THE BLACK FLAME
=================
[3:04]
As performed by NILE
on their "Black Seeds Of Vengeance" album
Transcribed, tabbed, sampled, tracked and sweated over by AxeSlash
in association with
>>>ARMAGON<<<
*The metalscene's first and possibly only Nile cover :) (unless I feel
insane enough to try another one...)
Fucking hell. Is there a harder song to try and play on this planet? As
you can see, I started off intending this to be a full-riffs song, which
just became completely inpossible when I realised just how goddamned good
Karl Sanders and Dallas Toller-Wade are at string crossing. Check out the
tab that I included with this. It took me hours to figure it out, and then
I just gave up trying to play it and decided on a sampleset.
So I've achieved one of my tracking ambitions - to do a song that combines
a sampleset with the full-riffs approach...although I guess that it is
done a bit Betrayer-style coz' I sampled only the stuff that I needed
(hence the very short non-looped rotors) and not an entire set. So don't
ask for the"missing" samples, coz' there aren't any :)
Well, after tracking this, I've just realised exactly HOW fast Nile are!!!
I have never in my entire history of tracking used a blastbeat at the
maximum tempo of 255 bpm - I thought it was too fast. There is a hell of a
lot of this song at 255 bpm with Pete Hammoura pulling off blastbeats and
fucking fast tom rolls, and keeping them tighter than whatever is the
opposite of Amano's ass! How the fuck he does it, I do not know. I think
he must be a fucking robot or something.
There are some innacurracies or missing instruments because I was trying
to keep the filesize down...and I think that it is impossible to track
this song accurately anyway. It's far too fucking technical. I can see why
nobody has ever tried to track Nile stuff before...it makes the stuff on
my "Out Of The Duat" disk sound even worse than what it is. Ugh. Iwish I
could write songs like the stuff on BSOV...
The vocals disappear in places and aren't quite as good as my usual growls
because I did them all in one go - and to growl that fast (in the
brutal part) without running out of breath is sooooo goddamned hard :)
I love the vocals at the beginning though, possibly my best so far, and at
11KHz, too!!! I threw them past Cool Edit's EQ and increased the really
high end to almost unbearable levels, and then reduced to 11KHz and it
came out well brutal as fuck. Expect more of that style of vox.
Anyway, sampling this song was a bitch. I had to re-record the rotors 3
times because I left out notes that I needed (although there are still
some missing that I thought I could get away with to reduce filesize), and
it took me ages to get that rattle sound at the beginning right (it still
ain't perfect) - I ended up rattling my fingernails on a grill pan from
the kitchen and putting it thru the reverb and EQ on my Zoom 707, and then
thru Cool Edit's EQ to get more high end and reduce the "gong"-like sound.
Maybe I should have left it and used it as a gong roll :) Gonna have to
try that again...
All guitarz & vocalz by me
Bass by Thunderhead
Drums stolen from many places
Gongs, low choir thing, metallic rattle, and kettle drums by me
Other SFX stolen from some V. old ambient mods...dunno where from.
Greetz:
=======
AeuK (Egyptian, corpse-like song with a thick guitar sound for ya :) )
Warlord & Armagon guyz
Kosm & Metallurky guyz
Grave & Necrocannabis guyz
Daoloth & RR guyz & galz
Nyctophilia
Labrat
Taurus
Later.
AXESLASH
axe@totaldeath.com
http://axe.outputto.com
ftp://194.236.28.166/AxeSlash/
LYRICS:
=======
Explanation taken from the inlay booklet:
"The Black Flame is from The Papyrus Of The Undying, unearthed by Maspero
in 1883 and quickly disposed of by private auction. A translation of the
text was later published in an article in the Cairo Archaeological
Critiques May 1902 and in the book Textes et dessins magiques by G.
Daressy (Cairo 1903) and reprinted by Lexa in volume 2 of his La Magie
dans l'Egypte Antique (Paris 1925). The papyrus of the undying was
generally dismissed as rambling, illogical, profoundly incoherent,
perverse and profane to such an extent that it became regarded as a curio
- a minor text of secondary importance that originated from a small,
uninfluential serpent cult. The papyrus is believed to date to the end of
the fifth dynasty, about 2350 BC, and appears to be the work of the
priests of the Cult of Seta. It deals with matters of the underworld,
afterlife, and magical regenerative formula, as well as several
blasphemous chapters devoted to the destruction of the sun god Ra. The
historical value of such questionable material was, at that time, nou
doubt considered of lesser importance than other more popular works such
as Budge's new translations of The Book Of The Dead. For this reason, the
radical and unpopular Papyrus of the Undying fell to dismal obscurity.
The text did not reappear again until 1912 when it was purchased by Rollo
Ahmed, a native egyptian cult expert and author of of several books around
the turn of the century. Mr Ahmed did much further research into the
papyrus and circulated several new translations of the text. However,
because of his reputation among legitimate scientists as an occult
practitioner, largely from his early years soent studying the dark arts at
first hand in Africa, South America, and Asia, his views and
interpretations of the Papyrus were dismissed as unsubstantiated, and
never fully accepted among the mainstream of the academic community of
his time. The original of the manuscript was quickly acquired by the
museum of Cairo and put on private display until 1939 when famed Nazi
occultist Otto Van Anza took it to Germany. Presumed lost during the fall
of Berlin in 1945, it was recently rediscovered in the burnt out remains
of a bunker underneath a construction site in east Berlin in 1998. The
papyrus has been partially restored and is now on private display in the
Berlin Museum OF Aegyptologie. The lyrics of the Black Flame are taken
line by line from chapter 36 "The chapter for being reborn". It mentions
Baboui, the dog-faced ape, guardian of the lake of flames, who feeds upon
the overturned bodies of the enemies of Osiris--rending, raping and
devouring the souls of the damned. Baboui also holds the power to open the
gates of the Duat, or underworld. The chapter seems to be a magickal
formula for escaping fiery chained imprisonment in the underworld. It
bears a strong resemblance to Spell 316 of the Pyramid Text Of Unas, but
seems to have several distinct variations, probably relative to it's use
by the priests of the Cult of Seta."
BTW: Seta is also known as Set, Satha, and possibly Anhur, but NOT Apophis
(aka Apep)...apparently Set and Apep are supposed to be enemies, so this
translation may be innacurate because it calls upon help from both of
these gods.
Withdraw thy phallus, Baboui
Open the gates of the Duat
For I am burning in Aataakhu
Chains bind me *I left this line out to save filesize...
Flames encircle me
And burn my flesh.
Open *as above
For me the gates shall open
Over the fire of the spirit
The breath drawn by the gods
Arise Apophis return
That I might return
Born by the flame
Drawn by the gods who clear the way
That I might pass
The gods which sprang from the drops of blood
Which dripped from
The pahllus of Set
That I might be reborn
For I am Khetti Satha Shemsu
Seneh Nekai
And will become Set of a million years
Akhu Amenti Hekau
I shed my burnt skin
And am renewed
PS: Go buy Black Seeds Of Vengeance NOW!!! If you like DM or anything
atmospheric or brutal, you'lllove it. Truly unique stuff.
