S.E.K.H. Spanish Industrial Black Metal Mystifiers Uniting Members of Suspiral and Black Earth, Set to Release Past and new EP on Double Cassette Format - Track Premiered at Brutal Resonance.

Sentient Ruin is honored to work again with with AT (of Suspiral, Black Earth, Sheidim) and MS (also of Suspiral) on the unholy unravelling of the duo’s brand new industrial noise black metal abomination S.E.K.H.

While S.E.K.H. had already silently debuted with the sold out 10+ minute single-track Acéphale EP back in 2018, it is with their new and till now unreleased EP Arkhé Tenebre that the project’s sound has fully blossomed and come full circle, such that the band have decided to issue the two works as a single complete listening experience known as Acéphale & Arkhé Tenebre - a limited edition double cassette unifying the two works, yet preserving their individual identities, each with it’s own cover art and medium.

The extremely curated double cassette tape release with artwork by Heresie Graphics is nothing but yet another staple Sentient Ruin fetish object aimed at collectors and enthusiasts who value curation and a sense of tangible timelessness in the physical format. The limited edition of 100 units only worldwide comes in a brick-style double snap-case with two black cardstock j-cards silkscreened with metallic silver ink. The case is housed in a metallic silver silkscreened black outer slipcase. Hype sticker and download card included.

On the enigmatic yet perversely beautiful release, the Spanish duo create an asphyxiating sonic delirium in which hallucinatory soundscapes, dissonant guitars, and oppressive electronics submerge the listener into a dismal and dissociative transfiguration of themselves. Through their soul-consuming music S.E.K.H. offer a conceptual exploration of Bataille´s notion of subversion and the embracement of the abyss. S.E.K.H.´s subversive ordeal casts a beheaded conjuration unveiling the altered states of mankind’s desolation, with the mangled atmospherics and psychosis-inducing compositions acting as a surreal soundtrack to this abhorrent philosophical spell. A sonic torment which while proudly hermetic and at times even puzzling in its grotesque abstractions, is also exquisitely refined and highly evocative, reminiscent of the sounds of other equally hallucinatory and experimental black metal entities like Mysticum, Diapsiquir, Blut Aus Nord or Leviathan, although with its unique aberrant approach to the genre.

In an introductory exclusive track premiere, respected Swedish post-industrial magazine Brutal Resonance has unveiled S.E.K.H.’s track Deus Sive Machina from tape 2 Arkhé Tenebre stating that “This short burst of apocalyptic energy features non-stop reeling guitar strums and chaotic blasts of percussion and disharmony. A noise wall seems to form from the energy being put out on the song - but I don't think S.E.K.H. would have it any other way.” - you can check out their feature HERE

S.E.K.H. - Acéphale & Arkhé Tenebre

  1. Acéphale

  2. Neshamah

  3. Deus Sive Machina

  4. Mercurial Spine

  5. An Abyss of Excrements and Broken Teeth

Acéphale & Arkhé is scheduled for an October 11 2019 release through Sentient Ruin exclusively, on the limited edition double cassette format limited to 100 copies and as a digital album, both pre-ordreable on our store and or Bandcamp. Both EPs were recorded during different improvisation sessions in the summer solstices of 2017 and 2018 respectively, and conjoined, the two releases offer the first accomplished and complete look into S.E.K.H.´s wretched and twisted world of abhorrent industrial black metal deconstructionism.

6TH CIRCLE: American Dark Electro-industrial/EBM Artist to Release Debut Album "The Third Estate" on October 4 2019 - Track and Video Premiered at ReGen Magazine and Side-Line Magazine.

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We’re honored and excited to partake in the release of Ohio-based dark electro-industrial/EBM artist 6TH CIRCLE’s debut LP The Third Estate, to be released on cassette tape, LP, and digital on October 4 2019 through Sentient Ruin worldwide.

Steeped in themes of anti-religion, evil, magic, and social downfall, on debut LP The Third Estate Columbus OH-based satanist/anarchist electro-industrial chaos monger 6th Circle synthesizes a pitch black maelstrom of driving beats, harsh samples, and apocalyptic atmospheres to materialize the quintessential post-industrial pandemonium. An electro-industrial/EBM statement of the highest order, The Third Estate sees sole mastermind and multi-instrumentalist Matt Auxier revitalize and re-imagine the genre by bridging its historic legacy built by forebears like Front 242, Front Line Assembly and Skinny Puppy, with a broad new spectrum of futuristic sonic transfigurations.

The Third Estate represents both a natural continuation and a marked evolution of Auxier's two iconic previous EP tape releases (the 2018 now impossible to find Pacified tape EP released by US raw black metal tape forge Knife Vision, and the Conjuring tape EP released in early 2019 by harsh noise death dealers Phage Tapes), further expanding and enhancing the project's shapeshifting palette of dark disorienting soundscapes and sinisterly catchy grooves, and elevating 6th Circle to a previously unseen threshold of excellence.The work especially stands out for its retro-feeling timelessness juxtaposed to its imaginative and transformative take on the style, which has pushed the genre's boundaries forward and expanded its horizons by incorporating elements of occult darkness, anarchism, satanism, and of the darker and most fringe and uncompromising sides of goth and punk.

ReGen Magazine has premiered the song Swallow, calling the track “a distinct style of bleak, occultish, and anarchist post-industrial atmosphere” - you can read their feature HERE.

Shortly after, iconic Industrial magazine Side-Line premiered the music video for the song Taking Us Down (created for Auxier by Team Necro) saying that “6th Circle’s sound harkens back to 90’s era of Front Line Assembly and Skinny Puppy but also has the modern touch similar to artists like HIDE or Statiqbloom” - you can read their feature HERE.

Fans of the aforementioned pillars of the genre like Front 242, Front Line Assembly and Skinny Puppy, as well of contemporary acts like Statiqbloom, Youth Code, Dead When I Found Her, HIDE, Leaether Strip, and Qual have just found a new entity which will reinvigorate their passion and commitment to the genre.

BLACK EARTH: Spanish Ritualistic Black Industrial Mystifiers to Issue Second Full-Length LP - Tracks Premiered at Last Rites and Brutal Resonance.

Sentient Ruin and Black Earth renew their unholy alliance and prepare the release of the Spanish band’s brand new LP Gnarled Ritual of Self Annihilation, this time also in collaboration with German post-industrial forge Cyclic Law handling the CD and European LP version.

The ritualistic horror-industrial sorcerers return with a sophomore full-length LP and third release overall of unreal cinematic sonic disembodiment, conceived with the aim of turning the listener into a sacrificial centerpiece to a surreal ritual nightmare. Following in the steps of their debut LP A Cryptic Howl of Morbid Truth and of their followup mini-album Diagrams of a Hidden Order, on Gnarled Ritual of Self Annihilation

Black Earth further refine and sharpen their horrific sonic blade, slicing through shadows and darkness with more skill and mastery than ever before to reveal a dimension beyond of incomprehensible ritual abandon. As Black Earth first weave and then slice and dissect their impenetrable veil, a sonic ritual of abject disfigurement begins to take shape before the listener, as the strokes and gashes of black metal, industrial, noise and ritual drone intersect erratically and hypnotically, painting an hallucinatory arabesque of absolute dread and deformity. As the album's wicked spires envelops them like a fog of snakes, the listener finds themselves immersed into an hallucinating aural delirium of complete disembodiment and self-implosion, in which they feel simultaneously out of body and helplessly trapped and crushed within themselves at the same time.

The album has been widely anticipated in the dark industrial underground, with Swedish dark electronic blog Brutal Resonance premiering the track Lurking Hounds Stagger in the Deep and calling it “as ominous as it is dreary - a perfect introduction to Black Earth's destructive music." - you can read their feature HERE.

Likewise, American blog Last Rites, has also premiered the song Abject Rituals Beyond the Threshold claiming that Black Earth’s music “is not just abject noise but a consecrated act caught on record, building tension with auditory ceremonial aesthetic" read their feature HERE.

Gnarled Ritual of Self Annihilation officially sees the light on September 26 2019 through Sentient Ruin in North America and Cyclic Law in the Eastern Hemisphere and now be pre-ordered on he labels’ stores and Bandcamps.

BLACK FUCKING CANCER / GLOAM: West Coast Black Metal Legions Set to Unleash Unholy Destruction on 12" Collaborative Split - Audio Preview Released.

Sentient Ruin is honored and proud to unleash one of black USBM’s most imposing and distinctive collaborative works of the year, as we prepare the September 13 release of Black Fucking Cancer’s and Gloam’s long awaited split 12” Boundless Arcane Invokations, a work as visionary and grandiose as it has been unfortunate and plagued by adverse fate, having lingered in development hell and in a status of unreleased turmoil for quite some time now. In the wake of a strong personal friendship bonding the two bands an the label for many years now, upon hearing the unfortunate fate of the project, Sentient Ruin offered its services to the bands and has now been tasked to step in to fix things and tow the release out of the swamp it’s been trapped in for literally years, and we’re now ready to consign Boundless Arcane Invokations to USBM history where it belongs in its full and untouched glory!

Two of America's most defiant and uncompromising extreme metal acts - San Jose’s Black Fucking Cancer’s and Santa Cruz’s Gloam - come together for a 12" split of unyielding black metal hell and boundless aural misery. Working closely together on every aspect of the project, both bands entered Jason Bursese's home studio to record their respective compositions together in order to obtain the most synergic and consistent sound possible, with each band’s respective side acting as a perfectly matching counterpart to the craft of the other. Their two respective songs were built in the studio together and bear the same title, concept, and recording quality as a supreme and encompassing sign of unity and totality, and the two tracks are conjoined at both ends by gapless atmospheric segues in a way which creates a looped spell of infinite destruction, with no beginning nor end, no conventional track sequence, and no defined sides. What comes to the listener is simply a double-headed beast created by the two bands to assault the listener frontally and take them piece by piece and limb by limb. It is only a matter of which of the two bands will be the the one to get to the listener's throat first and which one will instead deliver the deathblow to finish them off...

On the ungodly split both bands unleash an cataclysm of ruinous black metal pestilence, with each band using up an entire side of a 12" LP with their respective massive, single self-titled songs. Clocking in at a staggering twenty-two minutes, on their side of competence Black Fucking Cancer put on full display their unmistakable plague-wielding strain of malefic and violent black metal that worships exclusively at the unholy altar of complete evil and draws life from the most wretched strains of Scandinavian and French black metal: 1349, Gorgortoh, Aosoth, Antaeus, S.V.E.S.T., Watain. On the other side lurks Santa Cruz CA's Gloam’s massive dirge into complete darkness-devouring aural fury, as they spew forth a monstrous chasm of shapeshifting atmospheric black metal darkness that consumes the listener across a harrowing eighteen-minute ghastly descent into complete hell-ridden bedlam.

The Boundless Arcane Invokations 12” split comes in a custom made and cut black cover + insert screen printed with metallic gold ink, and is pressed in only 200 units of black vinyl available from Sentient Ruin exclusively. The split drops on September 13 2019 and preview track with samples from both band’s sides has been already made available via YouTube and Bandcamp, while vinyl and digital pre-orders are now also active on our Bandcamp and store.

IMPERIAL CULT: Dutch Raw Black Metal Stormbringers Unleash Impenetrable Debut LP - Full Album Premiered at CVLT Nation.

Sentient Ruin is delighted to release Imperial Cult’s debut LP Spasm of Light on LP, digital, and tape in collaboration with Amor Fati Productions (EU LP/CD), and Haeresis Noviomagi (EU tape).

A thirty four-minute spectral avalanche of largely improvised raw black metal fury, Imperial Cult's debut LP Spasm of Light was recorded live in 2017 as a single, half hour long trance-inducing movement of embodied chaos designed to dismantle the psyche. The phantasmal vocals, combined with the repetitive intensity of the music, create an impenetrable fortress casting its spectral shadow unto a scorched and barren wasteland. As previously seen in bands like Fell Voices, on this mesmerizing inaugural work the Dutch band have erected an unyielding wall of black metal drone trance whose framework is rooted on repetitive, cyclical, and vorticose cyclones of furious raw black immersed in a storming haze of decaying ambient-noise that defies logic and sanity.

CVLT Nation as unveiled the full track/album in full, stating that the work is “a horrific trip straight into the eye of a humongous and vorticose storm that devours everything“ - you can read their feature and listen to the track HERE.

The three members involved in the project are key figures in the Dutch extreme/experimental underground, and are active in bands like Turia, Nusquama, Cryptae, Lubbert Das, Horrid Apparition, Dead Neanderthals, Solar Temple, Heavy Natural, Iskandr, Celestial Bodies, and DungeönHammer as well as tied in with the label Haeresis Noviomagi. Thematically, Imperial Cult is a reconnaissance of an inherited culture of physical violence and material exploitation. Marching towards self destruction, we must understand the inevitability of violence and quenchless nature of bloodshed. Imperial Cult refers to ancient forms of divine worship of emperors as deities, and the cognate contemporary worship of those who will ultimately destroy us. It is a call to power, to reclaim the sacrificial logic which enables our ruination.

Spasm of Light was officially released on August 23 2019 through Sentient Ruin (US LP/US tape/digital), in collaboration with Amor Fati Productions (EU LP/CD), and Haeresis Noviomagi (EU tape), all formats are now orderable on on our store and Bandcamp.

CRYPTAE: Dutch Experimental Death Metal Freaks Unleash Sophomore Mini-Album "Vestigial" - Entire Work Premiered at CVLT Nation.

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Sentient Ruin is honored to be a part again in the growing legacy of Cryptae. Our dutch experimental death metal brethren continue their insane artistic trajectory with a brand new mini-album - Vestigial - which is now shipping everywhere and officially released to the world.

The deranged dutch experimentalists return with yet another enigmatic mess of malformed and deviant experimental raw death metal, after having bent minds with their debut self-fitled tape in 2017, this time unfolding a single staggering eighteen-plus-minute track of complete aural delirium that somehow has managed to elevate their experimental bar even higher while keeping their crude death metal assault untouched and possibly even rawer and more hideous than ever. Within the mammoth headfuck of a song the duo cover an enormous amount of ground, letting lose on literally all of their most demented musical delusions and tapping into a monstrous pool of influences to unleash an aural pandemonium of absolutely unseen lunacy. Extremely cerebral and sophisticated, yet raw, repulsive, visceral and mercilessly unforgiving, on Vestigial Cryptae blur the lines between improvisation and deliberate erraticism and draw influence from a surreal array of seemingly antithetic influences ranging from Morbid Angel, Immolation, and Incantation, to Magma, John Coltrane, Macabre and beyond, to construct an hallucinatory sonic maze of utmost brutality, where shapeshifting tempos, vertigo-inducing repetitions, and demented song structures are meticulously designed to disorient the listener and annihilate their last shred of sanity.

Vestigial was officially released on August 16 with no prior teasing or previews and was premiered by CVLT Nation, the site calling the work “the most undecipherable, fucked in the head, and completely demented death metal release of the year“ - you can read the feature and listen to the work HERE.

The mini album will come in a snow white single sided LP with an etched B-side, released in North America by Sentient Ruin, and in the EU by Tartarus Records.

CONSUMMATION: Australian Black Metal Plague Issues "Fires of Calcination" Retrospective Vinyl Comp Through Sentient Ruin - Stream and Pre-Orders Posted.

On the heels of the band issuing a debut album on Profound Lore Records earlier this year, Sentient Ruin and Australian extreme metal tormentors Consummation seal an unholy blood pact to re-release their first two debut EPs through an exhaustive and extremely curated vinyl release. A decade-spanning retrospective, The Fires of Calcination is a limited edition 12" LP compilation containing every track ever released by the band (taken from their 2012 debut demo tape and from the "Ritual Severance" CD EP released in 2017 by Invictus Productions) leading up to their 2019 Profound Lore debut album - The Great Solar Hunter - all of which also see their first ever release on the vinyl format. The four tracks present on the comp testify with harrowing vehemence the birth and evolution of one of the most defiant and predatory black metal entities to ever tread Australian soil, and documents the band's feral quest for complete aural domination/annihilation over the span of a decade, as they meticulously and malignantly forged their black metal craft to become a mortal weapon of unyielding violence and negativity.

Begotten of a dark flame and malefic premonitions, Consummation spawned from the Brisbane extreme metal scene like a chaos-wielding plague, swollen with torment and pestilence, its primal driving force the darkness of one's own nature which always seeks triumph, and the re-imagination of ancient forces in the heavy metal craft as the tool chosen to achieve this wicked design. The project began of the will of guitarist/vocalist Craig Young back in 2009 while he was still a member of Australian black/death abomination Impetuous Ritual. Joel Rademaker then joined Craig to handle guitar and bass duties and round out the project as a two-piece right before their debut self titled demo was released in 2009. The debut self-titled two song demo tape first showcased Consummation's horrific alloy of tumefying and otherworldly black metal, as it rose from the dark flame which had spawned it with the vigor and maleficence of a portent spewn from the most torment-ridden circles of hell. The demo-tape's monstrous aura quickly transcended its geographical boundaries and soon made its way out of Australian confines, being picked up for a digital release in 2015 by Irish extreme metal forge Invictus Productions. Around this time David Haley from Psycroptic joined the band on drums rounding out the lineup to a power trio, and this new lineup sealed a blood pact to record the band's sophomore offering, the Ritual Severance EP, which was also released on CD by Invictus in 2017 and which displayed yet another step for the band deeper into an ungodly realm of wretched and calamitous aural pandemonium of indiscernible destructiveness. This release marked Consummation's sound and vision coming into full circle, as the various influences of the band were metabolized and broken down into their core elements and recombined anew to yield something monstrous and imposing: classical and ambient experimentations, set against the vehemence and timeless magnificence of the genre's forebearers, preserved in their primordial glory but injected with new blood from the infamously wretched late 90s and 00s French black metal scene flowing blacker than ever and pulsating with the force of a cataclysm spewn from a godless dimension. Thematic and conceptual influences coming from Frederick Nietzsche, Charles Baudelaire, William Blake, Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Thomas Karlsson and mythological texts like The Poetic Edda, Bhagavad Gita and various biblical passages were twisted like knives into the flanks of the new beast to further foment its aggression, deviance, and unwillingness to bow to anything or anyone, as ascension through violence, power through suffering, achieving individual completion through integrating the dark side of one’s nature, and death, became driving forces behind the new entity's abominable intents.

This ingestion of visions, themes and musical influences elaborated over the span of a near-decade set the path ablaze for Consummation, as with unseen vigor and unyielding intransigence they set about coercing all their influences and inspirations into a one hour long full-length album of calamitous black metal depredation (the monstrous The Great Solar Hunter released in mid 2019 by Profound Lore Records). Around the same time Sentient Ruin stepped forth to close the circle and create a compendium and retrospective of this sinister path which over a decade was paved by the band to achieve their ultimate and most malefic design. The songs from the 2012 debut demo and the Ritual Severance EP were unearthed from the rubble of their own ruinous existence, remastered, and repackaged with brand new artwork by Adrian Baxter to see their existence for the first time ever on vinyl, coexisting to seal into wax and preserve in a timeless format the historic beginnings of one of Australia's most defiant and intransigent black metal acts of our times.

While the planned ship date of the vinyl is set to August 30 2019, the release can be streamed in full and pre-ordered through our store and Bandcamp page.

PSEUDOCOMMNADO: Sentient Ruin Reissues L.A. Harsh Noise/Power Electronics Act's Ear-splitting Debut Tape - Pre-orders & Full Stream Available.

From Wikipedia: "In forensic psychiatry, the term 'pseudocommando' has been used to describe mass murderers who commit premeditated murder-suicide mass killings driven by revenge fantasies, typically involving the stockpiling of weapons followed by a heavily armed commando-style attack. They typically see their actions through a narcissistic lens as being morally justified in revenge against their unfair treatment by an uncaring world, and wish to "go out in a blaze of glory".

Sentient Ruin is excited to release our first proper noise release, welcoming into our abominable family the wretched sonic bedlam of Los Angels-based harsh noise/power electronics entity Pseudocommando. Years in the planning and in the making, this first noise tape release comes after having sampled and considered hundreds of manifestations in the genre without quite ever finding the right fit for the label’s unique vision. Until today, when Pseudocommando self-released its own debut tape sending a strong signal our way that the time had finally come to step forth and make this milestone of ours happen, and that the perfect entity to work with had finally materialized.

With its debut release aptly titled A Home Beneath the Floorboards Los Angeles based harsh noise/power electronics terrorist Pseudocommando takes the genre into completely uncharted waters, adding a sense of deliberate urgency and maniacal control to its scathing wall of blunt force audial trauma; a rare sight to behold in the genre, even for its most calculating and accomplished acts as a pale presence of "songwriting" can be sensed, making the release exquisitely elitarian and unique. Unusually lengthily for a release in this genre, "A Home Beneath the Floorboards" is full-fledged staggering one hour-long full-length album release (even way too long for a 12" vinyl LP) which offers a dense, enigmatic, and multi-layered listening experience, showing unusual forms of dynamics, chromatics, and progressions in its audial frontal assault on the senses, which are at times puzzling and at times horrifying in their abhorrent lucidity. Even in this self-built and self-contained chaos-sphere of lucid aural armageddon, Pseudocommando's deliberate, calculating, and meticulously orchestrated controlled demolition of the listener however does not come without a high entropic cost and severe collateral damage. Despite its maniacal control, the project itself can not in fact fully eschew its own ungovernable nature and destiny into the ultimate unravelling chaos and entropy which has birthed it and ultimately defines it. The aforementioned controlled demolition as such eventually mutates into a chain reaction which can not be stopped as the necessary, unavoidable, and absolutely ungovernable high frequency distortion pandemonium unleashed enters an unstable point of no return state and initiates a critical mass where the listener's synapses are trucidated blindly in the most brutal, chaotic, mindless, and inefficient way possible.

While the release is, and has been for a while now, available digitally though the band’s and the label’s Bandcamp our tape reissue will begin shipping on August 9 2019 and its a much deserved format upgrade for this staggering album, as our re-issue comes on professionally dubbed and printed tapes and artwork (VS the home dubbed/printed and hand marked self-released tapes from the band’s first pressing), and will also be available in wider numbers (100 units to be exact VS the much smaller amount made available initially by the band).