Xela In Bocca Al Lupo

Strictly limited upfront double vinyl edition!!* With a title translated as 'Into The Mouth Of The Wolf', John Xela's new album follows up the dense soundsc(r)apes of his last album 'The Dead Sea' with an hour-long, four-part journey into the immense sinister recesses of Christianity, traveling further and deeper than ever before into the dark heart of electronic sound. 'Ut Nos Vivicaret' embraces the distant, spectral echo of church bells, submerged in foggy environs, pumped full of hugely absorbing Philip Jeck-style crackle and mustiness. Bowed strings entangle themselves with menacing, corrosive humming noises while nagging, primordial electronics rattle and pulsate in the mix. A direct continuation of all this, 'In Deo Salutari Meo' brings sounds from the far-off distance almost too close for comfort, with a range of sonorous bell chimes shifting into the foreground, by now seeking accompaniment from what sounds for all the world like the noise from the red generator in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This is what dark ambient music should always sound like: not just a combination of muffled, creepy chords, but a collection of genuinely unsettling timbres, all seemingly rising from shards of everyday background noises, transforming into something entirely nefarious when combined with one another. 'In Misericordia', meanwhile, is just immense, lurching into the territory of noise-drone you'd hear from Hototogisu or Yellow Swans at their most lurid. These acerbic tones turn out to be a mere warm up for the final act however, and the closing twenty-minute crescendo 'Beatae Immortalitatis'. For this final piece Xela is joined by Heavy Winged's Jed Bindeman, who previously provided percussion on the Xela/MGR split release from earlier on in the year. The drums build up in a measured, nicely poised fashion, mirroring the escalating ferocity of Xela's bank of oscillators. As this maelstrom of free-roaming noise-rock comes to a head, the duo propel themselves to Flower / Corsano levels of genius post-skronk, with screams, howls - and very possibly the gnashing of teeth - all resounding as part of the din. 'In Bocca Al Lupo' is one of those rare albums that combines conceptual mischief with a genuine desire to nudge the world forward musically, displacing the maritime-gothic drones from their briny locale and relocating them to the upturned altars and abandoned vaults of ruined churches. The result is a remarkable album, a gleaming highlight within the already estimable Type Records catalogue.