The crystalline voice of Sera Timms is one of the heavy underground’s most affecting assets. Based in California, Timms made a breakthrough with 2009’s Scott Reeder-produced, Tee Pee-released Wyllt (discussed here) in an outfit called Black Math Horseman, and since then she’s contributed to a range of projects, from the collaboration between herself, Gary Arce of Yawning Man and fellow vocalist John Garcia (Kyuss, etc.) that manifested as Zun‘s 2016 Small Stone release, Burial Sunrise (review here), to the three full-lengths to-date she’s issued as frontwoman of heavy post-rock explorationists Ides of Gemini, the latest of which, Women (discussed here), came out this past Spring via Rise Above. In 2013, she made her full-length debut with the solo-project Black Mare on Field of the Host (review here), and she’s gone on to offer a smattering of short releases under the banner since that time, including a 2015 split with Lycia (review here).

Death Magick Mother, on Magic Bullet Records, is the second Black Mare long-player, and though the moniker would seem to recall Timms‘ time in Black Math Horseman, the progressive sensibility she shows throughout the seven-song/36-minute outing is distinctly her own and feels more like a culmination drawing from aspects of all her prior work, from than band through Ides of Gemini‘s heavier thud, spaciousness and crunch, and it is with her voice particularly that she sets the deeply resonant spirit in songs like the bassy “Babylon’s Fold” and the earlier, harmonized “Femme Couverte,” which follows opener “Ingress to Form” and carves out its space on Death Magick Mother with an emergent, distorted chug of guitar over which Timms‘ delivery remains patient, soaring and otherworldly.

Indeed, the ethereal has a central role to play throughout Black Mare‘s forward cast, and that’s a vibe set almost from the first ringing notes of “Ingress to Form,” an inclusion that would seem to be aware of how much it’s acting as an introduction to Death Magick Mother as a whole, though its purposes by no means are limited to that. At 6:46, it is tied with “Babylon’s Fold” for being the longest track (semi-immediate points), and it builds to a graceful and deceptively heavy push, marked by the separation of bass, guitar and drums in the sonic space it has created. This will prove true on the songs that follow as well, but each element at play throughout Death Magick Mother, including the layers of Timms‘ self-harmonies when they arrive, are readily distinguishable from their surroundings. One suspects that if one’s stereo were fancy enough, it would be possible to listen to nothing but the guitar, or to isolate an acapella version of third track “Death by Desire.”

Might be fun to try, but taken as a whole, it brings a purposeful sense of the disjointed to Death Magick Mother and makes Black Mare feel all the more experimental in construction. Timms, in addition to writing and performing everything on the album (she shares credit for “Babylon’s Fold” with Ides of Gemini bandmates), also recorded, so credit goes to her for this as well as to mixer Andrew Clinco, and ultimately it is one more manner in which she leads the listener through this deeply atmospheric sphere she’s created. It’s neither separate from the desert nor wholly part of it, and it’s more grounded in meter and percussiveness than one generally thinks of the sonically cosmic as being, but it is a modus and a place that is recognizably Timms‘ own, and she is thoroughly at home in its transcendental reaches, even as she continues to expand its borders via complexity of craft and arrangement.

With a decided thump of drums behind, “Babylon’s Fold” sets its tension early and begins a process of release just past two minutes in with a swell of guitar and bass behind the commanding vocals. The volume recedes and the bass maintains a steady presence to act as the ground beneath the echoing strums of guitar, such that its footing is maintained on the next upcycle just before five minutes in that carries what might be the side B opener toward its shimmering last stretch, leading to the penultimate “Kala.” A threat of distortion is issued prior to the first verse and finds its way into the pattern periodically before coming more completely forward after two minutes into the total 3:42 and acting as the key element in an efficient linear build that results in one of Death Magick Mother‘s most consuming moments of wash — a more than fitting setup for the solo vocals that start closer “Inverted Tower” for how plainly the end of the one song and the beginning of the next demonstrate the dynamic approach Timms is able to harness even in this solo context.

The opening of “Inverted Tower” is patient and no less immersive than anything before it, but rather than attempt to summarize the entirety of Death Magick Mother, the final chapter seems to keep on the outbound path of ambience — maybe that is the best summary — and in the jangle of guitar and the foreboding progression that takes hold just past the midpoint, met by complementary layers of higher and lower register singing, there’s a sense of goth theatricality that, at 5:10, explodes to crashing cymbals and layers of howling and screams and moans, somehow black metal but not at all furious. Resolved. It’s a moment there and gone after a few measures and the final surprise is how Death Magick Mother draws itself to a close, which again, is about as appropriate as anything could be in the situation.

Truth be told, by that point, the listener is either going to be well on board for the journey Timms is guiding or not. Naturally the former is the more satisfying option in terms of the basic listening experience, but both on the level of being a personal expression and in its sheer sprawl, Black Mare isn’t by any means a vie for accessibility. Still, to those for whom its wavelengths find sympathy, the depths and overall richness it casts will be yet another example of Timms as an underrated performer and composer, and further proof of how much her work only grows more realized with the passage of time.

Black Mare, Death Magick Mother (2017)

Black Mare website

Black Mare on Thee Facebooks

Death Magick Mother at Magic Bullet Records Bandcamp

Magic Bullet Records website

Magic Bullet Records on Thee Facebooks

Magic Bullet Records on Twitter

You can go right ahead and sign me up for Black Mare‘s Death Magick Mother. Sight unseen, I’m on board. A second full-length of otherworldly psychedelic neofolk brooding helmed by Sera Timms? Yeah, sorry. Way I see it, that’s an absolute no-brainer, gotta-hear-it kind of essential release. It’s out Sept. 15 via Magic Bullet Records and follows Timms‘ 2013 debut with the project, Field of the Host (review here), as well as a couple short releases, a 2015 split with Lycia (review here), and so on.

Of course, Timms has had a prolific few years anyway between those one-offs, her contributions to the desert-psych fusion of Zun and the ongoing atmospheric metallurgy of Ides of Gemini, but word of a new Black Mare coming out next month has flat out made my day. The sooner it gets here, the better, and I’ll hope very much to have more posted before it’s out. Preorders are up in the meantime, as the PR wire informs:

BLACK MARE: Dark Ambient Project Led By Sera Timms To Unveil Death Magick Mother Via Magic Bullet; Album Details Revealed + Tour With Junius Confirmed

Amidst a backdrop of political strife wherein such fundamental principles as the health, safety, and common decency toward women continue to erode more with each executive order and Twitter fit, the spirit of BLACK MARE stands unbridled under the singular vision and limitless purview of its driving force, one Sera Timms.

Death Magick Mother is the second proper full length album from Los Angeles, California’s BLACK MARE. Seven songs in length, this documentation captures Timms amidst a dynamic cohesion and confluence of inspiration unlike any prior. Whereas previous output operated under a founding principle of rhythmic repetition and atmospheric simplicity toward trace-like escapism, Death Magick Mother is Timms stepping right in front of the lens for a closeup. Mixed by Andrew Clinco of Drab Majesty and mastered by Dan Randall at Mammoth Sound Mastering, bolder arrangements lend themselves toward soaring, dynamic vocal melodies and nuanced harmonization to highly-satisfying effect. Spot-on performances and command of all instrumentation across the spectrum further propels the sense of arrival in mastery over her chosen craft. In many ways, this album is an awakening for both its creator and listeners alike.

Death Magick Mother will see release digitally via Magic Bullet on September 15th with LPs to follow. Preorders are currently available at THIS LOCATION.

Death Magick Mother Track Listing:
1. Ingress to Form
2. Femme Couverte
3. Death By Desire
4. Coral Vaults
5. Babylon’s Fold
6. Kala
7. Inverted Tower

Live appearances are robust in conjunction with the album’s release and range from a women’s mass replete with a bloodletting ritual, a midnight ceremony in celebration of a total eclipse with France’s Celeste, and even a traditional tour of the western United States in direct support of Junius.

BLACK MARE:
8/13/2017 Women’s Mass: A Benefit for The Satanic Temple @ Union – Los Angeles, CA w/ Night Club
8/21/2017 The Federal Underground – Long Beach, CA w/ Celeste, Destroy Judas, Hexa
w/ Junius, Mustard Gas & Roses:
9/21/2017 Yucca Tap Room – Phoenix, AZ
9/22/2017 The Viper Room – West Hollywood, CA w/ Hours
9/23/2017 The Golden Bull – Oakland, CA w/ Daxma
9/24/2017 Cafe Colonial – Sacramento, CA
9/25/2017 Tonic Lounge – Portland, OR w/ Wovoka, Drainage
9/26/2017 Highline Bar – Seattle, WA w/ They Rise We Die
9/27/2017 The Shredder – Boise, ID
9/28/2017 Urban Lounge – Salt Lake City, UT
9/29/2017 Hi-Dive Denver – Denver, CO w/ Ghosts Of Glaciers
10/01/2017 The Sidewinder – Austin, TX

BLACK MARE is the solo project of Sera Timms, vocalist and bassist for Ides Of Gemini and of the now-disbanded Black Math Horseman. With a focus on rhythmic repetition and atmospheric simplicity, BLACK MARE steps outside the collaborative dynamic to reveal a creative process that is all Sera’s own. Her songs traverse hidden realms, fragments of dreams, submerged memories, and mythical imagery. Where Black Math Horseman and Ides Of Gemini demand volume and collusion, BLACK MARE requires quiet contemplation. If Black Math Horseman and Ides Of Gemini seek to summon the deafening roar of inevitability, BLACK MARE delivers its verdicts on cresting waves and solemn whispers. And yet each operates, in its own way, within the darkened spheres of oceanic hypnosis.

https://magicbulletrecords.bandcamp.com/album/black-mare-death-magick-mother
http://www.theblackmare.com
http://www.facebook.com/Black-Mare
http://www.magicbulletrecords.com
http://www.facebook.com/magicbulletrecords
http://www.twitter.com/magicbulletrecs

Black Mare, Field of the Host (2013)

If the thought of John Garcia (Kyuss, Unida, Vista Chino, etc.) and Sera Timms (Ides of Gemini, Black Math Horseman, Black Mare) singing over watery guitar lines from Gary Arce (Yawning Man, Ten East, Dark Tooth Encounter) doesn’t pique your interest, well, I guess you’ve never heard of desert rock before. First teased back in 2013 with a sans-fanfare posted track as a collaboration between Arce and Timms, Zun will in fact feature Timms and Garcia trading off in the lead-vocal role throughout the project’s debut full-length, Burial Sunrise, a record whose and sun-soaked pastures are more expansive than one could fairly ask.

Harper Hug of the studio Thunder Underground (Vista Chino, Nick Oliveri, etc.) sits in on drums/synth along with Bill Stinson (Yawning Man), Mario Lalli (Fatso Jetson, Yawning Man) plays bass, and Robby Krieger (The Doors) guests for an electric sitar part. The results are goddamn beautiful and will be released by Small Stone Records on March 25, 2016.

Here’s a bio I wrote for the album, some other relevant particulars, and the track “Nothing Farther,” to prepare your brain:

Arce remains a genuinely underappreciated craftsman in heavy rock and roll. As the six-stringer for Yawning Man going back three decades, he’s one of the principal architects of the sound born in California’s sands and known commonly as desert rock. His contributions have been pivotal in the creation of a style no less American than Delta Blues and no less imitated worldwide, and with Zun’s Burial Sunrise, he not only reaffirms the breadth and vitality that has made his work so essential, but builds on it in expansive and vibrant ways.

The core trio of Zun is Arce and vocalists Sera Timms (Ides of Gemini, Black Mare) and John Garcia (Kyuss, Vista Chino, Slo Burn, etc.). Arce plays bass and lap steel on Burial Sunrise as well, and he and Garcia and Timms are joined by drummers Bill Stinson (Chuck Dukowski, Yawning Man) and Harper Hug – the latter of whom also recorded the album at Thunder Underground Studios in Palm Springs, CA. Mario Lalli (Fatso Jetson, Yawning Man) also contributes bass on a track, adding to the fluid, jammy feel that pervades the vast soundscapes conjured.

Timms and Garcia divide lead-singer duties among Burial Sunrise’s six cuts, with Garcia lending his signature croon to “All that You Say I Am,” the brooding “All for Nothing,” and the drifting desert ode “Nothing Farther,” while Timms brings her ethereal, otherworldly presence to “Solar Days,” “Come through the Water” and “Into the Wasteland,” the last of which might just be the album’s signature piece, seeming to mirror the wide-ranging, sandy thematic of “Nothing Farther” in bringing the desert – a place too often wrongly thought of as dead – to life in vivid colors and warm tonality, but pushing even further into an uncharted reach.

Known for forming and contributing to projects like Ten East (with Brant Bjork), Dark Tooth Encounter (with Lalli, Stinson and Scott Reeder), The Sort of Quartet, Yawning Sons (with Sons of Alpha Centauri), and more, Arce brings a style that is inseparable from desert rock. For the partnerships he’s made in Zun and for the scope of the album, its laid-back feel and pervasive exploratory sensibility, Burial Sunrise might just prove to be a landmark in his discography as well as the beginning of a new era of his work, continuing to reshape the genre he helped create in the first place in a manner that, like the sands themselves, seems to remain separate from time despite the chaos all around.

1) NOTHING FARTHER
2) INTO THE WASTELAND
3) ALL FOR NOTHING
4) COME THROUGH THE WATER
5) ALL THAT YOU SAY I AM
6) SOLAR INCANTATION

Zun are:
Gary Arce: Guitars, Bass, Lapsteel
John Garcia: Vocals
Sera Timms: Vocals
Mario Lalli: Bass
Robby Krieger: Electric Sitar
Bill Stinson: Drums
Harper Hug: Drums/ Synths

Recorded & Mixed By Harper Hug @ Thunder-Underground, Palm Springs, CA. Mastered by Chris Goosman @ Baseline Audio Labs, Ann Arbor, MI. Artwork By Christina Bishop.

https://smallstone.bandcamp.com/album/burial-sunrise
https://www.facebook.com/yawningmanofficial/

Zun, “Nothing Farther” from Burial Sunrise

Those familiar with the ambience-prone style of vocalist Sera Timms through her contributions to outfits Black Math Horseman — their 2009 offering, Wyllt, still holds up — or Ides of Gemini, who made their first appearance with last year’s Constantinople (track stream here), will be fairly well prepared for the kind of atmospheres she brings to her first solo outing under the moniker Black Mare. The album, Field of the Host, is comprised of seven tracks, and found release this past Spring on limited vinyl through The Crossing and on tape through Breathe Plastic Records.

I opted for the latter. A couple weeks ago, seeing that Field of the Host was dangerously close to selling out on tape, I decided it was time to get one before it was too late. No regrets. Though it showed up with the case cracked — thank you, postal service — the package turned out to be of exceptional quality, with the liner printed on photo paper with lyrics inventively laid out on the inside two panels and the fold of the case, all designed by Timms herself. As I understand it, the vinyl came with a collection of her photos as well, but though there’s no room for such things with cassettes, Field of the Host brings an individual sensibility all the same to a format usually thought of as wholly lacking one — runes on the tape and a smoky dark plastic mirroring the sound of the full-length itself even as the stark font gives an impression of some of the songs’ minimalism.

There is plenty of that to be found in these cuts, I guess, but I have a hard time of thinking of Field of the Host as being bare in any way, mostly because of the echoing effects Timms incorporates for her vocals and the guitars, bass and drums — she plays all the instruments but for some extra guitar on “Fighting Birds” and “Ashlar” credited to Bryan Tulao — and the effectiveness of the atmospheres created. Stretches vary on either side of a loud/soft dynamic, “Saturn’s Grave” ending side one with what’s a cacophony as compared to the quiet moment of the penultimate “Isa” on side two, but in whatever context she’s working, Timms brings a consistently exploratory mood to the material, layering in sonically rich reverb and echo. Drums are present, but deep in the mix. Bass you almost don’t realize is there until it swallows you whole. Guitars rise out of the same fog in post-rock splendor — too clearheaded to be psychedelic, but as otherworldly as you please — and even with the side-change break between “Saturn’s Grave” and “Ashlar,” the dense hypnotism in Field of the Host is maintained front to back.

Principally, the music is evocative. It engages via atmosphere rather than hooks, and Timms creates a sense of wash from the first plucked notes of “Blind One” introducing the ghostly swirl that runs a thread throughout the album as a whole, bringing to mind any number of landscapes, most of them covered in a morning mist. Nothing throughout the tape sounds egregiously repetitive — that is, more repetitive than it’s meant to sound — but I can’t help but wonder what Timms would sound like with her voice not drenched in effects as it is here how songs like “Tearer” or the sweetly concluding “Cybele” might be shifted or the overall dynamic of Field of the Host might be different if that wash became, like the swells and recessions of volume, another element for Timms to manipulate along the way.

That’s not a complaint with the aesthetic of Field of the Host — more like a point of potential growth for Timms‘ next outing as Black Mare, which I hope is not long in arriving. Though her work in Ides of Gemini and Black Math Horseman has defined her career at this point, it could just be Black Mare that winds up as the truest expression of Timms as an artist and the vehicle through which she continues to refine her unflinchingly creative approach.

In the meantime, I’m really glad I bought this tape.

Black Mare, Field of the Host (2013)

Black Mare on Thee Facebooks

Breathe Plastic Records

The Crossing

If my details are foggy, you’ll have to forgive me as I’ve only known this band existed for a couple hours. Zun is a new trio from the Californian desert that features Sera Timms (Black Math Horseman/Ides of Gemini/Black Mare) on vocals, Gary Arce (Yawning Man, etc.) on guitar and bass, and Bill Stinson (Yawning Man) on drums. Not to be confused with the Zune, which was Microsoft’s mismarketed attempt at competing with the iPod, Zun have just released the first audio from the collaboration, the sweetly toned and dreamy “Come through the Water.”

The track was recorded by Harper Hug at Thunder Underground, and if the statement put out through Yawning Man‘s Thee Facebooks page — which also updates on some new stuff from that band, including a split with fellow desert types Fatso Jetson — is anything to go by, it’s the first of several installments to come:

Behold, we have GREAT news! Songs from an upcoming 7″ split with FATSO JETSON and ZUN are hot off the mixing board, and will be available soon! ZUN is Gary Arce’s latest endeavor, and it features the revered Sera Beth Timms (Black Math Horseman), whose intense and haunting vocals meld alongside Gary’s signature guitar and lapsteel tones- and bass lines. The one and only thunderous Bill Stinson is on Drums.

Thanks to Harper Hug who engineered this project, which was recorded at Thunder Underground (http://thunder-underground.com/). Artwork by Christina Bishop.

AND if that isn’t exciting enough, get ready for ANOTHER killer release to come…another split EP with songs from your favorite Desert Rock Godfathers Fatso Jetson AND Yawning Man! More news about that to come. For now, stay tuned to hear sounds from ZUN. We will be sharing that within the next few days. Cheers, and thanks for your continued support!

Being a dork for Arce‘s inimitable guitar tone, it means something when I say that in Timms, Arce has a suitable complement. To wit, on “Come through the Water,” how both vocals and guitar are enhanced as they rise together just before the two-minute mark. The track, as does much of Arce‘s work, has a predilection toward wandering, echoing, and sliding into a wash of heavy psychedelic melody, but Timms also grounds the song with verse lines as Stinson provides the direction on the drums. I was not yet through the full five and a half minutes of the song before I decided I liked it a lot.

I’d love to hear and hope to hear how Zun might develop these ideas and change things up over the course of a full-length, but that’s probably a long ways off. Until then, the desert expanse portrayed in “Come through the Water” offers plenty to dig into, as you can hear on the stream below, hoisted from Soundcloud: