Five years ago Alex Bertram-Powell, illustrator, game maker, and organ and synth player of Bristol prog band ANTA, dropped me a DM on Twitter. In that DM was a link to a rough mix of an as-yet-untitled album of as-yet-untitled, and absolutely brilliant, instrumental prog tracks written by Antoni Maiovvi and performed by ANTA. Alex asked me if I’d be interested in writing something to go with the record. I said yes.
Originally it was going to be part prose, part comic, with Alex and Luke Oram (who recently collaborated with WALLOWING on their Planet Loss Graphic Novella) on art duties. As things progressed, however, the project evolved into a straight(ish) novelette.
Listening to the tracks over and over again, I tried to find a way for what happened in the text to synch up with the changes in the music. I ended up making second by second notes on each song and working out how many words I could fit in between points A and B. I realised that 33.3 words per minute worked perfectly for the kind of urgent, not quite read-out-loud, but not silently speed read, pace I was looking for. 33 1⁄3, of course, also being the number of revolutions per minute the vinyl LP of Church of the Second Sun spins at. I went a bit mad with it in the end, to be perfectly honest.
Church of the Second Sun was the name I gave to the story. Each of the six tracks on the record were the chapters, so I gave each of those titles too. The record sounded, to me, like the soundtrack to a late 70s / early 80s sci-fi horror I’d lied about my age to rent from a corner-shop video club, or caught re-run late night on some satellite channel in the early 90s. Something Dan O’Bannon probably wrote at least one version of the screenplay for, and which was some strange European/American co-production with two or three alternate titles. I let the ‘soundtrack’ dictate the story, based on those vague ideas. Excavated it from beneath visualised layers of satellite interference, VHS degradation, and static, and wrote a paperback novelisation of it.
500 copies of the novelette have been published to accompany the 500 vinyl LPs of Church of the Second Sun available to order now in the Mondo shop (shipping May 2021).
Antoni Maiovvi returns to Death Waltz Originals in collaboration with Anta, and together they have created a psyche-heavy prog synth monster. Wearing its ’70s influences firmly on its sleeve but keeping its toes in 2021, it’s a blistering record, imagine a mix of Goblin, Black Sabbath & Beyond The Black Rainbow, and you’ll be halfway to understanding the enormity of this incredible record. The album features a 16-page story that can be read alongside the album creating a piece of art you can fully immerse yourself in whilst listening. LISTEN HERE
ANTONI MAIOVVI & ANTA – CHURCH OF THE SECOND SUN (DEATH WALTZ ORIGINALS).
LP Pressed on 180 Gram Purple & Gold vortex vinyl. Featuring a 16-page original story by John Reppion and a download of the entire LP. $25
Note: This item ships May 2021
Order now at mondoshop.com
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