Insect Ark stream new album »Raw Blood Singing« in full ahead of its release on June 7th via Debemur Morti Productions!

Experimental doom/noise duo Insect Ark (feat. members of Swans & Khanate) is streaming their upcoming album »Raw Blood Singing« in full ahead of its release on June 7th, 2024 via Debemur Morti Productions.

Tracklist:
01. Birth Of A Black Diamond
02. The Frozen Lake
03. Youth Body Swayed
04. Cleaven Hearted
05. The Hands
06. Psychological Jackal
07. Inverted Whirlpool
08. Ascension

Courtesy of Speakeasy PR:

Ten days before the official release of their new album, »Raw Blood Singing« (June 7), Berlin-based duo Insect Ark are streaming the forthcoming album in its entirety via Debemur Morti Productions’ YouTube channel.

Over the course of 45 dynamic minutes, Dana Schechter (Swans) and Tim Wyskida (Khanate) deliver eight doomy, psychedelic and poignant songs filled with unexpected twists and turns. Raw Blood Singing is a deeply immersive and darkly atmospheric experience.

Schechter shares insights into the creation of »Raw Blood Singing«: “Writing this album was a new experience – in context for the history of the band, it started out similar to the others: I made elaborate demos by myself, writing and recording bass, lap steel guitar, synthesizers, and electronic drums; I wrote all of the arrangements, chord progressions, and melodies. What made this album different was when Tim joined the band. It felt like a new creative chapter was opening as it became obvious that the music would benefit from his ideas, so we decided to see how far we could push the songs. We ended up chopping, rebuilding and re-arranging a lot of the material. This process was a huge inspiration for both of us and fostered our bond as a creative writing pair. The album concept is based more on our life views than lyrical content; primarily with the idea of impermanence and as humans existing as energy shifting, of retaining a deliberate presence. The actual studio recordings were preceded by my demos, followed by the heavy re-working Tim and I did to refine the material, which included a lot of experimentation. We didn’t rush any part of it, and we worked long days every day in our studio, for about a year.”

Album pre-orders are available now (bfan.link/raw-blood-singing), with the collection available on multiple limited-edition vinyl variants, as well as CD and digitally.

The pair have confirmed a trio of European performances:
June 7 Berlin, Germany, Neue Zukunft
July 12-14 Pleszew, Poland, Red Smoke Festival
November 10 Porto, Portugal, Amplifest

Formed in 2011, Insect Ark is the Berlin-based duo of American artists Dana Schechter (Swans) on bass/lap steel/synth/vocals, and drummer/percussionist Tim Wyskida (Khanate, Blind Idiot God). Previously a solo endeavor led by Schechter, the band has released three albums: »Future Fossils« (2021), »The Vanishing« (2020) and »Marrow Hymns« (2018).

»Raw Blood Singing«, Insect Ark’s fourth full-length, is the captivating result of a year spent writing. Sharing an obsession with innovation and distillation, the duo merged to create a sonic landscape which vacillates between sensory overload and isolation in a seething void. Many of the songs on »Raw Blood Singing« were penned alone in 2021 by Schechter; they were gutted, reworked and rebirthed when Wyskida joined in 2022.

The outer realms of avant-metal, psych-doom, and experimental goth intersect here, but Insect Ark fiercely refuses the trappings of simple genre categorization. The band weave a lush, bleak, vast and expansive landscape as they move from whispers of synth to a monstrous wall-of-sound via Schechter’s blistering lap steel playing, diabolical bass-work and the mammoth, searing power of Wyskida’s drums.

The album title is deeply rooted in the concept of evolution – on both a human and a universal scale – stories of physical beings bound by equal parts unchangeable matter and malleable, shape-shifting energy. The music, too, has evolved beyond Insect Ark’s origin as an instrumental band, adding for the first-time the deep honeyed poison of Schechter’s vocals. Showing a penchant for crafting haunted and memorable melodies, the contrast of her smoky voice with the spare, brutal music feels both uncomfortably intimate and icy cold.

Line-up:
Dana Schechter – Bass, Vocals, Lap Steel Guitar, Synthesizers, Piano
Tim Wyskida – Drums, Percussion, Backing Vocals

Guest musicians:
Ville Leppilahti – Piano on »Cleaven Hearted«, Synthesizers on »The Hands« and »Psychological Jackal«
Colin Marston – Synthesizers on »Inverted Whirlpool«

Bojan Bidovc // music enthusiast, promoter, misanthrop and sometimes a journalist as well