Christopher Slye Critiques SLEEPCHAMBER’S New “SEREMONY”

This Album is indeed a Ceremony, the Hidden Voices of an inner world manifested by the music within…supposedly comprised of songs from the Vault, it is never the less conceptual in Nature, cohesive in sound and shape, and the Whole being greater than the sum of its parts this CD is an impressive collection of Sound Pieces – Yet the creativity in the MagickMusick of SLEEPCHAMBER is often overlooked – in the beginning because of the BARBITCHUETTES….surely a band with such sexy diversions could not possibly have anything musical to say – and many a music fan has overlooked them just for that….and in the Post-BARBITCHUETTE Era this opinion carried on, this in addition to the incredible output of albums – most bands put out one release a year, if that….SLEEPCHAMBER feels compelled to release material in conjunction with their creativity, which is at a much greater rate….again a disservice to their talents as it is often thought that such prodigious endeavors equal minimal effort. But in paying close attention strictly to the music, disregarding any overt sexual or otherwise artistic cloaking, one finds not only an immense treasure of unique gems, but a variety of stylistic ventures that either preceded or exceeded his peers….

As for this current release, it is the Hallucinatory Creation of the Mercurial John Zewizz: an Imagistic, Electro journey inward, the musical equivalent of astral projection….The Album begins with an immediacy….”777″ ” is full on organized chaos, the sounds of deep throated trumpets heralding the end of the world, our present reality beginning to morph into a dreamlike resonance as we enter an unfamiliar environment, a dangerous dimension, formed by thoughts conducted by frequency and vibrations… demanding to be heard……..this fades into the hypnotic alpha dream of “Erotik Apparition”, John Zewizz whispering us into a dark unknown, the Hermetic eventualities of such a trip are boundless, the Sorcerer conjuring remembrances, giving rise to our deepest fantasies – “The Ritual Ov Oizrexsen” continues the morphine like dream with a tribal repentance…this is a collection of sounds for dreaming, meditative deliverance, the scent of your lover, dripping thoughts with pounding hearts, conjuring your inner-self upwards through the deep drums and murky reflections – this is a midnight morphine ride, slow and deep, sound reflected into imagery, your thoughts instigated by the vibrations…it is dark, yet not evil – it is the challenge of the Self, rising out of the darkness into the light…….the Archonic Angelic chorals in “Sigil” seem to be passing on the codes of an archaic unknown, the ancient language of the Isolated Self in the melancholy mysteries…such is the disturbing loneliness of “Ritual 0X0”, where a spare yearning for perhaps the Divine Will, or at the very least a cognitive acceptance on behalf of us All seems to cry for old Deities. Who will answer the Celestial plea of One so Devoted? Perhaps the solemn answer, if truly sought, may be found in “Sabbath 23” – Zewizz again orchestrates the trance of Solomon, the Kabbalistic inheritance we all perceive through these vibrations which he conducts….a psychedelic melting of our memories come to light, a testament of electronic ecstasy, unburdening the chains of our present world, releasing a time gate into a whirling whispering Dionysian fantasy of infinite pasts – you are not mad you are one of us, this seems to say….a synthonic bridge into the ancient Essenic past, perhaps it is of Kemetic descent….the forms twist and melt, harmonic chaos being tamed, a wild unbending of twisted vocals, the unchained burst forward, the bass and drum remain and fade….and then, much like the subtle diversions of a shattered mind, “Untitled” appears out of the thick air with Edwardian ruffles and a Mushroom Mozart with Harpsichord in reverse gear casually saunters by, and that is that….he is replaced by a rushing, screaming backdrop to “Ritual 0X0” as it lifts and floats with chorals and high synths, unchained by rhythm, and almost piercingly hovers above in the night sky like the beckoning shrill of a floating coven of witches, echoes from the Mansions on the Moon, calling in desperate vespers the anti-diluvial

nightmares our chanting ancestors repeated in mantras and sigils soaked with the sacred blood of the Enochian unknowns….and then we find “Sanctuary”, where we are back in the safe arms of an electro-tribal loop….Zewizz comes forth once more, the lyrics less subliminal now – Sanctuary, he says….is this the Sanctuary of the music he speaks of? Or the sanctuary of the self we manifest with music like this? With the lost languages of the hidden Sects he summons the Priestess, and we become unwitting witnesses to the fiercest of rituals…Zewizz and the Priestess, in the Mescaline mist which hovers and consumes as a black hole, both Sorcerer and Priestess envelope themselves in the darkest of emotional energy, a dangerous game, not to played by fools or the uninitiated….Sorcerer and Priestess move and intertwine like Hashish smoke, and this smoke drugs the listener, there is no doubt… we are a mesmerized audience to the Symphonic Abortion of the Ego and the rhythmic primeval birth of the Individual, screaming Holy Scriptures like a fetal Madman, the wicked smile of the fire consuming every note and beat….As its provocative name suggests “Jackal Bitch Call” is a wall of vibrations and electronic ravens, a primitive echo that seems to mirror our distant consciousness….the flutter of the desperate flute, the ravens craving to express something to you – each may decode this mad message as they perceive and desire, but the time is short….”Dragon’s Blood” hastens on with grim impatience, a lunatic chasing his spilled thoughts as they are carried away by mischievous characters with howling taunts and horrific grins hidden behind black capes, the lunatic like a wind up toy winds down…he gives us the quick, sharp sudden ending, replaced by the quickest track as yet…there is ancient knowledge here; it is a dance beat but nothing like a dance song…waves of abstract chaos and distant chanting, this is the time for contemplation, repentance perhaps? Suddenly it shifts into an industrial drone until a quick fade…such was “Klock”. …..”Fetish Totem” kicks off with a heavy beat and mid eastern abstracts, but not as heavy as earlier; now it is without the weight of ritual, evoked awareness, the gravity of the Human Heart, the longing of the Darker Souls to break free of the Orbit that binds them to this Realm – it is though we have passed out of the embodiment of these surreal and unnatural visions created with the chemically enhanced assistance of SLEEPCHAMBER, and have reached the Elysian shores of home, when all too suddenly, and all too soon, it ends.

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