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LUSTMORD, "HERESY"
Brian Williams has been operating as Lustmord for more than 20 yearsnow, churning out an impressive number of albums, all of which havebeen classified, for want of a better term, "dark ambient." Not thatit's an inappropriate term for what Williams does, creating rhythm-freesoundscapes that evoke an oppressive atmosphere of loneliness,desolation and dread.Soleilmoon
Though his work is understandably lumped in withhis industrial cohorts SPK and Scorn, it actually has a lot more incommon with the spacescapes of Tangerine Dream or the pioneeringambient work of Popol Vuh. Brian Williams is a consummate engineer andproducer as well, and throughout his career has taken advantage of thelatest technology to increase the presence and richness of his uniquelytextural audio environments. 1990's Heresywas a definite high point in a career of high points for Lustmord, andSoleilmoon has just reissued the album in a nice digipack with a newre-master overseen by Williams himself. Heresy is an hour-longmind trip into massive, cavernous expanses of subterranean rock, intodark recesses filled with a sense of slow, abiding dread. Broken intosix pieces each more consuming than the next, Heresy has anarrative arc from beginning to end, as Williams penetrates deeper anddeeper chambers of bedrock, coming closer to the bubbling magma andfrozen expanses of wasteland at the center of a dying star. Buriedbeneath the yawning industrial maw of these turgid reverberations andtime-stretched, strangled screams are disquieting audio details: aconvocation of monstrous Lovecraftian entities devouring the flesh of acorpse and releasing ancient, foul belches into the cold, stagnant air;the deep, bellowing laugh of a murderous tyrant standing victoriousover the bones of his enemies; a muffled cry of terror from the centerof an immense electrical storm. Williams wields his electronics with anear towards audio environments that envelop the listener, slowly butsurely canceling all thought and focusing the attention on thisimmersive dronescape. Lustmord albums appeal to the same part of mybrain that finds inexhaustible enjoyment in the darkest of heavy metal,from Black Sabbath and Judas Priest to Slayer, Mayhem, Burzum and SunnO))). Like any of the aforementioned artists, Lustmord's penchant forthe shadow side of reality always runs the danger of digressing intounconscious self-parody, but if listened to in the right frame of mind,Heresy is powerful stuff.
Though his work is understandably lumped in withhis industrial cohorts SPK and Scorn, it actually has a lot more incommon with the spacescapes of Tangerine Dream or the pioneeringambient work of Popol Vuh. Brian Williams is a consummate engineer andproducer as well, and throughout his career has taken advantage of thelatest technology to increase the presence and richness of his uniquelytextural audio environments. 1990's Heresywas a definite high point in a career of high points for Lustmord, andSoleilmoon has just reissued the album in a nice digipack with a newre-master overseen by Williams himself. Heresy is an hour-longmind trip into massive, cavernous expanses of subterranean rock, intodark recesses filled with a sense of slow, abiding dread. Broken intosix pieces each more consuming than the next, Heresy has anarrative arc from beginning to end, as Williams penetrates deeper anddeeper chambers of bedrock, coming closer to the bubbling magma andfrozen expanses of wasteland at the center of a dying star. Buriedbeneath the yawning industrial maw of these turgid reverberations andtime-stretched, strangled screams are disquieting audio details: aconvocation of monstrous Lovecraftian entities devouring the flesh of acorpse and releasing ancient, foul belches into the cold, stagnant air;the deep, bellowing laugh of a murderous tyrant standing victoriousover the bones of his enemies; a muffled cry of terror from the centerof an immense electrical storm. Williams wields his electronics with anear towards audio environments that envelop the listener, slowly butsurely canceling all thought and focusing the attention on thisimmersive dronescape. Lustmord albums appeal to the same part of mybrain that finds inexhaustible enjoyment in the darkest of heavy metal,from Black Sabbath and Judas Priest to Slayer, Mayhem, Burzum and SunnO))). Like any of the aforementioned artists, Lustmord's penchant forthe shadow side of reality always runs the danger of digressing intounconscious self-parody, but if listened to in the right frame of mind,Heresy is powerful stuff.samples:
