"Don't be scared by death," Alice Kundalini calmly instructs at the beginning of her collaborative Grimorian Tapes with partner Luca Sigurta. Her words slithers from her lips with a subtle, sinister unease, compounded by the unsettling quality of her whisper. The fear of death, this most profound condition, has long been a subject of philosophical, spiritual, and existential inquiry. To fear death is undeniably human; to transcend that fear is often seen as reaching a higher plane of existence. At least, that's the intention behind the rituals, the spells woven into the fabric of The Grimorian Tapes.
Industrial culture has historically turned to personal ritual, obscure texts, gnostic scriptures, and heretical thought as a means of detaching itself from the corruption of hegemonic Western culture. The Italian death industrial duo of Alice Kundalini (aka She Spread Sorrow) and Luca Sigurta present The Grimorian Tapes as part of this tradition, drawing from a lineage of artists such as Coil, Psychic TV, Current 93, Cranioclast, and Metgumbnerbone. The arrangements manifest out of crumbled tape loops, disconcerting tone-bent half-melodies, and creaking utterances that might not be out of place at a Fox Sisters séance. Throughout, Kundalini’s vocals shift from eerie whispers to guttural incantations to extended technique chanting, all intensifying the otherworldly atmosphere.
Drawing inspiration from The Black Pullet, an 18th-century French grimoire filled with instructions for making talismans and magical artifacts, Kundalini weaves her own take on the book's esoteric themes into the shadowy tape loops that comprise The Grimorian Tapes. The Black Pullet is a detailed guide into alchemy, divination, and occult practices, with a particular focus on harnessing hidden forces through the construction of specific objects imbued with magical power. Though Kundalini doesn’t practice these rituals per se, she she finds a deep, poetic resonance with these ancient teachings. The allure isn’t in the performative aspect of these rituals but in the seductive power of its symbols and ideas, which speak to a long-forgotten language of metaphysical mystery. It’s this sense of transmutation, hidden knowledge, and occult wisdom that lends The Grimorian Tapes its dark, ritualistic intensity.
