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Saturday, 13 July 2019

MUUR - Bod album review.


Album: Bod
Artist: MUUR
Label: Cyclic Law
Catalogue no: 143rd Cycle

Tracklist:

      1.      Bod



MUUR’s Bod is composed of a single track of deeply resonant, atavistic, subterranean, and primeval ritual occult ambient, rising up from the deepest chasms. Strangely-garbed and faceless figures huddle in secret temples, bathed in the dim light of sacred fires and billows of incense, singing chants of abysmal power accompanied by instruments made from bone. This is the sound of tectonics shifting, of the planet realigning itself into a new paradigm, of ages-old power preparing itself for a renewal and resurgence into the light of the modern era. Tinkling finger-cymbals, guttural throat-singing reciting ancient texts that were once buried with our ancestors, massive fuzzed-out guitar chords, all set against swathes of deep sweeping bass chords and primitive rhythms. It’s like listening to the very earth itself reawakening a long-entombed power, a power that has been biding its time until all the right elements are properly aligned, a calling up of preternatural entities to wrest the world from the desecrators and defilers.

This really is the most extraordinary and the most glorious piece of ritual ambient I’ve heard recently. This goes straight to the limbic system in our brains, stimulating our most primitive instincts and connections. This is after all the purpose of rituals such as these – to forge links with those aspects of ourselves and our world that we’ve forgotten or lost. More than that, those deep subterranean voices and bass rumbles are felt deeply, sometimes physically in the pit of one’s stomach. These aren’t some empty ritualistic gestures aimed at some abstract deity: no, the entities addressed here are far older, far more real, and far more deeply embedded in the fabric of our reality than we are wont to acknowledge. These beings or, rather, spirits are intertwined with the physical matter that constitutes our planet. Even so, they are capricious in nature and they are not beholden to us: we are merely passengers.

MUUR’s Bod is goose-pimple-inducing, and the hairs on the back of my neck and arms stood up, plus shivers ran down my spine. It’s a reaction that’s a result of our mind and body remembering – the resurfacing of our most hidden memories that modern society and civilisation have covered over with unnecessary detritus. It’s a reminder too of what we’ve forgotten, and what we’ve lost, as well as a signpost to a deeper reality.

Let the gods of the elder times sweep you along and bring you face to face with your ancestors – you’ll be grateful for it.  

Out on 30th July and available as a CD in an edition of 500 from Cyclic Law’s Bandcamp page here: https://cycliclaw.bandcamp.com/album/bod

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