Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Members: Harlow MacFarlane (Funerary Call, Grey Towers Stone Temples, Between Voices, Sistrenatus, A Thousand Plateaus etc.)
Production: Harlow MacFarlane
Mastering: James Plotkin
Artwork: Lindsey Roderick
Type: compact-disc (300 copies) in LP-like format
Duration: 35:53 minutes
Genre: Industrial Horror Ambient
Location: Sweden
Members: Marcus Lönebrink
Guest: Pär Boström (on Sanctum)
Mastering: Frederic Arbour
Artwork: Viktor Kvant
Type: 6-panel digipack compact-disc (300 copies)
Duration: 48:51 minutes
Genre: esoteric, mystic & ritual Dark Drone Ambient
Since I like to read about mythology from Ancient Times, and since the ones from the Middle-East are of an extremely intriguing level, I did recognize the name ‘Lamashtu’. She was a naughty demigoddess (kindness was not her middle-name for sure, haha) in Sumerian / Mesopotamian mythology, daughter of the (important) god Anu, who liked to torture pregnant women and mothers who just gave birth, and to menace new-born children, eating their flesh, gnawing on their bones.
This review deals with another collaboration by two of my mostly appreciated labels, Cyclic Law and Sentient Ruin Laboratories. And… This review also deals with a collaboration of two mostly appreciated North-American projects, Sutekh Hexen and Funerary Call, respectively coming from The U.S. (California) and Canada. I won’t go into these labels’ or acts’ biography this time, yet I’d like to go into this album’s content immediately.
Cyclic Law, currently located in France, were formed in 2002 ‘to promote international musicians working in the field of Ambient, Experimental and Industrial Soundscapes’. The label gets run by Frédéric Arbour, who is the same mastermind behind projects like Visions, Instincts and some others.
This release was released more than one year ago in the meantime (it got prepared a while ago, but I just forgot to finish and publish it), but I couldn’t just ignore it. Due to circumstances in 2022 I haven’t been active for a long time, but even ‘older’ material that deserves all additional support and promotion, will be taken care of by yours truly.
Curse All Kings is a young project by Rob Fisk aka B.S.s., whom you might know from his outfit Common Eider, King Eider in the first place, and some Psych / Indie Rock bands with international fame as well.
It would be a waste of time to invest my time on an introduction, and it would be a waste of time for you to read an extended biography / discography on Raison d’Être, probably the best known outfit by Swedish multi-talented artist Peter Andersson, active for three decades at this very moment. So I’ll skip this part. You can still search for additional information in one of the former reviews I did (links for some of them, see below) or on the Internet.
(review for an older recording, released in 2020, but who cares – it’s all about aural art and sonic supremacy!)
For some incomprehensible reason I did miss Beckahesten’s 2020-debut Vattenhålens Dräpare, although Cyclic Law did kindly offer this material to me. I don’t know why, how, when, but I never got to download that great album. A shame, a pity, a stupid thing to occur.
