Australian Post-Metal/Doom band Black Aleph announces their upcoming record “Apsides,” out on October 25, 2024 on Art As Catharsis and Dunk! Records.
Black Aleph are a Sydney/Melbourne based Experimental ensemble featuring Lachlan Dale (guitar/effects), Peter Hollo (cello/effects) and Timothy Johannessen (percussion).
On their debut album, the trio draw inspiration from diverse sources ranging from Post-Metal to Middle-Eastern Modal Music. Apsides features both composed and improvised pieces that involve the players layering live-loops, ritualistic-beats and doom-metal style musical variations that progressively unfold and build in intensity throughout the performance.
Black Aleph’s style has been compared to Justin Broadrick, Neurosis and Godspeed You! Black Emperor – though there is a borderline spiritual quality to the music that comes from the unique instrumentation: guitar, cello, and Iranian daf drum.
The sound is tectonic – apt for a record centred around concepts of orbital mechanics, like the notion of ‘apsis’, which is the points of extreme and least distance between a celestial and a primary body (sun-earth-moon) in an elliptical orbit. A second theme concerns the relationship between light and dark, or more specifically the difference between bodies that emit versus those that merely reflect light – and in-between those that obstruct it.
“Descent” is the first single from the record, opening with an earth-shattering Drone, before shifting into Blackened Sludge, with Jessica Kenney‘s spectral voice hovering overhead. It’s something of a statement of intent: crushingly heavy and direct, while maintaining the air of mystical procession.
“Even to me, the combination of the three of us and the instruments we play results in something I genuinely would not expect,” explains Timothy Johannessen. “This is in part due to the use of the daf as a percussive element, and the cello serving as part bass, part second guitar, part strings. The guitar, too, can fill out the sub-bass register. At times it loops and layers upon itself, building into a mass of melodic layers and noise. The result is genuinely organic, and no doubt a product of our shared and, at the same time, quite different musical reference points.”
The first single from the album, “Descent,” is out now.
Stream the track through the Spotify player below:
Purchase and Stream the single here: https://art-as.org/blackaleph-descent
There are clues littered in the background of each member. Lachlan R. Dale (guitar) has belonged to a string of bands in the Australian underground – Hashshashin, Serious Beak, Adrift For Days – which have explored polyrhythms, Drone, and the potentialities of cinematic, instrumental music.
Peter Hollo (cello) performs with ‘Post-everything’ quartet Tangents, who collide the improvisational approach of The Necks with Electronic Music, Classical and Film Music, Rock, Noise and whatever else might emerge from the ether. His solo project raven straddles electronic beatmaking, cello sampling, looping and live processing.
And Timothy Johannessen (daf) introduces elements of Dastgāh into his playing, having performed in the traditional Persian group Mehr Ensemble for a number of years. He cites his daf teacher, Arash Zanganeh, as an inspiration alongside names like Azeri spiritual musician Alim Qasimov, Turkish masters Arif Saag and Eroglu, alongside Metal, Avant-Garde and Classical influences.
Black Aleph formed in 2018, initially as a collaboration between Lachlan and Timothy, for an improvisation-based installation-performance at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. Following the success of that performance, the duo continued to collaborate, composing pieces and performing extensively across the east coast of Australia. During this period, the duo also collaborated with various guest musicians, including the luminary cellist, and fixture of the Australian Experimental Music scene, Peter Hollo, who joined the lineup as a permanent member in 2022.
“This is a project with real personal resonance for the three of us, and something we take very seriously,” says Peter Hollo. “Playing a (highly idiosyncratic) form of metal – heavy, distorted, ritualistic music – especially with two thoughtful comrades, is a dream.”
“Apsides” was recorded over a number of years by Tim Carr (We Lost The Sea) and mastered by Mell Dettmer (Earth, Sunn O))). Jessika Kenney lends her sublime voice to a number of tracks, as does Natalya Bing her violin. The album cover artwork was created by Melbourne-based artist Darren Tanny Tan, whose process involves ‘destroying’ a solid surface using various materials and techniques, while the single artwork was produced by the Syrian artist Salah Alkhal.
Black Aleph’s debut album represents the potentialities of reconstructed Post-Metal and Doom, drawing from Middle Eastern Modal traditions – and proof that Heavy, cinematic and hypnotic music still has much to offer as an artform.
Black Aleph’s debut album “Apsides” is out October 25, 2024 on Art As Catharsis & Dunk! Records.
Pre-Order the album on Bandcamp: https://blackaleph.bandcamp.com/album/apsides
Tracklist:
01. Descent
02. Ambit I (Ascension)
03. Ambit II (Aphelion)
04. Separation
05. Precession
06. Return
07. Occultation
