Insect Ark – RAW BLOOD SINGING (LTD.DIGI) Compact Disc Digi

Formed in 2011, INSECT ARK is the Berlin-based duo of American artists Dana Schechter (SWANS) on bass/lap steel/synth/vocals, and drummer/percussionist Tim Wyskida (KHANATE, BLIND IDIOT GOD). “Raw Blood Singing” – INSECT ARK’s fourth full-length – is the captivating result of a year spent writing. Sharing an obsession with innovation and distillation, the duo merged to create a sonic landscape which vacillates between sensory overload and isolation in a seething void. Many of the songs on “Raw Blood Singing” were penned alone in 2021 by Schechter; they were gutted, reworked and rebirthed when Wyskida joined in 2022. The outer realms of avant-Metal, psych-Doom, and experimental Goth intersect here, but INSECT ARK fiercely refuses the trappings of simple genre categorization. The band weave a lush, bleak, vast and expansive landscape as they move from whispers of synth to a monstrous wall-of-sound via Schechter’s blistering lap steel playing, diabolical bass-work and the mammoth, searing power of Wyskida’s drums. The album title is deeply rooted in the concept of evolution – on both a human and a universal scale – stories of physical beings bound by equal parts unchangeable matter and malleable, shape-shifting energy. The music, too, has evolved beyond INSECT ARK’s origin as an instrumental band, adding for the first-time the deep honeyed poison of Schechter’s vocals. Showing a penchant for crafting haunted and memorable melodies, the contrast of her smoky voice with the spare, brutal music feels both uncomfortably intimate and icy cold.