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Zhark International XIII Year Anniversary Compilation

Zhark International

Posted: Monday, December 14, 2009
By: Ilker Yücel
Editor

When Rachael Kozak - a.k.a. Hecate - founded Zhark International in 1996, she had already begun her musical journey into the dark recesses of sound and human experience. Her music, and that of the artists on her label, shatters the boundaries between genres as diverse as breakcore, dark ambient, black metal, and industrial, exploring the psychological impact of extreme sound manipulation, often with atmospheres as erotic as they are horrific, and stretching past the conventions of what most people commonly think of as music, often resulting in records that are at once disturbing as they are engrossing. Celebrating the label's 13-year anniversary is this free downloadable compilation featuring a wide range of artists whose work has enabled Zhark to stay in the depths of the underground too frightening for most to understand.

Bong-Ra begins the proceedings with "Fornication of the Horned," and the track lives up to its title as satanic images are displayed through a grim bedrock of warbling, distorted synth loops interspersed with various layers of percussive jabs. In the last minute, the volume drops off to reveal a near hidden layer of ambient reflection, as if the dark lord himself were enjoying a cigarette after a thorough sexual exercise. Then with Valav's "Svetpera," we are taken to another extreme with a brutal glitch-laden assault of breakcore playing off of haunting wails of dark ambient pads. The same can be said of NFX Bones' "Decay," Cannibal Brothers' "Exzema," and Bulkrate's "Awaiss," all filled with brutally schizophrenic beat structures underlying specters of sound that on their own would make wonderful horror film soundtracks. Uterozzzaaa exemplify yet another extreme with "Bad Messiah" as frantic, almost punk-like screams fight for dominance with a violent array of pure noise, constructed from what sounds like mangled passages of sampled dialog and music from various sources. Other tracks like Tomoroh Hidari's "And the Moon Sends Out Her Skullrushrays" take a more somber and cultish approach as the monstrous track builds up with cavernous reverberations of beastly breaths and moans eventually giving way to a blistering display of breakbeat madness, as if some ghastly creature appeared and started breakdancing as it would devour your soul. Of course, it wouldn't be a complete Zhark compilation without Hecate, and on her collaboration with Ratbag on "Trial," she transports the listener to even harsher realms of human experience, destroying her voice with an insanely caustic effect that many will simply find unlistenable, all set to a dizzying canvas of oscillating bass drones and muffled voices that seem to call out in simultaneous pain and pleasure.

For all of its esoteric terror and flights of psychosexual fancy, this compilation deserves much credit for exhibiting some of the most disturbingly diverse audio spells ever cast on the listening public. From the techno-inspired macabre rave of S-M's "Codeine" to morbid chorale of despair that is Kanoptic Descent's "Hymn of Ayin," the Zhark International XIII Year Anniversary Compilation is undoubtedly one of the best collections of what is some of the most unique and utterly terrifying "music" to be found. What you hear from these 13 tracks can be interpreted in so many ways; you can dance to it, you can have sex to it, you can cast spells to malign your worst enemies to it, discover the dark secrets of the universe through its audio incantations, and in the end, chances are if you're not mentally equipped... you will lose your soul and your sanity.