The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Greg Branch, Bryan Conner & Tim Madison of Cut the Architect’s Hand

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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

Greg Branch: I don’t define it. I constantly create. It pours out of me I just funnel it in different directions. Different musical projects, writing, painting, etc…

Bryan Conner: I would say drumming and music keep me sane. My Father raised me on ’70s rock with the speakers maxed, growing up in the house and he played drums, that in turn were accessible to me. Then when I was around age 15, I picked up the sticks and rolled with it and drumming became one of my favorite thing to date.

Tim Madison: The eternal battle/struggle for attention mixed with the lack of intelligence and better judgement to do something more productive with my time, loudly.

Describe your first musical memory.

G: My mom playing Al Green & Otis Redding records when I was very small.

B: Watching My Father and his friends jamming in the garage.

T: Listening to the black album nonstop on a beach vacation when it was new.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

G: The first time I played solo. It was my birthday and so many people important to me came to support and I was touched.

B: So far the most powerful musical memory I have experienced was in Washington D.C. seeing Pearl Jam play and hearing the arena singing in unison. Over powering the band and PA.

T: Still waiting for one to happen.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

G: I welcome it daily. Being closed minded and not open to change is the death of growth.

B: Being a parent with two teenage kids.

T: Present.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

G: A better ability to express yourself.

B: In a perfect world happiness, but depends on the person, I am often satisfied with everything we do. Overtime it has earned the title “Fucking Diamonds (#128142#) ” A sign of my personal approval, For what it’s worth. Lol. But there are many people who can be crippled and weighed down by the act of musical and artistic creations.

T: Pain/suicide/depression/debt. Artists tend to feel more and more intensely.

How do you define success?

G: Being able to create and perform on a regular basis.

B: That’s an eye of the beholder question. everyone will be different. Me and the guys have kept the band functional in one way or another since 2002, Put together a massive amount of material in that time, successfully get together and practice almost weekly. And have played countless shows. All while holding down jobs, work, and family. Feels like success to me.

T: Achieving levels of happiness through non shady means.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

G: The suffering of any animal.

B: That shitty American Godzilla movie with Matthew Broderick.

T: The truth.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

G: I’ve written the first paragraph of a book. I am not rushing it and letting it come to me a sentence at a time.

B: A small restaurant/bar with some kinda stage , Richmond, VA, needs more music venues.

T: Travel rig. IEM unit. Guitar brand, amplifier brand, maybe one good song.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

G: Release and appreciation of seeing how someone different than yourself interprets things.

B: The ability to express yourself and let others see how you feel, and or how your art invokes feelings in others.

T: Expression, creation and unity through non verbal means. As people we are desperately seeking to reconnect with our souls, and art is essentially what we are here to create and connect with each other. But instead we invented credit scores and taxes.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

G: Visiting Gettysburg. I am interested in history and visiting the places it happened.

B: All future Star Wars and Marvel movie/ comic content. It’s all Fucking Diamonds(#128142#).

T: Watching my son grow up.

https://www.facebook.com/Cutthearchitectshand
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http://www.cutthearchitectshand1.bandcamp.com/
https://linktr.ee/CTAH

Cut the Architect’s Hand, The Eternity Box (2022)

The Hudson River Valley has inspired centuries’ worth of poets, painters and other artists, so it is of little surprise that the rolling, sleepy hillsides, lush, sun-reflecting waters and serenity of the New York region should spark an attempt to preserve some part of it in sound as well. Based in New Paltz, about an hour north of the (former) Tappan Zee Bridge, Michael Lutomski is best known as drummer in psych instrumentalists It’s Not Night: It’s Space, whose last album, 2016’s Our Birth is But a Sleep and a Forgetting (review here) came out through Small Stone and took a more cosmic pastoralia, but in and as the meditative psych unit Okkoto, Lutomski seems more purely fueled by the experience of being in the world, in nature, even looking out a window at trees while playing guitar, whatever it might be.

Climb the Antlers and Reach the Stars is the second Okkoto full-length — the project taking its name from a boar god character in Studio Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke — behind 2019’s Fear the Veil Not the Void, and while that album brought forth exploratory drones and noises cast entirely at Lutomski‘s behest, setting the course for an experimentalist bent that very much continues on the second record, Climb the Antlers and Reach the Stars is an altogether more soothing, less isolated-feeling offering, more directly in communion with its surroundings and more coherent in its approach to how its songs are built.

Note the two titles. The anchor verbs for the 2019 album are “fear” and “[fear] not,” where the follow-up has “climb” and “reach,” resulting in an overarching aspirational feel that’s all more resonant in the psychedelic post-rock morning fog of “First Drops in the Cup of Dawn” (8:56) or the echoing shimmer of electric guitar on the subsequent “Wind at the Gated Grove” (7:41) which opens drone first in smooth, entrancing layers before the arrival of drums acts as so much of a grounding effect.

That is the case as an intended side A wraps with “Mother Moon and Father Sun” (5:31) before the final pairing of “Window Onto the Hidden Place and the Other Time” (10:13) and the closer “Where the Meadows Dream Beside the Sea” (11:46) cap the 44-minute runtime with an album’s depth unto themselves. And in comparison to the first Okkoto as well — which also used drums, but more sparsely and not on every track — Lutomski‘s drumming gives these pieces a sense of completion and allows the listener to be all the more subsumed by the peacefulness surrounding for the bit of motion coinciding.

They sound live but could just as easily be programmed, it doesn’t really matter, and the progressions are relatively simple in the grand scheme of what a band might feature — the beginning of “Where the Meadows Dream Beside the Sea” reminds distinctly of Om‘s Advaitic Songs, about which none should complain — but their purpose is clear and they serve it well in turning “Wind at the Gated Grove” into more of a realized song, and particularly with their relatively late arrival there, establishing a dynamic wherein Lutomski is able to evoke different emotions and experiences through their interplay with the guitar effects, synth, etc. surrounding.

And for all the foot-on-earth feel they add, Lutomski is still free to manipulate the birds singing on “First Drops in the Cup of Dawn” until they become the beat, and to push them back in the mix of “Window Onto the Hidden Place and the Other Time” until they feel like a distant rhythmic echo behind the central melody six-plus minutes in, a moment of manifestation for Okkoto as a whole and perhaps a telling example of where and toward what the project’s ongoing progression might lead. These songs are longer, generally, than those on Fear the Veil Not the Void, and seem to be the result of a conscious decision on Lutomski‘s part for what they should be.

That is, the drums, like the guitar, like the guest fiddle of Rick Birmingham (who also mastered) and the good-luck-finding-them vocals of Laura McLaughlin that are reportedly included in “Where the Meadows Dream Beside the Sea,” feel entirely purposeful, and they do a fair amount of work as one would expect and hope on an outing that at least by some crazy standard might be considered minimalist. I’d argue Climb the Antlers and Reach the Stars is not that, however.

To make the case, one hardly needs anything more than the centerpiece, “Mother Moon and Father Sun,” which is the shortest of the five inclusions and by the time it’s 40 seconds in is unfolding gracefully its melodic guitar foundation and synthesizer accompaniment, not so much aiming to be cinematic — there’s an awful lot of pretend-soundtracking going on these days — as letting the sounds be their own thing, letting the guitar find its path from night to day. If this is to be the moment on the record wherein the sunrise of “First Drops in the Cup of Dawn” comes to fruition, it’s a quiet morning and the manner in which the synth fades out after four minutes feels duly transitional, leaving the guitar and drums to go at their own pace.

In terms of overall impact, “Window Onto the Hidden Place and the Other Time” might be the most active of the songs, building to a marching wholeness around the aforementioned guitar melody before finishing with what sounds like nighttime animal noises, and its effect leading into “Where the Meadows Dream Beside the Sea” isn’t lost, the final track ending with a whistling sound that’s either more birds or a twisting guitar note echoed out or who knows what. One more thing passing by.

But it works, and the Climb the Antlers and Reach the Stars seems to feel out these spaces even as it creates them, resulting in a listening experience that’s genuinely hypnotic but satisfying to any and all levels of attention paid. You can get lost in it, to be sure, but if you follow along the trail Lutomski sets, you’ll come out of the woods just fine and arrive, perhaps, at the water’s edge.

Okkoto, Climb the Antlers & Reach the Stars (2022)

Okkoto on Instagram

Okkoto on Facebook

Okkoto on Bandcamp

It’s a very specific and kind of confusing brand of fun to trace the full lineage of Birth and who’s played in what with whom, whether it’s Conor Riley and Brian Ellis jamming together in the Ellis/Munk Ensemble or the still-missed Astra, Thomas DiBenedetto drumming for Sacri Monti or Monarch, Trevor Mast having been in Psicomagia with Paul Marrone, also of Radio Moscow, and so on. Certainly anything Ellis and Riley do together at this point is going to immediately and rightfully catch some ears, and from the time when Birth‘s “Descending Us” (posted here) showed up in 2017 to last year when the band signed to Bad Omen and streamed their three-song self-titled demo (review here), the murmuring anticipation for this record has been set. Of course they called it Born.

July 15 is the release date, and I’m somewhat curious as to the situation, since the press release below confirms that Bad Omen will be handling it while at the same time having come down the PR wire via Metal Blade Records. Does that mean that Bad Omen is now a Metal Blade imprint? Or that Metal Blade will handle the US release and Bad Omen the UK? I have no idea, but it’s something to be curious about while I listen to “For Yesterday,” the first streaming track from the record, which you’ll find at the bottom of this post.

Enjoy:

Progressive-Psych outfit Birth to Release Debut LP, ‘Born’, July 15

San Diego Stunners Set Summer Date for Stargazing Full-length Album; Hear Celestial New Track “For Yesterday”

Southern California psychedelic/progressive rock unit, Birth, will release its full-length debut LP, ‘Born’, on July 15 via UK rock label Bad Omen Records (Wytch Hazel, Spell, Satan’s Satyrs). Featuring members of San Diego’s revered retro rockers Astra, along with current or former members of Joy, Radio Moscow, and Sacri Monti, Birth owns a cavernous cache of credibility rarely found in developing musical groups. Described as “a magic-eye journey into kaleidoscopic sound”, and “a dystopian take on the here and now”, ‘Born’ is available for pre-order purchase at: birthprog.bandcamp.com

A first listen to what Birth’s ‘Born’ holds in store can be experienced now as the band is streaming its new song “For Yesterday”. Hear it now at: birthprog.bandcamp.com

Featuring guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Conor Riley and lead guitarist Brian Ellis, musicians who burst onto the prog-psych scene in the late aughts with Astra, a formidable, foundational group who would shape the sound of things to come alongside co-conspirators such as Earthless, Diagonal and Dungen, and whose albums ‘The Weirding’ (2009) and ‘The Black Chord’ (2012) stand proud as two of the greatest progressive achievements of this century thus far, there is a palatable excitement surrounding Birth and the group has been pegged as one to watch in underground circles, an excitement which kicked into a new gear once a now-deleted demo ep was unleashed, on a pay-what-you-will basis, on the Bandcamp platform in 2021, which marked the spark of creation for the Birth universe and delivered a blast of vibrant progressive rock rich in cinematic scope and psychedelic intensity and laid the groundwork for what was to come.

“Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world” . So wrote Mary Shelley in Frankenstein, arguably the first science fiction tale. A full 204 years later, the quest remains – how best to elucidate our daily lives with some form of inspiration that moves the spirit beyond its earthly shackles?

On ‘Born’, Birth musically and creatively constructs a science-fiction-inspired sound-world in which bleak tumult and skybound rapture co-exist. The result is an intoxicating album haunted by earthly concerns while its sonics aim simultaneously for the stars. “I’m a scientist by trade and I read a lot of dystopian sci-fi, which I believe is relevant to many of the events that have been occurring lately,” notes Riley. “These views feed a dark, spiritual and mystical relationship that I have with scientific thought”.

Track listing:
01. Born
02. Descending Us
03. For Yesterday
04. Cosmic Tears
05. Another Time
06. Long Way Down

Birth features Conor Riley (vocals, keyboards, acoustic guitar), Brian Ellis (lead guitar, keyboards), Trevor Mast (bass), and Thomas DiBenedetto (drums). Drums on ‘Born’ performed by Paul Marrone.

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https://birthprog.bandcamp.com/

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https://www.facebook.com/BadOmenRecords/
http://www.instagram.com/badomenrecords
https://badomenrecords.bandcamp.com/

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https://www.metalblade.com/

Birth, Born (2022)

Birth, Birth (Demo) (2021)

Certainly Astroqueen playing one of their select few announced reunion shows is an event worth a nod, but amid the would-be-significant-even-if-it-was-just-Truckfighters-and-Greenleaf bill of the Truckfighters Fuzz Festival #3, it’s even more noteworthy.

There’s allegedly a non-zero chance I might travel to Stockholm for the two-day dig in the lovely company of Kings Destroy, who were slated to play this past year and did not owing to the complications of international travel, and gosh that would be just wonderful, but one way or the other, it’s cool to see the likes of High Desert Queen traveling abroad for what will be the second time in 2022. They’re currently on a UK tour and have summer plans besides. Band with a mission hitting it. So it goes.

Tickets are on sale now and I’m pretty sure the link is below here somewhere. Take a look:

TRUCKFIGHTERS FUZZ FESTIVAL #3 Stockholm

NEW BAND ANNOUNCEMENTS!!!

ASTROQUEEN

Their first live show in 15+ years!

Astroqueen was a stoner metal band from Stenungsund, Sweden. Active between 1998 and 2005 in their main run the band composed a thick, heavy stoner sound in a similar vein to Fu Manchu and Nebula though the band draws from other bands such as Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Kyuss and Soundgarden. The group would sign to Pavement Music in December 1999 but it wouldn’t be until 2001 that the band release their only studio album Into Submission in 2001, produced by King Diamond guitarist Andy Larocque. Some recording sessions from 2003 and a split with Buffalo would come over the next few years.

KAL-EL

Kal-El is a Tony Iommi approved Norwegian stoner rock band. These heavy rockers have released three full lengths alongside a pair of EP’s and toured both Europe and the States since their formation in 2012. The band is a product of diverse influences, and though they draw from the classics like Black Sabbath, Sleep and Motorpsycho, if one listens closely they can hear hints of thrash metal and Skandirock fleshing out the sound. It makes for a unique group who are determined to head out and take on the world.

HIGH DESERT QUEEN (US)

After releasing their debut album “Secrets of the Black Moon” on Ripple Music in October of 2021, High Desert Queen has been doing more than turning heads, they are making them move. Their album finished in many top 10 lists for album of the year while receiving rave reviews.

DEATH RAY BOOT

With 10 years in existence, Death Ray Boot is keeping their own pace. Even though gigs have been few and far apart they have gained a trusting fan base. Their music exits somewhere between stoner and punk, right in the middle of The Stooges and Masters Of Reality. Or just something entirely different. Find out for yourself.

There is 19 early bird tickets (ONLY 595Sek) left from THIS LINK (https://www.tickster.com/sv/events/uffebpy3xrygp5r/2022-12-09/9-10-12-2022-fuzzfest-3-early-bird-debaser), when they are gone the regular price is the deal.

Regular tickets:

TICKSTER: https://www.tickster.com/sv/events/5hlj6fm5wfxl3nu/2022-12-09/9-10-12-2022-fuzzfest-3-debaser

FUZZORAMASTORE: https://eu.fuzzoramastore.com/en/fuzz-festival-3-concert-ticket.html

Two full evenings of euphony.

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http://www.truckfighters.com/festival/

Members of Triptykon, Satyricon and probably various other i/ykons coming together to play ’90s style rock probably shouldn’t surprise you. It’s nothing new. Consider a band like Spiritual Beggars circa 30 years ago, and Michael Amott from Carcass setting out pay homage to his roots in ’70s heavy, ending up setting a path many in Europe’s extreme metals would follow, from Bill Steer in Firebird to bands like Sahg, early Grand Magus, and so on.

Dead Eyed Creek are a new generational manifest of a similar idea, having grown up amid the heavy ’90s and seeking to bring that identity to their work. I hear it in the teaser for their first single, for sure. Reminds me of C.O.C. circa Blind, and it’s hard to be more ’90s in my book than that, unless you actually are Alice in Chains.

If it seems early for ’90s retroism, flannel-clad Gen-Z might disagree, and recall that even if Dead Eyed Creek aren’t the start of a movement in themselves — it would be a lot to ask a band who haven’t even released a single yet — there are always those outliers who are early to the party, stylistically speaking. Worth keeping an ear out, in any case.

From the PR wire:

SATYRICON AND FORMER TRIPTYKON MUSICIANS START NEW BAND, DEAD EYED CREEK

Job Bos (Satyricon) and Norman Lonhard (ex-Triptykon) have announced the formation of Dead Eyed Creek.

An early preview is available now, with the band sharing a teaser for their first single “Set Me Free.” The track will be released soon.

It was fall 2019 when guitarist and band founder Job Bos (Satyricon, Dark Fortress, The Ruins of Beverast), approached longtime friend and drummer Norman Lonhard (ex-Triptykon) with the idea of creating music together. After having worked with different musicians, they found bass player Max Blok, who proved to be the right fit for the band on both a musical and a personal level. The final person to join the band was Icelandic singer Einar Vilberg. Einar showed that his mind-blowing vocal skills and range were the number one choice for the band and together they created a mammoth of an album. Dead Eyed Creek was born!

Dead Eyed Creek’s music builds on a shared love of ‘90s rock sounds and heavy music. The band strives to go against the grain and eschews the clean and overproduced sounds found in the current scene. Job Bos says of the songwriting “I’ve been digging deep into myself, my past, my mistakes, my good and bad sides. The idea was to create something based on pure and real things, things that a lot of people have to face in life, and I hope people find a piece of themselves in our music and can hold on to it. Just like many bands have done for us. No metaphors or hiding, it’s all real and it’s all there.”

Co-producer V. Santura adds: “I think that DEAD EYED CREEK is a motherfucking great band, seriously. As a close friend of the band, I already witnessed their first steps and also the sometimes depressing difficulties and problems on the road to complete this debut album. But I have to say that I am truly stoked about their music! May the future belong to them.“

tragic and beautiful ballads and everything in between. Captivating and catchy songs with vocals that can make your skin crawl. With their music, they take the greatness of ‘90s rock to a new level, but most of all continue the sound from that era that so many have fallen in love with.

Now Dead Eyed Creek are gearing up to release their debut album. The international four piece already recorded eleven songs with German producer Michael Zech at Q7 studios in Munich and crafted something wonderfully iconoclastic. To top it off, the acclaimed American music video director Matt Mahurin, who has worked with bands such as Metallica, U2, Alice In Chains and many more, teamed up with Dead Eyed Creek to help them craft their first music videos.

DEAD EYED CREEK line-up
Job Bos – guitars
Einar Vilberg – vocals
Max Blok – bass
Norman Lonhard – drums

https://instagram.com/dead_eyed_creek_official
https://www.facebook.com/deadeyedcreekofficial/
https://deadeyedcreek.bandcamp.com/
https://www.deadeyedcreek.com/

Dead Eyed Creek, “Set Me Free” teaser

Abronia are middle of the night music. If you should encounter the Portland, Oregon, psychedelic Americana troupe’s third album, Map of Dawn outside in the dark, surrounded by insects chirruping, crackling firewood or pre-dawn birdsong, so much the better, but one way or the other, the spirit of the songs is a nighttime spirit. Or at very least, a spirit in which each nuanced twist warrants appreciation, between the guitars of Paul Michael Schaefer and Eric Crespo (also vocals), each extra push behind the commanding vocals of Keelin Mayer, each wispy uncurling of Rick Pedrosa‘s pedal steel, the sundry percussion around Shaver‘s big drum, Shaun Lyvers‘ bass holding it all together and the occasional bit of tenor sax, also courtesy of Mayer‘s lungs. The way one guitar plays to the calm background while the other noodles out the lead line of “Night Hoarders,” or the theatrical poetics of centerpiece “Wave of the Hand,” or the way the big-drum rhythmic pattern of the subsequent “What We Can See” becomes subsumed by layers of melody, even as those layers follow the pattern, before Crespo and Mayer‘s shared verse gives over to hand drums and pedal steel with that strum still behind.

Each instrument throughout the seven-song/39-minute spread dances out in layers, each layer linked to a performance. You can trace the layers as you go, follow any number of paths as you listen. You can walk through Map of Dawn any way you want. The sun’s coming up no matter what. A solidified lineup has allowed Abronia room to grow as a unit and they have not squandered that opportunity.

As the follow-up to 2020’s The Whole of Each Eye (review here) and 2017’s Obsidian Visions/Shadowed Lands (review here), Map of Dawn bears a confidence of approach befitting the group’s five years of experience. For sure they’re still exploring new reaches here, new ways of harnessing mood in their sounds — atmosphere is and has been paramount, if it needs to be said, but Mayer as a singer is able as well to convey a range of emotion, which is why “Wave of the Hand” works — toying with Morricone and a creeper riff on “Games” after the heavy folk of “Plant the Flag” pays off in a single, sudden burst, which in itself feels pretty daring, or the way in which the penultimate “Invite Jeffrey Over” leaves so much empty room even with the pedal steel humming deep in the mix like a Hammond organ otherwise might.

Map of Dawn might play to a similar style as Abronia‘s past offerings — like cult rock if the cult was the mythologies of the American West — but it does so with a firmer grasp of intent. Certainly Shaver‘s big drum is a consistent distinguishing presence, the band eschewing a full kit in favor of forcing the hand of creativity in terms of percussion. That can mean a shaker here or a tambourine there, which can change the entire effect a given song has on the listener, so the “drums” in terms of the-part-of-a-track-where-someone-is-banging-on-or-shaking-something become no less of an arrangement element than pedal steel, adding to the complexity of the material even as they remove one of rock’s most common standbys.

Being one of three songs over six minutes long — the others are “Invite Jeffrey Over” (6:06) and the subsequent closer “Caught Between Hives” (8:24) — it’s obvious going into Map of Dawn that “Night Hoarders” is meant to draw the listener into the world the band are portraying, and so it does. By the time it’s two minutes in, Mayer‘s vocals are echoing out noted proclamations and the guitars are strumming in seeming triumph while the pedal steel follows their root notes, then the sax notes blow and they shift into a drippy, Dead Meadow-style wah lead. You understand at this point that the song is halfway over. It spins like a loom, steady. The transition back to the verse and the declarative chorus is easily enough made, sax included, there’s a stop before the last reprise, then the drum gradually drops out and the guitars (pedal steel included) carry out the last minute quietly.

Comparatively, the uptempo start of “Plant the Flag,” with its vaguely surf rock outset feels like a stark turn, but it’s not. Crespo joins Mayer in the verse lines, setting up “What We Can See” on side B, and Abronia build on the work they’ve already done establishing the ambience in “Night Hoarders,” subtly moving from building that world to inhabiting it and having already brought the audience into that experience as well. They peruse different breadths in “Games,” in “Wave of the Hand” with its midsection freakout wash feeling all the more vital for being the album’s midsection, then cutting to the track’s all-in ending. Each song is a potential highlight depending on the path you’re walking, which layer you’re following.

The pairing of “Invite Jeffrey Over” and “Caught Between Hives” feels intentional, and the latter provides an ending that is resonant to the proceedings as well as a sonic payoff. More controlled than the wash of “Wave of the Hand” but coming apart in a way that feels suitably organic at the finish. I’d add “What We Can See” to the concluding salvo, as well. While it’s somewhat shorter, its specifically ’60s psychedelia is a standout moment as a showcase for Mayer‘s and Crespo‘s voices working together and for the range of what Abronia bring to their aesthetic palette, harnessing ideas of desert mysticism and lysergic hypnosis while building a tension soon enough to be dropped outright in favor of the shift to the quiet start of the soon-to-be-plenty-intense “Invite Jeffrey Over.”

It’s a moment where Abronia prove they can do whatever they want from their sonic foundation. They know who they are as a band and they understand how to manifest that in a studio setting. Map of Dawn isn’t a record a band could make their first time out, but it could make a vital introduction to new listeners. The manner in which it engages their half-decade of growth, their process of sorting out their identity, and the way it still looks ahead to what might come are little if not an invitation to follow along. Whichever route you go, whichever evocative layer catches your fancy, go safely. Don’t twist an ankle while you dance the sunrise.

Abronia, Map of Dawn (2022)

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Feeding Tube Records website

July 21 has been set as the release date for the Black Farm Records vinyl remaster of the 2001 self-titled debut from New York’s Begotten. The Brooklyn-and-now-not-just-Brooklyn-based trio have been active again for a few years now — their 2018 Demo EP (review here) offered crunch-riff delights beyond proof of life, and they followed with an EP last year — and Begotten has been waiting for its LP issue for at least the last 12 months, as the label announced intentions toward having it out in July 2021. That is a significant delay and nothing if not emblematic of the times.

Perhaps all the more appropriate, then, that the band should have a new video up for “Judges” from the record, which takes a classically-metallic harsh view of current realities: climate change, wildfires, the planet dying under our feet and largely by our own collective hand. From its initial Sabbathian lurch to the more shuffling finish, it’s a representation of the doom-for-doomers mentality of the group, and it’s hard to ignore either the relevance of the lyrics more than two decades later — yup, shit still sucks, maybe even more, considering Begotten‘s original July 2001 release puts it before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and the 20 years of war, fire, flood, plague and political decay that have followed — or the fact that if you sat “Judges” alongside much of the current heavy underground sphere, which they’re basically doing with the vinyl reissue, it fits. Primitive times call for primitive riffs. Begotten wield theirs with due judgment.

Near as I can tell, the Roger Lian remaster of the album featured here is the one the band previously had streaming on their Bandcamp (player at the bottom of this post; if I’m wrong on that I’ll correct as need be), but in any case, doom is doom and this is doom, so doom on, doomers. Oh, did I mention Begotten were a sludge band? Ha.

I’m not generally one for issuing direct challenges to bands and I won’t here either, but I’d love to hear what Begotten could come up with for a brand new full-length.

Enjoy “Judges” and consider the possibilities. Further word on the reissue follows, courtesy of Black Farm:

Begotten, “Judges” official video

Greetings from the Farm!

Remember when we announced the reissue of Begotten’s debut album in July?

Well, the test pressing has been play tested and approved!

The whole reissue process has taken a little more time than expected, but everything is turning up super nicely.

Roger Lian (Slayer, Pantera, …) handled the vinyl remaster and rearranged track order to suit the vinyl specifications, and it sounds that huge!

Scott “Wino” Weinrich has been kind enough to pen a few words in the liner notes for this 20th anniversary reissue, and the very first time on vinyl!

Begotten’s debut is the last ever release Man’s Ruin records put out in 2000, and it’s such an honour to finally give this piece of history the vinyl treatment it has deserved for 20+ years.

No doubt you will love this new presentation of Begotten’s Doom landmark.

More news to come as soon as we can confirm exact release date.

Stay safe, drop Doom!

Begotten, EP (2021)

Begotten, Begotten (2018 Remaster)

Begotten on Facebook

Begotten on Instagram

Begotten on Bandcamp

Black Farm Records store

Black Farm Records on Instagram

Black Farm Records on Facebook

Frickin’ Ian Blurton gets it. That’s not news if you’re from Toronto, I guess, but hot damn, that is a song. I don’t mean that that it’s just catchy or whatever — it is, but that’s beside the point — but if you listen to “Like a Ghost,” which is the opening track from Ian Blurton‘s Future Now‘s upcoming second album, Second Skin, you can hear the mapped out structure, see the parts on the board as the song came together, or at least how it was arranged in the finished product, as Blurton and company remind that just because something is heavy doesn’t mean it can’t sound clean. If dude wants to be heavy rock’s own Ric Ocasek songwriter, he’s on his way.

So anyway, I dig the track, I guess.

There’s a fair amount of info below but I’m including all of it here because I’m pretty sure I’m gonna want it later. In any case, from the PR wire:

IAN BLURTON’S FUTURE NOW To Release Second Skin Full-Length Via Seeing Red Records July 15th

Second Skin will be released digitally and on black vinyl via BLURTON’s own Pajama Party label in Canada HERE: https://ianblurtonsfuturenow.bandcamp.com/

And on Aside/Bside (Color Merge) and Color-in-Color Splatter vinyl via Seeing Red Records HERE: http://www.seeingredrecords.com

Legendary Canadian artist/producer IAN BLURTON and his FUTURE NOW project will release latest studio album, Second Skin, via Seeing Red Records on July 15th, today unveiling the record’s artwork, track listing, and first single!

If you’re a fan of any kind of ’70s heavy rock – Southern boogie, NWOBHM, MC5/Stooges Detroit punk, Junk Shop glam, or straight-up classic rock – we are willing to bet IAN BLURTON’S FUTURE NOW has something for you. If you’re the kind of person who might geek out on the vintage gear used to record that music, we’ll double down on that wager.

A mainstay in the Canadian scene since the 1980s, IAN BLURTON may have come along after hard rock’s heyday, but he has parlayed his love of the era’s musical sensibilities into a career as both a musician (Change Of Heart, C’mon, Public Animal) and a producer (Cursed, Tricky Woo, Weakerthans, Cauldron). For the follow-up to his acclaimed solo debut, 2019’s Signals Through The Flames, he is pulling out all the stops, sourcing the best of the best for all elements. Formed to tour in support of Signals… FUTURE NOW features some of the top talents heard on that record: drummer Glenn Milchem (Blue Rodeo) and bassist Anna Ruddick (City And Colour). To complement the powerhouse rhythm section and recreate live the Wishbone Ash/Judas Priest–inspired harmonies that define the album, Aaron Goldstein was been recruited for second guitar.

In tandem with the Signals Through The Flames tour, BLURTON was accepted as an artist in residence at Studio Bell, home of the National Music Centre, in Calgary. The residency presented an opportunity to pack up the band – hot from a string of live shows – and head west to track a follow up album with the country’s most enviable collection of musical equipment.

Second Skin was recorded using the famed Rolling Stones Mobile (the studio The Rolling Stones used to record Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main Street, Led Zeppelin’s III and IV, and Deep Purple’s Machine Head) as well as the aforementioned National Music Centre. With the institution’s selection of rare guitars formerly owned by Randy Bachman, amps from Neil Young, and an array of vintage gear borrowed from Calgary friends, FUTURE NOW had the ingredients for a dream session. Throw in an early ‘80s Mellotron, and the band had all it needed to cook up a crushing collection of sludgy riff-driven rockers and prog epics, all with clean vocals, thunderous bass/double-kick, and the kind of guitar solos you wish you could play. Second Skin was mixed by Daryl Smith at Chemical West, mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege, and features artwork by Jeremy Bruneel. The record will undoubtedly make for a fine Summer soundtrack.

In advance of the release of Second Skin, today IAN BLURTON’S FUTURE NOW unveils a video for first single and album opener, “Like A Ghost.”

Comments BLURTON, “In ‘Like A Ghost,’ poet Baudelaire and god Poseidon inhabit a world in need of shelter from the past attempting to take over their future. It is about being present in a world that doesn’t want us to be. As the first track on Second Skin, it sets up the theme of the record that sometimes it’s best and ok to leave bad ideas behind.”

Second Skin Track Listing:
1. Like A Ghost
2. Second Skin
3. The Power Of No
4. When The Storm Comes Home
5. Orchestrated Illusions
6. Denim On Denim
7. Beyond Beholds The Moon
8. Too High The Sky
9. Trails To The Gate/Second Skin Reprise

IAN BLURTON’S FUTURE NOW:
Ian Blurton – vocals/guitar/keyboards
Glenn Milchem – drums/vocals
Anna Ruddick – bass/vocals
Aaron Goldstein – guitar
Guests:
Sean Beresford – guitar on “Too High The Sky”
Robin Hatch – piano “Trails To The Gate”

http://www.facebook.com/ianblurton.futurenow/
http://twitter.com/ianblurton
http://www.instagram.com/ianblurton

http://www.seeingredrecords.com
http://www.seeingredrecords.bandcamp.com
http://www.instagram.com/seeing_red_records
http://www.facebook.com/seeingredrecords

Ian Blurton’s Future Now, “Like a Ghost” official video