The second release from Sydney’s Medicine Voice, four cuts of psych rituals titled ‘PRELUDE / the ouroboros of heartswin’.
Ouroboros is a Greek word meaning “tail devourer”, and is one of the oldest mystical symbols of transformation, in the world. It can be perceived as a serpent enveloping itself, where the past (the tail) appears to disappear but really moves into an inner domain or reality, vanishing from view but still existing.
PRELUDE is the ouroboros of Heartswin, the former designation for Sar Friedman, the antecedent of Medicine Voice. It is a record that doubles as the final chapter of this mythological journey, ending at the beginning, the ancestral foundations of the 2016 Medicine Voice album I And Thou.
Says Sar: “Prelude is very much a catharsis.. it’s all come full circle…endings and beginnings.. endings as beginnings… sanctifying the cyclic nature of all things… it’s been important for me, on many levels, to properly release these songs … a gesture of completion, to honour the once-upon-a-time moments & people that so powerfully shaped the ‘heartswin-medicine voice’ mythos … to send my love and gratitude…. and also to set myself free again… because now, finally.. I feel like I can really just move the fuck on….”
We start in Seattle and an introduction from Oren Ambarchi leads Sar Friedman to the venerable Randall Dunn (Sunn O))), Boris), who produces three of the tracks on this EP. Surrounding Sar are an outstanding collection of players: Don McGreevy (Earth), Milky Burgess (Marissa Nadler, Master Musicians Of Bukkake) and Hans Teuber; a shared experience that triggered the earliest moments of metamorphosis into Medicine Voice.
We end in London, with the epic 18-minute work Tammuz, recorded a year earlier and here signalling the culmination of an eight-year life in the city. With contributions from Joe McKee (Snowman) and Olivia Chaney (Zero 7), Tammuz is a farewell, a shedding of skin, another ending precipitating a beginning.
PRELUDE is the ouroboros of heartswin: creation out of destruction, rebirth out of death. Prelude eats its own tail to sustain life, freeing the old to make way for the new.
PRELUDE / the ouroboros of heartswin is available on digital and limited-run vinyl on 24 November 2017.
TRACKLISTING
1. 366 (2:25)
2. Roar (4:40)
3. Bombshell (4:07)
4. Tammuz (22:01)
CREDITS
Tracks 1-3:
Musicians: Sar Friedman, Don McGreevy, Milky Burgess, Hans Teuber
Produced by Randall Dunn
Recorded at Avast Studios, Seattle 2011
Track 4:
Musicians: Sar Friedman, J Milo Taylor, Serafina Steer, Olivia Chaney, Joe McKee, Cecil Cuthbertson
Produced by Sar Friedman and J Milo Taylor
Recorded at Suborg HQ, London 2010
Mastered by Joe Talia
Cover Painting by David Asher Brook