Fam Al-Haut started in Brooklyn in 1991, and was composed of lead singer and guitarist Nick Bolton, bassist Charles L'Eglise, second guitarist and exotic instruments expert Didier L'Eglise, keyboardist Samuel Albright, violinist D.I. Hawthorn, and drummer Lauren Voigt. Inspired by the bombastic, quasi-gothic, mystical stylings of Coil, the vicious, unrelenting, hypnotic, visceral approach of early Swans, the surreal, sweeping, all-enveloping form of early King Crimson, and the Dadaist, left-field electronics of Nurse with Wound. They knew their goal. They knew their music. But could they play? 

Yes.

Their menacing debut EP, I'll Kill You All If I Don't Get A Little Peace And Quiet!, was an indie smash hit among the post-industrial crowd. Polaris appealed to fans of dark ambient, the eponymous opus being a Harry Patch-like epic instrumental. Black Mandala, composed of three very long tracks, has much in common with Current 93, and, due to the band's following of Coil, may be intentionally so. In the Service of Murmur's "Iron and Steele" and "The Masochist" are avant-garde pieces on par with the best of modern industrial, while "The Philosopher's Stone" echoes Coil's Horse Rotorvator, and the title track, a twenty-minute giant of a track, is Fam Al-Haut's abbreviated answer to Mirror's Die Spieglmanufaktur.

And none but their idols Swans in the notorious Young God EP could even approach the terrible power of the noise anthem "Decadence". And then there's the Mythos. Of all their tracks, only "The Singer from Dhol" is an oblique reference. But subtlety is a good policy. "Time's Court" is a nod to the timeless halls of Tawil At'Umr. "A Nihilio, Ex Oblivione" contains an excerpt from Cynothoglys. And the dreamlike "Render of Veils" needs no introduction to scholars of arcane lore.

Excepting "The Singer from Dhol" in its full form, only two tracks even come close to real Mythos terror:

• "Chorazaim" is a Crowleyan dirge with the Dee Necronomicon's section on Cthulhu reverted to a nonsensical "Enochian" format; and
  
• "Black Mandala", the most dangerous of all, contains a lengthy excerpt from the untranslated Dhol Chants, with the final section having several verses from U Pao's "Black Sutra".
  

Why the references? The L'Eglise brothers. These sullen French heartthrobs were the worthy inheritors of the family bookstore. They found some of these tomes at auction. Others were in their basement. The L'Eglises are not, however, dangerous sorcerors. They are simply well-educated dabblers in the occult who use their explorations in the world of the arcane as inspiration. Nothing more, nothing less. However, if in the hands of a devious sorceror, a rare four-part version of the Black Mandala B-side could be even more valuable than a translation of Dhol Chants itself...


Study Time: "Black Mandala", in its regular version, is around 30 minutes, while the rare 333-copy amber vinyl version is at least 38 minutes. Part one of "The Singer from Dhol" is a good 16, while part two is 22. "Chorazaim" is only 9 minutes. However, even with the lyrics, it will take a Listen check, Burmese ("Mandala"), French ("Singer, Pt. 1"), German ("Singer, Pt. 2"), and a Cryptography or Invented Language (Enochian) check ("Chorazaim").

SAN Loss: To simply listen to the abbreviated "Mandala", 0/1D3; "Singer", both parts, 0/1D2; "Chorazaim", 0/1; Complete "Mandala", 1/1D4; To decipher "Singer", 1D2/1D4; "Mandala", Short, 1D3/2D3; "Mandala", Long, 1D4/2D4; "Chorazaim", 1D4/1D6+1.

Spells: Only on "Mandala"; See Dhol Chants

C.M.: To listen to and decipher all, +18


"The Singer from Dhol, Pt. 1" on Polaris, "The Singer from Dhol, Pt. 2" and "Black Mandala, Parts 1-3" on Black Mandala, and "Aethyrs III (Chorazaim)" from Deus Ex Machina.