BOTANIST

Listening diary 28th July, 2021: Botanist - Ecosystem (blackgaze, 2019)

The points for originality are always there with this band, who use distorted hammered dulcimer as their weapon of choice for making some surrealist avant-garde black metal, but I'm not sure the points for songwriting are there as often. The dulcimer is definitely an acquired taste, but the chaotic buzziness of it definitely does suit black metal, and when it really gets going there are some dissonant runs which you could never possibly achieve with guitars. But this album really only starts to draw me in right towards its end, where some really interesting vocal and other arrangements crop up. I'll keep my ears on this project since it is really fascinating, but I'm yet to hear a record from them that would stand without the gimmick.

5.4 (2nd listen)

Part of my listening diary from my facebook music blog - www.facebook.com/TheExoskeletalJunction

It is fair to safe that I'm not a massive fan of the only other release I have heard from Botanist, and I'm still not too sure about this one, but my mind is slowly starting to get around to understand what this incredibly different and experimental form of black metal is trying to achieve. They/he (apparently there is a collective, but I'm not sure if this is still a solo project by The Botanist or something else) like to be described as Green Metal, yet in normal parlance they would be thought of as a highly creative Experimental Avant-garde Black Metal outfit. Apparently, this is concept about the ecosystems of redwood forests on the West Coast of the United States, calling into question whether humanity has an operating 'ecosystem' of its own. Musically it is often based around a strident piano with heavy use of sustain, drums very much to the fore, with other instrumentation coming in and out.

It can be incredibly unsettling at times, like taking RIO to the extreme, and Art Zoyd being an obvious reference point, yet there are other times when it is quite brutal in its attack. Against that it can be lulling and gentle, the vocals being gently sung as opposed to be ripped from the throat by demons of Hades. This mix of instrumentation, sparse arrangements and vocals combine with a musical direction which is all over the place and in itself that is quite unsettling as the listener is never sure what is going to happen next, and whether it is a journey they really wish to complete. This certainly isn't for the unwary, and due to the manner it straddles so many genres, it may find itself being too far removed from what is generally expected, to be accepted even by those who want their music to be weird and challenging. As for me, although it may not be something I will listen to repeatedly for pleasure, for some quite perverse reason I am very glad I have heard it. Most definitely this is one to play on Bandcamp before purchase, and it will take quite a few listens to don't totally discard after the first one.

Hammered dulcimer. Very unique, but the concept doesn't necessarily work out over the length of a whole album.

Botanist mainly plays hammered dulcimer in a metal style: Hard, fast and distorted. At first this seems totally unique and I was blown away when I first heard it. This album might appeal to adventurous prog fans who always seek out new sounds. It is, after all, pretty rare today that someone produces a really unique musical style and comes up with sounds we haven't heard before.

Unfortunately, there is little variation on this album. The music literally just keeps hammering on. The concept seems gimmicky after a time and does, in my opinion, not provide enough substance to keep the listener engaged for the whole album. To me, all the hammering just becomes exhausting after a while. (And I'm not even into the safe, sane or overly melodious side of prog.)

This album is still recommend to listeners who seek new sounds and inspirations.

Let's all hope that Botanist will develop his songwriting, diversify his sound and release some unique future albums!

The name of the album is fitting: On the first half of Botanist's sophomore release, Doom in Bloom, he slows down the tempo to a doom metal pace. The sole band member Otrebor has also added atmospheric keyboards to the mix. Apart from that, not much has changed. The band's apocalyptic vision of the future is as compelling as ever, if not even more so, and the tortured vocals and hammered dulcimer foundation of the music remain intact. The pieces here are long, with many extending past the ten minute range, and the odd metre signatures and unorthodox composition techniques found on the début are still present.

The second half of the album (excluded from the vinyl release) mostly consists of songs written and performed by friends of the band around the album's drum tracks. This means the odd time signatures and other eccentricities of the music are just as present in these compositions, which tend to be more guitar-based, as they are on the first half. The style of the music in these pieces varies pretty widely; some have harsh vocals, some lush female vocals, and the mood of the pieces covers widely disparate territory as well. The exception to the drum track rule is the two contributions by Matrushka, which are dark ambient pieces based around tape loops of the album's fourth track. All of the songs on the second half of the album have a botanical theme, thus fitting in with the timbre of the rest of the material, and Bestiary's composition is about the Giant Hogweed. (As a bonus for prog fans, it's very likely a Genesis reference, as several phrases in the lyrics directly recall phrases in Genesis' song.)

This stirring album comes highly recommended and is one of the high points of Botanist's prolific output so far.

Botanist's début actually consists of two albums released together in a single package. The song lengths seem like they'd be more at home on a grindcore album, but this deliciously weird music actually has a lot of prog influence. Beyond the fact that the songs are more like movements of two lengthy compositions than they are separate compositions themselves, there's also the bizarre composition techniques and odd time signatures scattered throughout the work. There are arguably more passages in odd time signatures than there are in more familiar meters like 4/4 or 3/4.

Despite being based entirely around drums, vocals, and hammered dulcimer, this album conforms heavily to expected black metal tropes, so if the more traditional bands in the genre alienate you, you probably won't find much to enjoy here. But this is highly adventurous, vital music that makes a wonderful addition to more open-minded metalheads' collections, and I strongly recommend it. The only thing that stops me from giving this the maximum rating is that some of Botanist's future releases were even better.