Heathen Harvest

Bollocks! Fucking bollocks!! Why is it whenever I find something different and original to write about a release in my opening paragraph I find some other cunt has got there first. What a fucking pisser. You see when this
release first arrived, back at the beginning of April, the first thing I thought when I saw the cover was…someone has a love of Throbbing Gristle here. Everything from the black and white photograph within a photograph to the lettering to the camouflaged front cover. Throbbing Gristle issued their later 7 inch singles in a camouflaged plastic bag for the first thousand or so copies folks. I know because I bought them on the day when they were first released. Two singles on the same day as it happens. I’ll
not bore you with more trivial details. Influenced then by TG was my first thought. I’ll use that in my review. Only someone else came to the same conclusion and used it before me. Bugger!! Still…great minds think alike. I’ll forgo the fools part if you don’t mind.

What can I tell you about Sky Burial? The only thing you need know is that it is the work of Michael Page. Mr Fire in the Head. Oh…mighty me yeah. Whenever I’m in the mood for a bit of ear destruction because people have pissed me off, an almost daily occurrence which even my compatriots on this website do with a regularity you wouldn’t believe, then that’s who I turn to whenever I need to expel my anger. Fire in the fucking Head. Hot shit stuff that gets better with every release. Michael though has chosen
to diversify away from his noisier exploits and channels his musical freedom through Sky Burial. ‘Of The First Light’ is the third Sky Burial release, the first two ‘Sky Burial’ and ‘Spectrehorse’ were superb releases…I know because I said as much in my reviews of them for another website at the time, and this latest opus is just as good, if not even
better, than those previous efforts.

The dreaded concept: ‘Of the first light’ is a reference to the Wampanoag tribe (meaning ‘people of the first light’), the original indigenous inhabitants of Sky Burial’s locale, Cape Cod, one of the first places in the U.S. to experience sunrise each day. Got that? Good. Take from it what you will. Concepts and I aren’t best suited to each other. I haven’t the intelligence to read into what the artist is trying to convey. So I ignore them by and large. See…forgotten about this one already. But don’t let me stop you looking into this further if that is your want. Over the twelve tracks on ‘Of the first light’ Michael utilises field recordings,
electronics and ethnographici nstrumentation… whatever that is when its at home. He creates these very emotive and powerful pieces of music that fall just short in places of some of the Fire in the Head extremities I’m so fond of. The electronics rumble and squeal in an not unpleasant to the ear way and when he hits the drone highway the effects are suitably impressive. There’s always been this faint coldness, something I definitely approve of, to the sounds he creates, whether intentional or not, and this is something that is highlighted here. You shiver involuntarily as the sounds take control and move off in a variety of
directions leaving you pondering where he’ll take the music next. Dabbling and mixing old school Industrial sounds, another nod in the direction of Throbbing Gristle, with the blackest of ambient atmospherics and pulled to the seams drones you feel as though you are falling under a hypnotic spell as the music slowly elevates itself to the heavens. A nod to the rising sun warming the parched frozen earth I would guess. With so much seemingly going on in the foreground and background you need your wits about you as he dazzles with his musicianship throwing in an ever abundant supply of effects into the already perfectly sculptured mix. The music is definitely influenced by a variety of groups / artists past and present but the sound
remains pure Sky Burial at heart. You could just say I rather liked this. A lot. Tasty. Very tasty indeed.

There’s always a but: and sadly there’s one here. ‘Of the first light’ is limited to just 200 copies which is a strange decision to say the least. Having already sold out the previous Sky Burial recordings I would have thought that it would have been more widely available. But its not. Which makes it the only fly in the ointment as far as ‘Of the first light’ goes. Sometimes you have to end a review on a negative note.