Okay, this is a real trend - Solar Temple is yet another artist who has a second premiere in a rather short while: Last time we premiered their collaboration with Dead Neanderthals now we give you one of the tracks of their upcoming record A Gift That Should Have Been Reserved for the Great Lights out next week via Consouling. “Celestial Kingdom” shows the project from a very different yet still highly psychotic (or psychedelic?) side. Enjoy!
Listening to A Gift That Should Have Been Reserved for the Great Lights one surely feels a certain kinship to our good friend Ralph from Ultha, who loves Black Metal, just like O. surely does but sometimes that is just not enough. Both guys love to put their efforts into various other projects or to lead their already established ones into new directions. Solar Temple is one of O.’s many projects and this time it sounds like a crossover between some Tangerine Dream and Syndrome, Nordvargr and Neptunian Maximalism. The three tracks on this record are vastly different from for example Iskandr or Turia, even though the connaisseur might hear some similarities (silly me doesn’t).
The near 38 minutes running time, split up into three movements are a musical depiction (pun intended) of an ascend to the stars, like following an astronaut (or cosmonaut, for that matter) into the orbit. The first track is like an incantation trying to annoint and ordain the soon to be earth-orbiters. Of course, this ritual (featuring priest-like enchantments) is not a real Catholic one, it’s more like listening to Al Harrison trying to wish his first NASA orbit mission into success, not only relying on “Hidden Figures”, but reaching for any help he can get. The second track, “Celestial Kingdom”, which you can hear below, is the lift-off with all its shaking movements, the steel parts of the rocket screeching and screaming, until it finally arrives at in space. That there is even a light moment at the end is part of the process of turning from this track into the final part of the voyage which has a really spectacular way of embodying the moment when looking down onto earth and up into the endless star-clad void.
All those who like their O. simple and a little less emblematic, this might not be for you. However, all those who love his vision, his artistic voyage and musical passage - you will love this. Its wonderful Ambient parts, but also the harsh rather Noise-filled movements and of course the somewhat Post-Punk / Industrial elements - this is what one wants a Sci-Fi soundtrack about the travel through space without time to sound like. Keep it up, my friend!
The record will be out next week Friday, June 28, but of course you can already get your pre-order in at the Consouling Sounds webstore. And now without much further ado - here the middle track of A Gift That Should Have Been Reserved for the Great Lights, the record’s “turning point”, here is “Celestial Kingdom”!
