The Keraunograph Ensemble - The Omnipresent Vol.IV: Writings of Earth lp
"Vaguely unpleasant chamber music" - that piqued the interest. Vaguely unpleasant chamber music, tendered under the power acoustic interra-gations of James Hamilton – that sealed the deal. Quote, Writings of Earth both complements and extends the entropic and geotraumatic concerns which were the focus of JH's previous Nebris project (1998-2009), recontextualising them in a textural language closer to his current work with Preterite (2009-2013), unquote. That's what he says. A less punctilious sort might say it like: "NH whips out a wackload of bows, hammers, reeds, strings and voices, and gets in a big ol' orgy with David Jackman, plunging desola-ted sorow-s into sultry enveloping layers of rusted-out ornithic forelimbs, adhering fast to the well-primed soundhole, ultimately to render the throbbing aural organ numb, like it were froze to the ground."* (Tried to fit the word "cavernous" in there, but couldn't manage, me bad.) My shoe is off, my foot is cold, my attention lost suddenly in the expansive, glowing, warmth of "Searing Field", and, shamed to admit, there's nothing even vaguely unpleasant about it. Halfway through things take a turn for the dramatic, deepening to a crimson-hued fiery resonance as the bowed metals bleed through their singed, feeding back, extremities. This is pretty much as good as drone gets, says I, JH sure knows his shit! "Screaming beneath the earth" emerges in a rather more sedate stream of sonorous ringings and bowings, echoed drift almost hinting at the ethereal- but, at the not insignificant interval of 3:33, a thrilling note is struck, signifying the commencement of a stately procession toward the roaring mouth of an infernal abyss. Notes are struck now in deliberate, rhythmic, succession, unveiling in their wake a host of angeli-demonic voices swelling at the threshold. As the massed conflagration of elemental outpouring surges to a rapturous close one perceives at last the unmistakable screaming beneath the earth, but such majestic screaming! With this ultra-limited boxed set, which smells like a true work of art, one obtains the download code for the lp itself plus four additional studies for The Omnipresent I – III, flowing, I believe, in reverse chronology through to the very first Keraunograph, "Prime Radiant", which was first made available in digital form in 2013. A shitload of ear-candy, in short. This is described on Bandcamp as "additional work in progress related to The Omnipresent cycle, recorded from 2009 to 2012", but it is no less fascinating. The aural passages report the progression, in reverse order, from quite primal guitar-feedback densities through to far more lush, full-bodied, un-earthly explorations. About as good a start to the Monkey Year as one could hope. Ook, ook.
