Let me paint you a picture; It’s 25 degrees Celsius and the sun is shining from a cloudless sky with the vivid summer colours enveloping everything, as you’re sitting on a bench outside, sipping coffee and watching the world slowly pass you by. It’s all warm and fuzzy, people are oddly positive, and you don’t need to work or aren’t in a hurry to get anywhere. And even though that moment in time is pure and beautiful, you are oblivious to all of it, rooted in complete stillness. The outside world might be iridescent, but the one within is monochrome and swaying through an utter annihilation of the self, suffocating in its ponderous and nightmarish ambiance. Why is that?
The black ambient/industrial act Sutekh Hexen and the hellscape sculpting Funerary Call are gearing up to release their collaboration album P:R:I:S:M on July 14 through Sentient Ruin and Cyclic Law, and that sentence alone should be enough information for anyone reading this. That, however, hardly constitutes an article, so I’ll add some emphasis on that; today, we’re joyfully devastated to bring you “Fractal: Void”, a new single taken from said album of monolithic proportions, and you’ll find this brooding ominous piece of contemporary sonic art to bathe in from the embed below;
If and when you hit play from above, you should have a pretty clear picture of whatever the fuck I was talking about in the opening paragraph. Having had the utmost pleasure and privilege of hearing the album in advance, I can tell you that P:R:I:S:M is the kind of effort that’s capable of draining you and your surroundings of all light and colour in an instant, yet for some reason and against the premise, it just feels so, so good.
Taking into account the unholy alliance of Sentient Ruin and Cyclic Law, the tendencies and tonalities found here aren’t exactly surprising. I’ve had plenty of encounters with Sutekh Hexen in the past (with Funerary Call being a new acquaintance for me, but already queued up for further exploration), so I was able to prepare ever so slightly for the dismal vortex that was about to unveil itself to me — or more precisely fully absorb my body and soul — but what I encountered was something that no man can honestly ever fully brace themselves for. “Fractal: Void” might run for only four minutes, but the cacophonous stream of carefully crafted noise and pummeling sound design makes every single second last for an eternity. Industrial washes and ritualistic ambiance blend in together with acerbic vocals piercing the eardrums on the song that perfectly encapsulates what P:R:I:S:M as a whole is; an annihilating depiction of hell conjured into flesh by means of sound.
The one constant found on “Fractal: Void”, alongside the rest of the album, is energy. In particular, the dark and weary kind that lingers on for a good while in your psyche once the music’s long gone and your ears have started to heal from the hallucinative barrage. While there are also others harnessing this type of sombre vigour for their output, there can really never be too much of it, and it is exactly this angle that makes the callous unison of Sutekh Hexen and Funerary call so striking and palpable.
As said, P:R:I:S:M is out on July 14, and you can grab the US vinyl and tape from Sentient Ruin from their shop or Bandcamp, and the EU vinyl and CD from Cyclic Law‘s shop and Bandcamp. You’ll also find socials for Sutekh Hexen from here, and for Funerary Call from over here. And now we wait for the inevitable.
