Welcome to the third edition of Outré Monde. In this ongoing series of discussions, Erik Highter and Craig Hayes will be hurling Bandcamp recommendations at each other, with the aim of recommending some new tunes for you to enjoy along the way.
The rules here are simple: no genre is off-limits. Whatever takes Highter and Hayes’ fancy is thrown in the pot, with the aim of sparking a little tête-à-tête about music that might well appeal to the open-minded metal fan.
In this edition, Hayes sent Highter Blood of the Black Owl‘s spiritual meditations, while Highter sent Ampacity’s space rockin’ jams in return. Feel free to join in the conversation, Highter and Hayes’ ears are always open.
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HAYES PICK: BLOOD OF THE BLACK OWL
Highter: I think you chose Blood of the Black Owl’s A Feral Spirit as a test. Not a test of my open-to-all-sorts-of-fuckery tastes, but a test of my endurance. This is one long-ass recording, a 70-minute double LP that feels at least twice that long. Which, I’m sorry to say, is a huge downer. The sound of A Feral Spirit is engaging, but it requires such close attention that the record is almost indigestible as a single work.
To these ears, Blood of the Black Owl combine several styles of modern metal into something that sounds both natural and under explored. I hear a whole heaping helping of ambient doom, some black metal tremolo picking, and a fine mix of the rituals and earthy tang of folk metal. There is a dark, subtle beauty to much of this album (as well as moments of terrifying, gut-level release), and I found myself utterly enraptured by individual songs. For example, “Unattainable Vistas of Our Remembrances” may have an overly pompous name, but the slow build and creeping darkness of the first half of that song is bewitching, and the way they pull back from the dense build to let those raw vocals clearly emerge in the bridge is masterful. Then, as the band roars back to life and the song concludes, the effect is one of howling, cleansing, relief.
Honestly, broken into discreet songs I find A Feral Spirit to be something I would return to when the mood is right. Please never make me listen to it straight through ever again.
Hayes: You’re right, I did chose Blood of the Black Owl because the band does require endurance, but it wasn’t a test as such. I just think there’s a couple of really interesting elements to Blood of the Black Owl, and while A Feral Spirit isn’t the band’s best album, it is the first step in the band’s entire oeuvre being wholeheartedly dedicated to ritualistic endeavours (with a cleansing or healing of the spirit being the end-goal). You’re dead right that close attention has to paid, because each individual song is meant to incrementally build into a hypnotic and overarching ceremonial suite. They’re not lightweight tunes made for dipping into when you’re doing the household chores—this is lights off incense lit fare—but then, there’s no reason why you can’t enjoy the album in bits and bites. Whatever works!
That transcendental element is something Blood of the Black Owl has explored to great effect on subsequent albums. I’d mark 2012’s Light the Fires! as the band’s most efficacious release for me personally, and it’s notable that Blood of the Black Owl essentially stripped away most of the metal for that album. I’ve listened to the band while taking strolls on the shoreline many, many times, and I find it’s a great way to dump the noise of everyday life and communicate with nature’s primal energy—and my apologies for sounding like a dirty fucking hippie there.
What I really enjoy about Blood of the Black Owl’s rituals (which essentially come from the mind of multi-instrumentalist Chet W. Scott) is that I find the band’s weaving of Native American traditions with Pagan and eco-centric practice to be utterly fascinating. Again, that intertwining is more fully illuminated on later albums, but what strikes me as really interesting is that I live in a nation where the customs and language of the indigenous people of my land are woven into the cultural makeup of day-to-day life. So, I’m always interesting in listening to cultural expressions from age-old practices distilled through new mediums. It doesn’t matter if that’s Romanian folk, Indonesian drumming, or Native American rites, I just find that Blood of the Black Owl really underscores the intrinsic bonds between human beings, nature, and the many ways we have enacted spiritually important traditions in the past and the present.
Metal is obviously no stranger to woodland wanderings, or hails to fjords and mountaintops, but Blood of the Black Owl’s meditations, born from North America’s original inhabitants, also touch upon lives and cultures decimated by the arrival of the white man. When I was a kid, my own understanding of US history was initially shaped by watching loads of westerns. But, then I read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, and that led me on to question the reality of European colonization not just in the US but in my own country, and many others the world over too. I can understand why Blood of the Black Owl might not appeal to everyone musically, but music that retains elements of a time before the arrival of Christianity—music that seeks to commune with nature, instead of trying to dominate it like those holy hypocrites do—scores points in my book every time.
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HIGHTER’S PICK: AMPACITY
Hayes: Anyway, enough of my anthropological and historical musings, let’s move on to your pick; Ampacity’s Encounter One. The Polish space/stoner/psych five-piece recorded their debut live in studio, and there’s plenty of ripping, “retro-futuristic” squalls to be found here. What inspired you to flick this one my way?
Highter: Besides my eternal love for space rock in all it’s many shapes and forms, I felt that Ampacity’s debut, Encounter One, was criminally overlooked last year. I’m pretty sure you heard it – or at least heard of it – because I yelled about it on twitter and Facebook and elsewhere. But damn it, I wanted to make sure you listened!
I know space rock is a style many metalheads disdain, and that nearly no one else cares for it at all; however, Ampacity are doing something a little different that might be amenable to the ears of a broader audience. There are a million bands melding Hawkwind and stoner rock, but these guys have more in their sound then only the peanut butter and jelly of modern space rock. They’re not afraid to throw in some weird bits of jazz rock, prog, and even yacht rock, too; I swear at one point in “Ultima Hombre” they nod to Steely Dan‘s “The Caves of Altamira.” This odd combo of familiar touchstones in unfamiliar settings really works, and because there is so much going on in their sonic gumbo I’m never sure what flavor is going to jump to the fore. It’s a surprisingly unpredictable record in a genre where that is far from the norm.
I also have to point out that we’ve once again randomly chosen a thematically matched pair. While you turn to Blood of the Black Owl for communing with nature, I use Ampacity and their space rocking kin to escape this world altogether. Nature has long been my enemy; I’m basically allergic to it all, and have had to fight against its intrusion since I was a small child. The vast emptiness of space sounds like heaven, a place where there is no pollen, no dander, no dust, no mold, nothing. I won’t ever get there, but I can let my mind go and leave the constant discomfort behind. I’m not looking to transcend, only escape. Encounter One helps me do that, if only for a time.
All that said, now that I’ve foisted it on you in a place where you have to respond, I need to know: what did you think?
Hayes: You know damn well that Ampacity’s jaunts into the beyond aren’t going to be a tough sell for my battered ears.
Sure, I’m aware that space rock might not be first choice for many, but we’re clearly just ahead of the pack—unless we’re really just tired old men, with nostalgically knocking knees. But surely not?!
I do remember you shouting about Ampacity, I do remember checking it out, and I’d completely agree it was overlooked. What really works in the band’s favour, is that Encounter One only features three tracks—never outstaying its welcome—and each of those songs is great fun. Opener, “Ultima Hombre”, is an absolute storming introduction, and those cyclone riffs and soloing, and all that accompanying 13-minutes of whirlwind noise is an absolutely wonderful launch-pad for the rest of the album.
Like you, what I enjoyed most were the multi-genre passages—like that prog and jazz sprinting through “Masters of Earth”. I loved that Ampacity managed to keep you guessing, and while it might look intimidating (or even yawn-inducing) to see the album tracks lengthy running times, the band keep things lively and fresh. I’m putting much of that down to the live recording of the album, because although the band have clearly planned their approach to the stars, Encounter One still feels like an album imbued with spontaneity and the pure joy of celestial wanderings. “Asimov’s Sideburns” is a fantastic track, with that slinky synth overlaid with echoing guitar bringing the solar tranquility, and then the nebulas explode as the track bursts into life in its latter half. Again, you’ve sent a great album my way, and as far as astronomical rock goes, Ampacity is definitely a band to be closely followed. What’s here is compelling enough, but what’s to come is a very intriguing prospect indeed.
