ETHER RIDERS OF THE NARTHRAK: DVD

 "Filmed in black and white, Ether Riders of the Narthrak is 27 minutes of nightmare fuel...I could not keep my eyes from the screen. I was entranced for the short’s entirety and could not help myself from staring into the horrifying abyss that is 

Ether Riders of the Narthrak.

This film will leave you feeling uneasy and agitated; It is unnerving right from the start and does not let up for its entirety.

Everything this short has to offer, from the aesthetic — imperfect, scratched, and filthy — to the assaulting soundtrack, will stick with you well after your DVD player is turned off.

I would recommend it mostly to fans of independent cinema who are looking for something fresh and new, something more visceral than the average low-budget horror flick....it is extremely unsettling for reasons that I am clearly having a difficult time putting into words." 

- REPULSIVE REVIEWS

 "The oppressive desolation of VRVLVM cannot be contained to one art form. This mysterious entity is also responsible for the short film Ether Riders of the Narthrak and the accompany soundtrack as well. The film seems to depict an abstract ritual which devolves humanity back to a violent, animal-like state, slaves to our basest hungers. 

The soundtrack leans a bit more toward the dark ambient side, mostly because there is less harsh vocals than the cassette, but the sound is never anything but dark and unsettling. The sound often rides a fine line between deconstructed guitar riffs and electronic drones imitating Black Metal and Doom architectures. This fog of indeterminacy gives the soundtrack its unsettling atmosphere, while the repetitive, sometimes chanted voices buried in the background reinforce the feel of ritual."

- CVLT NATION 

  ‘SEPTEM MINUTA QUADRAGINTA SECUNDIS’ sees the pairing of, for lack of a better depiction, Midwestern experimental noise minimalists, VRVLVM and Lather.
On the A-side, with VRVLVM, the auditor finds themselves lured into an enigmatic trance, amid the influence of an ominous whirr and thrum.
With Lather, through the manipulation of tape and electric strings, the sounds of the B-side illustrate a portrait of optimistic inhibition with dismay and inventive graveness.

 A full-length album pairing the arcane horror electronics / death-drone of VRVLVM with the pummeling black industrial and infectious infernal rhythms of Demonologists. A perfect pairing of two distinct voices within the necro-electronics / black industrial spectrum. Demonologists needs little introduction to longtime fanatics for black industrial / black noise; Cory Rowell and company have been evolving its depraved death electronics for nearly twenty years, delivering a mix of brutal harsh noise gnarled with black metal aesthetics with vintage industrial power. The multi-disciplinary VRVLVM is a newer outfit that notably produced the scathing soundtrack for the experimental 2019 horror film 'Ether Riders of the Narthrak,' a deeply strange and surrealist vision which he also directed. Narthrak at times feels like a ritualistic Vinterikett-style travelogue through blighted woodland meditation, tinged with the feel of lugubrious no-budget hellscapes like 'Visions of Suffering' and 'Begotten.' It's unsettling stuff, increasingly nerve-rattling as its stark black and white imagery and ceremonial feel move deeper into both violence and ambiguity. A bizarre, grinding trance-vision, accompanied only by VRVLVM's brutal and massively distorted drones. So these two artists compliment each other nicely on this chunk of cheerless dread.

With their ominous Latin titles, the five songs that make up VRVLVM's side of this split invoke all manner of grotesqueries, matched perfectly by the strange, abrasive sound pouring forth from your speakers. Like the band's previous soundtrack work, this stuff emerges as a thick cloud of opaque black smoke, the brief opener "Es Ni Mulam" twisting in a fog of chants that abruptly crumbles into the huge metallic drone that churns through "Grallae et Chalybe"; insectile buzzing swirls around a clipped machine rhythm while crushing down-tuned sludge hovers over a strangely familiar incantatory voice. VRVLVM amasses these heaps of devouring drones, muted prayers, and pulsating electronic filth, each one taking shape as it moves through the blighted haze of these five tracks. Creeping from the grinding mantra of "Carne Plena Forma" into the demonic loopscape and seething snarling vocals of "Sepulcrum Sine Nomine", where muffled tribal percussion rumbles beneath layers of acrid mist and yellow smog. There is an undeniably ritualistic element to this, like some malevolent ceremonial magick taking form as gut-churning vibratory sound, finally resolving into the sprawling ambient hell of "Ex Serica Caligo" where what sounds like a rattling metallic power chord soars slowly over the wavering, wrecked electronic waste like a carrion crow, transforming VRVLVM's weird abyssal drone into something that resembles early Earth performing a Thelemic rite. Or total power-drone mode Skullflower playing for ceremonial magick. A kind of repulsive (but hypnotizing) blown-out dungeon scum-drone rite, truly heavy shit. Very cool., delivering its own unusual form of flattening, pitch-black, metallic power-drift.