If you’ve been reading the site for a bit you’ll have noticed the name Antania coming up from time to time, usually by way of my own mouth. I’m a relatively recent convert to the Antania school, yet in that time the releases out of this project have quickly rocketed up the charts into ones that I look forward to the most — in large part buoyed by the fact that I find this project absolutely fascinating.
It’s been great seeing the Antania profile increase over the last year, touring with Psyclon Nine, Funker Vogt and Combichrist, even in the limited time I’ve been following it since my review of The God Complex (having heard the Lividity EP before, but never fully exploring until that disc). More people seem to be discovering this odd bit of bass machination turned into music — but lo and behold, who would’ve predicted that the next Antania album was going to be on a whole different level?
For those who are still wondering what the hell I am rambling about, Antania is a Joshua Tree CA-based musical project belonging to artist and engineer Dr Luna and his partner in crime Kali Mortem. Over the past year, they have been making a sort of slow-moving, suffocating, industrial, and a blackened form of doom that is already pretty left-field to begin with, likely to be much discussed in dark, smoky rooms by people who probably finish half their sentences with, “You might not have heard them, they do doom bass”.
However, what makes Antania even more interesting is that Dr Luna custom builds a whole bunch of different machines out of KAT Percussion (his sponsor) in order to get the noises that he desires. He sits behind a facade called the “Throne of Hades”, alongside wearing an evil bull, deer and goat mask to add to the imagery. Kali Mortem is the vocalist and belts out serious power and she adds to the ferocity of Antania. It’s like a duo consisting of nothing but nightmares.
As I mentioned before, one of the reasons I have found Antania to be a fascinating project over the last two years has been the combination of custom instrumentation and how it all creates a tactile feel to their music. Now, this is going to create a whole bunch of double-speak and folding all over myself in order to wring out logical inconsistencies, given that everybody knows that any difficult part on an instrument can cause you to break a sweat, especially on guitar and bass as you contort your fingers into positions and shapes that are never used outside of your practice — but the Dr Luna “feel” appeals in the same way as a drummer’s does; because it feels more organic. He has bandages all over his hands as he rips his nails off to beat bass pads with his fingers.
Video-Sewn
Every hit and note is something that has to be physically executed in some form or another, with movement. If you’ve ever seen Dr Luna’s rig “Throne of Hades”, that means multiple pads that need to be hit, electro-drums that seemingly need to be spun up and filtered through a mixer, and other implements. It looks like a mad-science experiment, but watching it in use has the same appeal to me as watching someone play a drum kit, in that everything has that one-to-one feel to it — one hit of his hand kick drum produces one really loud bass sound. So, even though Antania’s music may be of the bass, industrial, and droning variety, something in my mind is imagining every note as the product of an intensely labored effort, and I imagine that at some point, in order to perform this, you have to become “one with the machine”. Watching them live I can hear him hit bass lines, push buttons that form loops and sometimes he’s pounding drums on top of drums like having two drummers. It’s intense and Kali Mortem adds so much with her demon vocals and dark goddess image. Yes, there are pre-recorded tracks and Kali Mortem can be heard singing on top of other tracks but in the world of bass music, this is one hell of a live show. There’s not a lot of movement either, they just plant down and power you over.
With all of this in mind, I normally expect Antania’s music to be mostly a heavy, suffocating affair — I normally don’t like female vocalists as I am like a teenager on my head phones, I have to imagine myself as in the band as a singer (don’t hate me women), but Kali serves an old school metal voice that satisfies.
Let’s get into 3AM 666: These 10 tracks are malice and are all about serial killers. It’s been done before but not quite like this. If you’re squeamish about the world right now, just pass this up. It’s fucking dark. Fishtro is about Albert Fish and is about torture and piss, Albert’s favorite. Great intro and sets the tone, a violent tone. Next up is Sewn about Ed Gien and this song feels like I got hit by a diesel truck driven by a girl. One of the heaviest songs I’ve heard and batters you with ‘Helmet’ like chunkiness. Pigz is one of my two favorite songs on the release. Relentless catchy rhythms that shift into blast beat madness. There are three hell drones on 3AM 666, Void, Abysmal and Extro, solo dark ambient tracks that bring about a mortal dread. These solo tracks make Dr Luna one of the scariest Dark Ambient musicians alive. It’s like Lustmord on steroids. We now hit Bloodlove, a filthy bass thrash song that creates a version of “heavy” that I have never heard before. At this point in 3AM 666 you realize you are listening to something special. Next we have Stalker, a slam dunk bass metal song about the night stalker, “Hail Satan”. Nothing like a Static-X cover of Cold with blast beats. It’s ultra heavy and the song Dahm completes the music journey which sounds like being hit by lightning. This is an amazing release that is ahead of its time. I could see a future where this new sound catches on. 5 out of 5⭐️
Live Pics by Ricardo Herrera
#spacemetal #doombass #antania
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Pre-Order: https://ampwall.com/a/antaniaofficial/album/3am-666
