Halcyon Magazine

As their name implies, Los Angeles based Black Math Horseman ride like a fearsome headless spirit into the wild dark woods of a full-moonlit night. Composed of Sera Timms (bass/vocals), Ian Barry (guitar) Bryan Tulao (guitar) and Sasha Popovic (drums), this ethereally forboding quartet present a strangely bipolar sound, both heavy as the vast expanse of a black night sky and light as a spirit lifting from an ancient curse.

Their debut album is aptly entitled “Wyllt,” which I am sincerely hoping is inspired by medieval legend Myrddin Wyllt, aka Merlinus Caledonensis, aka the ancient prototype for Arthurian wizard commonly known as Merlin. It’s a fine choice regardless, as everyone knows I am quite fond of the Old Norse penchant of using Y as a substitute consonant. At any rate, Myrddin definitely lived in the forest with the tall whispering pines and the animals, where he learned the gift of prophecy. Known as both a madman and a prophet, Myrddin’s dual sides in many ways epitomizes BMH’s spellcasting,  half crazy and half gently foreboding. 

Fittingly, the album was recorded and produced by desert guru Scott Reeder (Kyuss, Unida). Their sound, yes technically could be described as ambient post doom, or alchemic psych…but I prefer to call it dark-aura seance rock, does that work? 

Listen To: “Origin of Savagery”

I can almost see the depraved black light of truth reflecting from Myrddin Wyltt’s eyes as he prophesized (correctly) his own triple-death by stabbing, falling and drowning listening to the Origin of Savagery. When the darkly downtuned Sabbathian kicks in, fate sounds like a bittersweet poison.

Tags: Black Math Horseman, Myrddin Wyllt, Tee Pee Records

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 at 12:17 pm and is filed under Music, Record Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.