Lucifugous, X’ho and Arcn Temple

LXAT

LXAT

Lucifugous, X’ho and Arcn Temple – I like Arcn Temple because it’s a side project of Leslie Low and Vivian Wang of The Observatory, Singapore’s best space rock band. Arcn Temple plays trippy space instrumentals, but this time they team up with X’Ho to create weird, moody, Skinny Puppy-ish Satanic music that is really just plain weird (and, therefore, maybe not so very Satanic). The first track “Sodom Me” (sounds like another word) starts off with weird sounds, crazy beats, then strange Skinny Puppy-ish sombre vocals. Hmmm… wild interlude with spooky Satanic growling. Wow! “Her Soul’s Demise” is a collection of strange soundscapes of spooky sounds, no beats until about 2/3 in, and some sort of stark, gloomy Depeche Mode balladry. It’s nearly all words, with a bit of knob-twiddling in between. I wonder if it’s about Singapore, otherwise known as the Little Red Dot (since that’s all you can see of it on most world maps), with lyrics like “Famous small Dot, demands a lot/ Like a hungry maniac, she thinks she’s God/ She wants unbridled power & all of its glory/ Travels ‘roudn the world, floggin’ one-sided story.” “Nosferatu” has truly awful lyrics (much worse than the other examples on the album), like “Who’s hairy? Is hairy hairy? What is hairy? Who knows hairy?”, but it’s still a good track nonetheless based on its production values. “Lord Of Mirage” is more like a moody, atmospheric Observatory song, fully of wispy lyrics, percussion and post rock guitar sounds. Nice. “Zombie Hitler Youth” is a cool song that just sort of strums along, also very critical of a Singapore-like modern society and its values, it seems like it was partly inspired by Allen Ginsberg’s poem “cialis phoenix arizona“. “Lucifugous” returns us to Skinny Puppy and industrial territory, with spoken voices rather than growls. It is a trippy tune that drones and loops, starting with Chinese lyrics about the lion demon king (wonder who that could be) and his ghost eyes (CCTV, perhaps?), and the fright of humanity. The English lyrics are prose, telling about the fall of Eden. Lucifugous is actually an English word, meaning “avoiding light”, and they handily provide a definition in the lyrics booklet. The final words: “hairier than Lucifer” (and now that “who’s hairy”, ie Harry, lyric makes more sense). “Lamb (Von)” has strange keyboard sounds, talking, and scary growling of the word “lamb”. It’s very scary stuff, man!! “Satan’s Blood” is more soundscapes, no guitar or drum, and spoken word. “Rosalie’s Fray” is simple guitar strums and whispering, soundbites, and spooky sounds. A nice song, actually, and a more personal exploration. I wonder who Rosalie is…

The packaging is cool – the box is a vinyl single-sized cardboard pizza box-type of device with a fold-in tab to close it, numbered (I have 162), there’s a sticker, a black booklet, and a sticker of the album cover, which shows an artistic St Peter’s Cross with arcane anatomical textbook images. Very weird. Inside the booklet are photo collages of human, anatomical and religious imagery. One of them shows a man covered in heavy thai tattoos, his head covered by a swastika made of black penises. Weird!

The booklet contains a page of song lyrics (with song credits below the lyrics), facing an image. The first “song” in the booklet is “Journey To Apeiron”, which is really just a bonus poem since that song is not on the CD at all, then it kicks into “Sodom Me” and the rest of the songs in order, one per two pages. Nice. The booklet is also larger format, also the size of a vinyl single.

The closing words to the album are pretty cool:

I want to make an album no one in my country would dream of making – songs with simple chords that drone like hymnal echoes of mental notes. Usually, the songs came to me after a night’s sleep. They feel like “belief-accessories”. I describe them as a form of “purgatorial minstrel music” to help appease the raging disquiet.

Stay Haunted.

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