199: Zero Kama // Zero Kama
Zero Kama Zero Kama 2020, Infinite Fog (Bandcamp)
“I followed the hint of a friend who had told me about a charnel house in the countryside, which could easily be entered in order to find the desired raw materials for my instruments. So I went there and took what I needed: about nine skulls and a huge number of different kinds of bones, from small fingers and toe bones up to arm and thighbones, which I thought could serve the various purposes I had in mind…. My already strange feeling became even stronger when I arrived in my apartment and unpacked my bags, so that finally the remains of let’s say some dozens of human beings were lying around. Some of the skulls still had hair on top, which resembled moss, and there was quite a ghostly atmosphere in the room, which gave me the strong impression that these bones were not simply raw material without any life in them, but that there were still remnants of consciousness connected to these bones, which I had set free by my disrespectful intervention. Another almost unbearable feature was the disgusting smell when sawing the bones… None of which I had expected, but I found myself at a point of no return, so that I could only finish what I had started. In fact, I realized that I really had transgressed fundamental borders both in a general human and personal psychic regard, and that there was no way back at all.” — Zoe DeWitt (Zero Kama)
Originally released on cassette in 1984, Zero Kama’s The Secret Eye of L.A.Y.L.A.H. (Nekrophile Records) is one of the most notorious records to emerge from the first waves of industrial and dark ambient music (e.g. Throbbing Gristle, Coil, Nurse With Wound), less for its sonic profile than for the fact that it was recorded using instruments fashioned from stolen human bones. Zoe DeWitt, the Austrian artist and graverobber behind the project, was a devotee of Genesis P-Orridge’s Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth, an occult collective dedicated to chaos magic and experimental art. DeWitt conceived of L.A.Y.L.A.H. as a magical working, with its distinctive Eye insignia, song titles, and even date of recording designed according to obscure numerological principles, though I’m not sure she has ever disclosed the intention of the spell beyond a will to spooky power and a Crowleyan passion for inversion.
There is some precedent for instruments fashioned from human bone—for centuries, the Tibetan kangling (translated as “leg flute” or sometimes “thigh trumpet”) has been used in chöd practice to summon hungry spirits, and DeWitt was familiar with it thanks to its use on Psychic TV’s Dreams Less Sweet. DeWitt’s instruments are unique however, including a variety of rudimentary flutes and wind instruments using the longer bones; drums created by stretching sheepskin over sawn-open skullcaps; a thighbone xylophone; and a pair of rattles made from inserting loose fingerbones into two skulls. DeWitt claims L.A.Y.L.A.H. was made exclusively with these instruments, though she also used tape effects to stretch and distort the wind instruments and to create percussion loops.
Examples of DeWitt's instruments, courtesy of the artist's website.
A bone flute.
Though there is some sinister-sounding moaning and lamenting to be found within, The Secret Eye of L.A.Y.L.A.H. is a more subtle, reserved affair than you might expect from an album I consistently introduce to friends by howling IT’S MADE OF BOOOOOONNNNESSSS. There is something truly unsettling about the gnarly rattling sounds on “Atavism Dream” even if you don’t know their source, but the track’s chirping wind sounds and peppy hand drumming might conjure imagery of a jungle bird sanctuary or a medicine ceremony. As with a lot of Aleister Crowley-influenced occultism, beneath its transgressive aesthetics L.A.Y.L.A.H. ultimately has a relatively positive, humanist intent. DeWitt isn’t trying to scare the bejeezus out of the listener, but rather to create a soundtrack for deep ritual work and/or fucking, which are indivisible in Thelemic practice. I would imagine spending a few weeks sawing human bones would enforce a degree of solemnity, and the record has the flavour of intense concentration. Creating instruments out of remains can be seen as a mordant spectacle, or an instance of bees making honey in a lion’s skull—in my estimation L.A.Y.L.A.H. has something of both, though DeWitt clearly did not set out to make something cheap.
In the years since its original release The Secret Eye of L.A.Y.L.A.H. has been more talked about than heard despite a handful of reissues, but within dark and ritual ambient circles it has a strong reputation. In 2020 Austrian label Infinite Fog released the Zero Kama box set, which packages together the original LP with a collection of pre- and post-L.A.Y.L.A.H. compilation tracks (The Goatherd and the Beast), a radio interview, and Live in Arnheim, a recording of the second and last Zero Kama performance during the project’s original lifespan. (DeWitt returned to the project in 2022 for a show in New York City.)
Both additions to the Zero Kama story are of interest. The Goatherd and the Beast finds DeWitt both developing the Zero Kama style and wrestling with its boundaries. On 1983’s “V.V.V.V.V.,” a lengthy dirge and the earliest track to utilize the bone instruments, we can see how quickly DeWitt found her voice with the project (though it is murkier and more lo-fi than similar L.A.Y.L.A.H. tracks like “Death Posture”). That’s a testament to the clarity of her vision, but also to how limiting using the instruments could be; DeWitt herself notes in a retrospective interview included with the set that she never felt she was able to meaningfully expand upon what she’d done with the initial LP. But the 1985–86 tracks nonetheless find her making interesting bargains with a strict muse. DeWitt collaborates with other musicians and incorporates non-bone bass, guitar, and even some cranky vocals. The rhythms are more industrial, and the result hews closer to something like 23 Skidoo’s “urban gamelan” sound. They’re good, but you get the sense DeWitt is moving towards a sound that would be more aptly realized as a new project.
The prize of the set however is the Live in Arnheim performance. Many L.A.Y.L.A.H. listeners are disappointed that it’s not nearly as twisted-sounding as its reputation suggests, but the Arnheim set might win even the skeptical over. Recorded as a four-piece with a pair of percussionists and regular collaborator Muki Pakesch on guitar and tape manipulations, the live iteration of Zero Kama has a chaotic edge and some muscle behind it. DeWitt howls the words of the occult “Quabalistic Cross” and “Prayer of Zos” like a post-punk frontperson, while “Seven Nights of the Tantra” and the battering “Pygmy Dance” work themselves into a visionary lather. “The Call of the Aethyrs” introduces discordant violins over a chorus of lamenting voices, tormented screams, and those ubiquitous skull drums. It’s pretty fucking goth! Live at Arnheim ends with a lengthy synthesized recording of a Latin mass, which the liners note was the soundtrack to “a BDSM performance involving animal blood.”
Between the original LP and Arnheim, you end up with two extremes of the whole bone music concept: a meditative, more-or-less respectful private ceremony, and a fright-wigged, blood-soaked exercise in public hedonism. Whether you regard DeWitt’s instruments as gruesome toys or the sacred tools of an occultist, they exert an undeniable fascination. The Zero Kama box satisfies both perspectives, and makes for great listening as we enter the seasons of outer darkness.
199/365