(written by Islander)
The German metal band Eremit has followed an unusual path. Beginning with their 2018 debut album Carrier of Weight, they have narrated an unfolding fantasy tale set in a universe created by the band’s mastermind Moritz Fabian. That tale has continued over the course of two more monumental albums and a pair of EPs. Fabian has also been writing the story in book-length “Pamphlets,” with each musical release providing multi-faceted soundtracks to various chapters of the evolving saga. Moreover, the artwork accompanying the records and other merchandise has all been equally integral to the narrative.
The album that we’re premiering in full today in advance of its December 5 release by four labels is an even more ambitious undertaking designed by Moritz Fabian. The name of this project is Raumordnung, and the project’s debut album Stewards of Eon is also a multi-media narrative that’s set in the same universe as Eremit’s albums and described as “a dismal, heart-breaking story,” but represented as a science fiction concept.
How ambitious is it? The Raumordnung collective includes the work of 20 artists of different crafts, among them a wide variety of musicians, as well as authors, photographers, visual artists, illustrators, models, and costume designers. The album is being released along with a graphic novel that provides insight into the album’s narrative.
And the music itself brings together elements of war metal, power electronics, dark ambient, psy trance, and even opera, drawing influence from such disparate acts as Lingua Ignota, Full of Hell, Tsutomu Nihei, Chelsea Wolfe, Caldon Glover, and Antichrist Siege Machine.
On paper, those genre references wouldn’t seem to work together very well — but remarkably they do, in mind-bending ways.
The album consists of three tracks — two very long ones to open and close (though not as long as many of Eremit’s own tracks) and a much shorter one in between.
Like the album as a whole, the opening song “Intersphereon Beacon” has a narrative quality that would be evident even if you didn’t know that it’s a soundtrack imagined in tandem with a graphic novel. You can envision changing scenes simply from the way the music moves from passage to passage.
One can imagine a drift through a cold and hostile void based upon the deep ambient droning tones that open the song. Bursts of whirring classical strings, ominous whispers, and quavering flute-like notes emerge, creating an aura of tension and incipient danger. Slowly, the tension builds through the advent of groaning and whining abrasion — and then the music explodes.
With drums firing furiously fast and enormous low-frequencies rumbling below, the song assaults listeners with a dense and corrosive maelstrom of sound pierced by wild screams and bestial roars. The music also crashes and stomps as well as viciously churns. It sounds like sirens blaring, and a shrieking guitar adds to the experience of a violent sonic war zone in the throes of destructive madness.
The drums go off like bombs; the distorted chords seem to heave and crawl; and then the scene shifts and the music becomes very strange. A collage of eerie electronics provides the chilling backdrop to distorted spoken words, and then booming electronics generate feverishly bouncing beats, coupled with weirdly skittering and sparkling machine-contortions (and perhaps voices), like some freakish robotic rave has broken out.
Suddenly, the scene shifts again. The frantic beats vanish. We seem to be in a chilling drift again, populated by frightening whispers and rhythmically growling pulses, none of which sound of human origin.
Seamlessly, the album flows into the relatively brief second track, “Malady of a secret Design“, in which the strummed and warbling music is softer and more exotic, almost Mesopotamian in resonance and strangely spellbinding in effect.
Deep droning vibrations subtly surface and a wavering voice speaks, fearful and unsettling to the ears. Strangely shimmering ambience draws this song to a close — which just makes the beginning of the final track so startling.
A rabidly cackling voice, a thunderous outburst, and shrill piercing tones launch “Schwere Gefechte an der Raumaußenwand“, followed by an episode of rhythmless symphonic drift in which strange sonic creatures skitter and others venomously gasp. Other creatures seem to solemnly chant or converse, accompanied by an ethereal lilting melody that’s elegant but (of course) strange.
The scenes continue to change abruptly. The music becomes vast and daunting. A female operatic voice soars, plaintive and piercing. Suddenly, musical war breaks out again, breathtaking in its tumult — but just as suddenly it transforms into a massive steamroller of mind-wrecking sound joined by maniacal and monstrous vocals and skull-smacking beats.
The music begins to sound like a titan striding across a ruined land, leaving even more ruin in its wake. Mournful and strident singing voices elevate, and another voice growls from a guttural abyss. The drummer rocks out; HM-2-toned riffing brutally chugs; the bass undulates like some subterranean world serpent; throat-ruining screams insanely flare; and the instruments traumatically convulse.
Once more, the scene changes, becoming more cosmic, and the operatic singer seizes attention again, soulful and sorrowful and haunting in her aspect. Dim symphonic horns funereally intone. Strange mechanistic frequencies sizzle and snarl like some hideous beast. Finally it ends.
In many fewer words: The album is a startling and transportive epic that will light a fire under the imagination of anyone who hears it, an experience that by turns is chilling, catastrophic, mesmerizing, weird, grief-stricken, horrifying, robotic, soulfully human, and powerfully muscle-moving. And now you can experience it for yourselves.
If it isn’t already obvious, you need to set aside the 33 minutes needed to listen straight through, without distractions and preferably in a dark space.
Here are credits for Stewards of Eon:
LINE-UP MUSIC:
Moritz Fabian – Guitar, Saxophone, Vocals, Bamboo Flute, Lightskull, Field-Recordings; Eremit, Moral Rot, Dragged, θoʊθ; based in Osnabrück, Germany.
Marco Baecker – Drums; Eremit, θoʊθ; based in Kattenvenne, Germany.
Dominik Förtsch – actor/composer, media composition/applied music and electroacoustic composition; based in Vienna, Austria.
Robert Ross – vocalist; Fractum, Maximize Bestiality, Avowedera; based in Hamburg, Germany.
Linda Hennen – vocalist; Coven Call; based in Germany.
Linda Hartung – guitarist; based in Germany.
Louis Mescher – Forest Psy Arrangement & Sounddesign; based in Osnabrück, Germany.
Derk T. Trei – vocalist/narrator; Dragged; based in Brunswick, Germany.
Jana Rengers – vocalist, Tristis; based in Essen, Germany.
Pascal Sommer – guitarist, vocalist; Eremit, Los Chappineros; based in Osnabrück, Germany.
Hendrik Bredemann – trumpetist, vocalist; based in Bissendorf, Germany.
LINE-UP VISUALS:
Marina Päsler – photographer, based in Essen, Germany.
Moritz Fabian – photographer, videographer, based in Osnabrück Germany.
Dorian Deveraux – videographer, based in Essen, Germany.
Maxwell Aston – visual artist, logo and illustrations; based in USA.
Dariusz Kieliszek – visual artist, illustrations, cover artwork; based in Poland.
The album was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Roland “Role” Wiegner, Tonmeisterei Oldenburg. The cover artwork was created by Dariusz Kieliszek, with logo and lettering by Maxwell Aston.
The album will be released on various formats by Fucking Kill Records, Drei Gleichen (Eremit’s own label), Cultkill Music, and Fiadh Productions. Find more info and ordering opportunities via the links below.
RAUMORDNUNG:
https://www.instagram.com/raum.ordnung/
https://raumordnung.bandcamp.com/
CULTKILL MUSIC:
https://cultkillmusic.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/cultkill.music
https://www.facebook.com/cultkill.music
FUCKING KILL RECORDS:
https://fuckingkillrecords.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/F.K.R.Records
https://www.instagram.com/fucking.kill.records
FIADH PRODUCTIONS:
https://fiadh.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/fiadhproductions
https://www.facebook.com/fiadhproductions
DREI GLEICHEN:
https://www.instagram.com/drei.gleichen
https://dreigleichen.limitedrun.com/