Who feels it, knows it - and immediately after pressing play on Ash Magick’s Rituals Of Anathematic East, you feel it in all synapses and sinews that this is true black metal. With a raw sound that harkens back to its genesis, one might think this album was discovered on an unmarked cassette unearthed in the Neseblod Records basement. But Ash Magick hail from Istanbul, Turkey. The duo of Heilin and Necrosantus weave Eastern mysticism into their haunting soundscapes, delivering a classic black metal experience with a wholly fresh perspective.
“I don’t really know how to explain it rationally,” says Heilin, when speaking of black metal’s allure. “It touched something inside me the moment I heard it, and I’ve never been able to step away from it since.”
Turkey has a rich metal history, but while the current death metal scene is thriving, black metal is still finding its footing. “It’s more like isolated individuals and projects doing their own thing rather than a connected community,” she says.
Black metal touched something inside me the moment I heard it
Heilin
She knows this firsthand, having released a handful of projects by herself. But something clicked when she formed Ash Magick alongside Necrosantus.
“Working with [her] changed the process in a very natural way,” says Heilin on Rituals’ evolved sound. “A sound comes from me, another sound comes from them, and when those elements merge, something entirely new is created, something neither of us could have achieved alone.”
There is another ingredient in the mix: chaos.
“The more I kept working on it, the more chaotic it became,” Heilin says. “I was constantly experimenting, adding and changing things. At some point I just decided to stop and let it be, with all its rough edges. It ended up giving the album a very uncompromising black metal atmosphere. Almost anti-modern, whether I intended that or not.”
Rituals Of Anathematic East is out now via Apocalyptic Witchcraft
