For a ritual ambient project seemingly few care about, Equimanthorn enjoyed an enviable degree of longevity and quite a slew of rotating staff members. Oh wait...this used to be Absu's esoteric, collective offshoot, which should explain why its proprietors were, at some point, able to attract, er, the Texan scene's best and brightest, not to mention the like-minded, out-of-state legionaires like the Riddick brothers or the dude from Black Seas Of Infinity. Proscriptor was a member as well, but he had his own solo stuff going on, so he did not stick around long enough. Equitant did, however, even long after leaving Absu, which kind of makes him the mastermind, doesn't it? And, I guess, it is cool that he is still feeling it after all these years instead of worrying about his 401(k) plan, although I am not as sure about the audience... One way or another, "Lectionum Antiquarum" is not the best place to start familiarizing yourself with the project's oeuvre, since this disc merely collects remastered tracks from some old demo tapes. I did find something of value here, nevertheless, but as I am not familiar with anything else Equimanthorn had done, I won't be able to compare and contrast.
In my subjective point of view, the first three tracks, culled from the 1992's "Entrance to the Ancient Flame" 'ritual demo', make up the crux of this release, both in length and content. Musically, these pieces fall right next to several American operations of old, coming from a couple of black metal alumni, namely Ixithra's (of Demoncy) Profane Grace and Raven's Bane, plus Mike "Baron Abaddon-something-or-other" Ford's (of Black Funeral) Valefor and Darkness Enshroud. We are talking considerably minimal, yet fairly encompassing on some level, sprawling black ambient workouts, endowed with prolonged spoken invocations. "Our Master Aki" is quite ghastly and cavernous sounding, slowly ebbing and rumbling along the road to the perceived archetypes of yore, carrying with it shreds of primeval, subterranean melody and crowned by some echoing, deeply seated, reverbed spoken pronouncements. "Rite of Exorcism" is propelled by a static drone line, a bit more discernible allocution and some extra, if still very sparse and minimal, overdubbing of tolling bells and fluttering rhythmic loop movement. "Black Mountain of the North" is on the noisier side, pushed forward by slowly fluctuating stream of mild static and further interlaced by sparse segments of disconcerting, squeaking noises and vaguely percussive, deep pulsating sub-frequencies. The spoken monologue here is a surprisingly discernible, ingratiating whisper, while the track itself mounts its force gradually, in order to eventually reach an apex in volume and intensity.
Regretfully, derailment of the working momentum follows immediately thereafter, with two tracks out of the 'live ritual recording' from 1992, entitled "An Evening of Blasphemous Moon Worship". I suppose I should give the band credit for arbitrarily sounding not too dissimilar to drone doom (sans the ridiculous vocals) years before drone doom really evolved as a genre and became a household name. On the other hand, what style these pieces are played is less important here than the fact that they still remain the nadir of this album as a whole.
I tried to get back into the right mood with the disc's final chapter, consisting of the 1997 'ritual demo' "Imdugud's Flight". Unfortunately, these five tracks were a bit too compact and sketchy and did not allocate nearly enough running time necessary for me to re-submerge myself into some kind of kabbalistic or hermetic contemplation. "The Serpentines of the 10th Emanation" and "The Other Approach of Ningishzidda" are measly two minute filler pieces, not worth mentioning really, though the latter's main theme, endowed by what sounded like a traditional oriental flute, was somewhat promising while it lasted. "The Acrid Caverns of Masshu" relatively corresponds to what its title promises. Ditto for the mystical dark ambience of "The 7th Day of Damuus Journey". Too bad both had to end so soon. Luckily, I did find the demo's central piece "The 131st Spell of Ninazu" to my liking. Its confluence of murky, unhurried electronic beat and sorrowful, ethnic woodwinds lasted nearly long enough to sink in and resonate a little.
In his annotation on the disc's backside, Proscriptor refers to this collection as an "enthralling work" which creates "an authentic portrait of pure ritual magic(k)" - a bold and vainglorious pronouncement that happens to imply that the Emperor Proscriptor Magikus himself, and the rest of the band, I guess, know more about 'magick' than you and your entire family. And that can very well be true. But then it is worth reminding sen-yor Proscriptor that not all of his musical endeavors presented on this disc quite measure up to stiffer competition, coming from other students of the occult and wannabe psychonauts of the altered states, regardless of how much ancient knowledge he (Proscriptor) might possess. This short write-up also jogged my memory a bit and brought about recollections of another highbrow claim the above-mentioned fellow magic(k)-man Baron von Abaddon made way-back-when, in the liner notes for Black Funeral's "Moon of Characith"; something along the lines of a pressing necessity to properly utilize his recordings. And if done so, "they can act as an opening gateway towards the reverse side" and to the dimension where "all things of nocturnal desires emerge". At least Proscriptor was not nearly that corny.
Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
