Secret Chiefs 3 "The Book Beri'ah Vol. 10 - Malkhut"

Country: USA
Genre(s): Instrumental Avant Prog
Label: Tzadik
Format: CD, digital
Release date: August 24, 2018 (CD in box), October 18, 2019 (separate CD, digital)
Tracklist: 
1. Sitra Achra (3:28)
2. Chitzonuyut (3:45)
3. Shadim (4:52)
4. Netzokim (4:18)
5. Yenikah (4:34)
6. Netzach (2:11)
7. Sapar (3:57)
8. Mishkan (3:50)
9. Makif (1:36)
10. Atzmut (3:35)
11. Ayin (3:30)
12. Shemot (3:32)

Total Time 43:08

Line-up: 
Trey Spruance - Guitar
Jason Schimmel - Synthesizer, Organ, Clavinet, Kinnor, Nevel, Glockenspiel
Eyvind Kang - Viola, Violin
Matt Lebofsky - Organ, Piano, E-Piano, Synthesizer
Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz - Bass, Oud, Gimbri
Ches Smith - Percussion
Kenny Grohowski - Drums
Ryan Parrish - Kaval (1,6,8)

Media/Samples 
Samples

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Secret Chiefs 3: Ishraqiyun "Perichoresis"

Country: USA
Sub Genre: Instrumental Experimental, Avant Prog, Ethnic, Electronica
Label: Web of Mimicry
Format: CD, digital
Release date: October 10, 2014 (retail - November 11, 2014)
Tracklist: 

1. The 15
2. The 7
3. Base Phive Futur Cossacks
4. Spiritus Intelligentiae: Jophiel
5. Perichoresis
6. Saptarshi

Line-up: 
Trey Spruance
Eyvind Kang - viola
Ches Smith - drums, percussion
Rich Doucette - sarangi, esraj
Peijman Kouretchian - drums
Mike Dillon - tabla
Shahzad Ismaily - bass
Timba Harris  - violin
Jai Young Kim - keyboards
and many more

Description/Reviews: 

Ishraqiyun has been characterized as the “neo-Pythagorean electro-folk” side of Secret Chiefs 3, and followers of the band’s live shows in the last decade will recognize it as the most familiar and dominant aspect of the band. For many years, the Ishraqiyun repertoire of mysterious, catchy, original tunes—composed in ratio-based rhythms for non-Western tunings and instruments (saz, sarangi, esraj, etc.)—has been blasted out at inordinately high volume to many adventurous ears. Now, after persistently touring and playing this music in more than 40 countries during the last few years, Secret Chiefs 3 unveil the first proper set of studio recordings of Ishraqiyun material. Never content to rest on the familiar, SC3 pushes Ishraqiyun into uncharted terrain, stretching the envelope most particularly on the mega-opus title track “Perichoresis.” This is the first recorded composition to introduce Spruance’s evolving system of musical ideas patterned upon the specific geometrical relationships found in certain polyhedra and the tesselating patterns from which they are derived. These kinds of techniques could result in lifeless and cerebral art, but Spruance’s approach is more akin to martial arts than nerd rock. It’s not about “math,” it’s all about being moved (or moving with) the mysterious power of forgotten fundamentals. It’s music for the antiquarian and barbarian alike, and the cacophonous banquet halls up there on the modernist Olympus are about to be pelted with this golden apple. 

Media/Samples 
Sampler

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Secret Chiefs 3 "Book of Souls: Folio A"

Country: USA
Sub Genre: Avant Prog
Label: Mimicry Records
Release date: October 29, 2013 (retail - November 26, 2013)
Tracklist: 
1. Balance of the 19
2. Nova IHVH
3. Potestas Clavium
4. Post-Identity Hour (AMS World Newscorp)
5. Personae: Halloween
6. Utopian Weekly Update (HVHI Public Access)
7. Scorched Earth Saturnalia
8. Full Spectrum Anamnesis
9. Drive
10. Barzakh ID Markers (AIO Radio Narcissus)
11. La Chanson de Jacky
12. Toy Soldier's Frontline Report (Faust Journal, DodecSMA Corp)
13. Tistrya

Line-up: 
TBA

Description/Reviews: 

Listeners have come to expect a lot from Secret Chiefs 3, and for “Book of Souls”, second in the band’s mega-trilogy (first being “Book of Horizons”, 2004), they expect nothing less than a vertigo-inducing follow up. True to expectation, "Book of Souls: Folio A" is a full-length album densely-packed with musical skyscrapers. Over a decade in the making along with "Folio B", "Book of Souls" is Secret Chiefs 3’s most elaborate work yet. Following the 7-band schemata laid out in Book of Horizons, both Folios of "Book of Souls" thoroughly establish the depth of SC3’s journey into otherwise lost musical possibilities.“Book of Souls: Folio A” is evidence that Secret Chiefs 3 continues to operate in blissful ignorance of current musical fashions, remaining enchanted only by what can be unlocked in modern mediums by applying a specific recipe of ancient and a-linear processes.
The album represents the kind of titanic, almost Faustian undertaking that one would expect, something uniquely appropriate to Secret Chiefs 3. But for all that pomp it’s easy to forget that everything having to do with a SC3 recording is DIY to the core. “Book of Souls: Folio A” is a fully organic production. Everything is honed with love in one of the last-standing hermetically-sealed laboratories. Some may snort at the notion that there even could exist such a cauldron of limitless fascination extending so rigorously beyond the time/space boundaries of modern occidental groupthink; a place in-between, suspended, where the simplest motifs have the freedom either to radiate upward into geometric complexities that are beyond description, or to refine downward to a state of simple musical essence. But it's the usual thing at the SC3 lab.

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