Seven Morgues are (or were?) a project by Industrial / Ambient / Ritual Music artist Oren Ben Yosef, assisted by Ravid Zigdon, Yaron Allouche and some other human beings. They did record and release some material during last decade, and this release, the full length Brass Bells Poor Brothers!, is, if I am not mistaken, the latest release by this Israeli project. It was released by Against it Records, a sister-label of ContraMusikProduktion, run by Ralf Rabendorn (in a couple of days you will find two reviews on stuff from his self-called solo-project, FYI). The latter, by the way, took care of the artwork and pictures on this album, as well as the final mastering.
This album, released in a very limited edition, truly shocked me… the positive way! It’s not the lay-out only that is worth being mentioned (folded carton sleeve, with a certain ‘less-is-more’ attitude), but it’s the sonic experience that surprised me; and it still does after a couple of listens.
The album opens with Frames, which starts with some eerie trumpet, followed by mantric elements, like bells and deep hypnotic vocals. This is the opening of the Gate to, well, somewhere misty and mystic, psychedelic and spi/ritual for sure. MedusaDa Music from another dimension! For seven minutes, this piece of aural mesmerism takes the listener into a trancelike state of mind, and believe me: this is only the beginning of a wonderful journey! Next comes Songs Through Children, and it surprises me immediately for the difference with the opening song. A rather minimal yet ‘growing’ acoustic introduction gets joined, after about a minute and a half, by disturbing guitar sounds, subtle triangle hits, helicopter-ish programming and dreamy, monotonous chants. What a fabulous contrast in between esoteric integrity and disturbing noises this is! This House Is Falling Down initially brings some weird, quasi-shamanistic tribal invocation, soon injected by weird drones, noises and sounds, while those voices speed up the full-energetic way. Tribal Industrial as Anti Music it is. This sonic experience builds up towards a frenzy finale, rather apocalyptic than the semi-divine origins. Completely different, once again, is Failure And Reminder, coming closer to introvert Neo-Folk with a melodic structure performed by piano especially, and melodic, somewhat melancholic voices. After a while, it gets joined by different percussions and acoustic guitars, but still the noisy elements that characterize this project return time after time. Yes, this stuff massacres your grey cells with sardonic irony. Witkin As A Swan is little (and with ‘little’ I do mean ‘little’) comparable to the former piece, with a symbiosis of Folk-oriented structures and Industrial / Noise-based elements. The last but one track is the title song, also the longest composition on the album. Brass Bells Poor Brothers! is a grandiose piece of both elegance and disturbance, with those returning repetitive ‘grunts’ which are sloganing the album’s title, as well as some martial melodies and industrialized noise-additions, spacy voices, neo-classical cacophonies… The final track, …But Where Is Home When The Heart Is Bleeding?, is once again a calmer, more integer and almost esoteric piece of hypnotic ambience, and just the perfect closure for a mostly unique and attractive forty five minute piece of un-trendy grotesquery.
Fans of stuff à la Negligee, Les Joyaux De La Princesse, early The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath A Cloud, Catgirl, Josef Nadek or… No, I won’t give comparisons, for Seven Morgues are truly unique; an entity on their own.
Remove all limiting barriers and do not get corrupted, folks. Stay true to the honest essence of Aural Pleasure! Get rid of blinkers and open your mind and soul for a grandiose journey!