Tag Archives: Botanist

Stranger Aeons End of Year List

Another year comes to a close and that means lists. I never really get excited when the prospect comes around because a list is never as complete as you’d want it to be. In a way, it’s a moments recollection of all the good music that came by in the past year. Still, it’s important to look back and share with the world what it might have missed otherwise.

I can mention a load of bands I would gladly have included here. For example, I didn’t really get around to listen properly to Enslaved and Converge’s new records and I had to chose to omit the likes of Power Trip, Akercocke, and Pillorian.  Oh, and Dool came to me in a big way. Well, you can’t have it all, but here is the list as it is:

  1. Ulver – The Assassination of Julius Ceasar
  2. Amenra – Mass VI
  3. JupiterianTerraforming
  4. Au-DessusEnd of Chapter
  5. Elder – Reflections of a Floating World
  6. Vulture Industries – Stranger Times
  7. FiefIII
  8. King of Asgard:taudr:
  9. Al NamroodEnkar
  10. Eschatos – MÆRE
  11. Der Weg Einer FreiheitFinisterre
  12. RaganaYou Take Nothing
  13. Bell Witch – Mirror Reaper
  14. SpaceslugMountains & Reminisce
  15. GrimaTales of the Enchanted Wood
  16. Myrkur – Mareridt
  17. Hair of the DogThis World Turns
  18. BotanistCollective: The Shape of He to Come
  19. CyaxaresHouse of the Cosmic Waters
  20. Falls of RaurosVigilance Perennial

I would also like to express thanks to the labels that have kindly supplied me with promo materials and support for realizing my goals. In particular thanks to Transcending Obscurity and Qabar Extreme Music PR. Also, thanks to Echoes & Dust for lending weight to my 195 bands project, by publishing these interviews.

May 2018 be a great year in music again. Live long and prosper.

Underground Sounds: Botanist – Collective: The Shape of He to Come

Label: Avantgarde Music
Band: Botanist
Origin: United States / The Verdant Realm

Harmonious collective in the Verdant realm of Botanist

The group Botanist really functions as a group on this brand new album, which feels very different to their earlier efforts. A year after the split with Oskoreien, we step away from the numbered series of albums to create something new in the form of Collective: The Shape of He to Come. 

Though Botanist is currently touring (and I’ll be seeing them play in a week in Eindhoven’s very own Dynamo), they will not be playing songs from this record, because the band is not the same as the one that made this record. Particularly the singing of Bezaelith is key to these songs, but she’s not touring with the band.

On this record, Otrebor has shared writing responsibilities with the other members. This makes the album a more layered construction, with new aspects and more of a complete vibe. When an album is created by a solo-artist, it somehow always has a little bit of that solitary vision in its execution. The album has more now, more musicality, more wanderings down untrodden garden paths… It’s an exciting, fresh new sound. If you like to read more about that process, which so clearly shapes the sound, read about it here.

The sound of that hammered dulcimer completely enthralls me. The hitting feels firm, but also mellow to the ear, taking off the sharp edge of black metal riffing. Botanist sounds unique because of that. It can create heavy, percussive black metal, but obviously also classical sounding, melancholic music. That is immediately clear on opener ‘Praise Azalea the Adversary’, with its gentle intro. The gentle, shivery vocals on the first part of ‘The Shape of He to Come’ also are so different, but filled with the fragile beauty of nature in its very own way.

The music blossoms as one could say, slowly unfolding. Tones grow together like an unkept garden, they merge together and weave green tapestries of sound with that mournful singing in harmony. A great example is ‘Upon Veltheim’s Throne Shall I Wait’, where everything gathers in a steady stream.

So there’s always a lot of subtlety to the music of Botanist, it doesn’t hit you in the face with force, but overgrows you gradually.  Subtle bass loops, spun out soundscapes, this record lacks every aspect of brutality and that is in fact perfectly fine. On ‘Join the Continuum’ there’s even some straight up folk music, with ladies chanting melancholic, yearning words. Most imposing track is the epic ‘The Reconciliation of Nature and Man’. An epic, rumbling track, where the percussionist elements really are the source of the feeling in your gut. Everything about this record just oozes that different method and plan behind it. Otrebor definitely holds it close to the tradition of Botanist, but this record explores new sounds and expressions. It’s a great trip and I am really looking forward to hearing this live.

Underground Sounds: Botanist/Oskoreien – Green Metal / Deterministic Chaos

Label: Avantgarde Music
Band: Botanist / Oskoreien
Origin: United States (both)

The band Botanist is a one man metal project, that steers black metal into the realm of plant life. The apt name for that side of the split is not without reason ‘Green Metal’. The sound of Botanist has captivated me, even more after seeing them perform life on Roadburn. It’s vibrant, unrelentingly different and in its own sphere of existence. It’s use of instruments is also peculiar, mainly the use of a hammered dulcimer. I love entering that verdant realm of Roberto Martinelli aka Otrebor.

Oskoreien is less familiar to me, but the band has their roots in viking metal. This is also a one man band. Jay Valena has more moved towards black metal with a slightly philosophical theme to it. The two tracks of Oskoreien are under the title ‘Deterministic Chaos’. I’m a bit puzzled why these two artists have come together, but it makes sense soundwise and lets be honest, both are fairly strange acts in a league of their own.

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Oskoreien version of the cover

The tracks of Botanist are marked by a peculiarly frantic percussion and lack of the blazing guitars. The harsh barked vocals are in sharp contrast with the often harmonious and very beautiful tones. It’s a bit like drifting through Wonderland, where a mad plant-man starts barking at you in the midst of the green overgrowth. It’s rare to use the word vibrant for black metal, but the blissful tones of ‘Varkoor’ evoke no other feelings.  The epic lyrics describe plants and their reproduction in grand terms, like ‘Clathrus Columnatus’: “Lord of the flies, In pilgrimage they come, To its altar of slime, Gathering its children, Spores to arise anew”. 

The final track by Botanist is an almost shoegaze affair, where only the vocals stand as the extreme metal element.’Saprophyte’ fades into another track, where that weird, hammering percussion is again on the forefront. This playful, lively sound is in sharp contrast with the noisy, distortion laden sound that Oskoreien delivers, including some big riffs by the way, to keep the rock element high. Droning, gritty sounds with melancholic guitars woven through is what you hear on the title track ‘Deterministic Chaos’. Though it feels black metal, it has a sludge/drone sound going for it that is so utterly bleak that the harsh vocals are all that gives life to the tune.

The most surprising track is the Placebo cover by Oskoreien. It’s like a long stretched, doom-gloom version of the track with tormented howls instead of the nasal Brian Molko. An improvement many would say, but what an unearthly emptiness does Oskoreien invoke with their cold soundscapes. Harrowing and haunting, combined with those tracks by Botanist, this makes for an excellent record exploring the far of realms of black metal.