Spiritflesh – Menace (12″)

Following the eluding inclusion of very first Spiritflesh material in the ‘5 Years Of NoCorner Music’ compilation unleashed late last year, what has followed are many months of speculation & rumours, handfuls of upfront promo tapes, cryptic blends in mixes from some of our favourite selectors, and glimpses of influences and unreleased Spiritflesh material via a dedicated – and highly recommended – NTS special on DJ October’s Sacred Pools show.

With a 12” single and a full-length LP now out, the cat is now truly beginning to scratch it’s way out of the bag, ready to unveil one of the most exciting projects to come out of Bristol in some time.

The brainchild of Julian ‘Dj October’ Raymond-Smith and Boris ‘Borai’ English, their latest project is the culmination of many years of production experience and expansive discography, countless hours of music consumption and collective knowledge.

Taking in a host of influences, from Doom Metal and Drone through to Post-Punk, EBM, Dreader than dread Dub and Techno, Spiritflesh have truly blurred the conventions of their influences and spawned a sound that is all theirs, a sound that spews and spits like a skeletal, fog-riddled construct of otherwordly ambience, guttural bassline and rhythm.

Their sound is an utterly heavy cerebral kind of music that touches, with great conviction, on ideas of life, death and the in-between.

Adding to the depth of their sonic, Jules and Boris have called on their old friend Mat ‘the wizard’ Sampson, who is also the engineer and recording artist of choice for the likes of Roly Porter, Emptyset, Anthroproph, and of course DJ October.

Mat has spent decades amassing and building countless electronic rarities, from analogue compressors through to tube amps, BBC-grade spring & plate reverbs, classic tape-delays, russian-import fx pedals – you name it.

The end-result is a truly immersive sonic, an incredibly heavy sound even during the most sparse and stripped back moments…

Spiritflesh have, already with this first record, mastered a visceral, time-stretched construct of tremendous tension, pressure, and release.

Presenting a first view into the world of Spiritflesh, for the artwork Studio Tape-Echo have drawn from a series of British Archive illustrations by Andreas Visalius, who, in the 15th century, was one of the first to study human anatomy in order to obtain information about possible infinite life.
A lot of his subjects were recently hung convicts, obtained by permission from the judge, who would schedule executions accordingly.

Edition of 250.
Pressed on translucent blood red vinyl.
housed in a polythene sleeve, with oversized sticker.
Mixed and produced with Mat Sampson, at Bink Bonk Studios Bristol.
Mastered and cut by Lewis at Stardelta.
Design & layout by Studio Tape-Echo.