Premiere: Slip into the Slime of Darkness with Choshech's Architecture of Decay
Long-time readers of this humble verbal abode should already be quite acquainted with Choshech, the ice-cold electronica/noise and randomly black metal project by mastermind Shay Mizrachi. I had the privilege of premiering the past iterations of Mizrahi's haunting project, as well as to his many collaborations with frequent, well, collaborators Tamer Singer(Zeresh), Michael Zolotov (Kadaver), Stephan Friedman (Silence & Strength), and LYS (Sleepwalker, IVSLYS). I've also had the honor of seeing Choshech, thus, transform not only into one of the most unique voices in underground music today, but into a sort of hub into which Mizrahi constantly plugs in new features and collaborators, transforming it into a platform for both personal expression and artistic cooperation.
And so it is with great pleasure that I present this, the newest in the growing catalogue of Choshech releases, one that marks a definite turn toward the noisy and the spectral. Being as mercurial and artistically flexible as Mizrahi means you constantly touch on various genres and styles, without really committing to any. But on Architecture of Decay, his newest full length out this Friday, he is stepping firmly into noise/electronica, delivering what feels like his darkest and perhaps even angriest performance to date. It feels like Skinny Puppy being channeled through the mind of a person who's listened to Panzerfaust on loop, if that makes sense, and even better if it doesn't. With the bonus of one of the best Cocteau Twins songs ever. It sounds like a lot, I know. It is a lot. In the best way.
Check out this masterpiece of an album from a proverbial masterpiece machine of an artist. Shay was also generous enough to include Architecture of Decay's lead single, "Hey!" a collaboration with Zeresh, in my most recent compilation, benefitting World Central Kitchen. It just came out last week. So, my thanks to him for that, as well as for the ability to play some minuscule part in the spreading of his good, dark word.
And apropos the cross-genre appeal of Mizrahi's music, this week saw the release of a wonderful collaborative (see, that word again) version of the track "Levad" off of the debut Choshech album, performed by the wonderful atmospheric black metal project Ketoret and, who else, Mizrahi himself. It truly fleshes out some of the black metal overtones, especially in that first release, in a way that still maintains its enchanting ambiguity. Check it out here.
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