'Not we’d hasten to add, for the listening of those faint of heart, a lengthening supernatural shadow is casting its reach far into this dimension, ne’er do well tasks and the uttering of ancient texts have summoned it forth awakening it from its slumber. Sworn to secrecy, a scholarly group both of legend and fable, the passing of a darkly noble birth right, accounts of whom number legion, have presided over empires, royalties and the Governances of these lands, out of view they have like puppet masters steered the course of history like an unseen hand, their trade – the mysterious, the magical and the macabre, dark hearted souls in touch with the unseen, the unreal and the unexplained. Those that take heed and are versed of such secret histories thought their bloodline and texts severed and lost. Not so. Secret meetings, hushed whispers in scholarly chambers and notes passed in respected halls of learning, clearly indicate that the Mortlake Bookclub is indeed servicing enquiring minds.
Following a limited issue tender for admissions, ‘Mysteriorum Libri Quinque’ serves as the collectives opening communique, a disquieting chill descends with the onset of ‘Obsidian Eye’ – buried deep in the supernatural mists, the twinkling tones of a chiming lullaby flickers and fades amid the macabre happenings manifesting through the veil, for emerging through the dread calm what sounds like a ghost ship slavishly pilots itself from the beyond dragging in its wake darkening consequences. Both eerie and tense these droning fanfares howl and cry with a deathly portent that recalls the bleak sonic apertures happened upon by the Revenant Sea. Decidedly lighter in texture though all the same soured in eeriness, ‘The Kollector’ is a paranoiac rapture, a visitation, perhaps more so a warning call, as to events to unfold, to the darkening chamber noir peel of spectral bell chimes an unseen and unnamed visitor approaches his ghostly cloak dragging lines upon lines of unclaimed stricken souls. The shadow playing ‘Ornaments in Jade’ does little to avert the tension, a ghost lit ceremonial chill descends as the monastic murmurs forge their trancing spell craft, something that ought to appeal to the archaic spectral folk happened upon by the soon to reactivate Preterite. ‘Bound by Human Flesh’ rounds out matters to the end grooves, psychotropic pulsars, distressed choral recitals and an unwavering sense of hopelessness and despair impart a grievous feeling of hope sucked isolationism. The Mortlake Bookclub is open for business and collecting lost souls.' (The Sunday Experience)
credits
released April 16, 2017
The Mortlake Booklub were, are and shall forever be:
Antony Ralph Wealls
Darren Charles
Grey Malkin
Melmoth The Wanderer
All tracks were once again produced using the surrealist parlour game 'Exquisite Corpse' with an individual member of the Bookclub beginning a piece which was then added to by the others without knowledge of what each was contributing.
Mastered by JC Blackley Industries.
Sleeve art by Roger Linney for The Mortlake Bookclub.
Vocal Sample in 'Ornaments In Jade' by Daughters Of Grief, taken from The Hare And The Moon's 'A Fracture In The Forest'.