Black Market Enlightenment | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Studio album by | ||||
Released | 9 November 2018 | |||
Studio | Wyresdale Studios, Gates Of Dawn, Alpha Sound, 3rd Planet | |||
Genre | Dark rock, progressive rock | |||
Label | Music In Stone | |||
Producer | Daniel Cardoso, Mick Moss | |||
Antimatter chronology | ||||
|
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
Progressive Music Planet | [1] |
Metal Hammer | [2] |
Black Market Enlightenment is the seventh album by the UK art rock band Antimatter, released on 9 November 2018 by Music In Stone. A lead video-single 'The Third Arm' was released on 5 October 2018. It is the 4th consecutive Antimatter studio album to be written entirely by Mick Moss, the previous 3 being Leaving Eden, Fear of a Unique Identity and The Judas Table.
Due to touring fatigue, Mick Moss put the Antimatter live band on semi-hiatus beginning in March 2017, and set to work on the 7th Antimatter album, which was tentatively titled 'Refraction'. Speaking in the 2018 documentary 'Finding Enlightenment', Moss says that he "had known for a long time exactly what the 7th Antimatter album would be about". [3] Speaking in December 2018 to Progressive Music Planet - "The concept is about how I used to view LSD and cannabis when I was in my late teens/early twenties, and the irony of how I ended up actually suffering from a deep existential crisis, coupled with psychosis, panic attacks, chronic paranoia, derealisation and agoraphobia, despite the fact that I was convinced those drugs were the path to enlightenment." [4]
The writing period lasted for a year, during which time the title was changed from 'Refraction' to 'Black Market Enlightenment'. [3] Speaking with Headbangers Lifestyle - "I decided very early on that I would not reach into my archive of unreleased songs whatsoever (something I haven't done since 2003's 'Lights Out'), thus forcing myself to create an entirely new work from a blank canvass. I also decided that I would try and write away from the acoustic guitar as much as possible in order to draw something new out of myself. After that, it was just, get free. Get free. Let the music come and let it be what it wants to be. Let the songs with the strongest identities float up to the top, regardless of what style of music they are." [5]
As with the majority of his own Antimatter recordings, Moss elected to perform the core instruments of guitars, bass, synths and e-bows himself. [6] Guest musicians were drafted in the form of Fab Regmann (drums), Carla Lewis (vocals), Julie Rodaway (flute), Paul Thomas (saxophone) and Vardan Baghdasaryan (kamancheh). The song 'Existential' features a posthumously released vocal cameo by the late Aleah Starbridge. [7]
Recording began on the first day of May 2018 at Gates Of Dawn Studio, Boos, Germany, where the drums were laid down. The rest of the album was recorded at Moss' Wyresdale Studios, Liverpool, England, except for kamancheh, flute and saxophone. [3] Speaking of the latter instruments for Headbangers Lifestyle - "I planned to have a sax (on Leaving Eden) and then I ran out of time... and the same thing happened album after album. It almost happened again this time but I forced myself to make the effort to find somebody before the clock struck midnight. Paul Thomas was amazing... As for the qamancha, I was on my way to Armenia to film the promo video to 'The Third Arm' and I asked Andre Simonian (The Beautified Project) if he could find me a session musician who played qamancha. At that point I didn't even know what the instrument was called, I'd just heard in on movie soundtracks like 'Gladiator' and 'The Last Temptation Of Christ'. Vardan Baghdasaryan did an amazing job. Same thing with Julie Rodaway on the flute. I just wanted this album to stand apart from the rest of the discography, and I felt that the whole lead-guitar break, that's been done to death since 'Eden...' and I just wanted to hear something different this time." [5]
Recording took five months to complete, and was co-produced between Moss and Daniel Cardoso, who had worked with Moss on his previous five releases (including the Sleeping Pulse album). [8]
The front cover image was created by Mario S. Nevado. The image, similarly to their previous work together 'The Judas Table', was executed by Nevado from a specific concept by Moss, who says he "asked for a crash-test dummy in a shitty armchair in a shitty apartment, with the Buddhist 8 arms, each hand holding a different specific item of street drug or street drug paraphernalia ...and in the background, the universe is creeping in...". [3] Along with the album's title, the picture reflects the ideological mixing up of spirituality and street drugs. The items in the dummy's 6 outstretched hands are, clockwise L-R, a hash-pipe, a small sheet of 'strawberry' LSD tabs, a rolled up UK £10 banknote, a cheap cigarette lighter, a cannabis joint and a bag of amphetamines. The two lower, central hands are each holding a Rizla cigarette paper, poised to make a 3-paper joint as was common in Liverpool in the 80's and 90's.
Black Market Enlightenment was released on November 9, 2018, coinciding with the first show on the 'Black Market Tour'.
The album was released in three versions, containing 1, 2 and 3 discs respectively. The 2-disc edition held a DVD as the second disc, containing 'The Third Arm' promo video, 'What Do You Want Me To Do?' acoustic session, and a 50-minute documentary 'Finding Enlightenment', as well as extended liner notes and paintings from the 1990s by Mick Moss. The 3-disc edition contained the 2-disc edition in a slipcase signed by Mick Moss, Fab Regmann and Carla Lewis, with the addition of the 'Between The Atoms' CD single, 'The Third Arm' lyric sheet written by Mick Moss, and a hand-numbered card containing a section of string from the instruments used to record the album. The 3-disc edition was strictly limited to 300 copies, and sold out before the album's release. [8]
All songs written by Mick Moss
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "The Third Arm" | 4:57 |
2. | "Wish I Was Here" | 6:40 |
3. | "This Is Not Utopia" | 6:27 |
4. | "Partners in Crime" | 5:50 |
5. | "Sanctification" | 7:15 |
6. | "Existential" | 7:19 |
7. | "What Do You Want Me to Do?" | 2:32 |
8. | "Between the Atoms" | 8:25 |
9. | "Liquid Light" | 6:14 |
Rahsaan Roland Kirk, known earlier in his career simply as Roland Kirk, was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who played tenor saxophone, flute, and many other instruments. He was renowned for his onstage vitality, during which virtuoso improvisation was accompanied by comic banter, political ranting, and the ability to play several instruments simultaneously.
Michael Kevin Taylor is an English guitarist, best known as a former member of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers (1967–1969) and the Rolling Stones (1969–1974). As a member of the Stones, he appeared on: Let It Bleed (1969), Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! The Rolling Stones in Concert (1970), Sticky Fingers (1971), Exile on Main St. (1972), Goats Head Soup (1973) and It's Only Rock 'n Roll (1974).
Spiral Zone is a 1987 American science-fiction animated series produced by Atlantic/Kushner-Locke. Spiral Zone was animated by Japanese studio Visual 80 as well as South Korean studio AKOM. Based in part from a toy line made by Japanese company Bandai, the series focused on an international group of soldiers fighting to free the world from a scientist who controls much of the Earth's surface. It only ran for one season, with a total count of 65 episodes.
Autumn Tears is an international dark wave band formed in September 1995 by Erika Swinnich and Ted Tringo. Their music has goth and industrial rock characteristics. The band does not use conventional electric guitars, but uses operatic orchestration.
Behind the Front is the debut studio album by American hip hop group Black Eyed Peas released on June 30, 1998, through Interscope Records and will.i.am Music Group.
Antimatter, a UK dark rock band, is the solo project of longtime founding member Mick Moss. The project was originally a duo composed of founding member Duncan Patterson and Moss, being essentially an amalgamation of two solo projects working in tandem with each other, with each member writing and arranging their songs alone and compiling them in the studio later on to create an album. In this manner, the pair released three albums together, Saviour, Lights Out and Planetary Confinement, after which Patterson left, in 2005, to start another band Íon. Moss continued Antimatter as an extension of his own timeline established throughout the first three discs, releasing the project's fourth album Leaving Eden in 2007. Moss followed with 'Live@An Club',, Alternative Matter, Fear of a Unique Identity, The Judas Table, "Too Late", Welcome To The Machine, Live Between The Earth & Clouds, and, most recently, Black Market Enlightenment in 2018.
Enlightenment is the twentieth studio album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. It was released in 1990 and reached No. 5 in the UK charts and "Real Real Gone" charted at No. 18 in Mainstream Rock Tracks.
Laughter is the third studio album by Ian Dury and the Blockheads; released in 1980, it was the last studio album Dury made for Stiff Records. It was also the last studio album he made with the Blockheads, until 1998's Mr. Love Pants, though a live album Warts 'n' Audience was produced in 1991.
Lights Out is the second album by the UK band, Antimatter, released in 2003.
Leaving Eden is the fourth album by the UK band Antimatter. It was released on 13 April 2007. It also marks the first Antimatter album to be written entirely by Mick Moss since the departure of Duncan Patterson two years earlier.
Dream Keeper is an album by bassist Charlie Haden that was recorded in 1990 and released by Blue Note Records. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Performance and was voted "Jazz album of the year" in Down Beat magazine's 1991 critics' poll. Haden, Carla Bley and Ray Anderson also placed first in that year's Acoustic Bass, Composer and Trombone poll categories, respectively.
Striborg is a black metal / ambient project of Australian musician Russell Menzies. The project first began in 1994 under the name Kathaaria and during this time the stage name "Vvelkaarn" was used. The name Kathaaria was adapted from a Darkthrone song titled "Kathaarian Life Code".
"Winter" is a song by the English rock and roll band the Rolling Stones featured on their 1973 album Goats Head Soup. Credited to singer Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards, "Winter" is actually the work of Jagger and the Stones' lead guitarist at the time, Mick Taylor. It was the first song recorded for the album and does not feature Richards.
The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band (ISBN 0-06-098915-7) is a collaborative autobiography of Mötley Crüe by the band – Tommy Lee, Mick Mars, Vince Neil and Nikki Sixx – and New York Times writer Neil Strauss. First published in 2001, it chronicles the formation of the band, their rise to fame and their highs and lows.
"Suspicion" is a 1962 song originally recorded by Elvis Presley written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman which became a major hit in 1964 in a recording by Elvis Presley sound-alike Terry Stafford.
Mick Moss is an English singer/songwriter. He is best known for his role in the band Antimatter, as well as being co-vocalist on the Number 1 single 'Broken Smile'.
"Shitty Future" is a song by the Los Angeles-based punk rock band The Bronx, released as the second single from their 2006 album The Bronx.
Fear of a Unique Identity is the fifth album by the UK band Antimatter.
Live Between the Earth & Clouds is the first live DVD, and third live album, by the UK band Antimatter, released in 2017. The release is a two-disc format with Disc 1 being the DVD of the show, and Disc 2 being the live album of the same show
Aleah Liane Stanbridge, better known mononymously as Aleah, or Aleah Starbridge, was a South African singer-songwriter based in Örebro, Sweden where she lived until her death. In 2009, she and Finnish guitarist Juha Raivio founded death/doom inspired band Trees of Eternity. Aleah became well known in the rock and metal genre for her collaborations such as Swallow the Sun and Amorphis.