“Robot Metal” band ELECTROMANCY have a released a video of their cover of DARKTHRONE‘s “Transilvanian Hunger” via Terra Relicta. The song is from the upcoming EP “Robot Black Metal” which will be out in April. Make sure to give it a listen below!
Composed by a human, performed by actual robots, ELECTROMANCY redefines the primitive notions of “futuristic”. After struggling with chronic illness, composer Satyra became too disabled to continue to play instruments. Rather than give in, Satyra began building custom robots to play the instruments and unleash their music. The result is an unearthly black metal sound, impossible to replicate by mere humans.
In 2018 Satyra was diagnosed with Lyme disease and quickly became too disabled to play instruments anymore. Instead of giving up, he spent the next two years slowly building robots to play instruments. The result is ELECTROMANCY, the robot metal band. Guitars and drums are played by Satyra’s own DIY robotic designs; their bandmates are manikins, cut up into LED fueled light shows.
Satyra states: “After two slow years of building robot instruments in the face of severe chronic illness, I am so grateful to make it to the point where I am releasing music from my robots. I hope people enjoy this cover and especially enjoy the music video. Keep your eyes out for a ton of original music to follow shortly, and follow along with the crazy story of disability and robot metal.”
ELECTROMANCY’s music is primarily black metal with bits of death metal and experimentalism. The robots aren’t a gimmick, they are core to the sound, allowing textures, patterns, and compositions that are not natural to and sometimes not possible for a human musician. Some of these compositional eccentricities include phasing multiple rhythmic melodies on a single instrument and simply extremely fast and chaotic composition. In addition to the robots, Satyra fills the bass frequencies with a drone horn made from a modified PVC pipe (the resulting instrument is similar to but not quite the same as a didgeridoo). This full, enveloping bass sound creates a grounded floor for the otherwise chaotic music.
