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Black Curtain

by Jodis

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1.
Blindly I stumbled and crept through the thorns Spilling tears of blood upon the ground And as I wept, thorns turned to ash It soaked into roots and riverbeds I am reborn Eyes open wide, I am the unchained son Eyes burning in the new white sun Swallow this handful of dust Let me kneel on shards of broken stone Breathe in Let me tread this broken ground with soles worn raw Let my head split wide, let in the light And let the light spill in a tide of newborn blood Stretch out my arms, embrace the stars Fingers trace now fading scars Breathe in I am the unchained son Breathe in New golden sun Breathing in I am the unchained son
2.
Run in circles call your name Hunted by many scared eyes shine Dazed and dim from your ancient fall How could I lose your heart? Where will I lay my hands to feel the rise and fall? Where did you run to? No safe haven here The paths choked with your hunters Where will you hide? Cursing the fates that sever the ties Cursing the careless and their ill, calloused hearts Tears swell to my eyes we embrace at last To the silent temple we all return
3.
Red Bough 11:05
Our eyes grown dim with age They see no more the sun, tarnished gold Our tired hearts beat on The red bough Fallen at last It's not so bad I'd say (it could be worse) What once was our splendor faded grey Like ghosts now, in empty halls Rotting blood sticks fast in veins Let me now return to womb of earth The ceaseless worm devours all The red bough Fallen at last
4.
Corridor 02:46
Not here, not now How did it come to this?
5.
Awful Feast 04:15
Feast not on this Drink not from this cup Out into the light look back not in wrath Feast not on this Drink not from this cup Feast not on this Drink not from this
6.
These broken hands cast into... These broken hands Dig through clay to bury bones of dead long gone Say a prayer to future winds Say a prayer I cast threads Space expands Heart expands Throw back father's fist Shed the scars Scrape off the blood of mother's womb Scrape off the blood

about

Known for their work in the dark recesses of heavy music via such vehicles as Khanate, ISIS, and Blind Idiot God, it would have been easy enough for the trio of Aaron Turner, James Plotkin and Tim Wyskida to kick out something adequately dark and crushing with the formation of Jodis in 2007. Certainly outside expectations of what the group would sound like fell along those lines, but to the dismay of some and the delight of others, the final results were altogether more lush, melodic, and downright beautiful than anything previously imagined. The foundation for their debut album Secret House was laid around a careful
synthesis of Plotkin and Wiskyda’s reductive, mercurial rhythmic interplay coupled with Turner’s knack for constructing monolithic sounds and dramatic ambience. Each note was deliberate. The gaps between notes were as important as the notes themselves. Tempos were
made malleable. But a clear sense of structure and a dreamy, understated elegance threaded through the album’s seven tracks to produce an alluring, if somewhat bleak sonic landscape for the listener.
After several years of steady concentrated work, Jodis have returned with their sophomore album, Black Curtain. Once again, the trio’s emphasis on sparseness and tension remains in full force, but is tempered by a greater focus on melody and slow blooming song structure. While its predecessor thrived on a kind of predatory patience, Black Curtain’s reserve is more of a salve than a threat. The album opens with “Broken Ground”, where spikes of reverbdrenched guitar sprawl across a humming electronic horizon, over which delicately draped vocal melodies twist, collide and dissolve. Drums occasionally rise from the ether, punctuating the meditative passages of pastoral calm. The band continues to explore the many outlets of their panoramic minimalism across the airy expanses of “Silent Temple", the shimmering melancholy of “Red Bough”, the hymn-like repetition of “Corridor”, and the mantric chants of “Awful Feast”. The more visceral and vitriolic elements of Jodis’s members’ past work are put on hold for the majority of Black Curtain. But the thunderous low-tuned throbs of guitar and strong-armed pounding of the drums rear their head in the closing track “Beggar’s Grasp”. Even in this rousing close to the album, the harmonious core is retained, and the listener is immersed in the depths of the sound around them, rather than mercilessly suffocated by it. Black Curtain is no doubt heavy - emotionally, even sonically - but its true strength lies in its graceful reserve and reverential worship of gray-skied beauty.

credits

released October 2, 2012

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Jodis Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Guitar - James Plotkin
Voices - Aaron Turner
Drums - Tim Wyskida

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