Finally tracked down this older Lp from Funerary Call, released in 2005 on the French label Semen And Blood in an edition of 500 copies. This is one of the few vinyl-only releases that the Canadian black ambient artist has put out, a collection of live material and unreleased demo recordings that date from around 1999. The live stuff is on the first side, a rare recorded performance from October 30th, 1999 that presumably took place in FC's home base of Vancouver; this half-hour set starts out in a flurry of crashing metal and cymbals and noise before unleashing heavy, metallic rumblings and scrapes onto the audience. Gusts of air from an abattoir drift in on sheets of dark synthesizer hiss, then stumbles into a frenzy of martial snare drums and synthetic horns, a militant industrial dirge rising up among creepy swooping samples and waves of industrial murk. The music moves into passages of tribal drumming and heavy synthesizers, a booming Wagnerian deathmarch across a cracked and desiccated Earth surrounded by terrified screams and lashings of crude industrial noise. This is one of my favorite modes of Funerary Call's operations, when he seems to combine elements of bombastic electronic music a la Tangerine Dream with the filthiest, grimiest mutterings of Swedish black industrialists MZ.412. I get really zoned out when it goes from there into the eerie soundtrack synths, howling chants and metallic scraping that takes over the middle of the set, sending the music into an abyss of black ambience led by a turmoil of ritual bells.

Side two has six tracks of unreleased, untitled demo material mostly shorter tracks that span Funerary Call's sound. The first few tracks are lush orchestral synth piece, intense and ominous, joined by distorted black metal-esque vocals and booming, militant drums. This music is steeped in dread, evoking images of global warfare and annihilation, the yawning void and the finality of the tomb. Then comes a blast of blackened death industrial that comes as a jolt, sending a throbbing black pulse into overdrive while demons howl mindlessly and strings screech somewhere in the distance. The rest is a collection of sonic nightmares, oppressive synths exuding pure menace, softly sung lyrics lost in billowing black smoke, the bestial roars of the possessed lurking in the shadows. Total horror ambience.