"Schuster made an impressive occultic ambient contribution to the Adeptsound compilation Bacterium. I was keen to hear more and Blac Flies Resplendent On The Blak Moon doesn't really fail to disappoint. It is a darker, more industrial sound stretched over 11 tracks. Schuster are masters of unease, some of this points to the dark ambient genre but Schuster bring with it a heavy dose of early industrial. This is perhaps not surprising, as Tim Bayes the protagonist of Schuster was a member of Dieter Müh in their earliest formation. Bayes brought the "ter" from Schuster to Dieter Müh, while Dave Uden brought the "Die" from Diet of Worms and Steve Cammack the "Müh" from Mühviertel. Before relocating to Australia Schuster were active in the heyday of "cassette culture". Blac Flies... follows two low-key releases from this revitalised project.
Blac Flies... opens with the dark undertakings of 'Bellerophon', a cinematic black atmo-hum punctuated by the buzz of a fly, and interspersed with molten stabs. The whole track is imbued with the feel of a mystical horror film. Much of Blac Flies... is taken up with Schuster's musings on the dark drone theme. There's none finer than 'The Second Moon (Sepharial)'. Here the sound flows from twisted dark electronics and scraping tones with melodic synths seeping out into swingeing arcs of grating tones. And just when you think they can't take it any further the sound swells into a string section set against the discordant tones. 'Submerge (Drawing Down The Moon)' plays out in slow-motion, with the hum of a ghostlike voice, drenched in rippling water effects. Things become more ominous when you realise the liner quotes carry the last words made in a distress call from Australian kayaker Andrew Mcauley. It's not all dark drones. The pummelling industrial rhythm of 'Stubborn' blasts along like early 23 Skidoo, drenched in feedback, as the rabid unintelligible chant become increasingly animalistic and ravenous. Great stuff.
It isn't all instrumental Blac Flies... features vocals or sampled dialogue on a number of tracks. 'Sulk' unfurls to backward loops and folded tones, as a hesitant voice mumbles, surrounded by the soft pound of drums. 'The Last Breath of the Matriarch', also features the voice of Tim Bayes. Here though the voice is reduced to short phrases amidst blistering sheets of noise and intermittent clatter. 'Giving' the only other track with a narrative appears to give the confession of contract killer Richard Kulkinski. Serial killer schtick has been done to death (ho hum) but the spoken voice delivered in calm measured tones is well placed and contrasts nicely with the churning synths and incessant metallic percussive chatter. Schuster play it well, although it's one they could easily have expanded upon.
Blac Flies... wrap up elements of 23 Skidoo and Lustmord into their ritual dark ambient music and much else of old school industrial music. It is by no means a hackneyed effort. Blac Flies Resplendent On The Blak Moon weaves the melodic with harsher textures into a deeply immersive whole. With his relocation to England it looks like a reacquaintance with Dieter Müh is on the cards too. In addition to the Adeptsound pro-pressed CD-R a limited cassette version in a tin box is available from Licht Und Stal. For more information go to www.adeptsound.net or lichtundstahl.blogspot.com:" Tony Dickie Compulsion Online.
"Tim Bayes is the hidden force beyond this Australian project, which has already released a considerable number of productions.
The artist takes us again through a dark journey in the depths of the human mind. Schuster appeals for the strength of the listener’s imagination, the point where you feel like losing ground under your feet while awakening in an obscure surreal universe. Schuster is hiding in the darkest corners of our mind, composing cavernous and obscure atmospheres. A few spoken words feel like the ghosts of ancestors. Several cuts totally fit to dark soundtrack genre. Some pieces are well-elaborated, reinforced by echoing drones (cf. “Submerge”), spiced with scratching sounds (cf. “Esbat”) or animated by dark noise waves (cf. “The Last Breath Of The Matriarch”).
Tim Bayes has composed a fascinating opus, experiencing with multiple ideas. I still prefer his other project (Zilverhill), but this CD will definitely please the dark ambient lovers.
(DP:7/8)DP". Side-Line
"Esta es la segunda referencia del sello australiano que llega a mis manos tras ZILVERHILL. Adeptsound es un pequeño sello del oeste australiano con una linea musical muy concreta. Sus bandas navegan siempre dentro del industrial más underground, con grandes dosis de improvisación y con un denominador común, el cual es que todas sus bandas posean un espíritu tremendamente oscuro.
Schuster se adapta perfectamente a los patrones establecidos por el sello con un sonido tremendamente personal y oscuro. Basado prácticamente en la experimentación electroacústica su sonido se vuelve denso y oscuro por momentos, para inmediatamente cambiar de parámetros y ofrecernos momentos más dinámicos y rítmicos. Toda su música es un continua confusión para el oyente, con un sonido ultra heterogéneo, lleno de matices y de multitud de sonidos enriquecedores, siempre guiado por una continua anarquía sonora, antesala de la improvisación como principal arma. Diferentes estados musicales se van sucediendo, produciendo multitud de sensaciones, cual collage sonoro que hará las delicias de los amantes de la experimentación.
Su sonido que se podría casi encasillar como ambient industrial, es capaz de huir de todos los patrones que conforman ese estilo y a la vez tener un hilo conductor siempre cercano al estilo mencionado y todo ello gracias a la ausencia total de un patrón de sonido estilístico. Este detalle que por un lado lo hace original y atrayente, por otro lado puede ser su mayor defecto, ya que al ser un disco tan personal y extraño, se puede convertir en un trabajo soporífero si no eres capaz de introducirte en él y poder entenderlo.
El trabajo sale en dos formatos, por un lado en formato digipack, limitado a 70 copias y por otro una edición en casete en una curiosa caja limitada a 20 copias. Quizás después de todo, la etiqueta que le impuso el sello para su promoción no estuviera nada mal y en realidad estamos ante un buen trabajo de psychedelic industrial".
"There are some words which are so perfect, you’re constantly waiting for any given opportunity to drop them into a conversation. Words like Ostentatious, or Cornucopia. Personally I find the word Resplendent a handy weapon to have stashed in one’s vocabularic arsenal. Perth based artist Tim Baynes heads up the Adeptsound label, through it releasing many of his own varied outputs under differing monikers. The well titled ‘Blac Flies Resplendent on the Blak Moon’, released under the Schuster alias, is a dark, dare I say Industrial tinged affair, all brooding atmosphere and thick texture, but without drowning in it’s own muck.
Dim multi-chordal synths glow as ‘Bellerophon’ flickers out of the darkness. Flies trapped in a window buzz sporadically, as synthetic insect landscapes begin to form around the central theme. Gentle synth stabs echo into the distance as murmured vocals recycle over reversed tones on ‘Sulk’, the piece eventually drifting to nowhere in particular. Much of album is centered around this core dark theme of grim uncertainty: minor chord washes of synthesis are prevalent throughout, alongside unintelligible voices adorning many tracks. Imagine, if you will, perhaps a killer’s lair on a dark night, but more sinister than terrifying. The repetitive grinding of shrieking metal takes over a foggy motif on ‘The Second Moon (Sepharial)’, as sad strings look on in the background. ‘Stubborn’ gains some traction as a static beat pulses away like a metallic heart. Grizzling vocals emerge, and the piece starts to sound like a chase scene of some sort, albeit in a thick forest in the dead of night. ‘Submerge (Drawing Down the Moon)’ begins underwater, before rising (or is it sinking?) through ghostly chants before dissolving out of focus into a watery grave. Rising from the water, ‘Blakk Bile’ hisses and seethes, crackles of static buzzing around it’s crusted edges. Beginning with a blast, ‘The Last Breath of the Matriarch’ could be the final seconds of life for said female, with furnaces of white noise blistering the repeated declaration vocal, before synths soften the death blow. ‘Giving’ has a frank, if not unsettling spoken word atop a plodding sub-bass pulse. As ‘Lost’ fades into silence choking out radio broadcast vocals, a sense of requiem-like despair begins to settle, drawing to album to a chilling end.
Part horror noir, part…..well, horror noir, this release has chilling uneasiness written all over it. Without getting too serious, it manages to sustain a heavy atmosphere throughout its entire length, which is certainly no easy feat to attain, but one which Schuster manages to pull off with relative ease. Leave the lights on for this one"
Nick Giles Cyclic Defrost
“Schwarze Fliegen erglänzen auf dem schwarzen Mond” – dies bleibt fast einziger Anhaltspunkt & Hilfestellung zum Verständ- nis des neusten Oeuvres des australischen Dark-Ambient-Projektes Schuster. Hermetisch stellt sich dieses Sinnbild dar, und der musika- lische Inhalt folgt diesem auf dem Fuße.
Veröffentlichung findet “Blac Flies Resplendent On The Blak Moon”, wie auch schon alle anderen Werke zuvor, über das hauseigene Label Adept -sound, das sich vornehmlich auf das Publizieren von Schuster und Projekten aus dessen Umfeld konzentriert, was zwar zu einer kleinen, dafür aber exklusiven Diskographie führt.
Nach dem thematisch noch wahrlich greifbaren, da realitätsnahen Inhalt der 2010er Ep “1-5 Microns” verschließt Tim Bayes, der Künstler hinter Schuster, sich auf der neusten Veröffentlichung fast völlig. Nur die Symbole einer Mondaura und der Fliege sind zu erkennen, letzter Anker sind vier Zeilen, die auf der mitgelieferten Postkarte gedruckt sind:
“Livery and gaze are scabrous
the mantle of dust is fixed
…seeker beware…
blac flies are resplendent on the blak moon”
Was das gesamte Album in den 55 Minuten zusammenhält, lässt sich am besten als atmosphärische Dichte beschreiben. Auf der gesamten Länge kommt keinerlei Langeweile auf, ganz im Gegenteil sind die Stücke derart spannend arrangiert, dass man schonmal andere Tätigkeiten stehen und liegen lässt und einfach nur zuhören muss – was für Ambient durchaus eine Seltenheit ist. Das feine Können, scheinbar strukturlose Stücke mit gekonnt gesetzten Akzenten und Experimenten mit einer derartigen inneren Dramaturgie zu füllen, habe ich seit Langem nicht mehr gehört.
Schusters Tongut ergießt sich dabei immens variabel und macht eine Einordnung nicht ganz einfach, bzw. überflüssig: beginnt das Album mit ‘Bellerophon’ noch klassisch ambiental, so verwebt Schuster innerhalb der folgenden Lieder immer wieder harsche Noiseausbrüche, mitunter Power Electronics, tiefe Drones, Klangsamples und verzerrte Sprachfragmente miteinander, die oftmals ihren inneren Zusammenhang nur in der Grundstimmung finden, die sich parallel zur inhaltlichen Hermetik ebenso verschlossen, geheimnisvoll und mystisch gibt. Zum einen fühlt man sich passend zum Titel in finstere “2001“-Weltraumszenarien versetzt, dann wieder fühlt sich “blac flies..” absolut irdisch, menschlich an. Doch immer meint man Introversion, Abkehr und Persönlichkeit zu vernehmen, die in allem mitschwingt.
Dabei gefällt vor allem, dass sich das hier zu vernehmende Tongut nicht wie bei so vielen Genrekollegen darauf beschränkt Drones hin- und herzuschieben und dadurch immer nah an der Grenze zur Fahrstuhlmusik zu schippern, sondern hier immer wieder mit (klanglich gestochen scharf produzierten) harschen Noisewänden, gekonnt gesetzten Brüchen und bedrohlichen Klangkulissen für Spannung zu sorgen. Auf die Spitze wird das für mich im vorletzten Stück ‘Giving’ getrieben, das unglaublich intensiv mit verstört-flirrenden Sounds, dumpfem Bassrhythmen und einem inhaltlich finster-brutalen Monolog die fast sieben Minuten wie im Flug vergehen lässt und wirklich greifbare Angst verbreitet – Wahnsinn!
Fazit:
“Blac Flies Resplendant On The Blak Moon“ beweist abermals die hohe Klasse Schusters. Das gesamte Werk ist atmosphärisch absolut dicht, klanglich intensiv und voll spürbarer Spannung. Für alle Anhänger von anspruchsvollem, vielschichtigem & hochwertigem Dark Ambient sei hiermit eine absolute Empfehlung ausgesprochen!"
"Blac Flies Resplendent On Blak Moon (Adeptsound ADSCDR03)is one of those highly polished Industrial Ambient outings where upon playback you start to count off the Industrial samples on your fingertips only to quickly realise that you’d need the hands of a dozen TG acolytes to finnish the job off properly. Within eleven tracks and almost an hours worth of material I was indeed transported and whilst sat crossed legged in the middle of my inverted star [thigh bone in one hand, fly whisk in the other] I was submerged into that familiar world of murderers monologues, house flies trapped in bottles, Paul McCarthy groans, bowl rings, vocals treated to sound like Darth Vader crossed with a Tibetan shaman, water bubbling underground, vinyl surface noise, machine blasts, sonar bleeps, reverbed vocals, astronaut chatter, street rioting … there they all were, waiting for me to check em off and write em down. Now where’s my I-Spy book of Industrial samples when I need it?
This may enlighten you further: Blac Flies name checks Rudolf J. Mund, an obscure member of an obscure Nazi occult outfit, Andrew McAuley who disappeared one day in his Kayak off the coast of New Zealand in 2007, contract killer Richard Kulkinski, reggae star Dr. Alimantado [?] and others too obscure even for Google. Here are some other things to think about: track four ‘Esbat’ isn’t just 30 seconds of insect chatter its also the name of the Wiccan full moon festival. First track ‘Bellerophon’ is also the name of a mythical Greek hero. Third track mentions “Sepharial’, the chosen name of English Occultist Walter Gorn Old. Seventh track; Blakk Bile, meaning, I assume melancholia, depression or maybe some kind of Masonic ritual. Wrap all these occult/pagan trappings into some bleak Industrial landscapes and you have yourself a damned good Industrial/Pagan/Occultist/Ambient workout.
But first lets go back: the previous Schuster release ‘Breaking Down Into His Own Oblivion’ [also on Adeptsound] had the outstanding track ‘I Am Living In My Own Corpse’, a backbone track, a bleak masterpiece of desolation the likes of which gave you some idea of what it must be like to be dumped onto the barren surface of a dead and windswept lonely planet. This is what ‘Blac Flies’ is really missing, a solid twenty minute track that pins it all together. Too much is gone before it has time to settle. I personally wouldn’t have minded the 10th and best track on here ‘Giving’ expanded up to the twenty minute mark but after six minutes and 43 seconds its all too sadly gone.
You can’t deny the heritage though - English Industrial down to their [thigh] bones and no doubt sporting bad haircuts and a healthy dose of misanthropy to boot. A couple of releases in 1988 and then nothing for nigh on twenty years. I think I know one member. The Adept website mentions Dieter Müh and the sleeve mentions SC. Step forward Mr. Cammack. Discogs gives the rest away by naming Tim Bayes who I think I’m right in saying was a fringe member of DM in their formative years and is the man behind Adeptsound. But back to the music.
My big complaint of Blac Flies is that its hardly treading new ground. The mumbled vocal on ‘Sulk’ is so close to TG’s Weeping that its hard not to think of anything else whilst listening to it. The strings that see out ‘The Second Moon [Sepharial]’ could have been plucked straight from one of Arvo Pärt’s sacred minimalist pieces. The Industrial pummel on ‘Stubborn’ is Pan Sonic mutating into Paul MaCarthy grumbles and moans. The murders confession on ‘Giving [who I’m guessing is the afore mentioned contract killer Richard Kulkinski] plays out to a background of cicadas and distant ritual drums and whilst this is highly effective [‘the rats used to eat them’] it was almost as if I was half expecting it.
I now find myself in the curious and slightly embarrassing position of playing down what is obviously a classic piece of Industrial music - which probably says more about me than it does about Blac Flies. Having said that and put an ever so slight damper on it, I have to say in its defence that this is still a criminally good release made with perfectly weighted hands - Grade A Prime Industrial Ambience with a soupcon of ritualism and the occult thrown in for good measure. Blac Flies Resplendent On Blak Moon may not be progress but neither is it Industrial music by numbers. Just don’t give Chris Bohn a copy".
T he B lak Mo on
