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Don’t be put off by Mamiffer’s tag of ‘experimental metal’ – think how far Anathema and Alcest are from their death metal roots.
Comprising Isis guitarist/singer Aaron Turner and his artist-musician wife Faith Coloccia, the duo relish the dark side, and that is their historical substratum. But built upon that is nearly a decade of musical shapeshifting resting on a triumvirate of ghostly piano, tolling guitar and Coloccia’s angelic voice. The World Unseen brings shadowy exercises to life via tape loops, banks of effects and otherworldly oscillations.
A celestial mood is generated on opener By The Light Of My Body, and that dovetails into the elegiac, gothic gospel of the Crippled Black Phoenix-like Flower Of The Field II. Lead track Mara is also divine, composed of Gregorian modal drone and multi-part harmonies.
The nucleus, though, is the 27-minute trilogy Domestication Of The Ewe, a suite of white noise, abstract texturising and menacing folk song tension that’s utterly transportive – think Eraserhead, A Field In England and Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares channelled through Mediaeval Baebes. A magikal mystery tour, waiting to take you away.
