
The California-based cellist and composer Kakophonix has contributed his prodigious talents as a session musician to a long list of diverse bands, including Abigail Williams, Chrome Waves, Astralborne, Nòtt, and Grave Gnosis, in addition to performing in previous years as a member of Empyrean Throne (to name but a few of his credits). But it is his personal project Hvile I Kaos (“Rest In Chaos” in Norwegian) that has served as the central focus for his individual artistic trajectory and spiritual practice.
Variously described as “Black Ritual Chamber Musick” and “Cellistic Black Metal”, it has been an evolving vehicle for translating spiritual themes into sensory experiences that do have the atmosphere of rituals. We have previously described the music as “a version of spiritual black metal from an alternate dimension”, occupying “a space that is in between extreme metal and classical music, an abnormality in both worlds, creating a world of its own as it unfolds”.
The newest Hvile I Kaos release is a split EP named Never Without the Pentagram with the solo artist Emerson Sinclair, who has played violin with Hvile I Kaos in live performances over the last few years. Kakophonix tells us that the split EP “flows as a continuous work of ceremonial magick”, a ritual invocation in which Hvile I Kaos opens and closes the circle (and the record) and Emerson Sinclair‘s tracks fill in the middle. “Stylistically it’s best described as occult neoclassical with elements of black metal and electronic music.”
Never Without the Pentagram will be released on July 10th by Metal Assault, and today we are very pleased and very proud to present a video for “Rise, Engulf, Envenom“, the Hvile I Kaos piece that begins the split. In a word, the music is astonishing, and so is the imagery that accompanies it. Continue reading »