Mantra Voluntatis
House Of The King
Melody
Signore Non Son Degno
Warhol I
Apocalypse
Next Time (feat. Albin Julius)
E a uno a uno
La lunga Via
Gli Amanti Tristi (shadow version)

Hailed as the new 'Ain Soph' album, or as a development from their last album “Oktober”, "Mantra Voluntatis" is the solo project of vocalist and musician, Spectre, whose lengthy paeans of atmospherics and post-modern folk are woven into Warholian abstractions and psychedelic goety. Though the reference to the legendary Italian act and its singer/songwriter will help sales this album has a puissance that can easily be enjoyed without the fore-knowledge of a welcome bias.

Seemingly desultory, Spectre’s music is an expansion of the avant-garde rather than unmethodical experimentation, reminding one of Novy Svet and Ô Paradis’ latest commingling in “Destello de Estrellas en la Frente”, but with far more vivacity and panoply of sound. Refreshing insouciance infects all the tracks, no irruptions of noise, no hooded swarms of ambient drones, just languid tracks, nay, songs to supplant the listener into elegiac bliss. Peculiar electronic chirps, beeps, wield their selves to stoned dub beats and fragrances of acoustic guitar, with the familiar semi-spoken - ala Ain Soph - Italian verse. All of the songs are original save for ‘House of the King’ and ‘Melody’, while on the song ‘Next Time’, Albin Julius collaborates in the electronic mad song fuzzed with walls of distorted guitar for a memorable recherché. The weird and dark hone their edges among nearly all of the songs, even in the waltzing Amanti Tristi with its Lynchian cowboy blues, and if anything this album completely transcends "Oktober" in terms of stark comparison. Lovers of Ain Soph and Death in June, Novy Svet will find much to enjoy here.

Released in a digifile case, for all intense purposes a digipak without a tray, with the disc slipping inside, the release is of a nicely glossed monochromatic design with photos of Spectre among darkly glistening Italian city streets at night. Liner notes are accompanied by a short dissertation by Andy Warhol. Once again HauRuck! SPQR deliver another regal addition to their sodality.

NYR