Dark ambient pioneer, Stygian drone legend and near-mythical entity Lustmord pierces the veil once more with ‘Much Unseen Is Also Here’. The artist’s latest, solo full-length release in a formidable, 40-year creative career at the forefront of industrial music is set for release on March 15th, 2024 via Berlin’s Pelagic Records.
Urged by Cosey Fanni Tutti and Chris Carter of Throbbing Gristle to make music that captured his distinctive aura, Brian Williams assumed the mantle of Lustmord in 1980 and began working with sound because the music he wanted to listen to simply didn’t exist. Nine years of field-recording experimentation and near-constant collaboration later, Lustmord released his third album, ‘Heresy’, which became a milestone in the industrial scene and is now universally regarded as the origin of the dark ambient genre.
LUSTMORD – Behold A Voice As Thunder (Short Edit) – YouTube
35 years later, ‘Much Unseen Is Also Here’ continues the legacy established by ‘Heresy’ and echoes its enthralling narrative arc. Sequenced in three distinct parts; ‘Much Unseen Is Also Here’ is meant to be listened to in a single, uninterrupted sitting; transporting listeners away to an uncompromising parallel world that only exists within the music, before casting them back out at the end, forever changed.
Opening composition and leading preview of the forthcoming record, ‘Behold A Voice As Thunder’, is an ominous droning fog that conceals something unspeakable. Glacial strings, a zither-like dirge and manipulated found sounds are cut short by a gargantuan pounding presence, whether looming footsteps or a colossal heartbeat; the choice is left entirely to the listener’s imagination.
This sense of uncertainty and the terrifying unknown is an important and recurring theme within Lustmord’s work. “I chose to let the sound talk for me” says Brian. “My music is not meant to be explained – only listened to as a means of exposing the sheer insignificance of our primitive thoughts and actions within the vast scale of the cosmos – a scale which we as a species are ill equipped to comprehend.”
It should come as no surprise that the captivating narrative precedent of ‘Heresy’ was also the catalyst for an incredible career in production work and sound design. Alongside a plethora of solo albums as Lustmord, Williams has worked with artists and outfits including Tool, Isis, Jarboe, Coil’s John Balance, SWANS, Mortiis and Melvins; with his most recent release, 2021’s ‘Alter’, being a collaborative record with award-winning singer-songwriter and Årabrot member, Karin Park.
Based in L.A. since 1993, Lustmord has also contributed as composer and sound designer to the music for iconic film and television properties including ‘The Crow’, ‘Strange Days’, ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’, ‘Underworld’ and more recently, FX’s ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ series and ‘Taxi Driver’ writer Paul Schrader’s 2017 film ‘First Reformed.’
Still determined to push at the boundaries of sound, genre and media; Lustmord has also contributed to the soundscapes of video games such as Assassin’s Creed, League of Legends and, quite fittingly, 2022’s H.R. Geiger-inspired, survival-horror game, Scorn.
With so many strings to his bow already and even more collaborations in the works, ‘Behold A Voice As Thunder’ serves as both a retrospective gateway to Lustmord’s groundbreaking dark ambient origins as well as a tantalising taste of what Williams is capable of now; what is still yet to come.
Having performed live just 39 times across his 43-year career, perhaps Lustmord is ready to share the cosmic secrets hidden within ‘Much Unseen Is Also Here’ in the flesh; whispered atop his inimitable, timeless concoction of earth-shaking sub bass, spine-tingling ritualism and inescapable, existentialist dread.
