I'm going to preface this entry by saying that in general, I really don't listen to black metal. I don't care for the vocals: the deep guttural men talking about whatever. And I don't care for the deep and repetitive bass lines, I just don't enjoy it. Now technically Murmuüre may not be considered strictly metal, it is more industrial/black metal/experimental/whatever. But you know what I can use the metal label as a generality. And fuck you if you disagree. Yeah. In a good mood today.
Listening to Murmuüre the first time is an experience only similar in feel to those moments in life when you realize that you experiencing purity of emotion and thought. I have only felt this way a few times, usually marked by a huge life event or by a musical experience that completely envelopes me. Murmuüre has the enveloping, the purity down to a craft.
This one man band is the enigma of a man named Felix (or F.) and it is all based on a one hour improvised guitar session that is painstakingly recorded and mixed, added to and subtracted from. I could go over the whole spiel, but why not just let him explain it: click here http://murmuure.org/murmuure.html
In essence, this music transcends "metal"- it transcends everything really. It is amazing, and being only 30 minutes long and six songs, that is really saying something.
The whole release (first it was cassette, reprinted as CD and vinyl) feels like a delicate poem almost, and although rigid, hurtful and unflinching, it is just as fine and intimate as a ballad. It's a very personal work, one can tell immediately, one that must've felt like a weight lifted from the shoulders after Felix was done with it.
This music gives me hope for music. I don't know how else to say it: the fact that this exists is proof to me that I should keep searching, endlessly, for music. Because sometimes you find something like this.
To go into specifics, the whole experience sounds very organic. It's very raw and unrefined, at it's core a twisting and searing flame of emotional and existential void. It creates and consumes not unlike fire, an uncontrollable and deadly fire that is respected as much as it is feared. It has power, it entices you in and pulls you into it, and really it is just as powerful as love or sex.
The fine tuning, the "after effects" to the music, the drumming, the flute, the interesting whistle that starts the whole experience, the indiscernible yells that are heard sometimes, are just as important and just as instrumental as the guitar itself. The whole thing is really built on those guitar improvs, taking something that is so raw in it's source and refining it down again and again, and then ending up with this as a whole. The whole definitely exceeds it's parts in this case, although the parts are brilliant unto themselves.
The most remarkable thing about this record is that it's so entirely unique. It truly sounds like nothing else. In it's most basic level, it is a type of music, however in the details it's another, in it's performance another, and so on. It could truly be loved by about anyone, I think. Anyone with a good love of chaos that is. Glowing reviews from everywhere online, being named heavy metal album of the month/week/year at different places by different people, shows I'm not the only one to think this, I can happily report.
The drumming is my personal favorite part of this. The meticulous and very disturbed drumming, pounding away in a unconventional method, is beyond words. The rot of the music, the distorted crumbling away of the archway upon which you balance, gives the drums a sick backdrop. The timing of this release is impeccable. Everything feels so exact, so balanced and thought out, and I suppose that makes sense for 30 minutes that took 3 years to make. I admire and am astounded by that dedication.
I wish I could say that this is the first of many releases, or that it is not alone in its existence. But so far I have yet to find anything that stands close to this in musical quality. It is completely alone, and in all rights it should be. It deserves it's own existence, it's own private musical universe wherein it reigns supreme as the only music and the only truth.
Maximum volume is necessary for full immersion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOWgOK7T8-s&list=PLvMmfPEKgNRiqOuYnOyzirITbpcwnrmW5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3yi0jxET9U
please buy his music:
http://murmuure.bandcamp.com/
