Botanist - VIII: Selenotrope - VINYL LP

Gatefold double LP (smokey gold vinyl), padded inner sleeve, and protection sleeve. Only a very few original metal acts emerge each decade from the mass of bands that are stylistically easy to tag. BOTANIST are both in musical and lyrical aspects one of those unique bands that are obviously different. Now, the act's eleventh full-length, InchVIII SelenotropeInch is announced. On the eighth solo album by the project, and the first since InchVI FloraInch (2014), mastermind Otrebor again sends sprigs into new sonic directions. Although the band's roots in black metal still shimmer through the dense foliage, this sprawling, straggling, blooming creation is an exuberantly growing, varied musical meditation. InchThe title InchVIII SelenotropeInch refers to plants that flower in moonlight. BOTANIST's characteristic sound of the hammered dulcimer combines perfectly with now predominantly clean vocals that are often arranged into multi-layered choirs, resulting in an entangling, highly dynamic album that comes together in a singular piece of music seemingly taking influence from all avant-garde, progressive, experimental, post-metal, and other possible descriptions - the validity of which very much depends on each individual listener. InchVIII SelenotropeInch is not made to fit into just one drawer.Inch All songs of this project are told from the perspective of a protagonist called InchThe BotanistInch. He is characterised as a crazed man of science that lives in self-imposed exile, as far away from Humanity and it's crimes against Nature as possible. In his sanctuary of fantasy and wonder, which he calls InchThe Verdant RealmInch, InchThe BotanistInch surrounds himself with plants and flowers to find solace in the company of the natural world, while he envisions the destruction of mankind. Seated upon his throne of Veltheimia, InchThe BotanistInch awaits the time of human

On their twelfth full-length InchPaleobotanyInch, Botanist take us back more than 70 million years to a time when dinosaurs ruled the planet and early forests began to turn to coal. InchPaleobotanyInch comes with all the trademark characteristics that set Botanist apart from all other metal acts on this planet. Lyrically, the band from San Francisco, CA revolves around species of plants - in a clean break from the usual genre stereotypes like Satan, dragons, and booze. Their music clearly has it's foundation anchored in 'metal', but instead of 6-string guitars the Americans use 110-string hammered dulcimers. To the confused horror of traditionalists, Botanist fit these percussion-stringed folk instruments with magnetic pickups and distort them through various perverse means that range from amplifiers via analogue tape to digital manipulation. The resulting sound is as unique as spectacular.

BOTANIST are different. When composer, lyricist, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist Otrebor created the San Francisco based band in 2009, he already had a specific lyrical concept in mind that has persisted to permeate all releases until and including today. The songs of this project are told from the perspective of a protagonist called InchThe BotanistInch, who is characterised as a crazed man of science that lives in self-imposed exile, as far away from Humanity and it's crimes against Nature as possible. In his sanctuary of fantasy and wonder, which he calls InchThe Verdant RealmInch, InchThe BotanistInch surrounds himself with plants and flowers to find solace in the company of the Natural world, while he envisions the destruction of mankind. BOTANIST's lyrics are equally informed by scientific nomenclature as they are inspired by Romantic-era poetry, art, and philosophy. BOTANIST are different also in musical terms. In a striking departure from traditional metal instrumentation, Otrebor uses distorted hammered dulcimers instead of guitars. This also makes BOTANIST the first band to adapt magnetic pickups to hammered dulcimer, and perform on stage. Stylistically, the Americans pay tribute to the mentality of some of the pioneering Scandinavian black metal bands' connection to nature, before spinning the dark yarn into new sonic and emotional fabrics. To BOTANIST, the black metal trope about misanthropy and of being alone in the forest is in fact about the woods and it's floral inhabitants themselves. Each named plant becomes it's own character in the ever growing pantheon of the project's Inchgreen metalInch discography. BOTANIST sprouted from the seed of their debut double-album InchI The Suicide Tree / II A Rose from the DeadInch (2011) into a tripartite sapling with the addition of InchIII Doom in BloomInch (2012). From this early growth, their sprawling di