What’s your Secret, Chief? The Killing of Kings.

I get requests regularly but some for one reason or another (lapse in my brain cells) get the TIME DELAY TREATMENT. I've received several recent request that I'm working on. Unexpectedly I stumbled across & looked back on a cobweb-covered file crypticly labeled "TO DO!!!!!!!!!!".

I had posted Secret Chiefs 3 Zulfikar II & III as well as The Theatrum of Suprasensory Universes Vol. 1.  A NSS visitor requested more Secret Chiefs 3. 

 

I started compiling some SC3 tuneage & stumbled down the rabbit hole of  WEIRD CRAZEEEENESS. So the request has been lying dormant on the very spot where I fumbled the assignment all those years ago where it's been gathering dust & being overlooked but at the same time constantly growing in content . I will now try to rectify that grievious oversight. Without further hoopla... 

 

The easiest thing would be to say that Secret Chiefs is the brain-child of Trey Spruance. SC3 is basically Mr. Bungle without Mike Patton. But that would be so far from the real story. I will say that this whole magilla is definitely sweet musick to my earholes.

On over 30 tours, the Secret Chiefs 3 has never toured twice with the same line-up!

SC3 was conceptually & musically developed by Spruance for 16 years. The touring band
as well as the recording ensembles have a rotating cast of top musicians (Ches Smith, Shahzad Ismaily, William Winant, Toby Driver, April Centrone, Matt Lebofsky among many many others). Since 2007 violinist / multi-instrumentalist Timb Harris has been the most permanent anchor, partnering with Spruance as a true "band member" in an ever-shifting & organic colony of voices.

It wasn't until 2004s Book of Horizons that SC3 revealed that the "band" is in fact a composite of seven satellite bands. The seven bands are The Electromagnetic Azoth, UR, Ishraqiyun, Traditionalists, Holy Vehm, FORMS, & NT Fan (the only ones not on that release). Since the release of Book of Horizons the satellite bands have seen several releases of their own.

Really, the Secret Chiefs 3 is a blanket name for various incarnations of the band that make use of more specific aesthetics from Middle Eastern-flavored experimental music, death metal, soundscaping, whatever else emanates from the minds of Spruance & his numerous collaborators.

This could go on for a mighty long time but I don't have it in me right now. After all these years, I just want to feature some of the great weirdness. Here's a qoute from Mark Prindle that I've always taken guidance from...
     "Secret Chiefs 3 began life as Mr. Bungle without the singer, whose name I can't remember I think it was Mick P or something. Trey "Mr. Guitar" Spruance, Trevor "Johnny Bassman" Dunn and Danny "Lil' Danny Drums-So-Plenty" Heifetz began the band in earnest good times fun, but it quickly evolved into a multi-musicianed disease determined to piece together some of the wickedest-ass Middle Eastern music around, then Americanize it with guitar lines of surf/spy, spaghetti western and heavy metal persuasions, and top the capper off with the most inappropriate (and noisy!) production decisions that the Straight Man's world has ever known. They also fill their CD booklets with all this weirdo Arabic CRAP and Sufi SHIT and mysticism DIARRHEA, and I don't understand hide nor hair of it so you'll have to go to Foreigner School or some ASS like that to figure out what the HECK they're trying to prove. But Mister, if you're "all about" Eastern tunings, Secret Chiefs 3 are your man!

     Now I'll warn you right now that I Don't Know JackTM about the musics of the world so for all I know there are a bazillion "genuine" outfits out there on that other part of the planet that play this stuff a hundred times better. However, until those dusty old genuine groups start recruiting members of today's hottest alternative acts like Mr. Bungle and Natalie Imbruglia, they'd might as well just call it a day because there ain't nobody listenin'. Thanks for trying, musicians of Turkey, Morocco and India, but if you don't have Paul Simon or Peter Gabriel in your band, you'd might as well just shut your ass. We hear the phone ringing, but we're not pickin' up!"

Mark Prindle from Mark's Record Reviews. He does a fantastic work explaining (?) each release from this band, so check it out...

Take this ride to the last song, you'll know what the SECRET is..."White as They Come" yeehaw!

Secret Chiefs 3 - First Grand Constitution & Bylaws, Amarillo Records ACM-003, 1996.

all decryption codes in comments

Ana'l Haqq   
Adept Chamber of the Magian Tavern - Altar to the Master Chief
Inn of 3 Doors   
Breeze of Dawn, Death's Angel   
Assassin's Blade   
Bare-Faced Bazi   
Crossroads Through Crosshairs
Borderland   
Borderland   
Killing of Kings   
Celestial Ship of the Corsairs   
Pointed &bWeighty Arguments   
Zulkifar   
The Qa'im Deliberates   
Drunk at the Gates   
Resurrection Day Soundtrack : Hot Pursuit in Eagles' Nest
From Night the Morning Draught of Wine
Crosswinds   
Borderland   
White as They Come

 

 

 

 

Look out to the horizon(s), you Boxleitners... 

 

Secret Chiefs 3 - Book of Horizons, Web of Mimicry WoM 014, 2004.

The End Times - FORMS   
The 4 (The Great Ishraqi Sun) - Ishraqiyun   
The Indestructible Drop - Traditionalists   
Exterminating Angel - Holy Vehm   
The Owl in Daylight - FORMS
The Exile - Traditionalists   
On the Wings of the Haoma - The Electromagnetic Azoth   
Book T: Exodus (composed by Ernest Gold) - UR
Hypostasis of the Archons - Holy Vehm   
The Electrotheonic Grail Dove - Traditionalists   
The 3 (Afghan Song composer unknown) - Ishraqiyun   
DJ Revisionist - The Electromagnetic Azoth   
Anthropomorphosis: Boxleitner - UR   
Welcome to the Theatron Animatronique - FORMS

 

 

 

   

Four-pack of 7"ers from 2007...

The Electromagnetic Azoth / UR – The Left Hand Of Nothingness / Personnae: Halloween 7", 

Web of Mimicry WoM 029, 2007

Side A -
The Left Hand of Nothingness - The Electromagnetic Azoth
Side B -
Personnae: Halloween - UR

 

 

 

 

Ishraqiyun / The Electromagnetic Azoth – Balance of the 19 / UBIK 7",
Web of Mimicry WOM 030, 2007.

Non-UBIK Side -
Balance of the 19 - Ishraqiyun
UBIK Side -
UBIK - The Electromagnetic Azoth

 

 

 

 

UR - Kulturvultur / Drive 7", Web of Mimicry WoM 031, 2007.

Side A -
Kulturvultur
Side b -
Drive

 

 

 

 

UR - Circumnambulation / Labyrinth of Light 7",  Web of Mimicry WoM 032, 2007.

Side Alif -
Circumambulation
Side  Bet -
Labytinth of Light.

 

 

 

Here Traditionalists helm the soundtrack to The Severed Right Hands of the Last Men.

 

Secret Chiefs 3 & Traditionalists – Le Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomini,
Web of Mimicry WoM028, 2009.

Faith's Broken Mirror   
Sophia's Theme   
What's Wrong with Cytherea?
Mourning in Ekstasis   
He Hates Us   
Psychism 1: Cytherea's Possession   
Love Spell   
Agenda 21   
Subcutaneous Solution   
Abyss of Psychic Enchantments   
Subdermal Sequence (Nano-Correction)   
RFID Slaverider   
Dionysian Dithyramb (Eros-Seed of the Egregore)   
Zombievision   
Perfectly Reasonable   
Psychism 2: Fear is the Great Teacher   
Abolish Believers by Abolishing Belief   
Funeral for what Might Have Been (Sophia's Theme)   
Codex Alimentarius   
Putting Forth the Hand to Take   
Psychism 3: Sow the Wind, Reap the Whirlwind   
Hypnotopia (Obey Your Passion)   
Nano-Correction / Human Migrations / Faith Realizes
Chapel by the Sea (A Heart that is Broken & Humbled...)   
The Strength to Sever   
Baby Hedone (Harvest of the Egregore)   
Zombievision 2012   
The Great Die Off (He Mocks Us All)
Cytherea's Awakening / Martyrdom at Romiou Point / Return to the Foam
To Love God is Sweeter than Life (Sophia's Theme)

Chew into this (un)timely bite,
NØ