Mortiis/Brighter Death Now/Sombre Arcane @ Le Poisson Rouge, New York, NY 9/8/24

Mortiis, or Håvard Ellefsen, had a start in Norway as the bass player of long running Black metal legends Emperor, who I saw in the late 90's touring probably their most famous release, Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk. Mortiis was long gone by that point, but started his own solo career of "Dungeon Synth" that has lasted 30 years. The centerpiece of the show was a performance of his 1994 album Født Til Å Herske. This was considered in that realm to be a "seminal release." At the time it was the 3rd full length and now his discography is 19 deep in albums with singles and deritus taking it over 50. I hadn't heard a note until this evening. At first I thought he was full of shit with an extremely monotonous organ piece with battle axe freeze frame imagery as well as pastoral Nordic lands behind him. The first radio station I was on had a radio program called Art Of The Organ on the weekends and the performance got me thinking "why should I spend time being bored by this asshole slapping on a bit of facepaint and laboring over his two chords when I can just go to a church or a classical concert and be bored by the real thing?" But then there was some variation in the second half of the piece that climaxed with an indecipherable spoken word outro over the blaring organ that made me ultimately like it. File with Burzum's Filosophem which I bought and actually listened to in 1996. My friend that gave me the free ticket shot a text that Rick Wakeman was rolling in his grave and he wasn't even dead yet.

The entire tour was a package, which I didn't realize before coming or I would have got there on time. However, I did catch all of Brighter Death Now who came all the way from Sweden. This was a one-man performance by Roger Kormanik who has been doing it since 1983. I had no idea he even existed, but I appreciated his aesthetic backed by black and white films of "strange fruit hanging from trees" without motion as live action horses marched onward. Skulls, death and execution is the name of the game here with standard trashcan synth and screamed vocals.

I did catch the last 15 minutes Sombre Arcane, who I found out after the fact to be from my hometown of Worcester, MA. They were a duo, one cloaked and one in studded leather. They are comparatively new having only a handful of releases since 2018. Discogs calls this genre "Dungeon Synth" whereas I just call it Goth-Industrial. The cloak came off to reveal a bald head, which was the most exciting moment of the 15 minutes I witnessed.

I missed Hermit Knight completely and regret it deeply. Nicholas Pahman has cranked out 17 cassettes since 2021 and I treated him like some neophyte. I'm sure there is a room for this somewhere to make this right, maybe the cloak guys have something in Worcester when I go back to visit.

What's the safe word?

Search This Blog

NYC Show Obsessive

Mortiis/Brighter Death Now/Sombre Arcane @ Le Poisson Rouge, New York, NY 9/8/24

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The James Rocket/Curtis Suburban/St. Divine @ Young Ethel's, Brooklyn, NY 1/5/25

Guerilla Toss/Pleaser @ Union Pool, Brooklyn, NY 2/25/25

Buddies Etc./The Last Throes/Land-Line @ Tom Eurin's Studio, Brooklyn, NY 9/29/24