News: INSECT ARK: Marrow Hymns Preorders Now Available; Special Record Release Performance With Martin Rev And Wolf Eyes Confirmed

New York City/Portland-based instrumental duo INSECT ARK will unleash their stunning Marrow Hymns full-length via Profound Lore Records on February 23rd. An alluring fusion of horror-film soundtracks, psychedelic doom, and atmospheric noise, Marrow Hymns is now available for preorder on CD, LP, and digital formats. For physical orders, point your browser HERE. European customers can preorder the LP HERE. The vinyl edition is limited to 600 units on four different color variants. The digital edition can be preordered via Bandcamp HERE and iTunes HERE. 

 

Comprised of Dana Schechter (M. Gira's Angels Of Light, Wrekmeister Harmonies, Zeal & Ardor, Gnaw) and Ashley Spungin (Taurus, Purple Rhinestone Eagle, Negative Queen), INSECT ARK's intensely visual music weaves interludes of fragile beauty with crushing passages of swirling doom, spinning like a backwards fever dream.

 

Marrow Hymns is a wordless song, a hypnotic voice that screams and whispers from a place deep in the furrows, from the bones, from the blood. Defying easy categorization, INSECT ARK's uncommon sound is in part the amalgamation of these two women's passions: Schechter's sinister bass lines and unconventional use of lap steel guitar (and her complete omission of electric guitar), and Spungin's lucid, exacting drumming and synth work with her own hand-built analog noise pedals (Ormus Electronics).

 

Notes Revolver of the eclectic offering, "The record finds Schechter and Spungin taking cues from horror-movie soundtracks, leaden psych-rock, ambient noise, EBM, and above all, its creators' existential crises, all blown up for maximum atmospheric impact. Consider the crushing, eerie, 'Sea Harps,' ... a facsimile for what to expect from the upcoming effort: two women's combined agonies trapped amber-like, examined through prisms both fantastical and frightful." Writes Two Guys Metal Reviews in an advance exploration of the record, "The most notable aspect of INSECT ARK has always been the slide guitar, but Schechter's mastery of the instrument has really been pushed further on this release, and the haunting melodies crafted fit in perfectly with the eerie soundscapes. The occasional reassuring bottom end swells brings us all back to reality, adding a strange sense of substance to the potent drums, dialed back as per usual to allow a stunning sense of openness. Tied into this is the subdued poetry of the songwriting, each track here is a piece of a journey, tied together by an album that gets all the more fascinating with every additional spin."

If you missed it, hear "Sea Harps," still streaming at Revolver Magazine at THIS LOCATION as well as "In The Nest" HERE.

 

INSECT ARK will bring their psalms to the stage in the coming weeks. Performances will include a special record release show in Brooklyn, New York on April 15th supporting electronic no wave artistMartin Rev (Suicide) and Wolf Eyes as well as a European trek in April/May. Stay tuned for details.

 

INSECT ARK:

4/15/2018 Elsewhere - Brooklyn, NY Record Release Show w/ Martin Rev & Wolf Eyes, Mystic Ruler, Bentley Anderson, Divine Enfant [info]

 

Marrow Hymns was recorded and mixed with engineer Ethan Donaldson at Mozart Street Studios in Brooklyn, New York over the course of eighteen months. With the two halves of INSECT ARKresiding on opposite coasts, the album was largely skeletal in form upon commencement of recording. Overdubs and further writing/arrangements were done after Spungin's return to Portland in the isolation of Schechter's home studio. The sense of distance and vast emptiness remained intact in the songs, built out over many long nights. Marrow Hymns' song themes of displacement, loss, and isolation are personal journals of that time period, as both members found themselves simultaneously experiencing existential crises. However, the album also tells a story of strength and determination, made from the marrow of these two women, a song for all things that struggle to survive.