Results tagged “Argentinum Astrum” from Live Like This

The Knoxville Horror Film Festival is officially over, but you won't be able to tell this weekend: the same group that organized the fest at Relix Variety Theatre in Happy Holler last weekend is hosting a two-hour recap at the same place on Friday night, Oct. 29, at 7 p.m., followed by a screening of black-metal documentary Until the Light Takes Us, which will in turn be followed by a performance from Knoxville black-metal band Argentinum Astrum.

Lee Gardner reviewed Until the Light Takes Us here.

Admission to either the recap or the UTLTU screening is $5, or it's $8 for both.

It's been a rough year for San Francisco art black-metal band Ludicra, who are scheduled to play with Argentinum Astrum at Pilot Light on Friday, April 23. First, the band's spring tour with Mayhem was canceled just weeks before it was set to start, leaving Ludicra and tour mates Krallice and Tombs scrambling to fill in alternate dates. (That's how Ludicra got booked in Knoxville.)

Then, last weekend, guitarist John Corbett (also of Hammers of Misfortune and the totally great, unheralded Slough Feg) suffered a burst appendix on the second date of the De-Cancellation Tour in Olympia, Wash. He's still there, but the band's continuing as a quartet until Corbett can rejoin them, so it looks like the Knoxville date is still on, at least for now.

You can find information on how to donate to Corbett's medical bills here.

Ludicra's fourth album, The Tenant, has just been released on Profound Lore. 

The rain actually seems appropriate this morning, even if it is coming down way harder than it needs to to set a somber, elegiac mood. Yesterday just kept ratcheting up to the buzzsaw blur of Liturgy and Gang Gang Dance's slinky, ritualistic dance party, and today feels like it should be spent with some quieter music.

I took a short break after Dirty Projectors, then headed back to the Old City for Konk Pack. The improv trio--a Frankenstein monster keyboard, drums, and a weird inside-out elctric guitar, laid out on a tabletop like a lap steel--started slow, and the group's free playing takes some orientation, but a third of the way in it started to click. By the end it was a beautiful swirl of noise, playful, just this side of chaotic, and a thrilling example of what Big Ears still offers besides marquee indie rock.

At this point I'd decided that the Big Ears Annex had been fruitful enough that I was just going to stay in the Old City. I skipped some potentially rewarding, even lifetime-enriching-type shows--Terry Riley's pipe organ concert, William Basinski and Ben Frost, Bang on a Can and Riley at the Tennessee, throw in Joanna Newsom if you want to--for Pilot Light's metal lineup. Warband's retro thrash sounded tighter than it did the last time I saw them (and it's fun to pick out the band's obvious influences--I spotted riffs straight from Metallica's "Whiplash," "Seek and Destroy," and "For Whom the Bell Tolls," as well as a double-time coda copped from Iron Maiden's "Hallowed Be Thy Name"). Argentinum Astrum has added substantial black metal influence to their doom/sludge, presumably since the arrival of new bassist Emily Robinson, formerly of Tenderhooks. An interesting departure, but I think I preferred the old Burning Witch style more. Something to watch.

Warband and A.A. brought in lots of people for Liturgy's second show of the day. The band just kills--great songs, tight as a drum, and the sight of cherubic-looking singer/guitarist Hunter Hunt-Hendrix shrieking his lungs out is something else. I really do appreciate that Big Ears recognizes the genuine artistic merit of metal.

 

There's one more big round of announcements for Big Ears, including some performers who had already been part of the official schedule released a few weeks ago and also including a number of local performers.

At the top of the list is Shelley Hirsch, an avant-garde singer (she uses what's called "extended vocal techniques) who'll be performing with Chattanooga's Shaking Ray Levis. They'll be on the same program with Tim Hecker and Ben Frost on Sunday afternoon.

Asheville math rock band Ahleuchatistas will play on Saturday and Sunday, and Baltimore's Videohippos are performing with Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez and Knoxville synth-pop duo Damaged Patients. Other Knoxville bands just added to the line-up are Argentinum Astrum, Mountains of Moss, Shortwave Society, and Warband.

The updated schedule is available here.

Argentinum Astrum's show at Pilot Light on Friday, July 3, is in celebration of the local doom/art-sludge band's new album, a limited edition vinyl release that will be available at the show. It's limited to 666 copies, of course.

Opener Warband has finished recording its own album, which is being mastered by doom/art-sludge icon James Plotkin, formerly of Khanate and officially linked to Sunn O))), Isis, Earth, and OLD. That's set for a September release, according to the band's website.