Published by Alessandro Violante on February 22, 2016
That of experiential music is probably one of the definitions that perfectly suits for the musical-conceptual Milan-based creature Satanismo Calibro 9, well-known project active since several years that has released several releases for an important label as Old Europa Cafe, which members are Pery, Gnosis, J. and Lorenzo Abattoir (already active with the Nascitari and Mare di Dirac projects), with the occasional collaboration of Dorian (active with Caronte, a doom-stoner project).
Blood Coven isn’t properly a new album, but the re-release on CD format of a tape realized for the X Congresso Post-industriale, held on the last 31th october and consisting of two Tunnel’s alternate versions (a composition originally included in the Sitra Achra album) and Ritual 111 (included in Typhon Rising), the live registration of two “secret ceremonies” held some days before the above mentioned Congresso and a new composition entitled Blood coven. This release, printed in only 50 copies, is the result of a collaboration among the already quoted Rodolfo Protti’s label and Soundscape713 label, active in Milan.
Their music can’t be easily detached from its performative-ritualistic dimension, but represents a sort of “narration” put into music, a trip towards “different” dimensions, a medium through which it’s possible to detach ourselves from the frustrating and chaotic everyday life, in order to reach a contemplative and spiritual dimension (a sort of personal ivory tower that allow us to analyze, from outside, the disgust that we live). SC9’s universe is made of particular rituals whose numbers are recurring elements and of Cabbalah (Sitra Achra, for example, means “reign of evil”), but all their works, including this, are pervaded by a particular as well as inusual aura of mysticism and esoteric taste, elements commonly linked to the music mainly known with the definition of ritual industrial (in which there are strong Coil and Current 93 musical influences, among the others), a wise mixture of dark ambient, noise and post-industrial with a strong ritualistic connotation.
If we want it, any composition of the release will open us doors that will lead us to new dimensions and places: in Blood coven, this one featuring Iugula-thor, we find ourselves into a subterranean obscure and hidden crypt that has a noise floor put on the background that gives it a certain firmness. Here, as in the other compositions, music is just the medium of sonic representation of the ritual, and acquires its true value only when played live, in the moment in which sound and performance meet themselves. When listened at home, all is left to the listener imagination.
Ritual 111 carries us into a spiritual-esoteric dimension characterized by the use of “mystic” sounds in which a woman executes a ritual in which she says sentences that progressively bring her to a state of total involvement and to a certain degree of “madness” (let’s think about her brutal screams) and, musically, the sounds emphasize the progressive climax, that progressively intensifies itself. It’s one of the “stronger” compositions of the album, if the listener accepts to be carried there.
The long The black hermit and the longer Ritual 218 are, as said above, recordings of secret ceremonies that need to be necessarily contextualized in their performances, but whose full comprehension is impossible as the listeners lacks the knowledge of their details and of their meanings. Even this mystery contributes in building an even more mysterious aura around two very particular compositions, of which the second is probably the best episode of the album. A heavy blanket of noise covers a musical-conceptual universe made of a bad trip-like synth carpet and of a ritualistic ancestral chant. Tunnel – Those awaiting beyond the portal is characterized by mystical-esoteric, as well as mysterious, sounds.
Blood Coven, although apparently not seeming a particularly cohesive work but, in particular, a sequence of compositions linked with each other by a common element which meaning is not understandable to the listener, is a good SC9 work, that shows well the project’s particular approach to the listener, that let us imagine how different and particular (if we think about some of their colleagues) their live performances can be. If you’re interested in bridging this gap, they will play live in Parma on 26th march during the Noise Coven II festival.
Label: Old Europa Cafe / Soundscape713
Score: 7