Status: Single
City: Kaiserslautern
State: Rheinland-Pfalz
Country: DE
Signup Date: 10/7/2005
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Monday, March 24, 2008
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From Chain D.L.K...tr class="title_bg">| | Artist: E.V.P. [ webmaster {at} postmortemcreations {dot} com ] Title: The Postmortem Canticles Of Necromancy Format: CD Label: Autumn Wind [ strength1971 {at} yahoo {dot} com ] Rated:   | | THE POSTMORTEM CANTICLES OF NECROMANCY is the debut album of E.V.P. (which stands for Electronic Voice Phenomena, the sections of static noise on the radio or electronic recording which some listeners believe sound like voices speaking). Even if the project started back in 2002 this is their first full length because their demo "Talk to the Dead" has never been released. Being inspired by occultism, necromancy, post-mortem and paranormal activity the album contains thirteen tracks which have been recorded and conceived by Scorpios Androctonus. He did a wonderful job by mixing classical music sounds, industrial sounds, marching rhythms, tribal atmospheres, some electronic sounds and everything useful into the creation of a creepy and evocative atmosphere. Recalling 50's horror movies atmospheres the album seems to be the soundtrack to a grimoire (note the Cornelius Agrippa phrase printed on the fold out poster you can find inside the dvd case of the CD) where the different tracks are the steps of the process. If this month you have the money to purchase only one album and you are a fan of martial industrial genre and you love Zero Kama, check this one first. | ..tr> Review by: Maurizio Pustianaz | ..table>..table>.
EVP - _Postmortem Canticles of Necromancy_
(Autumn Wind Productions, 2008)
by: Chaim Drishner (9 out of 10)
EVP review link
Scary shit this one. EVP stands for Electronic Voice Phenomena; an alleged pseudo-scientific phenomenon that occurs when capturing "the frequencies of the dead" or the "voice of the dead" on tape, an electro magnetic field interference being captured on magnetic tape and interpreted as the "speech of the deceased". Whether this "theory" is true or yet another human mumbo jumbo, EVP's debut _Postmortem Canticles of Necromancy_ is one hell of an eerie experience.What makes this Autumn Wind Productions' release unique, is first and foremost being fairly accessible, melodic and communicative, and in stark contrast to most of the other AWP roster of incoherent noise and redundancy. When AWP releases a communicative album, it is as grand as this one, no less (as is the case with the wonderful Arbeit reviewed on CoC about a year ago and nominated among the very select albums of the year for 2007). EVP, a one man entity, has incorporated neo-classicism, dark ambient, martial-industrial, drum 'n' bass, as well as themes of dark romanticism, necromancy and the general sound of hellish cabaret music into the band's vision, resulting in something which is as alienating as it is engaging. While on one hand the music scares the living shit out of you -- eerie, mysterious, cold and truly frightening -- on the other hand, in its own peculiar way _Postmortem Canticles of Necromancy_ makes the listener relate, internalize and awake from their everyday slumber of existence. The warm, cabaret-like rhythms and melodies stretch out, as if inviting you to dance in this murky, smoke filled, outlandish French coffee house of the departed, the damned, the undead... These dichotomies clash in the listener's soul and psyche, causing commotion, bewilderment and ultimately bewitchment, while trumpets hammer, flutes cut through flesh and keyboards and violins (or samples of those) sear the soul. EVP's _Postmortem Canticles of Necromancy_ is both a physical and a mental experience; a total one; and is the closest thing I have ever heard to being the musical manifestation of the border-line, the threshold between here and the hereafter... Think of an ultra dark amalgamation between Elend's _The Umbersun_, Terry Gilliam movies' soundtracks ("12 Monkeys" would be just perfect) and the "Hellraiser" soundtracks (especially the original and the sequel). Simply wow!
REVIEW From:Discogs.com
enfantterrible, May 15, 2008
When you think the genre of dark ambient exploring morbid romanticism with esoteric paraphernalia and gothic horror has succumbed and absolutely has nothing to offer then comes someone to demonstrate that if you have enough bravery to explore and investigate (instead of keep copying or simulate others) the mixture of possibilities is infinite and there's still so much to do to convince and impress.
Yes, EVP with his debut reaches high in expectation and quality.
All those dark medieval and fantastic landscapes that -Mortiis- tried to give birth to, this man fully summons now. The creepy and rawless atmospheres that -Tombstone- originally imagined, this project re-invent and improves. And finally the modern approach to the theme with a more dancey perspective still preserving the seriousness of the topic that -Ah cama sotz- has brought, EVP is able to follow without falling in the coarse copy.
In terms of rhythm, atmosphere and content this work reaches higher standards. The final mixing is NOT perfect and theres some passages where there's tiny mistakes in the transition of the sequences but that is irrelevant as everything tends to balance pretty well in the end. High regards to this project, surely one we should keep an eye on!
REVIEW BY Andreas Faust of Heathan Harvest: http://www. heathenharvest. com/article. php?story=200806301458-33798
This is the solo project of Scorpios Androctonus, from Kaiserslautern in Germany. EVP stands for Electronic Voice Phenomenon – those unexplained ghostly voices that sometimes crop up on tapes and other recording devices. The inlay folds out into a ouija board, just in case you needed further hints as to the concept of this recording. In terms of style and instrumentation it takes me back to some of the 'Cold Meat Industry' bands of the nineties (In Slaughter Natives spring particularly to mind), but this release has an integrity and focus that puts most of the CMI bands to shame. In fact, I can't recommend this album strongly enough, whatever your taste in music. And there are voices in the background at times: are these EVP?
At times epic and pounding, with broad, confident rhythms, orchestral qualities are also abundantly manifest. There is counterpoint and contrast, musical depth, a range of sounds and textures, all blending perfectly into the whole. There are dancelike structures and changing moods, assertive then introspective. Elegant and stately, then mischievious. Sprites dance down from the dark earth ceiling, weaving a magic ring around the solitary traveller on his way to the land of the dead. Trumpets sound, an announcement is made, the ceremony will commence. Shades peer round corners to see what the Hel is happening...trapped as energy, filled with mindless haunted fury...they are angry and wish to escape. To us, their world appears a frightening and weirdly beautiful madhouse...an amnesia, or dementia. Cold talons of harpies clutch our shoulders, pressures mount...but then another world is revealed, a place of eternal sorrow and fathomless pity. Grey figures chant as we enter a shifting dreamworld of gothic spires and pale, dust-filled sunlight. The formless 'voices' continue to chatter away beneath it all.
These canticles are an excellent soundtrack for reading certain books of a spiritual nature. Despite (or partly because of) the chthonic nature of the music, this is a very civilised album. It is like a modern musical updating of the age-old ceremonies held in respect of the dead. The album could be called 'The Hallowing of Hel', as opposed to 'The Harrowing of Hell'. While much of today's 'underground' music is dark or morbid (an understandable reaction to modern society's denial of death and its importance), this morbidity is rarely expressed in so bold and vigorous a manner as on this compelling compact disc. Scorpios Androctonus has greatly honoured the dead – and in doing so has honoured himself.
Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]
*EVP interview available here: Absolute Zero Media
From "Absolute Zero Media":
"E.V.P. - Postmortem Canticles of Necromancy CD (Autumn Wind Productions)
This is one amazing release and hats off to Autumn Wind for getting EVP out to world. Its a major neoclassic under taking in the old way Cold Spring and Cold Meat did. I love the strings, big horns and percussion going on with the choirs and spoken passages buried in the release. EVP feels like though soundtracks to the big budget Sci Fi and Fantasy films like Lord of the Rings or Chronicles of Riddick. Then things from time to time become very grim and full of Dispair in the musical under taking I mean only. If your a fan of Dead Can Dance, Elend, Arcana and Sanctum's 1st CD then this is something that is going to be a mind blowing event for your ear's . Don't know if there are actually EVP's (Spirit Voices) on this release but at times I swear they are. "Postmortem Canticles of Necromancy " is hands down the best thing I've heard on AWP yet and will be the benchmark for Neoclassical music for the 21st Century. This project holds worlds of wonder to come and to finish of this review it comes in DvD that has a fold out booklet that makes a Ouija board."
EVP – 'Postmortem Canticles Of Necromancy' CD
(Autumn Wind Productions)
Written by Simon Collins
EVP stands for Electronic Voice Phenomena – unexplained voices occurring in sound recordings, usually on tape. Some people claim them to be communications from departed spirits. EVP is also the dark ambient project of German musician Scorpios Androctonus, and Postmortem Canticles Of Necromancy is the debut full-length release from EVP. Recordings of EVP have of course been used before in music, notably by Schloss Tegal on the 1999 classic Black Static Transmission, but Postmortem Canticles… has a lot more to offer than muffled and ambiguous messages from the dead. Indeed, I'm not even sure that actual EVP recordings feature on the release at all. The album contains 13 tracks, totalling 72 minutes. Opening track 'The Left Hand Of Glory' pitches the listener straight into heavily percussive goth-rock territory, something like Dead Man's Hill or even Christian Death, but this isn't in fact too typical of what is to ensue.
The remainder of the album's tracks fall into two broad categories. There are essentially neo-classical pieces like the second track, 'Flesh Boiling From Bone', which features disconcerting bubbling sounds, the grandiose sweep of 'The Undertow Of Styx', and the Danny Elfman-like goblin music of 'The Ever Downward Journey'. With orchestral strings, woodwind and brass blended with industrial rhythms, EVP perhaps most closely resemble Polish act Horologium with these tracks – and that's no bad thing to sound like. The sinuous clarinets and dissonant chimes of 'Full Moonlight Upon Dead, Frozen Soil' and 'Temples Of Azrael… Built Upon Bone', in which claustrophobic mechanised rhythms lead into baleful fanfares and cymbals, are especially effective.
The other type of track on offer here is more death ambient in orientation, such as the tenth track 'May The Dead Speak', one of the longest tracks on the album, in which chimes, cymbals, tingshas, muttering and whispering punctuate tenebrous loops of cyclical droning to effectively unsettling effect – this is the dark heart of the album. Other tracks which fall into this category include the final two, 'Beltain (As Locust Descending Upon New Life)', a Crash Worship-style tribal drum workout developing into a middle eastern melody, something like Golgatha or Sixth Comm, and 'Resonations Of Presence And Absence Of Life', an urgent, shrieking composition of drones, twanging guitar and high frequencies penetrating enough to wake the dead.
Postmortem Canticles… is a very varied release – maybe even a little too varied. The more orchestral pieces don't seem quite integrated with the industrial-sounding tracks. Nevertheless, this album certainly has lots of effectively eerie moments, and it fits in well with what Autumn Wind labelmates Black Seas Of Infinity and Kaniba are doing. It's also very nicely packaged, in a DVD case, with an insert which folds out into an Ouija board, just in case you feel like cutting out the middleman and channelling the voices of the dead yourself. Oo-ee-oo! The sleeve and insert are adorned with morbid imagery, some of it derived, I think, from the famous ossuary at Kutna Hora. And if you don't know about Kutna Hora, you should. Look it up – it'll blow your mind.
7:47 PM
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