We’re proud to announce a much-needed reissue of one of the label’s most definitive and legendary releases, Rotting Sky’s 2014 masterwork "Sedation", released by Sentient Ruin on vinyl for the first time and reissued on cassette tape in 2018 , and now coming back on limited edition white vinyl and on standard black vinyl, as well as for the first time ever on CD, with all formats now pre-orderable via all our channels and slated for a February 27 2026 ship date.
Masterminded by Portland, Oregon-based musician T. Messing (Rohit, Nux Vomica) and taking its name from a Khanate song, Rotting Sky's 2014 masterpiece and sole full-length album "Sedation" still towers grandiose and inscrutable as defiant testament of a vision that remains unrivaled and unprecedented to this day, over a decade after it was first conceived. A swarming and sweeping creative tour de force conquering expressive totality from deep within the most tense and concealed folds of inner turmoil and personal struggle, "Sedation" plumbs the darkest depths of torment as a massive cathartic deflagration, immortalized into the present as one of the most enduring, moving and soul-shattering underground experimental black metal creations of the past decade. Adhering religiously to its foundational principles of withdrawal, isolation, confinement, and frugal self-empowerment, "Sedation" accretes from a myriad of field recordings, samples, guitar pedal layering, and home-made DIY recording tactics, to embody a massive colorless monolith of industrialized sonic ruin. A majestic convergence of dungeon-creeping raw black metal, disembodied power electronics, industrial noise and dirging funeral doom, ascending and spiraling into an obsidian maelstrom of despair. The foundational seclusion driving other recluse experimental and industrial leaning black metal projects such as Nortt, Gnaw Their Tongues, Murmuüre, Emanation and Paysage d'Hiver has convergently evolved similar stylistic traits in Rotting Sky, materializing a majestic and impenetrable aural specter in which the artist's unique personal state drives musical vision and transformation almost more than their creative skills alone.
Active since at least 2007, and always existing withering within a shadowtorn twilight of near non-existence, Rotting Sky is one of the most enigmatic and ungraspabale extreme/experimental metal mysteries to have ever materialized on American soil. Sole Rotting Sky mastermind Timm Messing is known as the guitarist of legendary epic crust punk/metal powerhouse Nux Vomica (and later of noise-trodden punks Rohit), but it's within this solo ambient industrial black metal endeavor of his that one can truly grasp the full extent of his visionary and transcendental creative reach. The project began in Portland, Oregon during Messing’s youth and materiazlied via a string of home made demos (2007’s “Portraits of Self-Destruction” and “The Burden of Flesh” demos, 2009’s “Hellgaze” demo, and 2013’s “Ghost” demo), all treading the grainy confines of primitive drone, home-made funeral doom, and deconstructed, lo-fi industrial. 2014 saw the project’s blossoming and Messing’s undisputed talent and vision coming to its full fruition with his unrivaled masterwork “Sedation”, a full-length masterclass of home-made experimental underground extreme metal introducing novel raw black metal elements and erected upon a monumental maze of pedal abuse, field recordings, and layers upon layers of wretched static and caustic frequencies. With no Sentient Ruin around yet (but the release already noticed), the album was picked up by now defunct San Diego-based tape label Grimoire Cassette Cvlture for a limited cassette release, before the label folded and the release fell back into obscurity. Four years later, around 2018, Sentient Ruin had evolved into releasing vinyl, so the inevitable happened. “Sedation” saw a tape reissue as well as its first ever release on vinyl, which quickly sold out. The vinyl version is now being reissued by Sentient Ruin, accompanied by the album’s first ever edition on CD.