The Pherenike

I finally managed to get to St. Etheldreda's church in the heart of London. The church houses a wooden sculpture depicting St. Peter holding a veronica of Christ. The Alchemist Fulcanelli, in "Dwelling Of The Philosophers," discusses this very statue and its hermetic meaning. The Pherenike is a baffling conundrum: the Christian reading is that it is the remnant of a cloth used to bathe Christ's face  - an acephalic turin shroud. But there are obviously allusions to the cult of the severed head and stranger still - Christ's thorns more resemble the coiling serpent hair of the Medusa.

I'll be exploring this mystery and much more in the forthcoming release "The Underworld Service". "The Underworld Service" extends and extrapolates some of the ideas set out in the "Weekend Other World" event last April. "The Underworld Service" pitches some Melvyn Bragg like culture vulture deep in Hades - what I term sepul-culture. Over the last two years I've been visiting and recording at a wide range of venues from: Hiroshima to Blythburgh, Sizewell B, De Grey's Mausoleum, and finally St. Etheldreda's. "The Underworld Service" builds on these locations to create a concrete irrational documentary: taking the mid 70s obsession with Greek Thrillers, the atomic alchemy of Fulcanelli, Victorian Funeral customs and their cannibalistic antecedents; the potentials for misuse in the field of music thanatology; the hermetic journeys of The Haunted Shoreline; James Hillman's Revisioning Psychology and much more. Musically and thematically, "The Underworld Service" is English Heretic's most death enhancing release, covering a wide genre of styles, philosphical stoner, corpse orientated rock (where adult orientated yacht rocker's sail to); chiliasm music and many other puns.

The album will feature 8 new tracks.

The provisional track listing is:

* River Of Black Rams Blood

* The Invisible Cannon

* The Pherenike

* Inside The Mausoleum

* Under Vulcan Skies

* Why I Should Never Become A Music Thanatologist

* The Alchemist Of Saltdean

* Biscuits For The Funeral Of Mrs Oliver

I am hoping to have the release available around mid 2014.