Secret Chiefs 3, an unconventional music project of Trey Spruance whose name was inspired by transcendent cosmic authorities known as “Secret Chiefs” have released a brand new single titled “Telstar.” Proceeds from the single will go to fund the release of two albums in 2017.
The first album is the Book of Souls: Folio B, which is a conclusion to Book of Souls: Folio A. Book of Souls: Folio A, released in 2013. BOS: Folio A and B are the second part to the Book of Truth trilogy. Book of Horizons (2004) was the first installment of the Book of Truth trilogy.
The second album these singles are financing is from the satellite band, Holy Vehm. This band is a death metal incarnation of Secret Chief 3 – Spruance has never released a full length album of Holy Vehm material, making this an exciting development for fans of Secret Chiefs 3. Check out the singles below.
The songs are by the satellite band UR. The first song is called “Telstar”. “Telstar” is an original song by UR, which begins with a very futuristic element. Moving forward, they maintain this hoover-board concept while proceeding with catchy beats attached to it. The second song is called “The New Daylight (Welcome to the Theatron Animatronique)”- this is a remix inspired by FORMS original song. UR revamped this song from the album Book Of Horizons from 2004. Spooky yet mystically enticing, this melody shows elements from Book Of Horizons while clearly being remixed almost 15 years later. UR sped up the original tempo and seemingly compiled more sounds into the mix.
The original Secret Chiefs 3 was said to inspire and guide various esoteric and mystical groups and is a reflection of Spruance’s interests in philosophy. SC3 consists of seven satellite bands; Electromagnetic Azoth, UR, Ishraqiyum, Traditionalists, Holy Vehm, FORMS and NT Fan. Regardless, the bands perform a diverses range of musical styles including surf, world music, death metal, electronic and more.
The albums Book Of Horizons (2004) and Satellite Supersonic Vol. 1 (2010) were compilation albums with all the seven bands appearing in at least one of these albums. Some of these satellite bands have even gone off on and recorded their own records.
We reached out to bandleader/impresario Spruance about the new songs on the “Telstar” single:
“On both of these tracks, I went back to bussing quite a few of the “families” of tracks (drum buss, percussion buss, bass/baritone guitar buss etc) down to 2-channel sends so I could print them through my spring reverbs followed by a Valley People Dynamite dual-compressor (all outboard hardware). This is of course sacrilege to proper signal chain handling, especially ramping down to shitty 1/4 plugs, but fuck that – it’s definitely the SOUND for stuff like this. And especially killing the low end and running these 2-channel submixes back in ‘parallel’ with the pristine tracks on occasion, there is no argument against doing it whatsoever. Except maybe that it’s a lot of prep beforehand (trying to anticipate all the frequency pile-ups and deal with them ahead of time). Pretty sure submix approaches in the 60s worked much the same way. And in digital, returning to this ‘haphazard’ method, you’re not really ever in control of certain details (especially phasing issues) — just the kinds of things plug-ins and automation still can’t really “fix”. And who the hell is enough of a scientist to say they really “know” what the hell is going on with phasing anyway? So it was pretty fun…”
He added:
“I guess working in this manner kind of forces you to work blindly and go strictly by instinct. I’m very comfortable with that, and all my best work has been done under similar conditions of limitation. This single was refreshing for me — for the first time in a decade I gave myself enough time to block out every needless, pointless expectation from the outside world, and work to make a damned thing just right. Finally my gain structure was right, and I was able to listen back on multiple systems to make adjustments. Like any normal person. Far cry from having to leave my computer on as I left for the airport on tour at 6AM, while it was uploading an unreferenced master straight to the manufacturing company — true story — and the thing had a glitch anyway and I had to fly home in the middle of tour and re-upload it…. never again.”
In regards to the new albums that will be funded by this single he had this to say:
“Seriously, until now it’s been a decade that I’ve been on too tight a touring/release schedule to really get things to where I think they really need to be. So I took the last year and a half off to work on several releases that are definitely coming to the point — and this single is pretty much a fundraiser for finishing off those rather more elaborate productions.
The first to hit the world will likely be the Holy Vehm album. I feel very kindred to it at this point. It’s dark and black thrash metal, perhaps more in the spirit of Possessed “7 Churches” than anything contemporary… maybe something distantly in common with some of the more dissonant French Black Metal of late, but I guess with more of an early death/thrash angle, a lot of polytonality and a full choir. Finally I’m doing this thing… and it just feels right.
I’ll be putting the finishing glosses on Book of Souls: Folio B in the meantime. Financing is so dismal at this point I’m hoping these digital singles will help (there will be another two-song single in early 2017). If that doesn’t get us there, maybe I’ll do some kind of preview single(s) from Folio B to get things going. But I’d rather not. And I’m not going to do kickstarter or anything like that. So we’ll see what happens!”
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