hello swirl
Like Velvet Underground sacrificing Enya in an English castle and her ghost slaughtering the lot of them and cursing them to stay eternity with her as a band. I.e. totally awesome, and distinctly doomy jam-laden and ritual, rather than pop riffing.
Reviewer silliness aside, this is a beautiful and cohesive composition.
Nickie Harte Kelly
This offers a nod to the Black Plague era, in reference to our own pandemic, utilizing a slight variation of the canonical hours to link the pieces. The music is mostly very dark, reinterpretations of early music, at times reminding me of some of Hildegard Von Bingen’s more experimental and jarring pieces. Sometimes jarring, and sublime, and often a bit disturbing, this is a work that is sonically fascinating. The band reworks some traditional pieces to great effect.
Favorite track: Bryd one Brere (Bird on a Briar).
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Purchasable with gift card
£7GBP
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Semi-transparent turquoise vinyl. Cover art with old-gold highlighting.
Comes with a full colour booklet taking the listener on a journey through the visual world of The Black Hours. Inspired by a medieval devotional 'book of hours' of the same name, an intimate hand crafted manuscript marking The Liturgy of the Hours, or The Office of the Dead - prayers to take a soul in need from from dusk to dawn, and through the darkest of nights.
Richly illustrated around a series of 'miniatures' - highly symbolic diorama-style band portraits, potent with secret messages and hidden meanings. The sequence of three images firstly show a pre-pandemic DSCM, moving to lockdown, and emerging into the strange and unsettling world we currently find ourselves in.
Full colour, with detailed mixed media artwork (hand-drawings, collage and photography) throughout, printed on matt finish thick paper. Luxury 'softened leather-feel' textured cover. 12 pages.
Co-released by Dead Space Chamber Music & Avon Terror Corps
Includes unlimited streaming of The Black Hours
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
...more
ships out within 7 days
£20GBP
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Digipak CD with 6 panels of artwork. Full colour. Matt finish.
Comes with a full colour booklet taking the listener on a journey through the visual world of The Black Hours. Inspired by a medieval devotional 'book of hours' of the same name, an intimate hand crafted manuscript marking The Liturgy of the Hours, or The Office of the Dead - prayers to take a soul in need from from dusk to dawn, and through the darkest of nights.
Richly illustrated around a series of 'miniatures' - highly symbolic diorama-style band portraits, potent with secret messages and hidden meanings. The sequence of three images firstly show a pre-pandemic DSCM, moving to lockdown, and emerging into the strange and unsettling world we currently find ourselves in.
Full colour, with detailed mixed media artwork (hand-drawings, collage and photography) throughout, printed on matt finish thick paper. Luxury 'softened leather-feel' textured cover. 12 pages.
Includes unlimited streaming of The Black Hours
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
...more
ships out within 7 days
£15GBPor more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Digipak CD with 6 panels of artwork. Full colour. Matt finish.
Includes unlimited streaming of The Black Hours
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 7 days
£10GBPor more
Cassette + Digital Album
Cassette with full colour on-body printing, full colour J-card in matt finish with 1 extra panel of artwork. Complete with full colour outer O card.
Comes with a full colour booklet taking the listener on a journey through the visual world of The Black Hours. Inspired by a medieval devotional 'book of hours' of the same name, an intimate hand crafted manuscript marking The Liturgy of the Hours, or The Office of the Dead - prayers to take a soul in need from from dusk to dawn, and through the darkest of nights.
Richly illustrated around a series of 'miniatures' - highly symbolic diorama-style band portraits, potent with secret messages and hidden meanings. The sequence of three images firstly show a pre-pandemic DSCM, moving to lockdown, and emerging into the strange and unsettling world we currently find ourselves in.
Full colour, with detailed mixed media artwork (hand-drawings, collage and photography) throughout, printed on matt finish thick paper. Luxury 'softened leather-feel' textured cover. 12 pages.
Includes unlimited streaming of The Black Hours
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
...more
ships out within 7 days
£13GBPor more
Cassette + Digital Album
Cassette with full colour on-body printing, full colour J-card in matt finish with 1 extra panel of artwork. Complete with full colour outer O card.
Includes unlimited streaming of The Black Hours
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Bryd one brere, brid, brid one brere,
Kynd is come of love, love to crave
Blythful biryd, on me thu rewe
Or greyth, lef, greith thu me my grave
Hic am so blithe, so bryhit, brid on brere,
Quan I se that hende in halle:
Yhe is whit of lime, loveli, trewe
Yhe is fayr and flur of alle
Mikte ic hire at wille haven,
Stedefast of love, loveli, trewe,
Of mi sorwe yhe may me saven
Ioye and blisse were were me newe
Translation
Bird on a briar, bird, bird on a briar
We are born of love, love to crave
Blissful bird, on me have pity
Or dig, love, dig thou for me my grave
I am so blithe, so bright, bird on briar
When I see that handmaid in the hall
She is pale of limb, lovely, true
She is fair and flower of all
Might I her at my will have
Steadfast of love, love so true
From my sorrow she may me save
Joy and bliss would wear me new (renew me)
Wel dyma ni'n dwad
Gyfeillion diniwad
I ofyn am gennod i ganu
Os na chawn ni gennad
Rhowch wybod ar ganiad
Pa fodd mae'r 'madawiad, nos heno
'Does genni ddim cinio
Nac arian iw gwario
I wneud i chwi 'roeso, nos heno
Translation
Here we come
Dear friends
To ask permission to sing
If we don't have permission
Let us know in song
How we should leave tonight
I have no dinner
Or money to spend
To give you welcome tonight
Dies Irae, dies illa
The day of wrath, oh on that day
Will dissolve the world in ashes
Death and nature, they will marvel
Oh when the creature will rise again
The guilty judged, oh spare them God
Lacrimosa dies illa (tearful will be that day)
On which from these embers I rise again
My heart crushed in ashes
Pie Iesu Domine
Oh, merciful Jesus
Grant them rest
THE BLACK HOURS
The Black Hours, the upcoming second studio album by Dead Space Chamber Music, digs deep into the unsettling and disorienting experiences of the last year or so, confronting and embodying many emotions — from boldly visceral to achingly tender, with a very human thread running through the whole work. The songs themselves show the breadth of the group’s scope in terms of influences and approaches — material that is hundreds of years old being brought to (new) life, with soul-stirring and tender melodies rising to dramatic doom-laden highs via avant-garde and experimental techniques.
The album is a collection of 7 interlinked songs, each heralded by the tolling of a bell to mark the ‘hour’. They were created sequentially: the first song was created pre-lockdown, the last song was created post-lockdown, and the 5 in between were recorded in August 2020 at The Premises Studios, London, by the ‘fifth member’, Tom Berry, who recorded their OEIRA EP while still a student in 2018 and who they have worked with ever since. He understands how the group like to record — all together in a live room, where they can see and directly respond to each other — something important for the semi-improvised sections of their music. He also contributed creatively to the final result, for example reamping the cello and guitar through vintage amps and expertly applying analogue delay to the bowed cymbal on Ion.
The Black Hours was begun in late 2019 and was completed mid-way through 2021. The way that the album carried the band through the strange journey of the pandemic resonates with the theme and visuals of the album. The entire record is a reference to a medieval illuminated manuscript of the same name, a unique and intimate book of prayers to mark The Liturgy of the Hours, or The Office of the Dead — with prayers to mark the hours from morning to evening and all through the night. Created between 1460 and 1475, The Black Hours is hand-scribed on black vellum with real gold, silver, and at the time more valuable than either of these — turquoise pigment. The idea of marking time, especially dark times, this way appealed to the group — the focused contemplation of prayer being akin to the focus of creating and crafting music.
credits
released December 3, 2021
The Black Hours comes 03rd December 2021 on CD, cassette, and digital formats.
Vinyl (turquoise semi-transparent coloured), co-released by Dead Space Chamber Music and Avon Terror Corps, is expected to be shipped in Spring 2022
Line up
Tom Bush: Guitars, Sampler
Katie Murt: Drums, Percussion
Liz Muir: Cello Ellen Southern: Voice, Percussion / found sounds, Bowed & Plucked Psaltery
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Tom Berry at The Premises Studio, London. Vinyl mastering by Beau Thomas at Ten Eight Seven Mastering, pressed at The Vinyl Factory, London. Album artwork by Ellen Southern, design by Katie Murt. Album photography by Katie Murt Photography
Band portraits by Katie Murt Photography.
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