CONSECRATION IN THE TEMPLE OF THE SMOKE

The story behind this live EP comes from two directions. How come? These two songs actually originated from a live session of two Belgrade bands. You guess right, Consecration and Temple of the Smoke. Coming from two different but still connected genres, members of Consecration at the time (Danilo Nikodinovski, Nemanja Trećaković and David Lazar Galić) joined forces with the Temple of the Smoke trio (Du?an ?ica, Dragan Mirković and Predrag Vranić) and in Belgrade's SKC Livingroom, on April 2nd 2008 recorded what we call here now Consecration in the Temple of the Smoke.

The second part occurred a month ago when I made a suggestion to the two bands to join forces. At the time I was unaware that they already had. Thus we discussed the possibility of a digital download release through Prog Sphere, which I was very happy to do. So we may say that Consecration in the Temple of the Smoke is the first official release from Prog Sphere Records. Before I get focused on the actual songs presented onto this EP, I would love to mention that the sleeves for this release were done at no cost by Mr. Påhl Sundström, graphic designer and guitarist of Swedish progressive rock band Klotet.

Consecration, a band whose roots lie in sludge/drone mixes up with Temple of the Smoke's kosmische rock, with the addition of ambient passages reached through Galić's saxwork and Trećaković's FX's. Doom beats from the beginning of the first track, helped by psychedelic guitar and saxophones develop this 6 ½ minutes piece into a real fuzzy jam, losing itself somewhere between psychedelic rock, doom and noise. At some point, the saxophone takes a bit of control over the other instruments.

Consecration in the Temple of the Smoke 2 opens with ambient sound walls in a post-rock manner, which keep on that way throughout the track, and those who know how Temple of the Smoke sounds can easily notice that space rock with kind of spiritual touches which lead to another space/psyche explosion in the second half of the song. Spooky saxwork, with frenzy and intense guitars, twisted synths and effects brings this 20 minutes long EP to an end.

There are plans to repeat such a performance later this year with a possible physical release, but we will see how things go. Enjoy!