1990s REISSUE COMPLETE

Here´s the second batch of 90s albums: Opus IV, Apokalypse & Supreme Immortal Art, to complete the 6 CDs recorded at Hörnix between 1994 and 1998 by PK, Silenius & TT.

Also available is a slipcase to collect all 6 recordings, and by that, finally the loyal CD buyers have their version of the LP box released many years ago. The sound has been carefully restored and if necessary slightly corrected, but kept as original as possible, without any attempt to match those modern BM releases which all sound the same. We also have spent years to collect all the original bits necessary for the layout, which has been meticulously rebuilt from the original photos, books, bits and snippets, like back in the 90s. The quality surpasses the old releases, also the lyrics can now be read.

Sold via the WTC mailorder: https://bit.ly/wtcwebshop
while all 6 can be listened to via our bandcamp page:
https://luzifer.bandcamp.com

SUPREME IMMORTAL ART (deluxe double album version)
LP 1 - Supreme Immortal Art, original version, 1998
LP 2 - Supreme Immortal Art, raw instrumental version, november 1997

Over the past 25 years, SIA has been an album we deemed slightly problematic. But the more time has passed, the more we made peace and identified with it, as work that was right at the time. After Apokalypse, this was the logical other extreme, a bombastic album, with keyboards as the defining element. Yet, this is just one side of the coin.
LP 2 features a version which has in parts surfaced here and there, sourcing from an old cassette. A year ago, PK found the original, superior quality CD-R, which we took home after the first few studiodays back in november 1997, for Silenius to rehearse and to see what should be overdubbed guitar-wise.
Unmixed, with random fader settings on the mixing desk, on the evening of the third recording day. Still, this old Hörnix-Studio CD-R turned out as a valid historic document 25 years later, and worth to be released. With a few surprises – like an unedited, long ending part of a song with 2 more riffs, missing on the finished album.
Side C and D, pressed in the order of original recording, shows the nucleus and the essence of Supreme Immortal Art and ABIGOR 1997. We approached recordings back then just as we did on the demos – still an immature and not „professionally trimmed“ band, everything done on the spur of the moment. Not elaborate and sophisticated, but rough and in retrospect, sloppy. But for us, it still was the magical years, full of „that energy“, although the dawning of a golden period´s end. Ravel in nostalgia, for this is a genuine artefact of a sunken era!

https://luzifer.bandcamp.com/album/supreme-immortal-art-2vinyl-samples

https://w-t-c.web-republic.de/store

VERWÜSTUNG, ORKBLUT, NACHTHYMNEN Re-Releases

In the early 90s, a special kind of energy was at work. Back at Hörnix, we may have captured a whiff of that incredibly dense atmosphere, and are honoured to present a small piece of Black Metal history – our testimony to the madness raging 3 decades ago.

We have prepared these items for years, meticulously collected and assembled the artwork from original photos, books, snippets, drawings, negatives, postcards and rub-letters. Everything was rebuilt from scratch and comes from the same original bits and pieces as used back in the 90s. Nothing was cheaply scanned from old releases, like often the case with such old works. Some flaws were corrected, with the aim to retain and surpass the first pressings.
We bow our head and humbly share our memories of those glorious reckless days, when our youthful spirit was feeding the flame to burn the world to ashes.
http://store.w-t-c.web-republic.de/index.php?language=en

p.s.: Once the remaining 3 albums (Opus IV, Apokalypse, Supreme Immortal Art) are released, a box to collect all 6 Hörnix albums will be available.

THE 1990s ALBUM-REISSUES ...

… will finally be available in CD format.
Released in two batches so it´s not too many at once, the first 3 (Verwüstung, Orkblut, Nachthymnen) will materialise in about 3 weeks, the other 3 (Opus IV, Apokalypse, Supreme Immortal Art) later this year.
Together, these recordings form the same complete early studiowork compendium as the 6LP box. We plan to have a box for the CDs plus liner note booklet available with the second batch. Just like the LP box, we have laboriously recreated the layout from many small ORIGINAL SOURCES, image snippets, pieces from books, photographs, frames, not from any scanned old release like others do it! We spent years to get it together and these will be high quality releases in terms of both, audio and artwork.
Soon our early history finally can be savoured again in the best respective form for the price of regular releases - now on CD and soon on cassette, too.

VINYL

For now, there will be NO vinyl reissues along the CDs. We don´t want to devalue the LP box, which people bought for very high sums on the second hand market. It would be cynical to watch our faithful listeners spending several hundred Euro on the box, and then release cheap individual LPs with the same content and quality. The mainstream companies behind Mayhem, Emperor, Ulver and the likes may have pranked their fans with a box release and after a short while, the same as „collectible“ individual LPs, but we despise to exploit
our listeners!
Nevertheless, some occasional vinyl releases will surface, namely, a Supreme Immortal Art „deluxe“ DoubleLP, with the full keyboard-less instrumental as second vinyl.
And ONE DAY, yes, the old albums will be available on LP again, just not in the near future. The 6 LP box was a statement and still stands as one. No matter how profitable it would be to release such LPs now, money is one but not the only reason to release something!

wtcproductions.bandcamp.com/album/pre-sale-totschl-ger-a-saintslayers-songbook

w-t-c.web-republic.de/store

Limited 7 x DEMO BOX presale

Down below here, find a preview for the box with all our rough, early demo-rehearsal material recorded 1993/94.

Let us remember the times for a moment.

When we recorded these cassettes, Avantgarde/Obscure Plasma had just released Live In Leipzig, churches went up in flames, Euronymous was killed, Hellhammer and Attila tried to finish recording and mixing De Mysteriis Dom. Sathanas at Grieghallen, Tchort and Samoth of Emperor joined Faust in prison for murder, knife-assault and arson respectively, Darkthrone prepared the songs for Transylvanian Hunger and broke with both, mainstream press and label, to underline that Black Metal is radical and art knows no shackles and that money-hungry pigs must die!
Yet today, the sell-out happens right on the stages in front of thousands of cheering people. Old twats put up a show and pretend it´s the old days to cash-in on nostalgia, but in fact they have long forgotten what “the old days” were like!
Our approach to Black Metal during the demo days is a fitting example to reflect on this and the increasingly unbearable habit of bands copying each other.

As you can hear, we were bad musicians - and downright horrible engineers. We knew virtually nothing about instruments and gear. Only that plugging a cheap microphone straight into the inputs of a Tascam 4-track lets us record sound, dry and unprocessed. Our 2 consumer-grade microphones were hung from the ceiling and we did all errors one could make - from overdriving the inputs to weird stereopanning, and especially reducing the quality further when merging the 4 already recorded tracks back to stereo (a “technique” to get 2 free tracks again for vocals, additional guitar parts, soundeffects or keyboards).
Although these demos must be rated far below the early Black Metal masterpieces released at that time, still there are qualities, most primitively captured, missing in today´s counterfeit bands. The atmosphere was dense, we were hungry and smelled blood, the mindset pure and dedicated. The primitive lyrics impulsively scribbled on paper at any time of the night, but from a musical perspective, listen to these samples and you will hear from the first amateurish moment on, we embodied a certain degree of individualism and originality. Like everyone else did back then. There are bits of Heavy, Power, Thrash and Doom Metal, there was the need for personal expression and the firm will to experiment. We used what was there, acoustic guitars, a damaged floortom to mimic kettledrums, an old piano in the attic, a cheap dusty mini-keyboard found on Tharen´s cupboard, and strange field recordings.
On the fist demo, there was no whatsoever effect. Only in december 1993 when “lux devicta est” was recorded, we discovered if you plug the vocal microphone into the guitar amp and not into the recorder, we can use the amp´s spring-reverb to enhance the atmosphere of the vocals. Finally, the vocal echo used on the 3rd tape was achieved by plugging the Tascam´s output into the input. Our approach surely sounds laughable for the bands of today, who record an album at Necromorbus or Endarker Studio after a few weeks of existence possibly asking the engineer for “that BM sound”, but maybe, experimenting with shoddy demos in a cold cellar before pestering the whole scene shapes one´s art for the better on a long term?

Most importantly, even though we were simple-minded in our approach and starstruck by the sheer satanic genius showcased on the achievements of our colleagues in all parts of the world, still, when we realised something sounded like them, we immediately dropped the very part. The same goes for the visual aspect, a b/w xeroxed photo-cover was Darkthrone´s idea, and by that never an option for us. Today´s practice to copy successful bands of the moment is such an alien thought, it´s opposing everything this artform stands for. It is weak, small-minded, sheepish and cowardly. The motivation and aim within Black Metal must be conformed and aligned to the sinister essence, the definition of Black Metal, but at all cost, each group´s art must be individual! Even if this means to fail terribly at various attempts. Yet every genuine failure is worth much more than the best copy!
The more we adored Burzum, the more we wanted our prevalent spirit to be like that - which meant being radical and artistically different than everyone else, but it certainly did not mean cloning Burzum´s music and cover! Copying someone, even your own glorious old sound, is the contrary of the often-cited oldschool spirit. Oldschool means daring, uncompromising, original.
Only if the next generation remembers the origins and the values which nurtured this artform, there is a future. Otherwise, let us torch the bridges and burn down the stale copy of what once was.

Here are our sonic crimes of these days, the first 4 demos with Tharen on vocals, the first rehearsal with Silenius and 2 side-projects of PK (with assistance and contribution by TT, Silenius, Protector and Count Daemon van Zazas). Source of the first 4 tapes was a DAT on which we saved our demos back then, all covers printed directly from the original handmade-master-covers still in our possession. Therefore, the content of this box is an original edition of demos, taken from the master templates, and these tapes can be considered just as original as the handful of cassettes spread in the early 90s BM underground. Coming on black screwed tapes exactly like back then, only in better quality (since we used our shitty tapedecks back then to copy the tapes). Presale link posted on this page tomorrow!

The preview includes excerpts of

Grabesmond - In schwindendem Licht...
demo 2 - Kingdom Of Darkness
demo 4 - Universe Of Black Divine
demo 3 - Abysmal Scorn
demo 1 - Shadowlord
demo 2 - Animae Tortae
demo 4 - My Soft Vision In Blood
demo 3 - Eye To Eye At Armageddon
demo 2 - Diabolic Unity
demo 4 - The Prophecy
demo 3 - Other Truth
demo 2 - Midwintertears
rehearsal - My Soft Vision In Blood
rehearsal - In Sin
Grabesmond - In schwindendem Licht...
December Fog - High In The North
December Fog - Reich Of The Dead

www.soundcloud.com/abigor-2/1993-94-demo-box-preview

PRE-ORDERS:

www.avantgardemusic.com/news/abigor-1993-entering-the-kingdoms-of-darkness