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Black Mare, Death Magick Mother: The Opening of Vaults

black mare death magick mother

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.”

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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)

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Death Magick Mother at Magic Bullet Records Bandcamp

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