***BACK IN STOCK!!! Listeners have come to expect a lot from Secret Chiefs 3. For Book of Souls, second in the band’s mega-trilogy (first being Book of Horizons, 2004), they demand nothing less than a vertigo-inducing follow-up. True to expectation, Book of Souls: Folio A is a full-length album densely packed with musical skyscrapers. Over a decade in the making, it’s Secret Chiefs 3’s most elaborate work yet. Following the seven-band schemata laid out in Book of Horizons, Book of Souls thoroughly establishes the depth of Secret Chiefs 3’s journey into lost musical possibilities. With productions based in studios in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, the UK and France over the last eleven years, the band’s leader Trey Spruance enlisted a small army of musicians—or actually not so small, since the orchestral tasks demanded by the music seem to be so unlimited. But familiar names in the Secret Chiefs 3 canon form the backbone of the recording band: Timb Harris, Ches Smith, Shahzad Ismaily, Anonymous 13, Danny Heifetz, William Winant, with live-band initiates Matt Lebofsky, Kenny Grohowski and Toby Driver adding extra life. This album is the kind of titanic, almost Faustian undertaking that is uniquely appropriate to Secret Chiefs 3, and for all that pomp it’s easy to forget that everything is DIY to the core. Book of Souls: Folio A is a fully organic production. Everything is honed with love in one of the last hermetically sealed laboratories, a...
CD $12.00
11/19/2013
MP3 $9.90
11/19/2013
FLAC $11.99
11/19/2013
With their long-awaited album Book of Souls due to hit the shelves this fall, Secret Chiefs 3 have chosen this moment to bring the digital world up to date on some of the clandestine (i.e. vinyl-only) activities of the SC3 "satellite bands." In 2007, a string of 7-inch records by these groups were all snatched up by fans within just over a month, leaving many potential listeners feeling a bit left out. Web of Mimicry is pleased to announce that eight tracks from UR, Ishraqiyun and Electromagnetic Azoth have made it on to Satellite Supersonic Vol. 1, and five of them are from those coveted 7-inch records! In true Secret Chiefs 3 fashion, these tracks were not just rehashed "as is" from their 2007 vinyl masters and hastily transferred to bits and bytes. Rather, for this CD release each song was given a full studio work-over in early 2010. The band, which is about to tour Eastern Europe, Turkey and Israel, originally intended this as a low-key tour release, but such new life was breathed into the tunes in the process of remixing them (some of them even having new and expanded arrangements) that the whole project deserved to be presented as something more substantial. To that end, Satellite Supersonic Vol. 1 really takes off when Secret Chiefs 3 adds a brand new, previously unreleased track to the Ishraqiyun repertoire. Yep, a new one. A killer. Also, an old UR favorite from Book of Horizons (2004) abandons the...
CD $12.00
05/25/2010
MP3 $7.92
05/25/2010
FLAC $11.99
05/25/2010
Secret Chiefs 3 have been running covert operations for twelve years now. For a band that tosses their releases out into the mirage of human civilization with little or no fanfare, it’s no wonder that Secret Chiefs 3 have remained off the music media’s radar, and have weathered innumerable musical fads without so much as a flinch. History has shown that the bulldozers will eventually come to break up cults like this, destroying their compound and seizing their weapons cache. Secret Chiefs 3 have therefore recognized the need to publicly gather some of their most universally recognizable doctrines into one affirming document. Path of Most Resistance is just such an offering to the public. Unbeknownst to too many, this music is lush, gigantic, heartfelt, and organic, and can’t be written off as mere musical gymnastics. People who may not be so geeked-out on the sophisticated hologram of ancient Pythago-quasi-Dastgah or modern western poly-tonal temperaments going on in this music, who judge things more on just whether it’s good listening or not, now have a clean welcome mat rolled out, and bodyguards to usher them past the scowling elites, past the annoying zealots, and straight to the garden where the heart of this music beats. Culled from SC3’s four main studio recordings, plus some enhanced CD bonus material (out-of-print live tracks, obscure cover versions, and two live videos), Path of Most Resistance will delight new and seasoned SC3 listeners alike.
CD $12.00
05/15/2007
MP3 $9.90
05/15/2007
*** Book of Horizons is the first release in an elaborate trilogy and meta-composition by Secret Chiefs 3. It’s huger than anything the band has ever done: beyond psychedelia, beyond experimentalism, and beyond classification. The Secret Chiefs 3 enhance their usual multiple personalities and divide into seven individual and distinct bands, enabling the overall musical content to be distilled into pure vessels. One band incorporates multi-ethnic instrumentation and seasoned, soulful playing (by Eyvind Kang and Shahzad Ismaily), while the rocking, suprasensory surf band (with full orchestra) bloodies up the waters. John Merriman (Cephalic Carnage) and Unhuman keep the ultra-death metal grind band well within the pummel zone of utter mayhem. This CD includes hordes of musicians and instrumentation — real, not sampled — including saz, rabab, mridangam, dhol, esraj, sarangi, orchestral percussion, male and female choir, violin, viola, cello and contrabass, harp, bowed saw, santur, ghatam, clavinet, organs, electroacoustic treatments, guitar, bass, drums, and tons and tons more.
CD $12.00
05/25/2004
MP3 $9.90
05/25/2004
***Descriptions of SECRET CHIEFS 3 habitually begin with the main selling point—the MR. BUNGLE tie-in—since four members from that band are involved, and who are we to flaunt convention? Though it's true that thrown-together side projects and uninspired avant-garde supergroups can attract respectable business, the SC3 is anything but one of those. An instrumental odyssey, Book M features full string sections, and assortment of Persian, Turkish and Arabic stringed instruments (played by people who actually know how!), microtonally altered synthesizers, organs, and guitars, innovative compositions and truly off-the-map production techniques. The album is deceptively focused and deliberate, making the out-of-control aspects seem perfectly natural. Even moments of violent aggression are merged with the tenderness and subtlety of the band's blatant otherworldly passions. It is a drama of dizzying complexity played out even more explicitly in the glowing artwork and textural rants of the impressive 16-page booklet. Present still are the unmistakable genius of violinist/SUN CITY GIRLS collaborator/Tzadik recording artist EYVIND KANG, percussionist WILLIAM WINANT, and MR. BUNGLE's DANNY HEIFETZ, TREVOR DUNN, BAR McKINNON, and TREY SPRUANCE. The addition of Persion/Arabic instrumental expertise of SHAMOU on darbuka, zarb, riq, and zils, and FATIMA on santur, take the SC3 to new heights far more impressive than earlier "ethnographic forgeries."
CD $12.00
09/18/2001
MP3 $9.90
09/18/2001
***BACK IN PRINT - NOW WITH BARCODE! Taking their cue from medieval esoteric Shi'ism and the Ismaili gnostics, the SC3 weave sound tapestries strangely consistent with their unorthodox worldview. The music so passionately pits itself against the banal shit-world of the Apparent, refusing to be pinned down, gentrified or co-opted into any consistent format it can't help but exude that other, more controversial side of mysticism: holy war. No mere ignorant blunder into militant experimental darkness, Secret Chiefs' music is a heroic and Herculean effort that brings real excitement into the world of sound. Go into the light! Fourteen songs recorded live at Slim's in San Francisco, 1998. Previously available as a mailorder-only item. * Recorded live at Slim's in San Francisco, 1998, this CD, previously available as a limited edition mailorder-only item, features the touring incarnation of Secret Chiefs 3: Trey Spruance, Danny Heifetz, Eyvind Kang, Bär McKinnon, Phil Franklin, and John Wayne Law. Packaged in a slim cardboard envelope
CD $9.50
05/16/2000
MP3 $9.90
05/16/2001
***A reissue of the wonder-grooving debut album from light-bringing crusaders TREVOR DUNN, DANNY HEIFITZ and TREY SPRUANCE (of MR. BUNGLE fame). Taking their cue from medieval esoteric Shi'ism and the Ismaili gnostics, THE SECRET CHIEFS 3 weave sound tapestries strangely consistent with their unorthodox worldview. The music so passionately pits itself against the banal shit-world of the Apparent, refusing to be pinned down, gentrified or co-opted into any consistent format it can't help but exude that other, more controversial side of mysticism: holy war. No mere ignorant blunder into militant experimental darkness, Secret Chiefs' music is a heroic and Herculean effort that brings real excitement into the world of sound. Go into the light! All of the awe-inducing tracks from the original released on Amarillo, now remastered and with bonus tracks.
CD $12.00
07/25/2000
MP3 $9.90
07/25/2000
***A glorious reissue of the second exquisite album from the Patton-less members of MR. BUNGLE seamlessly blends genres and themes into masterful new ideas. Elements of Islamic and Hindi "low art" film music from the '70s, modern extreme drum'n'bass, atonal surf, and ancient Western esoteric wisdom traditions are just the foundation for this dreamy and provocative music. With guests Eyvind Kang, Laura Allen, William Winant, and Paul Dal Porto. Includes all the tracks from the original release on Amarillo, now remastered with bonus tracks.
CD $12.00
07/25/2000
MP3 $9.90
07/25/2000