The Blackest Ever Black label are having a busy few months, with new releases having arrived recently from Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement and Alexander Lewis, and the full-length from Scottish duo Dalhous (nee Young Hunting) arriving imminently (watch out for an interview with them on the Quietus in the next few days). They’re also set to release Licht, the debut album by Shampoo Boy (featuring Editions Mego boss Peter Rehberg), later this month, and last week announced a pair of cassettes on their Krokodilo Tapes sub-label which promptly sold out on pre-order.
Now they’ve announced that they are set to release a new album by long-running "abyssal ambient" artist Brian Williams, aka Lustmord (pictured). Across the course of his 30 year career Williams has collaborated with all manner of major names at the extreme end of the music spectrum (including Quietus favourites such as Chris & Cosey, Clock DVA, Melvins and Jhonn Balance of Coil), and most recently has been working with Biosphere on the TRINITY live project, which premiered at Unsound Festival Krakow last year and was based around recordings taken in and around Los Alamos, New Mexico, the site of the first nuclear weapons tests.
Lustmord will be releasing The Word Is Power, his new studio album, through Blackest Ever Black in June. "Half a decade in the making, it’s an exploration of ritual music without dogma," reads the text accompanying the album’s release. "Sonically, The Word As Power is even more detailed, expansive and consuming than Lustmord’s followers have come to expect, with voices, electronics, immense sub-bass, field recordings and other acoustic phenomena harnessed and arranged to stimulate feelings of dread and desolation, certainly, but also escape, renewal and rebirth." The album is set to find him putting vocals centre stage for the first time, featuring guest appearances from some impressive names: former Swans member Jarboe, Tool’s Maynard James Keenan, Soriah and Aina Skinnes Olsen.
The Word Is Power‘s tracklist runs as follows:
’Babel’ (10:01)
’Goetia’ (5:16)
’Chorazin’ (17:29)
’Grigori’ (14:19)
’Andras Sodom’ (7:24)
’Abaddon’ (12:17)
’Y Gair’ (8:26)
Blackest Ever Black have also released the first details of the 2013 edition of their annual London party, which will take place at Corsica Studios on Saturday 13th October. Previous editions have been thoroughly enjoyable affairs, featuring appearances from the likes of Vatican Shadow, Regis and Surgeon as British Murder Boys, William Bennett’s Cut Hands, Source Direct, Bruce Gilbert and Raime; one particular highlight of last year’s party, we seem to recall, involved Regis dropping the Dad’s Army theme tune at a thoroughly antisocial hour of the morning.
This year’s edition, again hosted in association with BleeD, thus far has three names on the roster. First up is Camella Lobo’s Tropic Of Cancer, who will be playing her darkened, dubbed-out, gothic pop live. She’ll be joined by Dalhous (live) and Dva Damas, the duo of Taylor Burch and Joseph Cocherell, who released their debut LP Nightshade via Regis’ label Downwards earlier this year. More names are set to be announced in advance of the night, but for the time being you can grab tickets from here.
And as ever, for more information and to order the label’s releases, shoot across to their website here.
