Cassette (Black Mass Records)

Review
on crucialblast.net

Now sold out from the source, Emanation's One Soul One Body One Spirit is one of two somewhat recent releases from this obscure Spanish black metal-ish project with connections to Teitenblood and Like Drone Razors Through Flesh Sphere that we've listed in the C-Blast shop this week. As with the 12" that Emanation followed this with, this five-song tape features a mixture of experimental black ambience and necro-industrial delirium that is heavily inspired by the field of spiritism and séances along with other, more esoteric leanings, crafting a ghostly murkscape that at first vaguely resembles the creepy low-fi ambience of Moëvöt, but then gradually evolves into a kind of necrotic krautrock somewhat akin to France's Aluk Todolo. In fact, it's probably not even that accurate to describe this as "black metal", as Emanation's music tends be much more experimental, in some ways coming across more like a kind of blackened hypnotic noise rock.

Even from the start, this puts off an unmetallic vibe. The title track creeps out across the first few minutes in a hazy cloud of murky dissonance and strange gasping vocals, gusts of white noise swirling around soft distant swells of metallic thrum and muffled tones, a soft din of far-off mechanical rumblings, random knockings and television news transmissions met with the eerie cry of an infant. These noises mix together with what seems like random environmental sounds, the grimy corroded ambience ruptured with odd buzzing and bursts of malfunctioning cable noise, this strange nocturnal dronescape taking form somewhere in between the realm of surreal industrial noise a la Big City Orchestra and the hallucinatory no-fi black psychedelia of the aforementioned Les Legions Noires outfits like Moëvöt and Aäkon Këëtrëh, dark and dreary and dreamlike.

But then around ten minutes in, the recording suddenly swells into a noisy, chaotic din of thudding drums and swarming guitars and keyboards, everything fused together into an incomprehensible blur of sound, those drums pounding out a basic heavy backbeat far, far down in the mix, everything wrapped in a thick blanket of static and distortion. Not too far off from some of Skullflower's recent black metal influenced material, actually, and there's also a similar feel to Wold's blackened blizzards of howling high-end skree and hellish obfuscated melody. Bizarre high-pitched howls echo across the background, obscured by the almost constant roar of static and hiss, but there's a definite musical quality to it as well, an eerie melodic glow emanating from deep within the inchoate noise. It slowly comes together into a steady, slowly propulsive dirge, driving through this storm of Merzbowian scrape and screech, a static-drenched funerary crawl that gradually reveals glimpses of a stunning unearthly beauty hidden behind the maelstrom, wisps of hauntingly beautiful piano that curl through the smoke-choked acrid air. It's nearly impossible to make out where one song ends and the next begins; all of these five tracks run into one another, making this like one epic-length din of blackened hysteria that stretches out for over an hour. It's not until well into the second side that Emanation finally erupts into something heavier and more "metallic", but even then it's totally blown-out, a howling chaotic shambling black dirge that, once again, is much more akin to Aluk Todolo than black metal, a pounding hypno-pummel shrouded within a storm of speakerhiss and warbling keyboard clusters, like hearing Wold transform into some sort of fractured low-fi krautrock.

Comes in an oversized jewel case, and includes liner notes that delve into the philosophies and inspirations behind the creation of this ectenic force. Limited to one hundred hand-numbered copies.


Review
by Apteronotus / contaminatedtones.blogspot.com

You stand in a musky room lit only by candles and patiently form a circle with your peers around the old wooden table. As you wait for the spirits to speak to you, what do you hear? Faint cries, children playing in an empty gym or underground veterinary hospital, electric buzzing, and distant rumbles and clicks. A loud knock startles you.



Emanation uses these very sounds as a way of showcasing their spiritism theme, a theme that is so prominent that despite pacing concerns, we hear mostly these sounds for the first ten whole minutes of this release. With a ghastly wail, the song then breaks into droning tremolo picked guitars and we later often hear a kick drum so loud and powerful that it makes you feel like your eardrums were located on top of your pounding heart. Even when introducing traditional metal instruments, the band keeps the same ghosty mood by using echo and repetition to distort the sound nearly beyond recognition. Vocals, guitars, and percussion all melt together in a indiscernible vapor where even melody and rhythm are hard to identify. For listeners that are into ambient moody, hypnotic, and repetitive music this is good news - for everyone else, the band has a serious pacing problem. Those first ten minutes of noises may seem like a bold decision, but they pale in comparison to the fact that the first track clocks in at a staggering Wagnerian 44 minutes in length. Even beyond the first track, the entire work can be viewed as “One Soul, One Body, One Spirit,” and one song. Since the music is so neutral, this is a test of attention span rather than patience.

As a recurring theme, the long ambient sections serve to break up “One Soul, One Body, One Spirit” into chunks of relative noise or silence while generating a creepy atmosphere. Unlike the many bands that toy with spooky ambiences, Emanation manages to make them quite palatable by incorporating layers of sounds that create a realistic feeling of silence. In the real world, when things get quiet there is are often still many different sounds vying for attention. This prevents things from becoming flat and the band maintains a faint sense melodies by peppering in slow forlorn synths. These slight touches can also be heard in how the band uses almost imperceptibly quiet tones and ringing as a foundation for their samples. Each droning tone helps tie one rumbling to another and notes become individually unimportant as they are enveloped by the wall of sound. Emanation has an abundance of mood and a strong sense for how to be simultaneously quiet and still musical.


With the heavy sections, soaring high notes act almost like feedback on top of the droning tremolo picked wall of sound. The guitar tones are fuzzy and crackling, creating a seamless and static-like blend that immediately recalls the distant and haunting electrical noises from the quieter parts. The meditative feel is more enveloping with layers of textures. During the metal bits, the band often creates such layers by having a single droning tremolo picked note while other melodic lines weave toward and away from that note. In much of the music guitar-like buzzing acts as a second melody on top the more normal notes. Even the vocals sit in the background and the tortured wailing acts as another layer of sound. At times, this approach feels conceptually more interesting than the execution. This is due to Emanation's habit of stretching out ideas, which is most likely intentional. Another seemingly deliberate and unusual part of the music is how the drums are sloppy and disorganized in a natural way. Abrupt, yet driving and never jarring because of the support from the noisy guitar's enveloping wall of sound.


The effect of “One Soul, One Body, One Spirit's” homogeneity however is surprisingly neutral, the band does not need the repetition but it doesn't harm the music in a significant way. The band envelopes the listener in a way that is compelling yet far from exciting. This is clear because even after around an hour and a half of music no particular section sticks out as memorable yet the experience is never tiresome. For example, a soft and high pitched piano or bell rings consistently serve to make the quiet sections an overall pleasant although redundant experience. In a sense, this is extraordinarily impressive given how often the band returns to the same musical idea without ever exhausting it. This droning makes the release almost like a one-riff or even riffless “Filosofem.” A hypnotic atmosphere and careful musical layering will however only take a band so far, which leaves this release rather flawed but still enjoyable. Music for long-distance runners into black metal, redundant yet pleasurable music for repetitive time intensive activities.