Allerseelen – “Schwartzer Rab” – [Aorta]

Schwartzer Rab (“Black Raven”) is a circa 1989 performance by Allerseelen (“All Souls Day”): Austrian musician Gerhard Petak (aka Caedmon). Inspired by nature, alchemy, ritual, as well as the existentialist, nihilist, anarchist, and reactionary writing of Friedrich Nietzsche, Ernst Junger, and Julius Evola, this sonic material emanates a reflective, brooding, post-industrial, dark ambient moodscape. Apparently, this recording was actually a shamanic ritual disguised as a dramatic act…its reverance focused on the role of the raven in mythology as a messenger…trixter…creator…destroyer…a mediator between spititual and material realms. Track 1 consists of the background music that was implemented during the main performance, and Tracks 2-6 are related material recorded the same month. Each subsequent movement utilizes a similar deployment of synthesizers, samples, loops, effects and live intrumentation as the primary piece…but with varied mixing and concentration of sound.

Track 1 (29:47)…entrancing, distraught, numinous, oblique and gloomy. An aural harbinger fraught with a gripping cadence, trembling notes, and reiterate screeches.