Mekigah - Biography
Biography
Mekigah is an effusion of sounds emanating from a dark turbulent vortex...a beautiful, blackened bastard child of diverse dark genres.
Initial writing & recording began in 2008 as a duo & quickly expanded to involve a number of musical collaborators (for featured parts), alongside guest vocalists to compliment the vision for the first album, this came to be The Serpent's Kiss. A concept album that is as much dark symphonic metal as it is an operatic musical.
'The Serpents Kiss' (Cd 2010) was well received by the metal underground, being described as a unique and eclectic amalgamation of style, flowing (from) acoustic (to) ambient then classical, morph(ing) into dark blackened shadows of metal, yet (could) also be seen as a prog rock achievement of finesse and bliss.
The next offering 'The Necessary Evil' (Cd 2012) saw the band take a different direction, whilst still worshiping in the temple of darkness. Much slower, dynamic, doomier and raw sounding, the Necessary Evil is also more guitar orientated. Sam Starrs shining voice from The Serpents Kiss was replaced with deeper, darker masculine tones. Sombre voices singing of the role that Evil plays in the balancing of life. This was punctuated with bursts of fire & aggression and interludes of warped sound & abrasive ambience.
With the new album Litost (Cd 2014), Mekigah has journeyed away from the slick structure of its first 2 album into a darker, less refined and more destructive and overwhelming sound. This album is a personal testimony to the defiance, diligence and commitment of Vis Ortis to overcome crippling challenges and pursue his art in his own vision.
Written and recorded entirely by Vis Ortis between 2012 and 2014, this recording brings to the fore many of the soundscape and noise elements that Mekigah touched on briefly in their Second Album, The Necessary Evil.
Ortis demonstrates a more experimental, doom attitude by slowing the tempo and cutting back on vocals, and varying how they are delivered. Mekigah once again taps the wealth of talent from their earlier collaborations, as well as introducing new ones. Contributors who further skew the constantly evolving script.
A number of the creations on this album demonstrate the joy Ortis finds in eschewing structure. This leaves room for the brave listener to attempt to interpret the chaos, to explore the sound like a sonic mandala. These tracks are stacked with frequencies that are intended to overload, consume, as well as engage and will reveal to the committed and persistent a rich tapestry of dark underground and experimental musical elements.
Litost will take you on a 50 min ride of slow harsh doom and percussive noise ambience through a landscape of confusion and sorrow.
Following the release of Litost - Vis Ortis began work on his 4th album.....
'Autexousious' is a long lost word and means exercising or possessing free will. It is also the cryptic title of Australian extreme music artist Vis Ortis' fourth album with his acclaimed project, Mekigah and second album released through the UK extreme music label Aesthetic Death.
Vis began working on these tracks shortly after finishing the 'Litost' album. There were a handful of tracks that were in the original Litost pool which swam a bit strangely and were ultimately excluded from the final track listing. They formed the beginnings of 'Autexousious'.
'Autexousious' captures similar feelings and sonic spaces to 'Litost', with Mekigah's signature slow tempo. Harsh, bottom end tones set the scene with doom laden soundscapes held together by stripped back drums and bass while guitars spin a whirlwind of random frequencies. These audible hallucinations are recounted by layered nightmarish vocals.
The lyrics are derived from manic, abstract & personal poetry, exploring ugly, impatient & self analytical themes.
Meshed with these words are treated vocals stripped of meaning: a wordless, sound-only entity - a scream for extinction, or perhaps simply release, into the nightmare of noise.
The tracks also includes passages of soundscape noise and off kilter percussion but overall retain an, albeit idiosyncratic and fairly unique song based approach. What this album gives the listener is 9 drawn out, torturously raw songs.
The album, once again was predominantly written and performed by Vis Ortis, who constructed it over 2 separate sessions spanning about 6 months in total.
Joining him again on this album are multi faceted vocalist t.k bollinger, vocalist and mixer leith carnie, with random sound contributions by axiam and adamor ziltch and guitarist chris a.c.
Vis was also honoured to have Tasmanian legend, Paul Weedon grace the recording as a guest guitarist & vocalist. Another welcome addition on this recording came from Izedis of insane U.S noise merchants Enbilulugugal who contributed vocal extremities on a number of tracks.
Rejoining the fold, after having contributed to the first 2 albums, are c.w (guitars, spoken word) & aldhamme (vocals) both formally of the mighty Australia Black Metal band Erebus Enthroned. Finally Vis Ortis' cousin from the U.K Swift makes brief noise guitar appearances on a few tracks.
The album was mastered by Greg Chandler (Esoteric) at Priory Studios, U.K. and will be released by Aesthetic Death in 2017
Source: https://www.aestheticdeath.com/artists.php?mode=details&artist=mekigah
Initial writing & recording began in 2008 as a duo & quickly expanded to involve a number of musical collaborators (for featured parts), alongside guest vocalists to compliment the vision for the first album, this came to be The Serpent's Kiss. A concept album that is as much dark symphonic metal as it is an operatic musical.
'The Serpents Kiss' (Cd 2010) was well received by the metal underground, being described as a unique and eclectic amalgamation of style, flowing (from) acoustic (to) ambient then classical, morph(ing) into dark blackened shadows of metal, yet (could) also be seen as a prog rock achievement of finesse and bliss.
The next offering 'The Necessary Evil' (Cd 2012) saw the band take a different direction, whilst still worshiping in the temple of darkness. Much slower, dynamic, doomier and raw sounding, the Necessary Evil is also more guitar orientated. Sam Starrs shining voice from The Serpents Kiss was replaced with deeper, darker masculine tones. Sombre voices singing of the role that Evil plays in the balancing of life. This was punctuated with bursts of fire & aggression and interludes of warped sound & abrasive ambience.
With the new album Litost (Cd 2014), Mekigah has journeyed away from the slick structure of its first 2 album into a darker, less refined and more destructive and overwhelming sound. This album is a personal testimony to the defiance, diligence and commitment of Vis Ortis to overcome crippling challenges and pursue his art in his own vision.
Written and recorded entirely by Vis Ortis between 2012 and 2014, this recording brings to the fore many of the soundscape and noise elements that Mekigah touched on briefly in their Second Album, The Necessary Evil.
Ortis demonstrates a more experimental, doom attitude by slowing the tempo and cutting back on vocals, and varying how they are delivered. Mekigah once again taps the wealth of talent from their earlier collaborations, as well as introducing new ones. Contributors who further skew the constantly evolving script.
A number of the creations on this album demonstrate the joy Ortis finds in eschewing structure. This leaves room for the brave listener to attempt to interpret the chaos, to explore the sound like a sonic mandala. These tracks are stacked with frequencies that are intended to overload, consume, as well as engage and will reveal to the committed and persistent a rich tapestry of dark underground and experimental musical elements.
Litost will take you on a 50 min ride of slow harsh doom and percussive noise ambience through a landscape of confusion and sorrow.
Following the release of Litost - Vis Ortis began work on his 4th album.....
'Autexousious' is a long lost word and means exercising or possessing free will. It is also the cryptic title of Australian extreme music artist Vis Ortis' fourth album with his acclaimed project, Mekigah and second album released through the UK extreme music label Aesthetic Death.
Vis began working on these tracks shortly after finishing the 'Litost' album. There were a handful of tracks that were in the original Litost pool which swam a bit strangely and were ultimately excluded from the final track listing. They formed the beginnings of 'Autexousious'.
'Autexousious' captures similar feelings and sonic spaces to 'Litost', with Mekigah's signature slow tempo. Harsh, bottom end tones set the scene with doom laden soundscapes held together by stripped back drums and bass while guitars spin a whirlwind of random frequencies. These audible hallucinations are recounted by layered nightmarish vocals.
The lyrics are derived from manic, abstract & personal poetry, exploring ugly, impatient & self analytical themes.
Meshed with these words are treated vocals stripped of meaning: a wordless, sound-only entity - a scream for extinction, or perhaps simply release, into the nightmare of noise.
The tracks also includes passages of soundscape noise and off kilter percussion but overall retain an, albeit idiosyncratic and fairly unique song based approach. What this album gives the listener is 9 drawn out, torturously raw songs.
The album, once again was predominantly written and performed by Vis Ortis, who constructed it over 2 separate sessions spanning about 6 months in total.
Joining him again on this album are multi faceted vocalist t.k bollinger, vocalist and mixer leith carnie, with random sound contributions by axiam and adamor ziltch and guitarist chris a.c.
Vis was also honoured to have Tasmanian legend, Paul Weedon grace the recording as a guest guitarist & vocalist. Another welcome addition on this recording came from Izedis of insane U.S noise merchants Enbilulugugal who contributed vocal extremities on a number of tracks.
Rejoining the fold, after having contributed to the first 2 albums, are c.w (guitars, spoken word) & aldhamme (vocals) both formally of the mighty Australia Black Metal band Erebus Enthroned. Finally Vis Ortis' cousin from the U.K Swift makes brief noise guitar appearances on a few tracks.
The album was mastered by Greg Chandler (Esoteric) at Priory Studios, U.K. and will be released by Aesthetic Death in 2017
Source: https://www.aestheticdeath.com/artists.php?mode=details&artist=mekigah