Australian post-metal/doom outfit Black Aleph has announced its debut album, Apsides, which will see the light of day on 25 October through Art As Catharsis and Dunk!Records.

Black Aleph is a Sydney/Melbourne-based experimental ensemble featuring Lachlan Dale (guitar/effects), Peter Hollo (cello/effects) and Timothy Johannessen (percussion).

On its debut album, the trio draw inspiration from diverse sources ranging from post-metal to Middle Eastern modal music. Apsides features composed and improvised pieces that involve the players layering live loops, ritualistic beats and doom metal-style musical variations that progressively unfold and build in intensity throughout the performance.

Black Aleph's style has been compared to Justin Broadrick, Neurosis, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor - though there is a borderline spiritual quality to the music that comes from the unique instrumentation: guitar, cello, and Iranian daf drum.

The sound is tectonic - apt for a record centred around concepts of orbital mechanics, like the notion of "apsis", which is the points of extreme and least distance between a celestial and a primary body (sun-earth-moon) in an elliptical orbit. A second theme concerns the relationship between light and dark, more specifically, the difference between bodies that emit versus those that merely reflect light - and in-between those that obstruct it.

"Descent" is the first single from the record, opening with an earth-shattering drone before shifting into blackened sludge, with Jessica Kenney's spectral voice hovering overhead. It's something of a statement of intent: crushingly heavy and direct while maintaining the air of a mystical procession.

"Even to me, the combination of the three of us and the instruments we play results in something I genuinely would not expect", explains Timothy Johannessen. "This is in part due to the use of the daf as a percussive element, and the cello serving as part bass, part second guitar, part strings. The guitar, too, can fill out the sub-bass register. At times it loops and layers upon itself, building into a mass of melodic layers and noise. The result is genuinely organic, and no doubt a product of our shared  and, at the same time, quite different musical reference points."

Black Aleph was formed in 2018 as a collaboration between Lachlan and Timothy for an improvisation-based installation performance at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. Following the success of the performance, the duo continued to collaborate, composing pieces and performing extensively across the east coast of Australia. During this period, the duo also collaborated with various guest musicians, including the luminary cellist and fixture of the Australian experimental music scene, Peter Hollo, who joined the lineup as a permanent member in 2022.

"This is a project with real personal resonance for the three of us and something we take very seriously", says Peter Hollo. "Playing a (highly idiosyncratic) form of metal - heavy, distorted, ritualistic  music - especially with two thoughtful comrades, is a dream."

Apsides was recorded over several years by Tim Carr (We Lost The Sea) and mastered by Mell Dettmer (Earth, Sunn O)))). Jessika Kenney lends her sublime voice to several tracks, as does Natalya Bing her violin. The album cover artwork was created by Melbourne-based artist Darren Tanny Tan, whose process involves "destroying" a solid surface using various materials and techniques.

Black Aleph's debut album represents the potentialities of reconstructed post-metal and doom, drawing from Middle Eastern modal traditions - and proof that heavy, cinematic and hypnotic music still has much to offer as an art form. Link