Premiere: Circle of Sighs’ Full Concert Film Blends Black Metal and Free Jazz for an Utterly Unique Experience

When you woke up this morning, I bet you didn’t expect to see the phrases “krautrock,” “free jazz,” and “black metal” all in the same MetalSucks story, but here we are. Occult-themed synth-doom outfit Circle of Sighs have shared a full 30-minute concert video that’s equal parts musical experimentation and avant-garde theater production.

Titled “Circle of Sighs Performs an Incantation,” the clip below shows just how out there the band is, while still sounding coherent.

Electric upright bass player Collyn McCoy describes the new live album and concert video as a natural evolution of what the band’s been doing since its inception.

“Circle of Sighs Performs an Invocation captures the first time this piece was performed live in front of an audience, on May 6, 2022. Since that time the musical component of the piece has evolved as we’ve gotten more familiar with the story we were trying to tell, but also due to lineup changes and expanded instrumentation.

“The visual component of the piece has evolved as well.  In addition to the mimes we now have two jugglers and a Butoh dancer in the kollektiv. And owing to having our own expansive idea space — Suspirium — we’ve built sets and developed projection-mapped animations, puppetry, and miniatures custom-built by our lead mime and resident AV artist, Chris Soohoo. There will be further performances announced soon, but we try to stay low-key about it, so folks will have to follow us on social media and message us privately to find out the details.”

So be sure to sit back and relax as you let this 30 minute voyage take you places you haven’t been.