Before us, two mini CDRs by our beloved 999 Cuts label from Israel. The label is run by Michael Zolotov, who is from Kadaver fame, and his wife Tamar Singer, who is active as Zeresh (and had a split out with Autumn Tears on Dark Symphonies in 2022). And yes, I’ll bluntly throw it out here, and I’ll never speak of it again: 999 Cuts is the very best thing coming out of Israel these days. There, I’ve said it. The latest batch of 999 Cuts contains three releases: one long-play CD, which you’ll find in another review and these two 3″ minis. Because these two are also in the same atmosphere, musically, we’ll combine the reviews of those.
The second 3″ CDR is by Harae and is entitled ‘Kagura’. I’ll start by writing that I couldn’t find anything on Harae, who is behind it, who is the musician(s) other than they’re from the UK. On this release the 20 minutes of the 3″ format are divided into three tracks. The opening track is ‘Kagura’, a ritual Shinto dance. A heavy female voice with lots of false breathing generates a highly creepy atmosphere. Musically, it touches on the common grounds of ritual music, black metal and dark ambient. With the Kagura being a transcendental ritual, these aspects fit perfectly.
For tracks two and three, wiki helped me understand the concept. “There are two major types of kagura: mai and odori. Mai consists of slow circular movement, stressing quiet and elegance, while Odori consists of quick leaping and jumping, stressing activation and energy”. ‘Odori’ and ‘Mai’ are the titles of tracks two and three, respectively, so with this description, we understand why “Odori” is mind-shattering, aggressive and wild in its first half and noisy yet harmonic in the 2nd half. On the other hand, “Mai” is almost like a minimal noise, looped, atmospheric ambient track. In the spoken voice, I really love the creation of the creepiness in there, but this is beyond dark ambient here; This is black ambient.
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