Genre: Ritual Folk or (when in dub) Psychedelic Dub-Chthonians

The Red Hand Mark

01 The Red Hand Mark
02 Ghost Seeds
03 Osiris
04 Ypres
05 Sixteen Hooves
06 The Prophet’s Dream

Prophecies and Secrets (the Red Hand Mark in Dub)

01 Undead Voices
02 Four Horses Ride
03 Calling to the Ancient Ears
04 Owl Eyes
05 Evergreenman
06 Patchwork Men
07 Dreamer Prophets
08
09 Corpse Candles

Unsettling folk in a tribal dub. The Red Hand Mark takes some of the choicest elements of melodist Renner and percussionist Hoskin’s debut Ghost : Eye : Seeker debut album into a realm that has refined said elements into little jewels of skeletal splendour steeped in pulpy mass. The music is sickly organic and metered, raw and haunting, and not to do any disservice, quite elementary Goth, but in a fresh way. Don’t let said nomenclature put you off though, another word to do that might be that one in the first sentence: dub.

Beats thunder and therein lies the magic as Hoskin and Renner have meshed three instruments into a sound-defining force of lumbering, encircling thudding sorcery. In their conjurations Renner’s voice he accompanies with the self-created “guimbri-banjo (a bass banjo based on a Morroccan lute)”, with Hoskin on djembe, tabla, heart, and hand-drums. (heart?). They perform these rhythmic folk chants live and near to what is on the album. It’s a dark mesmerise. The dub elements show in how the bass and percussion meld into a sinuous eidolon of pulsating flesh – but it feels more intrinsically ethnic than sterilized samples. If Muslimgauze was forced to use purely organic instrumentation this Crow Tongue album would have been a guide. Folk with a pulse, a heart mayhaps?

As a reinterpretation of their own work, “Prophecies and Secrets (the Red Hand Mark in Dub)” CDr was released in a pre-thought masterplan of inclusion into the former and origin’s digipak (see packaging description below). If there’s a flaw to be found in that plan is that perhaps they should have just forgone the separate sale and released both together as each disc is equally as unassuming as it is deceptively captivating. With Chrome like experimentation and tape-looping pressed with subtle remixing Crow Tongue have dismembered their selves and reworked a golem of danceable death hooked up to marionettish machines. The more ambient pieces sans percussion are the only distraction from the remix.

In the packaging the gimmick truly worked, with Crow Tongue kindly indemnifying User emptiness of just only The Red Hand Mark with the kindly inclusion of the additional disc to this reviewer which according to their website: “will be housed in a flat cover that will fit INSIDE the cover of “The Red Hand Mark” – for those who purchase both.” It’s a true enough statement as it is unexpected and complimentary to the presentation. The Red Hand Mark is a three colour (black, red and white) cross of folded printed card, splattered in angelic and crow imagery in voodoo-like veves on an inverted photographic handprint, but the insides are simply a delight. It is like an old book with etchings of the disastrously demonic in casual and public presentation. Chimeras before God, blood pissing from clouds, rays of ruler light from the crown of the lord who grasps a sickle, as his angels do... all in a pre-1800 style (Lyrics accompany). The disk itself is as righteously visually endowed.

Prophecies and Secrets fit as neatly as said press statement into The Red Hand Mark, and in fact, the latter is rather empty without it... notwithstanding the music. It comes more simply, an asymmetrical tri-fold of white card with black and red inversion of the former hand with angels collage that within binds a black paper window disc holder with the CDr of dub inversions with a small red printed liner note.