Insect Ark (Swans/Khanate members) release new single »The Frozen Lake«; »Raw Blood Singing« LP arrives June 7th via Debemur Morti Productions!
Berlin, Germany based experimental drone doom duo Insect Ark (feat. members of Swans & Khanate) has released new single »The Frozen Lake« taken from their upcoming album, »Raw Blood Singing«, due out 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:
Insect Ark, the Berlin-based duo featuring Dana Schechter (Swans) and Tim Wyskida (Khanate), have shared a second-track from the pair’s forthcoming album, »Raw Blood Singing« (June 7, Debemur Morti Productions), with today’s release of »The Frozen Lake«.
“»The Frozen Lake« is a sort of sick romantic fairy tale,” Schechter explains. “It takes place during winter, hidden far in the forest. The song is in essence a murder ballad: the heartsick protagonist, spurned by her lover, spins a sordid tale of his sacrifice by her hand. It doesn’t end well for him, but from this release, they are both set free.”
Wyskida shares how the seven-and-a-half minute track came to be: “When Dana and I started working on songs for the new album, she played me recordings of various ideas. These days, I rarely hear a riff that gets my juices flowing. Dana had a great lap steel guitar riff. I had a separate idea, using fast cymbal bell patterns with bass drum hits, which sound like distant seismic events. I’ve always liked pieces of music that shift suddenly and drastically between inconspicuously related environments. In »The Frozen Lake«, divergent environments collide.”
Photo by Marika Zorzi
Over the eight-songs that make up »Raw Blood Singing«, Insect Ark weaves 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.
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.
Insect Ark is Dana Schechter (bass/lap steel/synth/vocals) and Tim Wyskida (drums/percussion). 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 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 by Schechter; they were gutted, reworked and rebirthed when Wyskida joined.
Bojan Bidovc // music enthusiast, promoter, misanthrop and sometimes a journalist as well