Trey Spruance, Shahzad Ismaily, Ches Smith, Timb Harris, Peijman Kouretchian, Eyvind Kang, Danny Heifetz, Rich Doucette, Anonymous 13, Jai Young Kim, , Bar McKinnon, Jesse Quattro, Fatima Khanoam, Jason Schimmel, Shamou, many others, etc.
Influences
LOGOS. Front and center: Cappadocian Fathers. ...beware, ours is a long, treacherous journey from the very darkest pits of Nihlism, through the terrains of the Shi’ite and Merkabah sages and Traditionalist thinkers etc, finally to be striving for the summit of Stillness, where we’d still need to act like intruders in our own Hearts & ask some good friends help us break in. Like Lk 5:17-26 .
Picture an arrow, shot with Truth as it’s goal, from the ghetto in the foothills of the afflicted body of neglect. A nest where active hatred and obsession with destruction for it’s own sake initiates the usual cycles of despair and nausea. That is/was us. But here is that scratched up old arrow of ’art’ (never idealism), and it’s still flying after 13 years. It has traversed the dreaded "straight line in curved space", which is a somewhat impossible maneuver, but really one that would be demanded of any earnest bowman wishing to penetrate his arrow past the all-pervasive spheres of humanism, realism, vitalism and nihilsm --- typical layers in the worldview of modernity (normatively ’Western’ cultural orbits, now pan-cultural "universals"). All this pretzel-shaped quasi straight-path-in-Mandelbrot-space maneuvering so that the arrow may have a CHANCE to find it’s only reason for existing: a bullseye in apotheosis in an omnipresent target (with center everywhere, circumference nowhere). But this is no place for an arrow of ’art’ --- it’s something heralded supremely by the Philokalia and Patristic Tradition, which are, paradoxically, antithetical in most fundamentals to the ’art’ credited to the arrow itself. Not just because this apotheosis remains off limits to representation, but also because there already genuinely exists a bona fide Sacred music, and it certainly has no need of our peculiar, circumstantial narrative of wrangling with various pertubations of the Spirit. Our arrow simply sings you songs of it’s difficult & complex journey... some of the themes you might recognize from your own whistlings through the ghetto, perhaps.
Unfair advantage: our bowmen got quite the running start from the Pythagoreans; Parminedes, Philolaus, Plato, Corpus Hermeticum; not forgetting Philo Judea. Plotinus the emanationist, full of merits, and trumped by Athanasius contra mundi, lived on particularly in some later mentors, so we mention him in honesty --- the flower of nit pickings at Chalcedon brought Johannes Philoponus who kicked Proclus’ thick skull around the block (enjoying that spectacle now); the true flower of fragrance indicating Substance bloomed in St. Maximos Confessor. Edessa/Nisibis/Harran fountainhead of Abrahamica (an endless resevoir) crowned with Byzantine/Alexandrine/Antiochine Patristic Tradition -- the same soil Sufi roots dug into much later (as with the Cappadocian monastic complexes); Assyro/Chaldeo legacy picked up by ’Sabian’ Hermetics (see below); we would have been lost without Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi (al-Maqtul) and the Isphahan School (Sadr al-Din al-Shirazi, Mir Damad) -- discovered kindreds St. John Damascene on barzakhi Images and his Harranian contemporary, Bishop Theodore Abu Qurra. Residing in the heart of the matter is Theophan Recluse, Maxim Grek, Sts. Ephraim and Isaac Syrian. We do love Hafez, and Persian Dasgah Tradition and all sound buildings upon the natural-tempered God-given geometrics reaching for True music; wish we understood Byzantine music better; may the true Silence maintained in faithfulness at Haghion Oros never be disturbed. Back down to earth --
At the top of our terrestrial stack of readings for a long time has been Henry Corbin. His achievement remains singular and we will always honor him, especially his sword-brandishing against an academic world gone ultra humanist/realist in the quasi-Marxist/Freudian/Darwinian intellectual prison that passes as the "rational" aspect of the academic world today. We did our time with Rene Guenon, Titus Burkhardt, Julius Evola, Sayyed Hossein Nasr etc. Leaned away from the Schounian angle, felt more ’Traditionalist’ than ’Perrennialist’, but watched Borella put Guenon to bed. In any case, Philip Sherrard and Seraphim Rose are filling that void for us now.
Undeniably we have had less heavy-handed inspirers --> Jorge Luis Borges, Phillip K. Dick, Stanislaw Lem, Sadeq Hedayat, Sergei Paradjanov, Moshen Makhmalbaf and daughters, Alejandro Jodorowsky, P.L. Wilson... musically it’s Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock, R.D. Burman, Peter Thomas Sound Orchestra, Stravinsky, Ravel, Brian Wilson, Ananda Shankar, Sun City Girls, Uncle Jim, Bach, Beethoven, Pig Destroyer, Alim Qasimov, Ennio Morricone... to name about .01%. In person it’s Fr. Simeon, Fr. Damian, and monk Ignatius, Frs. Thaddeus and John, Vincent Rossi, Zorn, Alan Bishop, Gregg Turkington and Brandan Kearney. Backbone influences are abundant & too varied for coherance: briefly, it’s Jafar al-Sadeeq + early Imammate, Ibn Wahshiyya, Iamblichus of Chalcis, Ibn Gabirol, Ibn Sena, Stanley Jaki, Ficino and Pico (to a certain extent), Jabir, Aryeh Kaplan, Moshe Idel, Leonora Leet, P.F. Case, Dante, Blake, Artaud, "Flegetanis", Rumi, the Zohar, Bahir and Sepher Yetzirah (probably more than we are letting on), Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, Thabit ibn Qurra, the corpus Rosae Crucis, Ikhwan al-Safa and all that good stuff.
It may in fact be contradictory to note all these various strugglers & madmen and then pronounce certain anethemas. But with compassion for the victims of the "Culture of Death" that we all must know too well by now, let us be clear in championing the long-sufferering, true peacemakers everywhere. And loudly from the rooftops hear us shout it --- "Down with the New Age and the proliferation of pet ideologies that only divide hearts on Sacred Observance, and play directly into the hands of globalist hegemonic powers. Up with the simple inextinguishable Light of Truth".
"...Secret Chiefs 3 have existed in various incarnations over the course of the past eight years, and have served as the funnel for Spruance's remarkably far-flung studies of the hermetic mysteries and musical traditions of unknown and underappreciated subgenres. Album titles like Grand Constitution and Bylaws and Book M hint at the music's vaguely metaphysical bent. Over three years in the making, Book of Horizons is Secret Chiefs' most expansive and coherent statement, an alchemical fusion of Morricone-esque cinematic grandeur, midnight surf guitar, traditional Middle Eastern rhythms and time signatures, demonic death metal, and electronic deviance that yields a work of undeniable force." -Jonathan Zwickel, Pitchfork
"Cast the clear light of alchemical truth through the graphically enhanced occult fog, and you'll find an album fluffed full of magick, mystery, and densely orchestrated mosque-rocking beats." Richard Gehr, Village Voice
"...an outside-the-box journey into sights and sounds from far and deep into the imagination, and a fascinating antidote to the often stultifying dearth of vision and ambition in so much rock music today." Daniel Lukes, Lollipop
mxdwn.com Top 5 Albums 2004
4. Secret Chiefs 3 - Book of Horizons
Book of Horizons is an album so well thought out, it begs the question, "Can an artist go too far?" Mr. Bungle alumnus Trey Spruance has steered this project from what was once only a side project into the uncharted musical territory. Few musicians in the last thirty years have been this brave and bold in realizing a vision. Secret Chiefs 3s last album Book M was so good it stands as a true five star album. Spruance boiled metal, electronica, jazz, folk and middle eastern styles together in such a stunning way that it defied the conventional nomenclatures of world music, alternative or progressive rock. In a shocking twist, apparently determined to work even harder, he has fractured this genre-medley of a band into seven different "identities." Thats rightseven. Im not making this up. Each has their own name and visual branding. For example, Ishraqiyuns songs ("The 3" and "The 4 (Great Ishraqi Sun)") are fast paced Middle Eastern romps using just a smidge of distorted guitars appearing only in the final bars. UR is a surf orchestra that dabbles in electronics. The Holy Vehm is ear-shredding death metal with shrill screams. In a span of only two songs Book of Horizons goes from a stunning cinematic symphony in "Book T: Exodus" to the never ending drumroll blast beat of "Hypostasis of the Archons." This disparity may sound jarring, but its not. The music is unmistakably all a part of the same audacious vision. A precisely orchestrated journey through counter culture musical styles. Each song blends without notice into the next. Even in spite of songs like band identity Traditionalists "The Indestructible Drop" and "The Exile" which are stark experiments in noise and sound design. Once the folk pianos of the identity FORMS album closer "Welcome to the Theatron Animatronique" conclude, the opus takes on a pivotal sense of completion. No closing credits though. It may sound intimidating on the surface butwowTrey Spruance is onto something." Raymond Flotat, mxdwn.com
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Also, feel free to visit the Secret Chiefs 3 forum at the Mimicry Recordings Website for discussions (philosophical, musicological) releted to SC3. As far as the internet goes, some fairly intelligent/informative discussions are usually going on at the WoM forum. *See also sections on films, books and general music, as well as other Mimicry Artists.
Olde skozey fetisch performance newly posted @ YouTube. It was the first ever Noise Pancakes at Pubis Noir (in San Francisco's Mission District). There were three audience members in attendance.
Available on the DVD-R: Brutal Sound Effects Volume 1
( http://brutalsoundeffects.com/noise02.html )
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