Geist & The Sacred Ensemble are described as a doom folk collective, and that seems pretty apt to me, especially if you add in the term post rock, as this is a band who appear to have taken Swans as a starting point and then gone off in a very strange direction indeed. Apparently, they comprise S. Yoder (percussion, gong, timpani), C. Segawa (electric guitar, metal spike), C. Howe (electric bass, bowed bass) and M. Sauder (vocals, hollow body guitar, clarinet, piano) and they produce a sound unlike many others. One can imagine some of this music coming out of the earth as opposed to a recording studio, with the vocals sometimes offkey, others coming across as being very close indeed to throat singing, but always compelling. This is music for big skies, not cities – and I am not at all surprised to discover they hold live shows in places such as a metal forge and foundry, forests and meadows, old schools, churches and more. No-one seems to really know where they musically fit, so they have played with bands as diverse as Oranssi Pazuzu, Insect Ark, Soriah, Six Organs Of Admittance, Pedestrian Deposit, Yonatan Gat, Father Murphy, and Jackie-O-Motherfucker.

This is music which is timeless, organic, uncompromising, and constantly shifting. They can be delicate here or use repeated chords and notes there to create a real sense of unease. This is something which feels as if it has physical form and is so far removed from commercialism as to be from a different solar system as opposed to just a different planet. This is not music for those who like it to be nicely packaged and to fit into a box, as this is unsettling and designed to be only enjoyed by those who understand it and feared by those who do not. I can imagine the mainstream Radio 1 DJ’s of my youth throwing their arms up in despair and refusing to give this the time of day while John Peel would be doing everything in his power to get them in for a session. This is definitely music he would gravitate towards, and this ritualistic uncompromising industrial sound is something uncompromising with gravitas, solemnity and body.

Rating: 7/10

Links:
https://www.geistandthesacredensemble.com/
https://www.scryrecordings.com/