At The Head of The Woods/Blood Of The Bl — Split CD
Each project here offers up an epic twenty five minute (or near) track that summons up the primal, heady & often dark vibes of dense & timeless woodland. First up we have At The Head of The Woods track “Here I Stand”, which starts off as a slowly swirling & hazy procession of 70’s funeral like organ rise ‘n’ dirge, violin, soaring folds of mournful & slightly reverb male vocals, and slow stomping ritual Armenian Indian like percussion. As we move towards the 9th minute a rising guitar texture paints & enforces the spacey mournful yet earthy feel of the track. At just past the 10 & a half minute mark the track dies out, then pauses briefly before coming back in as a mixture of: slowed & expansive Pink Floyd like guitar atmospherics, shimmering later day Earth like slow ‘n’ sombre American rock plod with a slightly spacey edges. The tracks slow march is added to by a more clearly divined male vocals that take up Walters/ Gilmore like slowed singing trail that appears ever so often in the tracks fabric. The track slowly marches on in this manner until just before the 22nd minute, then it drifts into this swimming & heady mixture of: slow clamouring ritual percussion, effects pedal texturing, and buried mumbled males voices/wails....which all nicely leads into the next track
Up next is the Blood Of The Black Owl track “Visions of Strix Nebulosa” – this track starts off in a wonderfully brooding earthy American Indian tip manner with slow folds of ominous drones, distant woodland bird song recordings, mystical & slowly ebbing trails of flute, and the odd sudden ‘n’ ripple like rattle of tribal shakers. This is all topped off by a dramatic ‘n’ raw male voice that sings/ talks about hibernation,, the sprits of the forest, and slow awaking. Towards the 10th minute the track starts to focuses in more on the rich & heady flute textures- these are underfed by pulsing & rising drones. Then at just shy of the 12.20 mark the guttural male voices reappears & mumbles “awaking” and a slow beat pattern is ushered in , along with slow organ drones ‘n’ runs, clean & atmospheric guitar trails, and the odd bit of haunting Theremin ebb. The vocals now slowly bounce & circle each other as the flute all but disappears ...for a few heady & mournful drifts. The rest of the track finds BOTBO slowly building and simmering the great earthy, primal & slightly spacey mix of sounds with the organ becoming more divined & sucking in it’s analogue like weaves. In the tracks last few minutes a marching & simmering distorted atmospheric metal guitar drone kicks in with the rest of the building sound wall. Truly this is a simply spellbinding track from start to finish.
All told this is a very worthy & rewarding split, with both parties tracks nicely working together to create a great release. So if you dig brooding to expansive yet sombre sonics that dwell in all that’s earthy, woodland & slightly ritual based- this is a must have release….but don’t hang around too long as it’s only ltd to 500 copies, & I’m sure those will disappear very quickly.