Larman Clamor Premiere “Ink Fo’ Blood” Video; Album Out Today
Germany-based artist and multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Alexander von Wieding today releases his 10th full-length under the solo-operating banner of Larman Clamor, and if you’re one for nice round numbers, it’s also 10 years this week since he debuted the project in 2011 with Altars Turn to Blood (review here). Then as now, the band is an exploration of classic swamp blues, but von Wieding continues to work in a slew of twists along the way, whether it’s the heavy tin-can fuzz of “Ganja Bug” or the background drones of the title-track (video premiering below).
With abundant shifts in arrangement around a central foundation of usually-acoustic guitar and von Wieding‘s usually-throaty singing — “Badland Dreams” is a rare Larman Clamor track in running over four minutes and also a more laid back vocal; he (at least) doubles the melody and it works well in a Six Organs of Admittance-meets-Creature-From-the-Black-Lagoon kind of way — one never quite knows where the next song is going to go, and that is something that von Wieding has and would seem to be continuing to have fun with as he goes.
In the post he put up the other day on whichever social media platform it was, in talking about the album, von Wieding noted the ease with which the 12 assembled tracks came together to make the album — they came out of him, is how he puts it — and one can hear that in the root guitar of the whisper-topped “Money Mojo,” where even as the song builds to a progression that might otherwise require four or five players to pull off on stage, it maintains the natural spirit that seems to have birthed it. The 1:42 acoustic-and-hand-drum groover “Reptile Eye” follows immediately, as if to emphasize the point, but it’s reaffirmed no less by the buildup and smooth verses of “Not Yer Own” after that or the quintessentially Larman Clamor penultimate cut “Dancin’ on Moonshine” later. Recorded solo as they are, and as inherently raw in sound as they are — that is to say, rawness is a part of the aesthetic and has been since the start — the 35-minute spread of Ink Fo’ Blood is more resoundingly organic than perhaps the affected dropped letter of its title would let one believe.
That too is a part of the Larman Clamor style, as von Wieding draws himself in comic 
lines as the old man living in the bayou you find as you emerge from some lost, likewise wet forest. And perhaps he sits on a decrepit porch, fuzzing away like a madman on the would-be-Clutch-if-Clutch-played-it “Cat Wants More,” or finding the line between sitar and banjo on “She-Lord of Dingos.” Where does a bayou-dwelling hermit get a sitar? Or an amp? Doesn’t matter. He’s ready to have a party and if you manage to recover your sight after drinking whatever ghastly potency he’s cooked up in the back yard shed — not to be confused, of course, with the front yard shed; that’s right, dude’s got two sheds, one creepier than the next — it’s gonna be you next round boing-boinging the jaw harp on “Out of the Sink.” What a blast.
“Witch’s Ring” conjures prairie phantoms amid layers of guitar somewhere south of the Deadwood theme and magically free of Morricone-ism, and “Dancin’ on Moonshine” gets itself all riled up and a little bit nasty at the end before von Wieding‘s last surprise arrives in the poppier turn of closer “Little Things.” With handclaps and chains and that guitar sound, he’s still well within his realm, but there’s something distinctly Black Crowesian about that uptempo strum, and it’s a sound he takes on boldly to round out the proceedings. Any Larman Clamor release — he had two out in 2020; the instrumental would-be soundtrack Ghosts of the West and the full-on Marauder — is going to be a trip, and Ink Fo’ Blood is most certainly that right from the outset, but von Wieding‘s approach shouldn’t be mistaken for unrefined, however much he might try to convince the listener that it is.
His songwriting and performances captured here are precisely where he wants them to be, and even in its moments of willfully letting go and seeing where it ends up, Ink Fo’ Blood manifests the creative ethic at heart in what Larman Clamor has become over the last 10 years. When he started, von Wieding‘s muddy country blues wasn’t like anything else out there. 10 years later, it’s still a world of his own.
Enjoy the video premiere of “Ink Fo’ Blood” below, followed by more info on the record and the lyric book released to celebrate the project’s first decade:
Larman Clamor, “Ink Fo’ Blood” video premiere
I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since I put together and released my first Larman Clamor album “Altars To Turn Blood”!
(It indeed was November 4th 2011)
So, for this 10th anniversary of Larman Clamor, I thought what I could do. Remaster “Altars” or even do a re-recording of it / 10 yrs later?
When I started getting ideas together for this (which was about 5 weeks ago or so), I noticed that there were songs coming out of me again.
And one, by one… they piled up into an album in like, no time. It was as if they wrote themselves… and at that time, I forgot to take care of “Altars”, and said to myself, “Okay, whatever energy drives me, it wants me to focus on new things”… so I did. And as soon as I went down that path, it all came together. 12 songs, the album artwork – and the idea of a book. And even some music videos.
So, here tis, Larman Clamor’s tenth album in a decade of one-man-band-being:
“Ink Fo’ Blood”
Out November 4th on all digital platforms!
You can already pre-order it on Amazon or directly on the Larman Clamor Bandcamp!
https://larmanclamor.bandcamp.com/album/ink-fo-blood
And also, now available via Amazon:
“A Swampbound Journey”
An illustrated songbook, collecting all the lyrics and illustrations I did for Larman Clamor from 2011-2021.
Fully colored, 144pages of glory, featuring not only all those illustrations that were featured in the LP booklet of “Frogs” and all the other albums’ illustrations, but previously unreleased and new ones! PLUS lyrics and illustrations for the newest album “Ink Fo’ Blood”! Available as paperback or hardcover! (I recommend the hardcover, it is a true beauty!)
https://www.amazon.com/-/de/dp/B09HPRWYCX
