PRAGMAGICK PRESENTS:
AUDIOMANCY #2
CACTUS CROWN by DAKOTA SLIM
In this edition of PRAGMAGICK’s AUDIOMANCY …
THE FULL DAKOTA SLIM AUDIO SIGIL,
“CACTUS CROWN”
A CONCEPT ALBUM ABOUT LOVE & MAGICK
TRACK LIST:
As I gear up for PragMagick’s descent into VIDEOMANCY, I thought it was high-time I share my last journey within AUDIOMANCY: my conceptual “Audio Sigil” CACTUS CROWN under my musical moniker DAKOTA SLIM . All 8.5 tracks were conjured mixed sequentially then tethered together seamlessly by Mix/Master Barry Wood – You can now hear it as it was intended to be heard, in full, via PRAGMAGICK podcast’s occult sound arts sub-show; AUDIOMANCY.
It’s preferable you listen to this album on headphones, during a southwestern arroyo monsoon on horseback running from an arroyo flood. Just sayin’
It’s a culmination of my journey within Magick and Musick – as I utilized magickal methods and preternatural means to conjure this collection of weirdness. You can read more about the making of the album and my techniques here, before they’re recorded for the next editions of PRAGMAGICK presents: AUDIOMANCY:
Check out what DAKOTA SLIM has been up to since via my ZOZOBRA column:
– KEATS ROSS (4/6/19)
STAY TUNED FOR MORE AUDIOMANCY & IN-DEPTH REMARKS FROM CREATOR, KEATS ROSS
SUPPORT WE THE HALLOWED / DAKOTA SLIM VIA PATREON
PURCHASE CACTUS CROWN
CACTUS CROWN credits:
Por Mary Joon y Niña Blanca
† In memoriam: Thomas Ross Sr., John Alan Keats and Rafael Weinstein †
Created between the August 2017 Eclipse and June’s Full Moon 2018.
This album is testament to love and magick.The album’s Audiomancy and Folklore to be shared soon.
released July 17, 2018
Completed on June’s Full Moon (6/28/18),
the 8th anniversary of these 8 songs’ muse
Releases everywhere July 17 / 18, 2018Written/Performed/Engineered/Mixed by TRAVIS KEATS ROSS
~Revelator Rosz of We †he Hallowed
www.keatsross.comDuet vocals on the “COAGULA” portion of Track 7:
Mary Antoinette McKeever
of MOON DIVISION
www.soundcloud.com/moondivisionmusicAdditional Mixing and fully Mastered:
BARRY WOOD
of THE OTHER ROOM
www.otherroom.comSmall samples of “Yégènèt Muziqa” by Getatchew Mekurya appear on Track 1 and Track 7.
Sample of Alan Moore on Magick at the end of Track 5
Sample of William S. Burroughs on writing and author Henry Miller at the end of Track 6
© WE THE HALLOWED / TRAVIS KEATS ROSS / DAKOTA SLIM HYMNS 2018/2019
REVIEWS FOR CACTUS CROWN:
“A FUTURE PRIMITIVE…WINDSWEPT WALKABOUT….”
CACTUS CROWN is an authentic American-Spaghetti Western Occult album many have tried to make yet failed…instead of seeping themselves in the true subconscious that is churned and plumed from such a lust for archaic divinities.”
– Gabriel Hart of JAIL WEDDINGS
“EVERY LISTEN has a DIFFERENT DIMENSION…”
…These Eight Songs come together, in my listening experience, as a sort of meditative and forward moving ghost opening up that which is closed. The rhythms are just the right cradle between odd and familiar, the vocals are a whispering secret that can be heard voiced both in sands and alleyways.”
RUUUNE, PORTLAND NOTES – 01.02.19
MORE REVIEWS HERE
MORE ON CACTUS CROWN:
GABRIEL HART (of JAIL WEDDINGS) on CACTUS CROWN:
Imagine you’re in a record store. They’re hip enough to have an exotica section. “I like exotica,” you think to yourself… until you remember that every time you bring home one of those cool looking Arthur Lyman or Martin Denny records with the volcanoes and stormy skies and naked chicks and tiki-masked headhunters, it sounds more like something you’d hear waiting in line at Disneyland than anything remotely bona-fide savage, right?
Crickets? Give me a fucking break.
Now, imagine you bring home one of those records and it sounds exactly like the evocative cover suggests, only it also takes you deeper inland, away from the shores, where the true shadows are cast, where nothing gets in the way of the moon and silence of boot-quaking anticipation is the most notorious indigenous battle-cry until you hear the sound of…
CACTUS CROWN. An authentic American-Spaghetti Western Occult album many before Dakota Slim have tried to make yet failed because they chose the paint-by-numbers, spell-it-out-for-idiots approach instead of seeping themselves in the true subconscious that is churned and plumed from such a lust for archaic divinities. See, when you choose the former route, your destiny is a sad conduit for shoulder-shrugging idiocy rather than the reaping rewards of pure abandon, where Dakota Slim’s sense of adventure doesn’t forget to forge into his inner frontiers to whisper softly as a stalker to his prey what he has found, so long as we refrain from screaming.
Conceived during the eclipse of August 2017, Travis Keats Ross (AKA Dakota Slim), Cactus Crown began as a mere documentation of rituals he was performing around the veiling of our moon, which resulted in psychic Cupid-arrows simultaneously piercing two hearts, one of course belonging to Mr. Ross. The term “future-primitive” might apply to this unique album, as DS has managed to deploy electronics to antiquity BUT ONLY to capture an array of organic field recordings so he can play them all together like a tactile instrument. He masterfully alternates Devil-notes with more melodic cascades on his Flamenco guitar, drunkenly leading the way by candlelight, but it’s a flame that will have to be re-lit constantly through this chilling, windswept walkabout.
Euphorically disorienting pans of no-wave saxophone and mimicking organ make the path that much harder to pin on the album’s initiation “Night Thief.” The languid gallop of “Wasted Bones” slow pans across a desolate landscape, whilewrithing with nervous, toe-tapping anticipation. “The Tether” encapsulates the axis of the album’s lover ritual theme, while “Disolva y Coagula” finally brings Keats’ fairer half to the surface, a twisting, turning, oozing duet with Mary Antoinette McKeever (Moon Division), possibly the most primal offering to this altar. And for all the dark, shape-shifting features on the record, it also brings good news: Nowhere on this album will you hear any default overdriven guitar twang to get the point across, thank God!
Even beyond Keats Ross being a well-researched authority on the occult, what makes this project the product of truly hidden wisdom is the fact that this is his TENTH record, which he scoffs at any industry-pressure trappings. “It’s a culmination and complete obliteration of all the albums I’ve done,” he says, confirming this journey is just the beginning…
Gabriel Hart / July 2018
CREDITS:
† “PRAGMAGICK is A MULTI-MEDIA GRIMOIRE conjured, conducted and curated by TRAVIS KEATS ROSS (Revel Rosz) and produced through the Portland, Oregon based occult-media collective, WE THE HALLOWED. Please visit and subscribe to WETHEHALLOWED.ORG for more info
*If you’d like to support the podcast and help update some much needed text, please consider subscribing to our PATREON or make a one-time donation via PAYPAL.
† Original Theme and closing track : Instrumental version of “THE TETHER” By DAKOTA SLIM from 2018’s CACTUS CROWN
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INSTRUMENTAL REMIXES AVAILABLE VIA PATREON
† Follow PRAGMAGICK and W†H on Instagram and Twitter@PRAGMAGICK_CAST and @WETHEHALLOWED
† If you’d like to contribute material affirmations, please become a patron of W†H through PATREON (www.patreon.com/wethehallowed) or donate through PAYAPL to: sparespells@gmail.com
© WE THE HALLOWED / TRAVIS KEATS ROSS / DAKOTA SLIM HYMNS 2018
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