Locrian have completed their new collaborative studio album, entitled Territories. The album was recorded in January 2009 at Phantom Manor Studios in Chicago, IL and features numerous collaborators including Andrew Scherer (Velnias), Mark Solotroff (Bloodyminded), Bruce Lamont (Yakuza), and Blake Judd (Nachtmystium). The album will also be a collaboration between four labels from three countries: At War With False Noise (UK), Basses Frequences (France), Bloodlust! (USA), and Small Doses (USA). Territories is Locrian's second studio album and is slated for a March 1st release.
The full tracklisting is as follows:
1. Inverted Ruins
2. Between Barrows
3. Procession of Ancestral Brutalism
4. Ring Road
5. Antediluvian Territory
6. The Columnless Arcade
A description of the release is listed below.
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LOCRIAN - TERRITORIES
Labels: At War With False Noise/Basses Frequences/Bloodlust!/Small Doses
Release Date: March 1, 2010
André Foisy and Terence Hannum have spent the last several years honing the Locrian sound. They’ve taken elements from noise, power electronics, drone, and black metal to come up with a truly unique sound reflecting the sprawling urban decay surrounding them in Chicago. After nearly two dozen releases, they’ve found themselves in the world of Territories. For this release, Locrian has pulled out all the stops and fleshed out the band with the help of Mark Solotroff (Bloodyminded, Anatomy of Habit) on vocals and synthesizers, Blake Judd (Nachtmystium) on guitar, Bruce Lamont (Yakuza) on saxophone and vocals, and Andrew Scherer (Velnias) on drums. The results of this massive collaborative effort are apparent from the moment the album starts. The textures run darker and deeper; the vocals--sometimes three layers deep--seem to be conjured from the decrepit muck of a failed civilization; the feedback takes on a more pronounced presence; and the big band allows for full-on black metal assaults that burst out of the tortured drones Locrian have come to be known for. Truly a case of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts, Territories may well be the most fully realized form of Locrian’s dystopic vision.
Recent Press
The pair's tortured compositions transplant listeners to a post-industrial wasteland where rusted factories and skeletal skyscrapers serve as the only remnants of a once-great society.
--Andy Downing, The Chicago Tribune
Distortion and delay is still the name of the game…[Locrian] screech like angry gulls above a cold, black sea of fuzzy drone. There are clear signs that this music is evolving into something more complex and structured, Foisy and Hannum crawling out of the murky ocean onto dry land like lungfish.
--Dan Warburton, Wire Magazine
Locrian evokes both murky, damp granite tunnels and Phantasm-like marble mist, a gaseous disorientation that works against the tried and true metalisms in a gripping way.… Locrian are much more of a junk drawer, with John Carpenter-like analog keyboards and post-rock gloom progressions that are dropped suddenly more than they are built upon. There’s a dogged vibe of disjointedness that lends a mysterious quality, as though each track were the unidentifiable scraps of some unfathomably enormous ghost vessel.
--Willcoma, Tiny Mix Tapes
Locrian get their tones from below ground and stun repeatedly when things get heavy.
--Scott Seward, Decibel Magazine
There's certainly an element of drone in Locrian's music: a steady, rippling hum, produced by a combo of synth, organ, and other electronics, throbs in the background of almost every track.…Sometimes the extended [guitar] lines are skittery and gnarled, and at other times they groan and moan in slow, winding arcs….Certain pieces are darkly meditative, others claustrophobic, and still others harrowing and cathartic. Locrian have demonstrated an impressive sonic range and curiosity; instead of obsessing microscopically over a single kind of sound, they mix things up, and everything I've heard feels equally committed.
--Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader
[Locrian] have already achieved a brilliant post-Television minimalist slant with their guitar chores, and even if they don’t allow much room outside of that pattern, they truly fill the interior of it.… Feedback is a surge. Brilliant in a weird and minor way.
--Byron Coley, Wire Magazine
Locrian have a focus that doesn’t fall into either chin stroking or weeded out jam-mode. Generating the atmosphere of a dark that’s definitely of this world and era - no rambling basement bullshit for this duo - [Locrian] manifests the sound of jackals seeking prey in abandoned malls. Locrian’s vision is an internalised one, a view that’s expressed through ferocious volume with a finger than remains on the trigger guard.
--Scott McKeating, Rock-a-Rolla
Looming monoliths of distorted synthesizer erode in slow motion while a brittle, hazy guitar line wavers slowly back and forth like a rusty weathervane creaking in the wind. And then: thhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gife voices. Disembodied howls rising from the devil’s asshole. Greyfield Shrines is a single long-form composition—how long depends on you, since there’s a locked groove at the end of side one—and its beautiful, eerie tones are matched by its beautiful, eerie packaging.
--J. Niimi, Chicago Reader
Imagine, if you will, waking up in the morning. You walk into the kitchen and hear a pot of coffee brewing. You step outside and hear several different sounds: construction workers repairing and adding to a building nearby, cars driving by on the street, the distant sound of an airplane flying overhead….If hearing these noises in real life isn’t enough for you, then Chicago’s LOCRIAN was created just for you.
--Mike, Metal Temple
