Jouissance's far too short "Lunar Rites" will probably remain on the short list of most unique Black Metal EPs ever released on PSALM 88, which I feel are bold words. But hear me out.
The tape opens with tinkling 90s Darkwave keys and atmospheric drum & bass breaks before an unforgiving, angular guitar enters and drowns everything in some of the most brutal digital distortion this side of Gnaw Their Tongues. And that's just the first two minutes.
Before this little cassette is done we're treated to washed-out Blackened Post-Punk Noise that splits the middle ground between A Place To Bury Strangers and TOMB, all pummeling blastbeats and stargazing synths buried beneath six metric tons of graveyard dirt distortion. Vocals calling to mind nothing if not the skeletal, long drowned ghost shrieks haunting the later couple Velvet Cacoon full lengths.
On the second half we encounter Medieval Synth, garage rock organs, piercing lead guitars, and more hopeless screams before leading into the phenomenal vintage EBM of "Transcendental Cosmic Vessel," a throbbing arp fest and would-be industrial dance floor anthem that might be the most uplifting and pretty thing we've released on this label so far.
Quite a journey, and that's just the tip of the iceberg for this prolific young artist. In addition to Jouissance she also fronts the Sapphic-Christian RABM ensemble Gelassenheit, as well as being responsible for the psychedelic ambient Black Metal of the endlessly evolving Poppet and nearly a dozen other Dark Ambient, Electronic, and Dungeon Synth projects.
Follow her down the rabbit hole here:
jouissanceblackmetal.bandcamp.com