Circle of Sighs Premiere “Ursus 1”; New EP Out Today
Posted in Bootleg Theater on July 19th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
That rumbling, somehow-intestinal discomfort you feel is no doubt the result of today being the release date for the latest EP from Los Angeles extremist experimentalists Circle of Sighs. The band are no strangers to going over-the-top, and accordingly, the 19-minute conceptual six-tracker Ursus, which also wins outright as regards cover art, plays out across five individual movements — the sixth track is a not-hidden cover of Cardiacs‘ “Horsehead” that becomes an earlier-Author & Punisher-style industrial metal pounding complemented by cinematic keys and guitar effects lasting a mere 84 seconds but packed tight with weird; that is to say, it keeps the spirit of the songs prior even if it’s doing somehting else — all titled “Ursus,” shifting from one to the next with transitional samples, and given to fits of grind, spoken word proclamations about a bear god, saxophone and a sense of onslaught that pervades from “Ursus 1” onward. It is very much its own kind of charming.
And though “Ursus 3” departs into a stretch of horror-jazz echo and thereby pulls away from the intensity surrounding for a moment, in league with the likes of Imperial Triumphant or the reignited Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, the death-stench blasting is never far off, and Ursus offers vigilant reminders that most bears would gladly rip you open and sloppily devour your entrails like happened in that one Werner Herzog movie. The dryly-delivered lines, “I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only 
the overwhelming indifference of nature. To me, there is no such thing as a secret world of the bears. And this blank stare speaks only of a half-bored interest in food,” come to mind, but would probably be too cliché at this point to actually appear on the EP. And of course, for Circle of Sighs, the listener is the one being consumed like an unfortunate and sadly clueless naturalist.
So be it. “Ursus 1,” with its video premiering below, “Ursus 2,” and “Ursus 4” establish a pattern of cutting from multi-instrumentalist/band-spearhead Collyn McCoy‘s charred and throaty rasps to duly manic spoken proclamations, somehow no more discernible and only slightly less threatening. The sense of overwhelm is intentional. It’s all intentional. It is exactly what it wants to be, unkind and unflinching at its own nastiness. “Ursus 4” tests the boundaries of tech-death momentarily before hitting into a breakdown mosh part that fills out with keys and sax or maybe just sax or maybe it’s a guitar I don’t fucking know. The upshot is a solid groove and another sample to finish before accordion, singing and static give over to terror-noise and foreboding across “Ursus 5,” which ends in things-banging-on-things and a far-off amplified hum that makes me wonder if there were guitars there at all. The aforementioned slam of “Horsehead” follows, like the afterthought of a choose-your-own-adventure where not only do you not save the princess but your entire family is burned alive by some spiteful lord. In this case, I guess, the lord is a bear. Fuck books anyway, amirite?
The video is brilliantly dumb and the music pushes the boundaries of the unlistenable in a way they very much had coming. Ursus is out today, CD and tape, through Suspirium Tactile Goods, and McCoy was kind enough to lend some insight as to just what the hell is going on within its span in the quote below, as well as talk a bit about the making of the clip, which if you’re here at all is probably what brought you. Maybe then I’ll just shut the fuck up and tell you to enjoy it. Yeah, do that.
Here goes:
Circle of Sighs, “Ursus 1” video premiere
Collyn McCoy on Ursus:
“Ursus” is a five-song concept EP about a bear that ingests ayahuasca and melds consciousness with a trans-dimensional being. There is also a secret bonus song which is a Cardiacs cover but don’t tell anyone, it’s a secret.
It is the fifth release from Circle of Sighs and the follow-up to our 2023 live LP, “Circle of Sighs Performs an Invocation.”
We chose “Ursus 1” for the leadoff single/video because it’s the first song on the EP and sets up the story. Why start in the middle, ya know?
I usually avoid making narrative videos because even with the best intentions, unless you have a big-ass budget they tend to turn out shit-balls. But then I saw the video Chad made for his band, Ass Life, for the song “Slidenafil Penis,” and I probably watched it fifty times in a row because it was so funny. Low budget but hilarious. So I slid into Chad’s DMs and he totally got what we were going for so it was a done deal. Besides being a brilliant director, Chad’s also an amazing musician and has acted in some “films” if you know what I mean.
The DMT Machine Entity is played by Lou H from Soiled Doilies, which is an amazing noise/performance art group that played at our space Suspirium several times. People talk about seeing elves when they take DMT but I’m pretty sure they actually see Lou, so in a sense it was type-casting.
Lou’s makeup was done by Heather Galipo, who does makeup for American Horror Stories but music fans might know as Crow Jane from the groundbreaking deathrock /post-punk band Egrets on Ergot.
Less than half of Circle of Sighs actually showed up for the video shoot so we had to use our friend Tim and my wife Qin to fill out the ayahuasca ritual. Qin didn’t want to get fake blood on her clothes so we had her wander off while the rest of us got mauled. You’d think that having twelve people in the band – sometimes more – would make it easy to do things like “shoot a music video” but with that many members, it’s actually impossible to schedule anything because there’s always someone who has something more important going on that day/month/year. I should’ve just told them we were giving away free ham. People always show up for free ham.
In addition to the usual streaming horseshit, URSUS will be available on CD (format of the future) and a very limited run of cassettes that come encased in a giant gummy bear. Just a regular giant gummy bear, nothing psychotropic, but if you eat it all in one go you’ll probably get one hell of a sugar high.
Video Credits:
Directed, Shot, and Edited by Chad Fjerstad
Starring Lou H. as DMT Machine Entity
Ryan Thomas Johnson, Collyn McCoy, Ian Schweer, Tim Digulla and Qin LI as Ayahuasca Ritual Participants
Chris Soohoo as The Oracle
Rollo the Bear as Ursus
DMT Machine Entity makeup by Heather Galipo
No animals or elves were harmed in the making of this video
Album Credits:
Collyn McCoy – Vocals, Upright Bass, Electric Upright Bass, Bass Guitar, Guitar, Samples, Percussion
Chris Soohoo – Vocals, Mime, Projections, Puppetry
Ryan Thomas Johnson – Vocals, Keyboards, Banjo
Ian Schweer – Drums
Geoff Yeaton – Saxophones
