With the acrid sting of THEOLOGIAN‘s Dregs album still fresh in the minds of many, the foreboding New York-based industrial collective continues to announce several new titles underway, merely two months into what portends to be among the project’s most active years.
THEOLOGIAN‘s Dregs, released by Annihilvs Power Electronix in the final days of 2015, was assessed by Toilet Ov Hell: “While Prurient’s Frozen Niagara Falls received widespread critical acclaim, Dregs is the superior album… There is another side to it, however, that captures its creators operating in utter mastery of their craft. There is an urgency to this album, and a complexity revealed through repeated listens. There are few groups creating industrial music with this much depth, or making sounds this seamless.”
Syracuse-based label Cadabra Records dredges the horrific depths of THEOLOGIAN‘s universe to previously uncharted regions, with the decree they will become the label’s official “house act.” This unique imprint reanimates classic horror literature, issuing spoken-word titles in high-quality old-style LP editions, in many cases for the first time ever. The project recently completed production on Clark Ashton Smith‘s Inferno, a 7″ vinyl featuring readings by H.P. Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi. This precedes the release of Lovecraft’s infamous tale of nameless horror, The Lurking Fear, pressed on audiophile-grade vinyl. In conjunction with Cadabra’s release, Annihilvs Power Electronix will offer a companion CD-R featuring instrumental remixes of ambient components from The Lurking Fear, entitled My Ghastly Night On Tempest Mountain. Both Inferno and The Lurking Fear will see release early this Summer. Pickman’s Model has been confirmed as the next part of the series, and others will come in grisly procession, all with THEOLOGIAN providing original scores and sound design.
THEOLOGIAN is presently merging minds with Oakland-based industrial-doom hybrid Lament Cityscape, constructing a collaborative LP, now in its very early stages. Lament Cityscape’s epic, tectonic biomechanical surge, fused with THEOLOGIAN‘s ominous anti-theist synth-death, is already yielding particularly twisted offspring. The LP will see release in Autumn 2016, when both bands will unite to tour as a single unit, their synergistic spree hitting the West Coast first. East Coast dates will follow almost immediately. These begin with the Autumn Dirges Harvest Festival, taking place October 28th through 30th in NYC. European artists Gnaw Their Tongues, Brut, and Spettro Family, will be joined by several American acts including Swollen Organs, The Vomit Arsonist, Compactor, Whorid, Ten Thousand Miles Of Arteries, and others. Lament Cityscape and THEOLOGIAN will then head out with festival headliners Gnaw Their Tongues and Providence psych-doom outfit Kintaan for a series of Northeastern dates, terminating in Montreal. As of this writing, European tour dates are in the works for the waning months of 2016.
All of this comes as the project continues forging the upcoming Contrapasso full-length, slated for release later this year. This new album will include an array of notable guest musicians, with a label destination and further details to be announced. Transformation, a new remix album by Snowbeasts, features a harrowing reinterpretation by THEOLOGIAN, and will be released by Component Recordings, on March 4 via the label’s Bandcamp. Farther ahead on the horizon, comes a split vinyl LP with Faroese technoist Ancient Methods, on Berlin-based label Metaphysik. Australian label Cipher Productions will present Nature is Satan’s Church, the long-awaited double LP reissue of THEOLOGIAN‘s 2012 collaboration with The Vomit Arsonist, a dense dark-ambient masterwork inspired by Lars von Trier’s Antichrist. Both releases are expected toward year’s end. A collaborative release with Trepaneringsritualen is currently in its conceptual stages, planned as a co-release between Black Horizons and Cloister Recordings.
THEOLOGIAN‘s first live show of 2016 sees them performing in Baltimore on March 5th, as part of Altered States, an event produced by curators of the infamous Shadow Woods Festival. Also appearing are Crucial Blast and Malignant Records labelmates T.O.M.B., as well as Snakefeast, Darsombra, and The Owls Are Not What They Seem.
THEOLOGIAN’s Dregs is streaming HERE, and an improv live set from December playing at Metal Injection HERE.
Dregs and other titles are available for purchase HERE and HERE.
THEOLOGIAN Live:
3/05/2015 The Depot – Baltimore, MD @ Altered States w/ T.O.M.B., Snakefeast, Darsombra, The Owls Are Not What They Seem [info]
10/28-30/2016 Trans Pecos – Queens, NY @ Autumn Dirges Festival [info]
http://www.facebook.com/theologianprime
http://www.facebook.com/Annihilvs
http://www.annihilvs.net
http://www.soundcloud.com/annihilvs
http://www.redscrollrecords.com
http://www.crucialblast.net
http://www.facebook.com/malignantrecords