Today, underground cult icons ARKTAU EOS premiere the new video „Sunken Luminaries,” off their forthcoming Ioh-Maera album on SVART RECORDS. The video can be viewed in its entirety here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DIF_MkoajwQ.
Additionally, both the release date of ARKTAU EOS‘ CD-only Ioh-Maera and their vinyl-only Unworeldes have been altered to November 16th worldwide. Respective covers and tracklistings are as follows:
Tracklisting for ARKTAU EOS’ Ioh-Maera CD
1. Unbinding Kaamos
2. Noxfaros
3. Sunken Luminaries
4. Ioh-Maera
5. Otherstone Refraction
Tracklisting for ARKTAU EOS’ Unworeldes LP (vinyl-only)
1. The Cypress Watcher
2. Cove of the Seven-winged
3. Black Leaf Gaze
4. Geometry of Emptiness
ARKTAU EOS came into being in 2005 in Oulu, Finland, the work of two men known by the initials A.I.H. and A.I.L. Longtime live percussionist Iwowi officially enters the fold with the Ioh-Maera album. ARKTAU EOS, always outlaws, present a curious blend of archaic elemental music, performance, and artwork which has been received exceptionally well among listeners of many genres, such as experimental/minimalistic, dark ambient, or the old-school ritual music typified by early Ain Soph or the Nekrophile Records roster from the mid-’80s.
For Ioh-Maera, a special record release evening including a live performance and an art exhibition will be held in Bucharest, Romania on October 20th. It is a joint effort with the artist Costin Chioreanu, who has worked closely with ARKTAU EOS on the exquisite artwork of Ioh-Maera. Unworeldes features front-cover artwork from another distinguished artist of the underworld, known by many names, here simply Ktl. ARKTAU EOS always choose their collaborators with great care: on Ioh-Maera, guest vocals in the Enochian language have been provided by Barry William Hale, one of the great contemporary artists working within various fields of esoteric study.
ARKTAU EOS have never considered themselves a „band” in the usual sense of the word, although their experience in many bands has certainly lent them an edge in working with sound as a transmitting medium. ARKTAU EOS did not begin as a „band” and certainly not as a „project”; behind the scenes, it is more akin to an esoteric exploration unit, a vessel of initiation. Since the beginning, the group has enjoyed a great rapport from outside the music scene, with many independent researchers confirming or augmenting their observations. Like a past bio put it: “The fact that ARKTAU EOS is not concerned only with the musical dimension can not be stressed enough – taken to the extreme, one could even be justified in claiming that creating music is just an extension of hand from us towards a common context, in which ‘those in the know’ may recognize each other – in silent understanding. ARKTAU EOS is – should be, will be – pure being, a stream flowing through us, even if by default coloured by our own predilections.”
Having said that, ARKTAU EOS firmly believe in the power of music as much more than entertainment, given it is nurtured in a proper environment and treated as sacred, with a focused, serious spiritual intent. To this end, ARKTAU EOS work meticulously in the confines of their special temple-laboratory, an analog studio built by A.I.H., and employ field recordings and snapshots of unheralded apparitions in the mix. Most of the time, they record on real, old-time reel tape, using a host of unusual, ethnic, and self-built instruments of wood and bone, gongs, large-frame drums, as well as synths from the ‘70s.
A right „vibe” always takes precedence over technical proficiency. Importance is also place on other mediums of art, such as statuary, draperies, paintings, etc., either created by the group or acquired by fortuitous chance from various strange places on Earth, which equally channel the desired presence into the music. There is always a touch of traditional handicrafts to ARKTAU EOS’ works, which has also extended to unusual and handmade record covers, and non-musical „special releases.”
Never prophets on their own homeland and not interested in being such, either, ARKTAU EOS have held the majority of their performances overseas: in the U.K. (including London’s Equinox Festival) and Russia, in places ranging from clubs to museums. Privately, ARKTAU EOS have also performed at a chapel and a haunted house in their native Finland. This Autumn, ARKTAU EOS will perform for the first time in the United States at the Esoteric Book Conference in Seattle, and the Stella Natura Festival in Sierra Nevada, with appearances in Bucharest, Romania and Västerös, Sweden following. Scheduled for February 2013 are dates in Sankt-Petersburg, Moscow and Volgograd. The music of ARKTAU EOS has also been used at Muzeum Alchymie in Kutná Hora, Czech Republic. Recently, they were invited to contribute a track to Tesserae 1.0, a musical supplement to Abraxas: International Journal for Esoteric Studies no 2. (Fulgur Limited 2011)