WL//WH Review BLOODING MASK
Blooding Mask is the field where Maethelyiah has thrown her (lyrical) spell and (musical) magic since 1992. After changes in their lineup, the band now involves Maethelyiah and Paul Nash (founding member of The Danse Society)…but let me shed some more light on her. Maethelyia is the lead singer of The Danse Society since 2011, and the new album “Autopsy Of A Dream” by Blooding Mask cannot and does not relate to the music of the legendary post-punk band from the 80s. There are special reasons for this (no, she didn’t leave TDS); apart from singing in the legendary band she is an international opera singer since 1988 and with her multi-octave vocal range she has performed arias as a contralto to a soprano as well as building recorded choirs ranging from male notes to birdsong, and she has performed as a soloist Rossinian Soprano at Roma Tre choir in Rome from 1997 until 1999.
A very serious and skilled voice who has been compared to other groundbreakers from the past like Kate Bush, Diamanda Galas, or Lisa Gerrard and Annie Lennox…..all true but in my ears, I can more easily find her common ground with other names such as Sigrid Hausen (Syrah) from QNTAL because of their common snappy and forte approach in the magic of music, and Katarzyna Ziemek (De Doy) from the legendary “illusionists” Fading Colours because of their common and fearless agility when singing.
The new “Autopsy Of A Dream” album is a generous offer of 17 songs with lyrics in various languages all behind some theatrical curtain that reveals opera, esoteric music and chants, dark electronic-oriented music, and musical ‘exercises’, with no darkwave and gothic elements inside but a record that swings to the edges of the Blooding Mask extremes – claustrophobic at times like narrating nasty stories from a bad and hazy dream, or some quite social soundscapes like from a pagan feast with hopeful and promising chants about life as it is long forgotten and erased from the human psyche. A versatile album by all means that doesn’t touch the common ground of the usual alternative music, and without digging the “dirt” is offering music that is dusting the regularity of our alternative vent. Just a few songs I will point from this ablaze piece of music art, just a few that are quite far between them, and to let your imagination run wild; try “a strange introduction to life”, “speed of love”, “back to the crime scene”, “Ishtar-Hastur”, “the beast from the moors”, “ages of gold”…actually try the entire album my dears (you can have it on Digital format, and CD with book)!!!
Keep Up With Blooding Mask
Maethelyia live
Written by Loud Cities’ Mike
