The British dark electronic project, Lustmord, will play at the Railway History Museum in Riga on 12 October as part of the festival for unusual music, Skaņu Mežs. Its creator, Brian Williams, is often referred to as the father of dark ambient and Lustmord’s recordings, which date back to the mid-1980s, have achieved cult status.
These early recordings were created in vaults, caves or abattoirs and later embellished with sounds that give the music a ritualistic feel like Tibetan wind instruments or repetitive chanting. On June 6 2006 Lustmord performed at the Church of Satan’s 40th anniversary in Los Angeles providing the musical accompaniment to the Satanic High Mass. This performance was later released as the album ”06.06.06. Rising.” Lustmord describes himself as a ”hardcore atheist” but felt that the invitation from the Church of Satan was ”too funny to say no.” Another notable thing about this performance was that it was only the fourth time Lustmord had given a concert in his career. The concert in Riga will be one of only a few over the last couple of years.
FACT magazine writes about Williams’ concerts thus: ”Hearing Lustmord so loudly as it was played tonight […] means realising how inadequate the label ”ambient” is. At times the lowest frequencies were so insistent, I didn’t hear the music, but rather the building shake.”
FACT Magazine has also paid a lot of attention to Lustmord’s earlier work and placed the album ”Paradise Disowned” on their list of best records of the ’80s. The album ”Stalker,” which was created in collaboration with Robert Rich, was named by FACT as a masterpiece of electronic music and one of the most influential of the ’90s.
In 2013 Lustmord has become more active. German label Anti-Zen is re-releasing two classic albums ”Carbon/Core” and ”The Place Where the Black Stars Hang.” The label Blackest Ever Black, who also collaborate with projects Raime, Regis and Prurient, released Lustmord’s latest recording ”The Word as Power” in July. This recording’s focus was on combining dark ambient with vocals and features Jarboe, former member of Swans. The website Tiny Mix Tapes wrote the following about this recording: ”Even without the theological and occult sediments encrusting this album, the enveloping walls of sound can strike fear into the heart of any listener. This is not a horror-styled fun fear, but the species of dread that results from realizing that one is incredibly small and insignificant in the face of the vast forces that animate our universe. That which dwarfs us can by its very presence destroy us, and yet it allows us to live, for a time.”
Lustmord has collaborated with such projects as The Melvins, Coil, Isis, Tool and SPK as well as working on many films of which a few are Spawn, Underworld and The Crow.
Tickets for the festival will be available at “Biļešu Servisa” box offices in Riga, or online at www.bilesuserviss.lv, at the end of July. Tickets for the events on October 10 in Splendid Palace, and October 11 at Palladium cost 10 LVL (14 EUR) each. The event on October 12 at the Latvian Railway Museum costs 7 LVL (10 EUR). A compilation ticket for all three festival nights is available for 17 LVL (25 EUR).
