Welcome to the Winter Serpent, a new label dedicated to release hypnotic, experimental, neural and ethereal soundscapes. Wolfskin, Karnnos, Iurta and other projects will be released in various formats.
Sooner than I expected, Winter Serpent as a label started to manifest. The first editions of the label will be of my own projects: Wolfskin, Iurta and Karnnos. See below what is happening this month.
WNS001 – WOLFSKIN: DESPOJOS DO SOL-POSTO
Winter Serpent first release is a live performance that we did with Wolfskin in 2010, included in a event dedicated to the work of Mircea Eliade. The tracks selected to the concert were more ambiental and ritual than the usual Wolfskin live assaults, which turned this concert into a special moment. The record was released in a partnership with KHTHON label, on digital and CD. The cd is limited to 100 copies and comes in handmade package. To hear the full record/buy digital edition: Despojos do Sol-Posto | WOLFSKIN | KHTHON (bandcamp.com)
To buy the handmade package CD: winterserpent.9@gmail.com
WNS002 – IURTA: MNEMONIC SIGNALS LIVE
Winter serpent’s second release is again a live record and a collaboration with the KHTHON label. This is a testimony to IURTA live performances, which present a much more industrial and primitive feeling than the records. The pieces are semi-improvised in that they include some pre-determined structures or soundscapes, but what develops in the live performance will very much depend on the mood of each intervenant and their inter-actions. The edition is digital although there are some CDrs that will be offered to people who buy other editions of Winter Serpent or related releases (e.g. the new Karnnos record). Mnemonic Signals – Live | IURTA | KHTHON (bandcamp.com)
After some time in which doing music was more erratic, in the past years I been able to regain some momentum, similar to what I/we had back in the beginning of the millenia.
As a result, I/we currently have several records ready to be released! Find bellow a short description of each of them. In time I will share some more details about the editions and musical excerpts. Also, check the projects’ own page to find more about the records.
WOLFSKIN – DESPOJOS DO SOL-POSTO (LIVE)
Yes, Wolfskin is back. After annoucing the death of the project, I slowly managed to get it back into my life. A crucial element for this comeback was the life performances that we did with WS, very much supported by the enthusiasm and aid of Sektor 304 members. This record registers one of such performances, that we did at Fábrica do Som, back in 2013!
The concert was dedicated to the memory of Mircea Eliade, and I decided to play tracks with a more ritual inclination, namely from “Campos de Matança”. In this concert we also didn’t had Belmil playing with us, so we couldn’t play tracks based on bagpipes. So, the result is quite different from other performances, a bit more ambiental, not so wild and epic, but at the same time closer to most of WS recordings.
Another Wolfskin live performance, in the Oestrimnis festival organized by Urze de Lume fellows, back in 2017, gave me the final push to bring the project fully back to life, with new material. I was really happy to see how WS music drove the musicians into a kind of altered state, how the channeling of dormant, wild energies was so transformative. “This really works as I intended” and “I need to make more music that provokes this reaction” were some thougths that I had back then.
So, I decided to get back to an ambitious plan that I devised way back in time – to split WS in two, doing two records, each reflecting a particular set of energies and archetypes. I will elaborate this further in the project’s page, so for the sake of brevity let’s say that one record will focus on the solar symbolism (that I called “Solis aeternitas”) and the other in the lunar symbolism (the “Luna Sanguis” side). “Ring of Spheres” is the first of these records, the one dealing with the solar symbolism. The angle that I used was that of Hermetism, trying to depict the alchemical process of extracting light out of darkness; the name of the record refers to the ancient idea that the stars were fixed. The whole record is a journey from the human existence to the realm of the Spirit, beyond matter, into eternity. Thus, beyond the unknown, beyond the ring of spheres.
The record will be released by Cyclic Law somewhere during 2024!
KARNNOS – CONCEALED, IN THE SILENCE // REMEMBRANCE (REEDITION)
After “Remembrance”, the previous Karnnos record, we’ve been working on its successor, named “Concealed, in the silence”. I evoke the previous record because, has happened in the past, “Concealed…” is a kind of internal re-action to “Remembrance”; that means that we worked with what was absent from “Remembrance” and, in many ways, “Concealed…” is a synthesis between our previous works (“Deatharch Crann”, “Dún Scaith” and “Undercurrents and Lost Horizons”) and our recent ones (“Dream Continent” and “Remembrance”).
So, what should you expect from the new record? The tracks are more musical-oriented, although there are still ambiental and experimental moments. But the tone is not as somber as that of “Remembrance” and there is some new elements, mainly lent by the new collaborators. In short, I think this is problably our most beautiful record to date.
Similarly to “Remembrance”, “Concealed…” is a kind of conceptual album, following the initiation into the mysteries of the Great Goddess, with its traditional threefolded stages: death / transformation / ressuscitation.
The record will be released by Corvus label, from Bulgaria (https://corvusbg.com/) in digital and vinyl! Yes, we are very excited to have our first LP!
At the same time, the portuguese label New Approach Records (https://newapproachrecords.wordpress.com) will do a re-edition of “Remembrance”, that was previously available only on a self-produced CD that is sold-out for some time.
R. A. & J. A.
Besides the investment in Karnnos and Wolfskin, I also did some improvisations with Run Arbo, from the projects oooOooo and Arde Fero and the result will probably be released during 2024. The tracks consist on slow evolving soundscapes based on electronics and acoustic instruments like the accordion or the nickelharp. It sounds something very post-industrial, with an exploration of textures rather than melodies, but with a meditative, almost monastic, tone.
winterserpent.org 