Last year’s EP ‘Stands with Death’ promised great things for The Dark Red Seed, and eight months later the duo have delivered with debut album ‘Becomes Awake’. While the EP still clung to a little of the gothic neo folk that had clearly rubbed off on Larson and Fleming from having worked so closely with King Dude, this record sees the duo come into their own with a blend of intensely dark folk melodies paired with heavy modern psychedelia. It’s obvious from the moment that you press play that this album intends to lead the listener down a much darker path than what has been previously laid out before.

Opening song ‘Dukkha’ (meaning pain/suffering) is intensely chaotic with dissonant, uncomfortable chord progression and saxophones, synths and guitars blaring throughout. Coming out onto the other side of this intro track is very much like “becoming awake” and leads to a deeper appreciation and understanding of what’s to come next. The likes of ‘Alap’ possess hugely meditative qualities, featuring instruments such as strings, horn and percussion. The inspiration of Persian, Indian and Roman music is prevalent throughout, adding yet further complex dimensions to an already densely textured collection of songs.

Tosten and Shawn collaborated with musicians Kelly Pratt (LCD Soundsystem, War On Drugs, St Vincent) and Steve Nistor (Sparks, Marissa Nadler, Daniel Lanois) in order to create harmonic, rhythmic and formal structures, which release a potent richness and depth of sound created by the collision of Eastern and Western music and the merging of tones specific to each. This is an initiation into an all-encompassing primal force, a shamanic pilgrimage to dimensions that pull on every fibre of the being. ‘Becomes Awake’ is proof that The Dark Red Seed have fully stepped out of the shadow of TJ Cowgill and are a duo to be reckoned with.

(8/10 Angela Davey)

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https://thedarkredseed.bandcamp.com/album/becomes-awake