Terence Hannum Embraces Unholy Abstraction in the Disorienting Video for "Further Desecrations"

Terence Hannum—the Baltimore based musician and visual artist—may be best known as one-third of the experimental metal contortionists in Locrian, but his work outside that band over the last few years has offered a steady stream more quiet, contemplative pleasures. Since 2010, he's released a series of cassettes and LPs for avant institutions like Shelter Press and Utech Records and earlier this month he joined up with the Mexico-based label Umor Rex for Impiety, a tape of what he calls "unholy sacred music."

Today, he's sharing a video for "Further Desecrations"—one of the cassette's best collection of greyscale, loping vocal drones. The track's a pretty good indicator of the sort of unsettling stuff that happens throughout the record. Hannum's voice, looping over itself, twists and wraps around itself in a dizzying collection of abstract chants, distant breathwork, and the anxious pulse of a kick drum.

It's portentous stuff, and all the more so when paired with the visual, directed by artist Nicol Eltzroth Rosendorf. Set in a monochromatic, austere church-like space—replete with rows of pews—abstract lights and shapes dance around erratically until physics-based chaos unfolds, calling into question the laws and assumptions that govern these sorts of locales. It's uneasy, but beautiful piece—sorta like the song itself. The physical version of Impiety is already sold out but you can stream or download the whole thing over at Bandcamp.

If you're into this sorta thing, it's probably also worth checking the rest of the tapes that Umor Rex released on March 3, including Mukqs' collagist live jam
ダメ人間, Missing Organs' otherworldly travelogue Old Speakers, and Thé Déluge's dimly lit instrumental work Forest Structures.