Sleep Chamber are an American industrial group that focuses on ritualistic and occult music. Whereas other industrial groups in the late eighties were moving increasingly in the direction of either danceable electronica or guitar-dominated heavy metal, Sleep Chamber stays true to the original and frightening vision of pioneers like Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire.
The sounds on this record are those of haunted machines. Metallic clanking, droning atmospherics, repetitive rhythms and samples of sinister sounding voices. Everything I look for in industrial music! There are some strange scraping violin noises on "Ov This Flesh" as well, and I think the sampled vocal in the track entitled "Presence of the Magi" is that of the infamous occultist Aleister Crowley (later sampled by Fields of the Nephilim), but I can't be totally sure.
There is not a lot of variety of sound to be found here, with every track consisting mainly of murky, far away sounds of things that go bump in the night, but that's alright by me. The sound is very well crafted and the atmosphere it creates is one of exquisite spookiness. An excellent choice for Halloween. I only have the vinyl, but I understand that the CD reissue has an altered and considerably expanded tracklist, so that is nice.
This might be completely out of left field, but I was wondering if you'd ever like to do a novel in exquisite corpse form by mail? With our writing styles, I figure the results would be quite interesting. Let me know.
ReplyDeleteAs for the review, you nailed it yet again. Sleep Chamber is the sound of haunted machines and sexual perversion, and it's so much more amazing for that. I do like SEXMAGICK RITUAL slightly more than SATANIC SANCTION, but pretty much everything they've released is great.
Sure, that sounds fun to me. It may have to wait a bit though. November is National Novel Writing Month and I am pretty swamped with graduate school on top of that.
ReplyDeleteNo rush. School's got me pretty swamped too. Anytime you're game let me know.
ReplyDeleteDid you know the PANORAMA DE MUSIQUE CONCRETE got reissued last month on CD?