A-Sun Amissa: Ceremony in the Stillness
Gizeh Records / Consouling Sounds
Richard Knox is not only Gizeh Records' founder, midwife, and showrunner, he's also an instrumental part of a number of the label's acts, namely The Rustle of the Stars, Shield Patterns, and Glissando. Perhaps none is closer to his heart, however, than A-Sun Amissa, a heavy doom-ambient project that's got his soot-covered fingerprints all over it; think some coal-black spawn of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, (‘70s-era) King Crimson, and thisquietarmy and you're halfway there.
Yet while Knox is the driving force behind A-Sun Amissa, the group's fourth full-length, Ceremony in the Stillness, is hardly a solo affair: Knox, credited with electric guitar, bass, field recordings, drones, electronics, piano, and processing (not to mention writing, recording, producing, and mixing), receives stellar support on the six-track outing from collaborators drummer TJ Fairfax, saxophonist David McLean, electric cellist Jo Quail, and ondes Martenot player Christine Ott.
As the suitably titled “The Black Path” shows, it takes little time at all for Knox's smoldering guitar to spread its flames cross the record. Emerging alongside the leader's encrusted mass is Quail's cello, which wails and moans woefully in tandem with his fumes and Fairfax's curdling pulse. If the distance separating A-Sun Amissa from GY!BE appears small in this instance, it might have to do with the fact that with Ceremony in the Stillness drums appear for the first time on an A-Sun Amissa record; at the very least, Fairfax's contributions help make the band's bruising sound sludgier than ever. Further to that, A-Sun Amissa shares with GY!BE a tendency to offset crushing fortissimo passages with brooding ambient passages of particularly mournful character.
Caught in its seeming death throes, “The Black Path” writhes in apparent anguish as it nears its close, its palpable sense of desolation carrying over into “With Wearied Eyes,” a nightmarish meditation alleviated by the stabilizing (yet nevertheless haunting) presence of interwoven guitars. Whereas “To the Ashes” amps up the heaviness factor by placing a blistering riff of monumental force at its center, “The Skulk” shifts the spotlight into electronic noise-drone territory by bringing Ott's ondes Martenot-generated drones and McLean's deep-throated expressions into the drifting fold.
The album returns from that temporary excursion with another exercise in skull-shattering (“No Perception of Light”), after which “Remembrancer” caps the release with one final plunge into sludge-rock. As should be obvious by now, Ceremony in the Stillness locates itself within a deeply atmospheric interzone encompassing guitar-heavy post-rock, classic prog, and dark ambient. Certainly Knox and his fellow trepanners do it as well as anyone.September 2018