Endura (band)

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Endura
General information
origin Great Britain
Genre (s) Dark ambient
founding 1993
resolution 2001
Last occupation
Stephen Pennick
Singing, synthesizer, sequencer
 Christopher Walton

Endura (occasionally spelled Endvra ) was a dark ambient project founded in 1993 as AbRAXAS .

history

Stephen Pennick and Christopher Walton met in 1993. Pennick contacted Walton of the Industrial - Fanzine Wisconsin Death Trip published. After both of them arranged a first meeting and discovered various similarities, the first recordings were made in Pennick's private recording studio. After the release of the first album Witch , Pennick and Walton changed the name from AbRAXAS to Endura, based on the fasting examination time of the Cathars . According to Walton, ritual fasting contained shamanic , druidic and gnostic elements, to which the group wanted to refer to by the name.

"The purpose of the ritual was to test the person, toughen them up, and strengthen them spiritually and physically to ensure they were ready to receive the consolamentum , the sacrament that the Cathars initiated in the priesthood."

- Chris Walton

Over the years of their activity, the duo did not enter into a permanent contract with a label as a publishing partner and cooperated with various independent labels such as Red Stream , Aesthetic Death Records or Elfenblut . Some of the group's albums were only released as cassettes on appropriate tape labels. After the private lives of both musicians increasingly took up more space, the duo stopped their joint activities in 2001, but granted the possibility of a reanimation of the project. Pennick has also sporadically maintained the side project Ontario Blue since 1996 . Walton, however, appeared as TenHornedBeast with several publications.

style

Endura are usually referred to as interpreters of the dark ambient and ritual . Walton and Pennick make sure not to limit themselves to a specific style. The music is generated as a sound collage using samplers , synthesizers and sequencers. The duo arranges the music as a sound collage with constant use of headphones and recommends an appropriate use for the consumption of the music. Reviewers describe Endura's publications as "slow compositions full of distant noise, choirs, voices and spoken magic," and as a "soundtrack to a wacky art film [.]" Some of the sound collages consist of noise and drone that are occasionally interrupted by voices reciting. In other pieces, "[z] arte flute melodies [...] alternate with ominous screeching from metallic objects [or] deep didgeridoo sounds [...] complement each other with the twittering of birds and scraps of words spoken by the two artists."

content

Walton cites the work HP Lovecraft as well as occultism and mysticism as lyrical and conceptual influencing factors , in particular Gnosis , Mithraism and Magick can be found in the music and texts of Endura. Walton came through the preoccupation with Aleister Crowley and Thelema to the view, which he described as Gnostic, that the final task of preoccupation with Magick is a conscious lifestyle. Accordingly, Endura's texts often refer to Thelema and Mithraism, but also refer to Walton's own views on a conscious lifestyle.

In a similar context, the duo deals with HP Lovecraft, whose work Walton regards as “subjective reality in the psycho-magickal microcosm of Magick.” This is how Walton sees Lovecraft's work on a boundary between “ reality and surreality, on which entities of the inner and inner of outer space in a way that our worldly minds can understand. ”He also honors Lovecraft's ability to persist in creating and“ evoking a strange atmosphere. ”

Discography

  • 1994: Witch (MC album, released as Abraxas, Enlightenment Communications )
  • 1994: Dreams Of Dark Waters (Album, Nature & Art )
  • 1995: Dark Projections From An Ancient Nature (MC album, Psychotic Reactions )
  • 1996: The Dark Is Light Enough (Album, Allegoria)
  • 1996: Liber Leviathan (album, Aesthetic Death Records)
  • 1996: Black Eden (album, Red Stream)
  • 1996: Ard Inn Ar (MC compilation, Old Europa Cafe )
  • 1997: Great God Pan (album, Elfenblut)
  • 1998: The Watcher (Album, Red Stream)
  • 1998: Biomechanical Soul Journey (Single, Power & Steel )
  • 1999: Elder Signs (Compilation, Red Stream)
  • 2001: Great Pan Is Dead (Single, Alu Recordings )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Troy Southgate: Christopher Walton of ENDURA. rosenoire.org, archived from the original on March 9, 2005 ; accessed on December 12, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Endura. Oocities, accessed December 12, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Chad Hensley: An Interview with Endura. Esoterra, accessed on December 13, 2016 : "The purpose of the ritual was to test the person, to harden him and strengthen him, mentally and physically, to ensure the candidate was ready to take the Consolamentum, the sacrament that initiated the Cathar to the priesthood. "
  4. ^ A b c Chad Hensley: An Interview with Endura. Esoterra, accessed December 13, 2016 .
  5. ↑ a b Endura: The Dark is Light Enough. Industrial Reviews, accessed December 13, 2016 .
  6. ↑ a b Petra Schurer: Endura: Elder Signs. Eternity Magazine, accessed December 13, 2016 .