Allerseelen — Frühgeschichte I - Schwartzer Rab

This is CD reissue of one of the early, primal, and murky releases from Austrian industrial innovators Allerseelen. Here the bands sound at it’s most sparse, stripped, and grim- mixing together just a few elements: Violin, Kettle drum, sampled raven sounds, minimal bass guitar, and some minimal synth/ sampled elements.

This release originally appeared in cassette form back in 1989 on Sakristei( which was the bands own label). It was the projects second release after Morgenröte (also on cassette) in 1988.  And the sound here is very stark & lo-fi ritual music, which is both is archaic & menacing in its feel.

This new version of the release has apparently been fully remastered & newly edited, but it’s clearly been a very subtle/ slight adjustment as this still sound very stripped & sparse. I guess you can make out the sound textures better, but this reissue still very much retains it’s lo-fi & murky charm.

The CD takes in the tapes original six tracks, and most of these run between the five to seven minute mark, with only the first track nearing the thirty minute mark.  Each tracks sound is very repetitious & fairly fixed in it’s feel & attack- with each centring around sparse Kettle drum rhythms & waving (and slightly modified) violin textures. Added to this base we get the sampled raven calls & croaking, very minimal synth electronics, and minimal bass guitar(on one or two tracks). And through-out the tracks mark out sinister ‘n’ brooding melodies, and a grim ritual air.

For the most part the release is effective in its grim & lo-fi manner, and each track is a slightly different variation on a fairly narrow set on sounds & melodies. Where it does slightly  fall down for me is on the first track "Schwartzer Rab"- as this just felt too long for it’s own good, yes this type of thing works for five maybe ten minutes, but at just shy of thirty minutes this really does become tiresome. It’s a pity really the running order wasn’t moved around, as this first track would have worked much better at the end of the release…but then of course it would have destroyed the releases originally running order & it's intent.

Anyway if you enjoy lo-fi, stripped & primal ritual industrial music this is well worth a look- but I’d act fairly fast as this release is ltd to 300 copies, and I’m sure these will disappear very quickly.