#metalgazer

"Viking Spacecraft" is a track from Comets Ov Cupid’s new CD "Vril Kosmische Urkraft"

available here for purchase

 http://cometsovcupid.wordpress.com/2013/09/13/new-comets-ov-cupid-cd-vril-kosmische-urkraft-now-for-sale/

Comets Ov Cupid is a gothic space rock project by Jason Kesselring : cosmic music evoking a sense of eternal twilight with a sonic landscape of distorted voices, cosmic pulse and hazy drones. Guitar based in composition that goes from full blow metalgazer bliss out to melancholy astral folk. “Vril Kosmische Urkraft is the third release featuring 9 faustian tone poems. A descent to the middle of the earth to the outer reaches of infinity. 

"Vril Kosmische Urkraft," the third full-length effort by Comets Ov Cupid, finds rural futurist Jason Kesselring paradoxically producing his most varied and yet cohesively-focused release to date. All the sounds he has been working with for years are there, but amalgamated and paced in such a way as to make a complete Work, rather than a collection of pieces that each showcase different aspects of Jason’s considerable command of his instruments. The album begins with a heady Branca-esque spaceward-looking introductory piece before diving headfirst into the most metallic pieces of the bunch, which show a somewhat more blackened and blasted side of Kesselring’s metal leanings than previous efforts have done. These two pieces are still very atmospheric and expansive in nature however, and show a virtuosity seldom apparent in straightforward black metal while using its atmospheric nature to achieve a more cosmic end (all the while the lack of vocals on this all-instrumental album keep things from veering into caricature or pastiche of any kind). From there things follow an arc into a true Kosmische sound art form, using sonic extremes both painful and meditative to explore outer and inner spaces alike (or indeed simultaneously). Previous releases have employed the acoustic guitar as a break or interlude, but here we find the instrument used in fuller effect in a couple of longer pieces, and Jason’s Jansch-influenced playing really adds a layer of depth and scope to a part of the record’s arc that could have delved lazily into "drone" territory for too long. The album once again veers into heavier territory toward the end before going out in a haze of "Eternal Ice" at its closing.

It bears mentioning that Jason’s virtuosic command of the guitar is a means to an end and not an end in itself; throughout the record his technique is undeniable, but it is only brought to the fore with speed and volume when necessary to the whole and his playing does not ever veer into mere pyrotechnic display. Very few releases manage to combine such disparate elements as Cosmic Music, black metal, noise and acid-folk while still retaining a cohesive and total vision and purpose. A rare thing indeed. The tundra of North Dakota is indeed a fruitful place.”

A preview of a new Comets Ov Cupid track"Sleipner"  from the upcoming album "Die Kosmische Urkraft" to be release 2013

New Comets Ov Cupid Track "Mysterium Cosmographicum" 

Comets Ov Cupid – "Western Lands" (self-released 2010)

From Aural Innovations #42 (May 2011)

Minneapolis based Skye Klad evolved from a fuzzed out space rock band to a trippy, psych/folk outfit under the leadership of guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Jason Kesselring. Around the same time as their third (and last) album, Plays the Musick of Cupid's Orkustra Asleep in the Magick Powerhouse of Oz (2004), Kesselring also launched a solo project called Satyrswitch to continue to explore his interest in more acoustic sounds through folk and traditional country songs.

Perhaps a play on the name of another band Kesselring was in, Blitzen, Comets Ov Cupid is a solo project from the one time leader of Skye Klad. 2007’s Metalgazer, the Comets Ov Cupid debut EP (also sometimes just credited to Cupid) was a single 20-minute long drone/ambient/metal monster. On his latest, Western Lands, Kesselring draws on all his possible pasts but takes those sounds into exciting new directions.

Spectres Ov an Airstream Futuropolis is perhaps one of the more striking album openers I’ve heard in quite some time. It’s a sweeping, eerie and majestic ambient piece that perfectly conjures up the ghosts of some incredible city of the future that never was; the lost soundtrack to Hugo Gernsback’s vision of the shape of things to come. Kesselring then plunges headlong into blistering space rock with cuts like Starship, Babalon, Jack the Rocketman and the instrumental freak out of the title track that recall the fuzzed out rockers of the early Skyklad, but if anything, they up the distortion factor from those erstwhile days to near brain melting levels. Oddly enough though, there is something quite intimate going on here. Kesselring plays all the instruments on the album himself, and often buries the percussion and drum loops deep in the mix, which gives the music less of a band dynamic, and more of a personal feel. This is Kesselring’s journey, to be sure, but fortunately he’s invited us along for the ride. Along the way there are some ambient excursions as well, such as Wanderlust and Ever So Slowly, both deeply layered with fuzzed guitars, organic sounds and strange voices; both unique and different from each other in their own ways. Kesselring also treats us to his acoustic interests, but shies away from the folksiness of Satyrswitch in favour of something a little more esoteric, in the form of the desert blues meets Middle Eastern meditation of Raven Creates the World to the distorted finger picking of the haunting album closer, Moonshot.

Despite the presence of some truly intense space rock, there is something deeply contemplative about Western Lands. Like Metalgazer before it, that invited us to stare into the abyss, Western Lands summons you to travel across a bleak and snowy landscape towards a horizon edging upon a star-filled sky…and to whatever lies beyond. Highly recommended!

For more info, visit: http://www.cometsovcupid.com and http://www.myspace.com/cupidsong