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Shabda Premiere “Pharmakos” from New Album Pharmakon / Pharmakos

Posted in audiObelisk on July 27th, 2015 by JJ Koczan

shabda

Italian drone ritualists Shabda release their third album, Pharmakon / Pharmakos, on Sept. 7 through Argonauta Records. Comprised entirely of two tracks each on the north side of 20 minutes long, it is a two-sided full-length of gripping texture and atmospheric impressionism informed by Eastern-style scale work and instrumentation — sitar, tabla, etc. — and vocalized in similar fashion where and when it is at all. Both “Pharmakon” and “Pharmakos,” the two extended pieces that make the album up and from which it derives its title, function in this general methodology, and yet there are differences between them as well, Shabda uniting them with a sense of overall fluidity of motion, and an exploratory honesty that makes on think even if they got lost along the way — they don’t — they’d still put that on the record because it’s the journey they as a band and the listener both take that matters, not how it all ends up. Richly evocative, peaceful in its early going and tumultuous at its finish, one could just as easily say there’s a linear course throughout the two tracks/41 minutes, but that’s an oversimplification, and along with the stylistic boldness displayed by Anna Airoldi (sitar, vocals, synths), Marco Castagnetto (laptop, percussion, vocals) and Riccardo Fassone (guitar, bass, vocals), there’s very little about Pharmakon / Pharmakos one would be right in calling simple.

“Pharmakon” unfolds gracefully amid drones, subtle percussion, sinewy sitar and an obscure, vaguely religious chant, and it’s not until about the 12-minute mark that the first distorted guitar rises to prominence. This changes the course and focus gradually, but about two minutes later, the sitar drops out, there’s a fade and a thick riff takes hold complemented by drums and other percussion — cymbals, bowls — and “Pharmakon” takes on a surprising lurch, like a heavier early Earth or something deep in the recesses of shabda pharmakon pharmakosQueen Elephantine‘s subconscious. A march is underway, and the track shifts patiently, always patiently, toward an experimentalist’s apex that seems to boil over just as it tops out, devolving quickly into fading noise. Of the two, “Pharmakos” is the more… grounded? I’m not sure if that’s the right word, because it’s all pretty earthy. Either way, a low-end drone opens the first two minutes and rises backed by deep-mixed swirling echo vocals and a sense of foreboding. The volume swell continues and gains a rhythm almost deceptively, the ritual happening before the listener’s ears, and right at the moment where this wash of drone turns abrasive, Shabda add vicious one-off crashes. One after another. A plod. A lumber. If a riff could be a temple — and I think we all know it can — then “Pharmakos” constructs a pyramid out of these crashes, this nodding repetition. Vocals arrive, chants and incantations either in conversation with each other or not, and it becomes clear that this grueling pilgrimage is the course to be held for the duration. Gone are the pastoral sitarisms of “Pharmakon,” and arrived is a consuming, unsettling swell in their places. A lead is added to the charge as the 15-minute mark of “Pharmakos” is passed, and it becomes one more layer of an engrossing, massive wall of noise that cuts out in minute 19 but keeps the same rhythm in long-fading percussion, a shaker maybe and a bowl of some sort, the shaker being the last noise, ending cold at about 20:20.

And even those with that for vision will likely take a time or two through Pharmakon / Pharmakos before its breadth has really sunk in. Shabda released their debut, The Electric Bodhisattva in early 2013 and their sophomore outing, Tummo, in early 2014, but each of their full-lengths seems to be pushing toward a more realized take on their avant approach, and whatever they might be seeking, Pharmakon / Pharmakos would seem to be the closest they’ve come yet. The farther out they go, the closer they come.

Today I have the deep pleasure of hosting “Pharmakos” as a track premiere to herald the album’s arrival in Sept. — which will be here sooner than you think. Thanks to Argonauta and to Shabda for the permission. If you have headphones handy, you’ll want them.

Go ahead and wrap your head around this:

Pharmakon / Pharmakos is the third album by Shabda, a year after the highly acclaimed psychic journey of Tummo. Voluntary hermits established in the rural countryside of Canavese, Piedmont, they fulfill, with this work, a rite of foundation, emanating their blanket of dense droning sound to link distant yet compatible musical mythologies. The two suites forming the album shape time, space and repetition building a sound that drives West and East to confront in the field of pure sound: it’s not doom, nor folk, nor drone in strict sense, but the heavy golden thread that structures the homogeneity of compositions draws a monolithic identity, simultaneously saturnine and solar.

Stylistically, Pharmakon is based on Raga Kafi, tinging it in Middle Eastern shades before crashing on the obsessively guitar oriented drift of its climax. Pharmakos gives off its textural essentiality on the vocal and rhythmic cells of Tibetan mantric music, pushing tension towards the void: then its features are stripped to the bones of an overloaded metal behemoth to investigate pre-existence, life, death and continuity.

Also, Shabda in partnership with Argonauta Records will actively support Nepal populations affected by the earthquake by donating 10% for each copy sold of Pharmakon/Pharmakos album to Nepalese children through Save the Children.

Preorders: http://shop.pe/U2z9B http://shop.pe/pfWzY

Shabda on Thee Facebooks

Shabda on Bandcamp

Argonauta Records

Argonauta Records on Thee Facebooks

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Shabda to Release Pharmakon / Pharmakos in Sept.

Posted in Whathaveyou on June 26th, 2015 by JJ Koczan

shabda_2015

Italian ritual droners Shabda will release their new album, Pharmakon / Pharmakos, Sept. 7 on Argonauta Records. Last year the three-piece put out the Tummo LP, and proceeds from the new one will go toward aid for victims of the earthquake this past April in Nepal. The lush wash of Tummo can be sampled below, and I think if you haven’t heard it before, you’ll find the three tracks an immersive and worthy investment of time.

Will hope to have more on this one as we get closer to the release. Here’s the news until then:

shabda pharmakon pharmakos

SHABDA – Cover artwork and album details revealed

Pharmakon / Pharmakos is the third album by Shabda, a year after the highly acclaimed psychic journey of Tummo. Voluntary hermits established in the rural countryside of Canavese, Piedmont, they fulfill, with this work, a rite of foundation, emanating their blanket of dense droning sound to link distant yet compatible musical mythologies. The two suites forming the album shape time, space and repetition building a sound that drives West and East to confront in the field of pure sound: it’s not doom, nor folk, nor drone in strict sense, but the heavy golden thread that structures the homogeneity of compositions draws a monolithic identity, simultaneously saturnine and solar.

Stylistically, Pharmakon is based on Raga Kafi, tinging it in Middle Eastern shades before crashing on the obsessively guitar oriented drift of its climax. Pharmakos gives off its textural essentiality on the vocal and rhythmic cells of Tibetan mantric music, pushing tension towards the void: then its features are stripped to the bones of an overloaded metal behemoth to investigate pre-existence, life, death and continuity.

Pharmakon / Pharmakos speaks about alchemy without using words, through the evocation of pure sound images, vertically ascending the axis mundi. Like Janus, with one face to the west and one to the east.

Also, Shabda in partnership with Argonauta Records will actively support Nepal populations affected by the earthquake by donating 10% for each copy sold of Pharmakon/Pharmakos album to Nepalese children through Save the Children.

Those into Windhand, Mamiffer, Bong, Terry Riley and Popol Vuh will have something to rejoice by September 7th, 2015. Pharmakon/Pharmakos will be released by Argonauta Records on CD/DD.

Preorders: http://shop.pe/U2z9B http://shop.pe/pfWzY

https://www.facebook.com/shabdaofficial
http://shabdahq.bandcamp.com/
http://www.argonautarecords.com/
https://www.facebook.com/ArgonautaRecords

Shabda, Tummo (2014)

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