A-Sun Amissa – Ceremony in the Stillness

Album number four from Richard Knox’s ever-evolving instrumental project is a statuesque and foreboding work. Knox, head honcho of Glossop-based Gizeh Records, ensures that Ceremony in the Stillness remains true to his label’s manifesto: ‘The noise of harmony and the harmony of noise.’ Skinny readers will know him primarily as one half of Shield Patterns, though here he takes the creative lead.

Aided by a set of select collaborators (most notably Jo Quail, whose cello is as vital here as it was on Poppy Ackroyd’s recent, excellent Resolve), the likes of The Black Path and the bruising Remembrancer weld Knox’s guitar to a soundscape rooted in post-rock and drone. Deft programming ensures the six-track sequence emerges as a satisfying whole. A vision pure and uncompromising; a blackness illuminating and refined; a statement of intent that works noise, texture and atmosphere with care and precision: Ceremony in the Stillness is beautiful and brutalising. There is nothing to fear here.

Listen to: The Black Path, Remembrancer