Exclusive Track + Video Premiere: Gematria’s “Star Death”

‘Gematria’: it’s not just a word Slipknot made up! It is, in fact, a Kabbalistic method of assigning numeric values to letters in the Hebrew alphabet, and then using those values to interpret the Torah mathematically. It’s fascinating stuff; on a Venn diagram of math and mysticism, it would fall dead in the middle. (It’s very well explained this scene from the movie π).

So imagine, for a moment, what it might be like to use gematria to compose music. Now imagine using gematria and the writings of Aleister Crowley to help generate rhythmic and melodic ideas. You would expect to end up with something wholly singular and totally bugnuts fucking crazy in the best possible way, right? Right!

Ladies and germs, we give you Gematria, the new project from Ray Suhy (Six Feet Under, Cannabis Corpse, ex-East of the Wall) and Steve Honoshowsky (Daughter Vision, Billy Martin’s Fang Percussion, No Use For Humans). Writing about music, the saying goes, is like dancing about architecture… but rarely has music defied description quite the way Gematria’s material does. It’s… gothic, progressive electro-mathgaze-jazzcore? That’s the best we can do. Really, you have to just check it out for yourself.

Which you can do right here, right now, via the video for the song “Star Death”! We guarantee it is the most thought-provoking, unique thing you will hear today. And probably this week. And likely this month. Very possibly this year.

Says Honoshowsky about the track:

“The concept I used to compose this song is that the death of the star is a new beginning (in this case, that’s the last section, or outro section, of the song). The sections leading up to it are composed of four melodies that cycle through three times. This is the number 21. When two and one vibrate, a new beginning is born.”

Adds Suhy:

“Steve sent me this track to work on guitar parts for and I was blown away. I was immediately intrigued by the swirling synths and ominous bassline. My idea for this track was to have it build from acoustic guitar to full blown octave fuzz mayhem. What I love about playing over Steve’s tracks is that they’re so open and allow me to go in any direction that I want.”

Enjoy “Star Death” below. The track will appear on Gematria’s self-titled debut EP, which Nefarious Industries will release on all digital platforms and limited CD on October 19. Find preorders at the label webshop here and Bandcamp here!