Black Tempest/Tao Engine

After a deep, stellar journey to The Sun Behind The Sun with Dead Sea Apes co-piloting, our alchemist shouldn’t have much left in the tank to head out again. Set to prove that wrong, Black Tempest armed himself with ‘battery operated noise machines’ to fire up the Tao Engine. An EP of four tracks, it may be small in scale, but Black Tempest’s scope remains the same. There’s no mistaking his hand on the noise machines, though this time out the engine runs with a bit more stealth. Our gutted space program might be able to regain some ground copping some Tao Engine technology as the title cut probes the outlying void. Rise On The Ruins makes its own astral inquiries, sending out oscillating pings in a call and response search for the architects, but as the name implies, those ruins may be terrestrial. Which is, believe it or not, a trademark of Black Tempest. With all the electronic execution and arsenal on hand, Black Tempest conjures a wave of sonics that are tied to this common rock. Keenly aware that the journeys up there begin by gazing from here, Tao Engine exists under a star-studded night vista as well as finding breath, and breadth, on the other side where we may not supposed to be going, but have to nonetheless. Mama Sutra, ‘recorded at night, in the dark, in the cold and snow, in a greenhouse’ finds our traveller in the same situation. A predicament to some, this is where Black Tempest, and Tao Engine, thrives and thrums. The Devil’s Masquerade, a gently sinister—and melancholy—wash of ethers disperses itself with no pretense, slowly turning into a processional of the ‘noise machines,’ winding down the Tao Engine. The familiar and the unfamiliar, the earthbound and the free-floating…the yin and yang of our operator Black Tempest…all are here in a slightly different form, driven by the Tao Engine.

Dead Sea Apes & Black Tempest/The Sun Behind The Sun

On the surface (to the casual ear) there might not seem to be a whole lot in common with Dead Sea Apes and the sonic alchemist known as Black Tempest. The former traffics in rolling, and often boiling, maximum sized sonic tectonics, while the latter conjures up electro-kosmische wonders that lay out flight paths as much as elevate you onto them. Though both cover huge tracts of land, here and out there, with a beguiling agility despite the size of their crafts, they don’t deal in surfaces only. They may create them, but they journey far above them, and often through them, glowing with a slow-burning cosmic light  that blankets like the sun or provides the safe-harbor lure of a lone flame. Dead Sea Apes and Black Tempest don’t just create deep music. They operate along the other axes as nimbly as a spider, swirling around them, coaxing them into shapes far beyond the linear. Sounds and tangents turn in on themselves, gathering and jettisoning, until The Sun Behind The Sun becomes a gloriously constantly weaving knot, a sonic orrery with bodies that somehow orbit themselves. Many collaborations sound good on paper, the lure of a pairing too much to pass up when talking about two bodies that generate as much space and gravity as Dead Sea Apes and Black Tempest. And that’s as far as they get; the sum far less than the parts. Here’s one that effectively generates a third entity to stand toe to toe with its parents. There’s not one point on The Sun Behind The Sun where either outfit feels like they are selling the project short by not being true to their mission. This isn’t Dead Sea Tempest. Both give the other wide berth to ply their trade and paint with with big strokes that turn soft edges into the outline of that unseen third party, the third stone behind the other sun…Nothing feels grafted onto another or bolted in place; it’s a 100% natural weave. DSA and BT get down to the core of their individual work, finding the plasticity so they can coil around each other like a double-helix. Getting together to push their envelopes, they’ve turned the spotlight on the DNA that makes them both what they are. Consequently, that’s given birth to something that’s both bigger than both of them in some ways, while fitting seamlessly into their own continua. The Sun Behind The Sun’s common ground between DSA and BT isn’t a limp superficial overlap of both. This is new ground, new territory for both, not limited by redundant points of interest and intersections. The 3 cuts lay out orbits that ripple and pulse around—as well as in— each other as much as they do the sun of your choice. Both governing bodies become indistinguishable, the gears not so much meshing as melding into each other for a giant self-perpetuating solar fire. Considering the inherent pull and force of each respective gravity well, this is a match made in heaven that actually delivers on the promise, leaving DSA and BT fully redeemed. And their passengers fully satisfied. Highly recommended for new and old sun worshippers alike.

Wilder Penfield :: Dead Sea Apes + Black Tempest :: The Sun Behind The Sun (2012, Cardinal Fuzz)

Dead Sea Apes interview

Black Tempest interview

BLACK TEMPEST « Revolt of the Apes

Brother in Revolt and Lawgiver supreme gets the skinny from our favorite  sonic alchemist, Black Tempest…

Using that old saw known as “linear time,” we can see that not a great deal of time has passed since we first found ourselves in the orbit of Black Tempest. But then, we didn’t need much time to become enthralled by the sounds of the tempest, and since that time, our admiration has grown boundlessly. After all, space is dark and it is so endless.

Black Tempest is also dark, it should come as no surprise, and some are likely to find the sprawling, gravitationally-uninhabited soundscapes that populate brilliant albums like “Proxima” to approach the definition of “endless.” Certainly these sounds are not governed by any conventional notions of time. Rather, the Black Tempest listening experience owes more to an observation of the limitless and then seeing that limitlessness transformed into a finite expression.

And what an expression it is. Black Tempest’s cosmic creations – informed equally by a direct line of influence from space-and-krautrock pioneers (shadows of Klaus Schulze, Popul Vuh and Tangerine Dream abound) and the more indirect influence of simply being a limitless music-obsessive living in the 21st-century – make great use of the dark reflections one sees when staring into the void of space, but never seem detached from the human element, the magnetic impulse that directs ones attention toward the void in the first place. It’s a sound alien in immediate appearance, yet coursing with human blood at the heart of the machine.

We’re elated to have been brought into the orbit of Black Tempest – an elation upon which time will have only a compounding effect – and equally thrilled to have the heart of this darkness, Stephen Bradbury, provide answers to our ridiculous questions below. Enjoy.

Can you recall a time when either a single piece of music, the single performance of a band, a particular album, etc., changed your way of thinking about music in total? What was that music and what was it about that music that made such a distinct impression on you? How have your thoughts about it evolved since your first introduction?

I guess that’s happened to me a few times over the years. The first time, and thus probably the most profound, would have been Steve Hillage’s “Fish Rising.” I was probably about 12 or 13 when it came out. I used to hang around in our local record shop in the shopping arcade, and the long-haired bloke behind the counter, a few years older than me, recommended it to me. I took it home and it promptly blew my tiny teenage mind. It made me realise that music could take you outside of your normal consciousness to “other places.”

Since then the “classic” Hillage albums (“Fish Rising,” “Green,” “L,” “Motivation Radio”) have become touchstones for me, reminding me that my own music could, possibly fulfill the same function for other people. This is, essentially, what I aspire to.

A few years later I had similar revelatory experiences with Jimi Hendrix’ “Rainbow Bridge” album, and Spirit’s marvelous “Spirit of ‘76″ double. I first heard both of these during my first full-on hallucinatory experience, back in the days of “proper” microdots. They opened my eyes to the fact that I wasn’t the first person to tread those mysterious paths, and that music could be a guide and a teacher. This is also something I try to give back to people who take the time to listen to my own music.

via BLACK TEMPEST « Revolt of the Apes.

Dead Sea Apes & Black Tempest

Dead Sea Apes and Black Tempest are brewing up a heady sounding collaboration…Both huge in their own way, this sounds like a must-have melding of minds.

We’ve been working on a some tracks with Godalming’s synth maestro Black Tempest. Here’s a taster of the results so far…

Black Tempest :: Supernormal Recordings

Supernormal Recordings, a document of Black Tempest‘s (AKA Stephen Bradbury) second-stage headling at the Supernormal Festival  last August is just that…and more. It’s a 3-disc tempest itself of the live appearance, plus 2 discs of rehearsal recordings made at his Tempest Towers prior to the festival. My first exposure to Black Tempest was on the outstanding krautstravaganza Head Music where he took on Klaus Schulze’s Bayreuth Return, a seemingly perfect match. Black Tempest builds on Schulze’s work, and approach, as well as others such as Tangerine Dream, Jarre and the Orb to these ears. But that’s not the only eye of the storm. Fans of the kosmische will assuredly be lulled in by the droning lush soundscapes, as will those with a leaning to progressive rock and psychedelia who don’t run for shelter when those definitions and linkages are twisted, stretched and presented as something seemingly removed from where they started. Like the name of the album that carries Bayreuth Return, Black Tempest truly makes head music. As you take in his stew of vintage and modern sounds, you can either immerse yourself and become voyager and co-pilot, hone in on certain sounds and tangents for digressions and digestions or simply let the head gently undock itself from the Mothership (recommended) and ride the modulations and oscillations to your destination of choice. It’s not surprising that your cruise director is shown in the CD booklet wearing a lab coat; Bradbury is certainly a sound scientist and aggregator. Shunning some of the detachment and coldness of similar experiments that arise in less capable hands, there is a constant reminding thread that this all boils down to springing from a very human mind. The live cuts are broken with snippets of Bradbury’s wry humor and wit that not only shore up a snaky amorphous narrative vibe (Tanks But No Tanks, in any variation) but help wind down his cosmic sojourns and bring them back to the original well-spring to be refitted and restocked for more flight.

Tanks But No Tanks :: Black Tempest :: Supernormal Recordings: Live at Supernormal (2011, Black Tempest/Tempest Towers)

Supernormal Recordings, and Black Tempest himself, are hard to pin down, continually shifting and morphing. Bradbury’s nom de guerre itself is somewhat hard to nail down as well. Sounding like the moniker of some heavy-duty metal machine, Black Tempest is surely a nod, and a wink, to Bradbury’s early forays of improvising in that battlefield. There is an underlying ominous and brooding pall that wafts in and out of his work, though it never becomes oppressive or showy in a display of power. In fact, turning things on their ear again, much of that mood is actually given heft by some of the subtler details. Which makes total sense and follows Tempest’s primary (though not singular) choice of using electronic weapons (stage schematic thoughtfully provided) to produce sonic vistas that revel in warmth and a sense of something very human, approachable and universal. If that sounds indecisive, it’s not. This is meticulously crafted and executed material, in both the live goods as well as the behind the scenes run up work. The 2 discs of Tempest Towers rehearsals and groundwork never sound incomplete or unrealized compared to the live outing. Their addition to Supernormal Recordings are as equals, not as afterthoughts, or hackneyed bonus tracks. Each disc stands on its own, but together they give the end-user (and I’ll hazard a guess Bradbury himself) a much fuller appreciation of not only Black Tempest’s lab work, but also of the experience of the festival, for those lucky enough to catch a rare live appearance of our alchemist.

Proxima Beta :: Black Tempest :: Supernormal Recordings: Supernormal Recordings Volume 1 (2011, Black Tempest/Tempest Towers)

Also highly recommended are Black Tempest’s Proxima and Ex-Proxima, both stellar looks into Bradbury’s own hovering eye of multiple storms.