It stands to conceal

The foundations are all that's left, lined up board-game squares, uniform, brick rubble crumbling under the weight of political unrest.

Vatican Shadow deals in calculated repetition vs crushing noise; the project gained a bookend from the recent addition of Operation Neptune Spear - it reminded us of the heat that all that cold calculation was building to. The noisiest and harshest end of the Vatican Shadow spectrum actually offered respite; though probably taken to an extreme to serve a purpose - the live show - Neptune Spear was the endgame answer, the result of those rows of artillery and asymmetric warfare tactics.

 

 At the other end of the spectrum is the project's origin, and it is something almost more harrowing. This Vatican Shadow sound seems to drive almost entirely on repetition; atmospheric and entirely visceral, bound to militant imagery, binding and irrespirable. Though for something with such a unique and specific atmosphere, listening carefully highlights distinction. The tracks merge fragments into relatable realities, they offer immersion in a world that exists in news and on paper but also uncontrollably in so many people's lives.

 

 These three releases feel like a fractal shape spinning outwards as the global conflict gains scale - infantrymen who stumble across a wounded enemy, all bone and blood, feeling the cold touch of human empathy as the politics rages on around them. The real killer point of Vatican Shadow is its ability to highlight the abrasion of something uncontrollably rolling on, a feeling in human existence of being caught in something unstoppable, aligning ourselves simply by being. In times of covert control tactics you don't have to drive an Abrahams or even take to the street in support of a political leader to feel like you're taking sides. The grind of global conflicts and frictions echo in the people that are controlled and affected by them, and that's exactly what Vatican Shadow is all about.

Jordanian Decent serves two expansive pieces of grindingly repetitive tape loops, slowly evolving low-level-hums which seek progression slowly from minute flickers. Images of background conflict, conspiricy theories and a world-view scale of expansive atmospherics draw to a close mid-thought and beg to be left in a locked groove - the needle eventually degrading the sound to a fading crackle.

Atta's Apartment Slated for Demolition draws on the signiture Vatican Shadow sound of past releases, especially the Washington Buries.. series, investing in dark brooding scenes of small scale military intelligence and burning rubble in the aftermath of conflict. Here the sounds feel immersive rather than expansive - less abstract but just as degrading in their oppressive march.

Ghosts of Chechniya is a much more personal record, the relatively fragment-length tracks feel like glimpses on a human scale. Like the headlines and quotes from which their names derive, these are the personal stories of conflict, the newspaper cuttings from someone's personal war.

This is a project which manages to touch on conflict on every scale; so remarkable for its uniform and uncompromising approach to sound. Dominick Fernow always knew the most marketable material he would release under the guise was actually the noise elements, not exactly what you would expect, but his alignment with an industrial-sound revival (see: recent live shows w/ Blackest Ever Black) ensured a captive audience. Despite that, I can't help but think this collection is the defining release of one of the most captive musical projects out there.

It Stands to Conceal will be released come the end of the year on Hospital Productions, pressed to 911 copies on vinyl (pre-orders are here and here) 

All are available now on digital as individual releases (here).

listen here