TMT’s budget wouldn’t permit a plush red carpet for this premiere, so we’ll have to settle for the new album from Decimus to make its grand appearance with the burning pool of blood on the concrete that starts this video. When you’re turning on music linked from an email care of Digitalis Industries for the first time, you know you’re gonna need to prepare at least a little. When the email contains the following words, and I quote: “I’m not exaggerating when I say this might be the weirdest record we’ve ever put out on Digitalis,” you end up gripping the sides of your laptop a little tighter.
Decimus is the latest project from No-Neck Blues Band founding member Pat Maruno, a continuation of his “Decimus Magnus Ausonius” series, which finds him in the midst of mapping out 12 zodiac-aligned records, something he started in 2011. This, it would appear, is his 11th entry in the series, and it’s totally fucking crazy. Trudging its way through a sewer of audio, “11” burns with deep, dark emotions that growl and beat out with slow inertia. As the menacing violence creeps sluggishly along, Maruno constantly stays in pounce-mode, a sly and slight grin across his lips — potentially powerful, actually creepy as hell. Tremors tremble this whole thing, an earthquake lurking deep inside the mix and showing its ugly face whenever it damn well pleases, slicing up the thick slop of oozy bass tones with staccato blasts of incredibly loud silence. And I’ve just described maybe a minute or two of the 7+ you’ll find in this sample (not to mention the 35 more available on the LP, or that bone-chilling slo-mo swamp-thing vocal he does).
We must also note the work of video creator Jason Schuler, who gripped the downright filthy, grainy texture of Decimus and figured it into this completely weird and macabre scene that brings to mind the likes of Jan Švankmajer, casting dusky hues and shadow-framed figures in a reverse narrative. The sum sees “11” as a monster hellbent on grave-digging for grim, disgusting truths and coming up engorged, fully satisfied.
“11” begins the decimation at Boomkat starting today, worldwide in a week.
• Decimus (Pat Maruno): http://soundcloud.com/pat773
• Digitalis Recordings: http://www.digitalisindustries.com/rec_index.html
More about: Decimus
