Brave Mysteries
In Top Five, we dig into the catalog of one of city’s many independent record labels and get the back-stories on five of the label’s more significant releases. In our first installment, we focus on Brave Mysteries, and label head Nathaniel Ritter sent us a rundown on his favorites releases.
The label: “Brave Mysteries began transmitting from the Cassette Qabal on 4.7.2010. Vinyl mysteries first began appearing on 9.15.2011,” according to the label’s website.
The label head: Nathaniel Ritter, who runs the label along with Burial Hex’s Clay Ruby, still maintains residency in Madison, though he’s currently engaged in some winter isolationism in Stevens Point to focus on art, his business, and his studies in cyber security and applied ethics. He has been recording as Kinit Her—along with Troy Schafer—since 2006, and he’s also involved in projects like Wreathes, Compass Hour, Circulation Of Light, and The Second Family Band.
Burial Hex: Book Of Delusions
Nathaniel Ritter: I’m putting this, our first vinyl release, at the top of my list because it both represents and contains many aspects of what makes Brave Mysteries so important to me personally. While this record is indeed [from] Clay Ruby, who co-operates the label, it is also one of the very first pieces of Burial Hex music I had a hand in sculpting. While Clay had already recorded a large chunk of what would become this album before we met, it wouldn’t be until three years later when we finally saw it to fruition. For me, this is one of the most powerful collaborations I’ve had the honor to be a part of. This LP’s curse surely touched me, like so many others, but I’ll be the first to admit I have way more fond memories of its creation than not. In my mind, Book Of Delusions also stands as the epitome of the Burial Hex sound, if there is one. The A-side features a very focused and concise progression through a lot of the sound-worlds that Clay explored earlier in the project and solidified with the Initiations double LP. After plowing through several iterations of “horror electronics,” the piece culminates in a bizarre combination of Burial Hex’s more industrial/electro leanings and Clay’s now oft-present keyboard work. The title track that covers the B-side, then, points to where much of Burial Hex’s new material has landed, on what might as well be a dance floor for one lonely soul at a time.
Burial Hex - "Book Of Delusions" (Excerpt)
Horrid Red: Celestial Joy cassette
NR: Due to the fickle nature of the market we’re working in, I tend to have a policy of releasing material that is exclusive to whatever format we are releasing it on initially. This is the only album that has broken that rule, and we’ve published while there have been simultaneous releases on other formats circulating. While it is true [that] both of us at Brave Mysteries HQ took part in the making some of the music on this record, I feel confident in saying it really is good enough to throw out that policy. Even if I may hear it in advance, the diversity of aesthetic strains that Edmund Xavier and crew run through with such earnest power has me eagerly anticipating their next weird move. Horrid Red does rest on some tried and true new-wave and pop tropes. But, as a modern record, Celestial Joy has it all: upbeat hooky tunes; concise, up-in-the-clouds ballads; engaging instrumental passages; and tons and tons of atmosphere from a potpourri of production styles. The vocals are truly the icing on the cake; even though he’s shouting distorted German lyrics about lord knows what, you can’t help but get sucked in by Bunker Wolf’s old-school rock frontman charisma.
Horrid Red - "Tragic Image"
His Electro Blue Voice: Dead Sons 45 rpm 12-inch EP
NR: This has to be the most “fun” out of the vinyl we’ve released thus far. These Italians caught our attention with their 7-inch split with French twee-black-metallers Nuit Noire. Over the course of Clay’s travels ... touring as Burial Hex, he made friends with these guys, and we’ve all become big fans of each others’ various projects. A lot of our more die-hard fans who followed us in the wake of the disintegration of Clay’s first label, Skulls Of Heaven, might have been taken aback by this one—but they shouldn’t have. Due to a lot of our own music being “dark,” both Skulls Of Heaven and now Brave Mysteries have been pegged as exporters of all that is of the shadows. There aren’t many forums where I try to put this much of a point on it, but we’re releasing a seriously diverse array of [music]. After their initial string 7-inches, HEBV were getting a lot of comparisons to Crisis and Warsaw, but on Dead Sons, which is their longest release yet, they’ve branched out and added a serious amount of sonic variety on top of their bed of dark post-punk. This EP still definitely has an aggressive edge to it throughout, but is packed with plenty of quirkiness, killer grooves, and dancey moments. The closer piece, “Zum,” that spans the entire flip side of the record, is definitely my favorite. It starts off with a plodding half-time Kraut groove, builds up, and breaks completely down, before coming back twice as fast with percussion rattling, feedback swirling; and the whole thing gets tied together at the end with an electric piano solo and a comfortably strummed acoustic guitar.
His Electro Blue Voice - "Zum" (Excerpt)
PWIN ▲▲ TEAKS: Aoxomoxoa
NR: No, this isn’t a cover of the [Grateful] Dead album. This is probably the most twisted and truly disturbing thing we’ve put out, but this record isn’t doom and gloom; it is just plain demented. With this one, Cosmotropia De Xam, the man behind this project and the better-known Mater Suspiria Vision, gave us some sort of door to a gurgling and frothing purgatory not far off from a Lynchian nightmare-scape (obviously). Aoxomoxoa is a slowly churning piece of twisted psychedelic space music. On the opener, “The Mirror Cabinet Of The Water Witches,” we’re given a somewhat calming synth-driven theme, but it is laden with terribly creepy delayed vocal sampling. Around the four-minute mark, the track vanishes entirely, only to come back with demonic laughing and the initial piece shoved through affectations that create a funhouse-mirror version of itself. The ethereal and Kosmiche elements that seep out over the rest of the record only create a greater sense of unease as they twirl out of the haze of reversed samples. While it could easily get lost in the sea of media output from the madman behind the curtain, this is the LP in his oeuvre that features the most dedication to tension and release dynamics even with its minimalist sonic palette.
PWIN ▲▲ TEAKS - "The Mirror Cabinet Of The Water Witches" (Excerpt)
Rain Drinkers: Yesodic Helices
NR: The latest full-length from Madison locals Rain Drinkers will be the first record Brave Mysteries releases in 2012 and should be out in late February. Joe Taylor and Zavier Kraal were nothing if not prolific in 2011, releasing three CD-Rs on the British label Reverb Worship and one tape with us. They’ve found a slightly broader audience than [have] a lot of acts on Brave Mysteries, due to their sound being a little “easier” or more accessible. However, I think it would be a huge mistake to lump these guys in with the droves of “sound-artists” releasing progressive ambient music these days. These are intricately woven compositions that were painstakingly assembled from what I understand to be careful balance between studio sessions, field recordings, and ritual improvisations. The music truly speaks for itself, but I’ll say that everything on this LP is heartachingly beautiful from the strings, horns, and guitars to the keyboards, hand drums, and the sputtering homemade electronics that peak out through the cracks every once in a while. The first 100 copies of the LP will come with the Cast Of The Rye Wolf CD-R, which is a full-blown Rain Drinkers album of its own, and will be the closest thing we’ve had to a collaboration with another publisher, as it is being manufactured by the local Shifting Sands Congregation boutique label.
Rain Drinkers - "Cast Of The Rye Wolf" (Excerpt)
