Artefacts – Mailorder
Ritual Ambient / Funeral Doom / Black Metal entity hailing from South Korea that, through a ritualistic, dense, raw, cavernous, and profoundly dark sound, seeks to create an atmosphere almost impossible to explain, describe, or even assimilate.
The compositions are born from rituals performed using enochic language, where words linked to primordial entities such as the Dragon (Vovina), Death (Teloch), and Spirits (Gah) are invoked. These invocations intertwine with mantras, death whistles, and resonances extracted from human bones, forming a sonic act that borders on the forbidden.
Once the ritual was consummated, the words and letters were erased and condemned to oblivion. Nothing was written. Nothing was meant to remain. The only vestige of those ceremonies are these recordings, sonic relics that forever sealed our order and our worship of the serpent’s path.
Tampere’s Materiæ Abyssu (Rev. Matron Thorn) unveils its most ambitious and otherworldly creation to date. Joined by the enigmatic female vocalist Ishtariæ, whose spectral presence elevates the work into demonic, mystic dominions, the recording radiates with nightward majesty and forbidden intimations of occult allegiance.
The title “Aëthÿrinn Na Viixhræ” is drawn from the Lexethræum of Áltharósian mysticism, the New Age religion founded by Rev. Matron Thorn in 2025. Each composition reflects the core principles of the five Ëmpyrean realms as outlined in the Áltharós Oraclæum. In alignment with this metaphysical system, all lyrics performed by Ishtariæ are written in the meditative Áltharósian language, invoking the transcendent emanations that define this spiritual architecture.
Neo-noir futurism permeates the album’s sonic design, weaving new age ritualism, darkwave gloom, industrial weight, dark ambient voids, and world-music inflections into a cohesive, apocalyptic vision. An expression of the human condition at the brink of transformation.
https://zazensoundspublishings.bandcamp.com/album/zzs-169-materi-abyssu-aethyrinn-na-viixhrae
Myth is everything in the duo’s work, chiseled into sound by martial drums, accentuated guitars and fatalistic vocals. In the dichotomy between a war-torn present and the pagan spirituality that flows towards us from forests and myths, they unleash a dark and atmospheric, sometimes angry and sometimes melancholy world of sound, a series of often strikingly direct songs that do not shy away from looking into the abyss.
“The Dark River” also features the unmistakable recitative voice of Erin Powell (AWEN).
https://zazensoundspublishings.bandcamp.com/album/zzs-147-mars-the-dark-river
Focusing on the figure of Lars Porsenna, Lucumone of Chiusi (late 6th century BC), perhaps the most emblematic figure of the political and priestly caste of ancient Etruria. He besieged Rome to help the deposed Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (Etruscan King of Rome) to put an end to the Roman monarchy.
Written testimonies convey the power of his troops and his authority during the period – the track ‘Assedio’ takes us back to those moments of weapons and relentless marches, of desperate Etruscan reaction to the proclamation of the Roman republic. “Reqviem” is a haunting funeral litany that accompanies the search for the legendary tomb of Porsenna, of which only modern reconstructions in museums remain. These new hymns are characterised by very dilated tempos that confer solemnity and epicness.
From the ashes, the phoenix awakens. From pain, divinity is born. The initiate walks between two shores, standing before eternity. As above, so below. Sound becomes fire, silence becomes flame. This is the mountain, the path, the illumination: a hymn of rebirth, an invocation beyond time.
https://zazensoundspublishings.bandcamp.com/album/zzs-164-kemet-emme-ya-ashes-of-divinity
Monastic drone, contemporary and ancient at the same time, reaching for the light entrenched deep within.
https://zazensoundspublishings.bandcamp.com/album/zzs-162-j-aernus-b-varvohza-do-arauto-i
A study in overcoming and transformation through colonialism and conquest; through sacrifice and trial; through blood and scorching soil. It is a nod to the cosmic ambience of Isomer’s roots, offset with combative statements of analogue belligerence, field recordings and acid squelch.
https://zazensoundspublishings.bandcamp.com/album/zzs-165-isomer-proclamation
Chilean Black Metal with a Religious Occult Philosophy.
https://zazensoundspublishings.bandcamp.com/album/zzs-148-grymmstalt-mondschatten
Experimental and avant-garde mystical Black Metal.
https://zazensoundspublishings.bandcamp.com/album/zzs-154-episode-xiii-life-terror
The pendulum swings from industrial towards dark ambient as alienation from society deepens.
