torstai 16. heinäkuuta 2015

The Mystickal East - Herbz Niszra Nisa-Inranna II demo 1996

The Mystickal East - Herbz Niszra Nisa-Inranna II demo II 1996
1) The Arrival of Niszra's Hearse (Intro) / Crystal Jewel Zhevana
2) Blissful Void to Janna
3) Sharna Naruntila
4) Enigmaxur's New Hell
5) Eht Herbz, Way Down to the East
6) Rejoice in the Light... Sadness and Despair

RGhost / Yandex

The people voted for the Orient this time so let's do another contribution, this is The Mystickal East I was already referring to in this post and their 1996 demo "Herbz Niszra Nisa-Inranna II" which also might be the only release too. Me and my contributor have no more information on this project than Floral of Forever so anything you can tell is welcome. We suspect these projects might be by same people as there are similarities in sound. No cover obviously either so any image you can provide is welcomed. UPDATE: I was informed that both of FoF and TME are projects by the same person MD Aslan and hail from Brunei, not Malaysia! Aslan's other bands include(d) Rust Sakaraz, Noiratasya and Shadowmirth. Active fellow! UPDATE II: This interview and other sources indicate the name is spelled with a "k" so I've reuploaded it, corrected. I bet the song titles aren't correct either but those can't be verified without the covers.

The rip is slightly poorer quality than FoF, mainly notable on the first track where the sound fails a bit but gets better eventually. Musically this is most similar to the darkwavey parts of the FoF demo (tracks 3 and 4) though a metal influence feels more prominent here, the first track proper could almost be tagged black metal with the harsh voice and percussion. An intro starts the demo in a rather peaceful tone, it has a very nostalgic dungeon synthic feel to it. I should've really separated it from the main track now that I think of it again. Dammit. The tape fail I was referring to manifests in slightly muffled and wonky sound that suddenly gets better and clearer, as if someone had been dubbing this from behind a closed door and then finally gets the bright idea to open the door and enter the room. "Crystal Jewel Zhevana" part of the track is practically black metal, more Summoning that darkwave. Three shorter tracks follow, first more like an interlude and second a short instrumental and quite metal with the percussion. The melody there sounds annoyingly familiar but can't quite put my finger on it. Third one is gloomy, dramatic and more ambientish/dungeon synth, unfortunately a bit messy sounding too, most notably when the vocals are present. The fifth song continues similar to the fourth but is much longer and has more variation with percussion and tempo changes added. It changes more metalesque somewhere before half way. Last track is the longest of the lot and similarily slower tempo but more metal. This is pretty hard to put into a single, simple category. Recommended for people into mixtures of ambient, wave, ds and synth-black metal, collectors of Eastern demonology and the generally curious.

8 kommenttia:

Anonyymi kirjoitti...

T.M.E, and F.o.F are projects of one M.D. Aslan, from Brunei darussalam (NOT Malaysia), dine in the mid-1990s. His other band (a metal band) is called Rust Sakaraz. Used to have all his demos through tape trading. All gone now, unfortunately.

Velkaarn kirjoitti...

@anon:

Oh I see, thanks for the correction! I guess it was easy to make that mix-up. Thank you also for the additional info, very useful!

Eugene kirjoitti...

Brunei, islamic country with population which is under 500K. Now that's really underground!

I found that it should be spelled "The MysticKal East". Here's an old interview - oocities.org/wanwarlock/interviews/tme.html

And it seems that he's still making stuff (at least in 2011) goo.gl/P3P9zm

You can use his current (tiny) logo for this post oi60.tinypic.com/a3e9nk.jpg

Velkaarn kirjoitti...

@Eugene:

Hmm, thanks for the info, I did find another interview myself but thought the spelling there might be a mistake. Looks like it is with a "k" then. Not sure if I should change the demo title too as the interview has two different versions of the it (with "Nisa" and without!) and I'm not sure which to trust. I remember from old days seeing pretty well fucked up titles in 'zines thanks to editors being unable to decipher someone's handwriting or sometimes the bands just using shorter spellings etc. without the editor catching on to it. I reupload the demo with corrected band name but leave the title as it were.

Interesting to see it's been revived too, I'm not going to use the modern logo, however, as I am certain it was different back in the 90's.

GREV kirjoitti...

Hails and thanks for this Velkaarn & contributor!

I have this one, but very incomplete and ultra bad quality.

Velkaarn kirjoitti...

@Grev:

Heh, you have the most surprising things! You wouldn't happen to have the other demos and/or other bands this guy did?

GREV kirjoitti...

@Velkaarn.

Maybe, maybe not... I'm not sure yet, because I haven't checked out yet. I'll let you know if I find something

Anonyymi kirjoitti...

Thanks , very obscure !