Pelt and Heilung
These are two of my all-time favorite folk groups, both a bit avant-garde with a heavy lean towards drone-scapes. I just found Heilung’s “Drif” on Youtube:
HEILUNG comment: “‘Drif’ means ‘gathering,’ a throng of people, a horde, a crowd, a pack. In symbiosis with the album title, ‘Drif’ consists of a flock, a collection, a gathering, a collage of songs, that much like little flames were seeking towards each other, to join, to bond, to create, and be greater together. This album has very clearly dictated its own path. Our attempts to tame it was repeatedly fruitless and once we came to this realization, the creative flow surged forward with immense force, so much so that sometimes it felt like the songs wrote themselves. All the songs on ‘Drif’ have their own stories. They have each their place and sense of belonging, with inspiration not only from Northern Europe, but from the ancient great civilizations.”
It’s pretty excellent! And then there’s the images of the rock formations in the video!
Pelt has long been a favorite of mine. I love their Dauphin Elegies (Hymns for the Dead Prince), which can be found on Bandcamp, but here I link to their Bestio Tergum Degero (Skullfuck) on Youtube (note the Grateful Dead reference). About Dauphin Elegies, Tom Forget says:
The improvisational drones of Pelt thrive on the tension between prolonged silences and flurries of noise. DAUPHIN ELEGIES is made up of three increasingly long pieces plus one three-minute song, each one different in tone and texture from the last. The building hums of “Waning Crescent,” the distant squealing orchestral strings of “Fire Signs on the Edge of a Field,” and the lonesome folk violin of “Cast Out of Deep Waters” give way to the climactic cosmic chimes of the finale, “Crown of Comets.” It’s a journey from earth to heaven told in snatches of organized noise.
I like that “a journey from earth to heaven” so much I’ll give it an amen!
Amen!
They ran from the bloody scene, two rebellious lovers left over from the brethren war. They had received directions to the ritual from the wise old wizard reading from an oracle of ancient Egyptian bones. Necromancer and whore, he had been both back when Trismegistus roamed the land, back before the war. He said they’d see two forces fighting but hadn’t warned them of the rest, or mentioned anything about a test. “River-run, past Eve and Adam, round bend and bow, you’ll find some places where need sink real low, but hang on to each other and you’ll eventually come out from under.” Next came some gibberish neither understood, drugs and blood, through two minds made one, ripped asunder, two brothers, blood, muscaria . . . divine path to She the Goddess.
The old wizard knew all along the truth about Sati and her lover Shiva. He stood and cheered at her devotion, her asceticism, and her desire for her lover’s flesh. “Take eat,” he cried. “Take drink,” she replied. Ahhh! Yes, She brings life forth and taketh life away like the Ouroboros fixed in eternity; She is the sow who eats her own litter; the Black One with Her tongue extended to catch the blood; approach Her with lust and She will destroy; approach Her with Love and She is the Ferry Across the Ocean of Existence. She is the One Who Turns the Tide! This all came later but before they ran scared.
They ran towards the light and through the automatic doors. They were in a supermarket — produce section — held in arrest by the dazzling brilliance of the gardener’s carnival laid bare before. They breathed in the cold air becoming newly aware of each other’s beauty; his breath quickening with rising ardor, her nipples made rigid and sensitive by the manufactured cold and the potential of the story waiting to unfold. The man stepped forward taking up the plump, red, juicy fruit. He and his lover were affected like all other, an assault to sensual synapses, bright colors on polymorphous flesh, stretched taunt, waiting to burst forth with sweet nectar. The woman read as much in the man’s bright, feverish eyes as he sank his teeth into the fruit’s succulence; she watched the juice course down his chin, sighed with unquenchable hunger and bit into the red flesh.
They kissed and the orgasm came like Napoleon on his great white steed; lands discovered and conquered between quickened breaths; clothing torn and tossed aside; budding flesh teased with hunger and need; villages plundered, lands raped, and stores pillaged — violence contained in ecstasy — a sacrament proving that the temple is everywhere. And the temple was filled with a chorus of Tibetan Angles, sharp horns and hollow bowls, cut up and spliced like a Niblock drone. She put her head back and screamed; he thrust out his heart and moaned, a pulsing beat, crying out her name — to Sati, with Love.
The erotic smell of spent fertility, like freshly turned earth rich in humus, brings thought back to that most sacred furrow quivering in the aftermath of recent pleasure. The olfactory, gently assaulted by the feminine dew rising from the furrow’s delicate petals, creates masochistic images tempered by love and some mute sense of self-transmigration. Tantric intuition persevering in the deep recesses of our common psyche, bringing forth the Divine Comedy, a gamma ray burst made manifest in the hero’s mind. He leans forward, a willing supplicant come to worship Yoni. Shiva the Destroyer, Lord of Yoga, brought forth from his self-imposed exile by the pristine austerities of Parvati, Queen Avatar of the Divine Kali. Shiva, infused with Shakti; the Solar King reunited with the Lunar Queen — to Sati, with Love.
They came out of the comedy in a vintage Cadillac full of bullet holes with the top down and the seats torn. They were naked, their bodies covered in dry musky sweat. They held each other’s hand and stared forward with determination spawned by the bliss of discovery. It had been some time since the cold wind of infinity had coursed unchecked across the exposed landscape, raising awareness, exposing the mystery. They felt like conquerors who had in turn been conquered, their souls laid bare; fear and desire negated by the beautiful journey which began with the ritual, a call to adventure — to Sati, with Love.
