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Bleak Magician - No Fireball Show

About

As Bleak as a Bleak Magician

Bleak Magician is a band from Baltimore, Maryland. The founding members are Srogi Mroczek, Weirding Batweilder, and Dirt Boucher. Their homegrown debut full-length How the Disappearance Appeared to Us was released digitally and on limited edition cassette on 06 December 2024. Release details regarding the full-length follow up No Fireball Show are currently sketchy.

Background

Srogi and Weirding are brothers. They worked together starting in 2019 — with Srogi as audio engineer and Weirding as songwriter — on albums by the avant-metal band Bornwithhair and again on two full-length releases by the vampiric black metal project Vinterdracul. Srogi and Dirt play together in Mephistophilizer — something of a latter day homage to the Neat Records catalog. The trio started working together as Bleak Musician in late 2023 after the long and unexplained sudden disappearance of Batweilder.

"He vanished during the PR campaign of the second of what had been planned as three full-length Vinterdracul albums about movie-vampires," said Srogi. "He turns up again over a year later — in fact, he turns up on what turns out to be the first day of tracking for this first Bleak Magician album."

Batweilder is characteristically circumspect in regard to any discussion of his disappearance or re-emergence. Rather he shifts the conversation to the new music: "This is Srogi's thing," he said. "There is enough to talk about with this here music without getting caught up in what's bygone."

Bleak Magician's sound is informed by the brothers' songwriting and recording techniques. "We map everything out on synthesizers," said Weirding. "Then we go in with guitars and drums and start to destroy everything."

Despite (or on account of) that creative destruction, the end result is the closest the brothers have ever come to writing hits.

"It's pretty kinda accessible, I guess," said Boucher. "I mean, some of Weirding's other stuff is like way out there — like 15 minute songs full of noise and these weird minimalist drum machines and these disembodied voices and out-of-tune things going on. With this new stuff, like, I don't think there is a song longer than three minutes and there are like actual verses and choruses. I mean, it's like rock music."

"I don't remember how we ever decided to work together on projects," said Srogi, "We just started doing it. And it's not like this is something we always did. Despite being brothers, we spent the majority of our lives ignoring one another."

Their music has not been ignored... at least not by the underground community. Print and online press for the brothers' prior work has included schrift in Decibel, Viking's Choice, Valley of Steel, MetalSucks, Astral Noize, No Clean Singing, Doomed and Gloomed, Dead Rhetoric, Sleeping Village, and more. In regard to the 2020 release of Smole​ń​ska — one of the brothers' productions co-written by regular collaborator and multi-instrumentalist Jean Farraige — Everything Is Noise raved that "The musicianship and composition is, without doubt, extremely well orchestrated. The depth and layers contain uncountable treasures, and atmospherically, it is as deep and explosive a plummet into the human psyche as one can hope for."

Reviews

Forget the bollocks of the year's best albums, this is one of the best albums I have heard in 15 years.

"Bleak Magician-How the Disappearance Appeared to Us. Now I have been blowing the trumpet today, because frankly as I have previously said-80% of the music that falls into our laps is utter shite. But the gems often blow your mind, such is the case with this classic post-punk/noise rock treasure. This ain't coming out until Dec; but as well as my deep love for mostly punk/hardcore/metal/alternative genres; this stoopid writer has a super love for oldish-sounding post-punk etc. This is unique, the production works in its favour because this reminds me of so many epic bands from decades back; be it Nick Cave in his Birthday Party costume or Alien Sex Fiend, The Cramps, Sonic Youth, Bauhaus, Christian Death, The Gun Club, even Magazine and Gang Of Four. Yes, the emotive tone and salubrious drip this record gives is phenomenal. One track may be brooding gothy post-punk with jangling riffs and morose vocals, then others have a nice amphetamine-driven wild pace at war with scathing and very acidic vocals. Often this is overlaid with wildly retro and cheap sound synthwork(my absolute favourite type of keys) and noisy affected instruments and vocals. Can I single out the main and fave tracks, nope. Because the whole 11 tracks work into an unhinged, demented and savage classic. Fuck the wankery of the Oasis brothers, this is way deeper and more seismic in a subtle and truly artistic manner by two proper musicians(who are brothers). Forget the bollocks of the year's best albums, this is one of the best albums I have heard in 15 years. Don't fuck about when this drops pre-order and support this wicked act." -- Devil's Horns Zine

Lives up to its promise.

"Smart and imaginative post-punk noise rock with lo-fi sci-fi production and gothic sensibilities. Dramatic, reverb and echo soaked vocals are surrounded with swathes of guitar and synth and set to march to relentless, plodding beats. The aesthetic and approach are definitively lo-fi but the varying layers of guitar, bass, synth and drums/drum machines, are put together with a deft touch to excellent results. The three song tease available now hints at a much larger, more fleshed out concept to come, and will leave you wanting more. (Having heard the rest, I can confirm it lives up to its promise.)" -- Other People's Music

PR Archive

Bleak Magician - How the Disappearance Appeared to Us

Visit Bandcamp for a full listen. 

How the Disappearance Appeared to Us packs eleven tracks into under 27 minutes, though not all of the songs are scorchers. In fact, there is an elegiac quality across the album that hints at the core theme of disappearance.

“After finishing the promo for the last Vinterdracul production [back in the autumn of 2022], Weirding disappeared – as in vanished,” said Mroczek. This was especially distressing as the two musicians and collaborators are brothers. “He only reappeared about seven months ago – on the same day that I started recording the new songs.”

“I got mad when Weirding left,” said Mroczek. “And then when he got back, we got into an argument and he said to me: ‘You know it’s all a gag, man!’ and that’s when it became clear what the album was going to be about.”

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Further info: 

The full album is available on Bandcamp via a private stream. 

Free review downloads are available upon request.

Note that the public pre-sale will begin on Bandcamp on 04 October 2024. Shareable links and other assets will become available to the media at that point.

This press release is going out early to accommodate for print media. There will be a follow up with more info for digital media following the opening of the pre-sale.

Please contact us regarding interviews and other engagements as well as with any questions.