AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MRTVI — “GREAT CLEANSING COME UPON US”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Dec 142023
 

Beginning in the spring of 2017 we’ve premiered music and videos by MRTVI six times. Today makes the seventh time — but it may be the last.

We’ve been consistently fixated on the music of this solo project of Serbian artist Damjan Stefanović because it has been so consistently interesting, and so difficult to pigeonhole in genre terms (though “experimental black metal” might come closest, simply because the music has been unconventional).

The music has always been personal, and often autobiographical. For that same reason, it may have run its course with the EP we’re now premiering in full on the even of its release. Here is what Damjan has told us about Great Cleansing Come Upon Us: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MRTVI — “HOME”

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Jul 252022
 

 

In March of this year we premiered a remarkable video for a remarkable song off the then-forthcoming fifth album by the experimental black metal band MRTVI. Entitled The ExiZentialist, the album was released last month by Life As A Dream Records, and today we premiere yet another video for yet another song off that fascinating record.

When we made that previous premiere we explained that although all of MRTVI‘s albums have been rooted in the experiences and thinking of their sole creator, Damjan Stefanović, this newest one is even more autobiographical. It was inspired by his own experience of being uprooted long ago from his homeland in Serbia (to escape from war), transported to live for roughly 20 years in the UK (where he began MRTVI), and much more recently returning to the country of his birth.

In that previous premiere we also included extensive comments from Damjan about the album as a whole and the song in particular that we premiered (“Lake of Memories“). All of that is well worth reading, but today we’ll focus on this one song that’s the subject of the video, a song called “Home“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MRTVI — “LAKE OF MEMORIES”

 Interviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 172022
 

Music videos can be entertaining to watch when they are well-made, even when they don’t have any deep connection (or sometimes any connection at all) to the music they accompany. But in those rare instances when they do connect, each aspect of the art can enhance the other, the sights and sounds intertwining to create a more powerful and emotionally involving experience than if each were experienced separately. We have one of those rarities to share with you today.

The song is “Lake of Memories“, and it brings the listener to the culmination of a story that unfolds across the fifth concept album created by the Serbian experimental black metal project MRTVI (that genre description isn’t really adequate, but it would be equally inadequate to concoct some other short-hand descriptor). Entitled The ExiZentialist, the album is now set for release on June 14th by Life Is A Dream Records.

All of MRTVI‘s albums have been rooted in the experiences and thinking of their solo creator, Damjan Stefanović, but this new one is even more autobiographical, inspired by his own experience of being uprooted long ago from his homeland, transported for many years to another country (the UK, where he began MRTVI), and much more recently returning to the country of his birth. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MRTVI — “II RHYTHM OF EMOTION”

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Sep 132021
 

 

On two nights, one in November 2015 and one in October 2016, the Serbian (but UK-based) experimental black metal project MRTVI made two improvisational groups of recordings — 11 songs on the first night and 14 more on the second. The work was completed in between MRTVI’s release of its second album (Negative Atonal Dissonance) and its third (Omniscient Hallucinatory Delusion). Rather than release the improvisational works then, MRTVI held them back in order to complete the trilogy of albums that had then been planned.

But now they will be released on October 1st of this year as the two parts of an album entitled Autology: The Shadow Work. Two of the combined 25 tracks have been disclosed so far, and today we present a third one, “II Rhythm of Emotion“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MRTVI — “MACHINE GUN” (PORTISHEAD COVER)

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May 192020
 

 

So far, the experimental black metal band MRTVI, which is the solo project of Serbian musician Damjan Stefanović, has released two albums — Perpetual Consciousness Nightmare (2015) and Negative Atonal Dissonance (2017). Both are fascinating, and well off the usual beaten paths of black metal. As we wrote around the time that the second album was released (by Transcending Obscurity Records), MRTVI “makes a determined effort through this music to fracture reality into a shower of sharp shards and splinters, to plow madly through the constrictive channeling of experience through our perceptions, in search of an inner cosmos”.

MRTVI is at work on a new album (and you can listen to a track from it via a Transcending Obscurity label sampler HERE), but in the meantime has decided to release two cover songs, and we’re premiering one of those today in advance of its release by MRTVI’s label, Life Is A Dream Records. As you can already see from the title of this post, it’s a surprising choice — Portishead’s song “Machine Gun” from their 2008 album Third. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: MRTVI — “AS CONSCIOUSNESS IS HARNESSED TO FLESH PART 2”

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Sep 192017
 

 

In the mind-melting song “As Consciousness Is Harnessed To Flesh Part 2“, the Serbian, UK-based solo artist MRTVI tells you “Reality is not to be believed“. And in case you don’t believe him, he also makes a determined effort through this music to fracture reality into a shower of sharp shards and splinters, to plow madly through the constrictive channeling of experience through our perceptions, in search of an inner cosmos.

We premiered this song once before, in advance of the late-July release of Negative Atonal Dissonance, the eye-popping album that barely contains its unpredictable energies. I advised you then, “whatever you do, don’t pass this by”. But some people may not have been paying attention, and so I’m quite happy to provide a reminder. Plus, this time the music is accompanied by a lyric video that’s almost as abrasive, bewildering, and neuron-rearranging as the music. But not quite. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: MRTVI — “AS CONSCIOUSNESS IS HARNESSED TO FLESH PART 2”

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May 092017
 

 

And now for something completely different….

Form, order, familiarity, repetition — these are among the ingredients that the human mind seems to find most easily digestible and immediately appealing in musical compositions. But sometimes the music that makes the deepest connections with our brains (and our emotions) is unfamiliar, unpredictable, chaotic, iconoclastic.

The piece of music you’re about to hear is fascinating, and completely off all well-beaten paths. In a word, it’s wild — though part of its fascination lies in the dawning realization that as twisted and bizarre as the music is, it achieves a hypnotic effect. It gets its hooks in your head. Or maybe I should just speak for myself. Of course, you will decide for yourselves… but whatever you do, don’t pass this by Continue reading »