who know my writing and my comments about the current Dark Ambient scene. While not my favorite style I'm finding some compositions that are extremely interesting, as this case at hand, this is second CD of Musterion after the debut "The Black Lodge" in 2006. While not my favorite style I am discovering some that are extremely interesting composition, and in the case at hand, this second CD musterion after their debut "The Black Lodge" there in 2006.
 
Musterion have developed their musical passages combining the wonders of programming tools with real instruments like guitar and violin, which stains all his compositions of an organic touch.

As with the real guitar and violin in the organic composition sometimes it also includes a female voice that would serve as the tormented soul or out of his mind, and this album leads us through the winding introspective world, a journey through the depths of human life.
It is a kind of Dada-tinged musical schizophrenic. It is a kind of musical Dadaism ink schizophrenics. Not a pleasant trip it is almost a nightmare, a circus attraction in a stroller that takes us to the depths of the mind. We outline the melodic elements of reality in the midst of the cave deep in our psyche.
 
The CD artwork perfectly illustrates the meaning of the work: collages in which elements are subverted our Western culture: a King Kong in the costume of Superman destroying the Empire State, decaying skeletons, a bottle of poison and a kind of spider with human head and limbs with multiple eyes (this reminds me of the end of the movie "The Fly" (1958), where the end is the human-headed fly trapped in a spider web).
It is the world of dreams, its the collective unconscious of mental deconstruction of a world that torments us.

The music boxes that appear in various parts of the work we have as children, our adult psyche's though always veiled and hidden in the depths of our subconscious to surface in the form of fear or repression. To contextualize the music I have to say that somehow it remind me of our Trajedesaliva, atleast the poetry of those, it becomes choppy words and fragments in Musterion.
 
The listening, as generally all dark ambient compositions must be reserved for an intimate space. It's music for one only, not to share.
It is the genesis of pure escape, to escape the body for a moment and dream of a journey.
This avoidance Musterion in this case leads us to the sewers around the world in which we live, with the tracks we leave the capitalist nightmare in our psyche.

I would say this is the Dark Ambient music for hermits to stylites the western world that instead of going to the desert or climb a mountain are placing the earphones on to indulge and escape from a world that does not share. If you feel that you are one of them, surely the Musterion proposal is a good way out.«
 
Grade: 7,5 of 10
Pedro Ortega