Altered Zones

Hunter Hunt-Hendrix from Liturgy says:
I decided to cull from different areas of experimental and extreme metal as well as classical and avant-garde composition. All the music I included is very serious-- not messing around-- and touching upon something true and important. The first track was supposed to be the first movement of György Ligeti's Violin Concerto, but we had to take it down for copyright reasons.  Too bad, it's an amazing piece, that juxtaposes regular tempo with weird accelerations and fractal patterns, and equal-tempered tuning with just intonation. There are these amazing ocarinas in the piece. I replaced it with the first two movements of Schnittke's String Quartet No.2, which is also rad.

Next is a track by Portal. Amazing, microtonal death metal. I'd say they are the undisputed kings of experimental metal. What is especially great about them is the way they construct repeatable and repeated riffs, though the riffs are these sliding trajectories with no distinct notes.

Giacinto Scelsi is in my opinion the grandfather of spectral music. I mostly like his small-scale works for string quartet or solo instruments, which are always droning microntonally. But this one is large scale and has a chorus, and is so fucking primordial and powerful. I think the title is the word "peace" in three languages. Somehow reminds me of the Skeksis in The Dark Crystal.

Vlad Tepes is my favorite black metal band, though this is not their best song. Raw and chaotic and occult. Child Abuse are from Brooklyn. Their new record [Cut & Run, on Lovepump United Records] is so amazing; it is way underappreciated. I think of it as taking Meshuggah in the direction of noise, though I don't think they see it that way. Havohej is the guy from Profanatica, and this song has such a sick riff. He also did an album called Man and Djinn, which is all just drums and noise, but it is compositionally totally vacuous-- false experimentation in my view.

Stockhausen. Just as I was beginning to compose Aesthethica, I discovered Stockhausen's opera cycle, LICHT. Not that there's any connection between our music and his, but it's the most ambitious and mesmerizing piece of musical theater I have ever encountered. It's seven operas for the seven days of the week. I've hardly digested a 10th of it-- mostly just the preludes to the various operas. This is the prelude to Dienstag: beautiful vocal stuff. In Mittwoch, there's a scene where each member of a string quartet flies up in the air above the theater in a separate helicopter, and they sort of play along with the propellers.

Pharaoh Overloard are covering really unique territory. They do this cross between like psychedelic rock and NWOBHM or thrash; it's really unusual, though maybe not the most amazing thing in the world. Drudkh are a staple of the world of epic underground black metal. Melancholic, occult, Ukranian, patheistic black metal, very solid.

MP3: Liturgy: "Altered Zones Mix"

Full tracklist after the jump. Grab Liturgy's Aesthethica from Thrill Jockey, and purchase tickets here for their record release show in Brooklyn

01 Alfred Schnittke: String Quartet #2, Movement 1 Moderato
02 Alfred Schnittke: String Quartet #2, Movement 2 Agitato
03 Portal: "Larvae"
04 Giacinto Scelsi: Konx-Am-Pax, 3rd Movement (Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic)
05 Vlad Tepes: "Misery Fear and Storm Hunger"
06 Child Abuse: "Bebe"
07 Vagn Holmboe: String Quartet No. 4, 1st Movement (Kontra Quartet)
08 Havohej: "Final Hour of Christ"
09 Karlheinz Stockhausen: Dienstag Aus Licht, Prologue (Stockhausen-Verlag)
10 Pharaoh Overlord: "Demons in the Rising Sun"
11 Drudkh: "Summoning the Rain"