Mortality and fate imbue and steer the exhaulted death-cult that is Iceland’s Dead Skeletons. A trio of artists and musicans that first pulled their esoteric talents together for an art installation in 2008 – a mournful whirling dervish soundscape was originally produced for a video-piece of east/central Asian ceremonial dances.
The spectre of death stalks the groups Jan Saemunder; who was diagnosed with HIV back in 1994 – scares come regularly, yet Saemunder’s philisophical embrace of his potential demise is celebrated by a lust to create and explore.
Taken from their 2011 debut tome, Dead Magick, the Tibetan influenced pslam ‘Om Mani Peme Hung’, and Sanskrit appellated b-side, Yama, have both been picked-up by the erudite Too Pure Singles Club, and given a second coming. Minor spiritual opuses in their own right, the two acid-drone mantras trawl through a haunted spoaked past, absorbing the customs and metaphysical symbolism of mysterouis cultures; from Nepal to the Middle East.
Like some untamed Babylonian spirit dug-up by Max Von Sydow’s Exorcist character Father Lankster Merrin, Om Mani Peme Hung levitates out of its ancient resting place and picks up on the vibes of Don Cherry, Moon Duo and The Cult. The accompanying Yama – named after the Nepalese/Indian Lord of Death, or, Ruler of the Departed – is much more ominous and Gothic. With its ‘talking-in-tongues’ ghostly chants, wails and calls-to-prayer; this vivid hypnotic trance sounds like the dawning of an apocalypse, and an updated appriaisal of Aphrodite’s Child‘s legendary 666 requiem.
Although death permeates every facet, the Dead Skeletons welcome it as just a portal to another journey; their music carrying them on over into undiscovered realms; or as their skull worshipping bedecked website proclaims, “He who fears death cannot enjoy life“.
Due: 23/01/2012
[Rating:4]
