The sounds of Roto Visage seep into the celluloid and flicker with the moving images of what has been argued as being the first surrealist film, Antonin Artaud and Germaine Dulac’s “La Coquille et le Clergyman” (The Seashell and the Clergyman, 1928). Implementing a phantasmagorical approach towards construction, a boundless number of sound sources and arrangement techniques were fused together to create this soundtrack. Roto Visage and Kikapu would like to thank Transflux Films for providing the film footage.

“The film is so cryptic as to be almost meaningless. If there is a meaning, it is doubtless objectionable.” – British Board of Film Censors

In the most simplistic terms, The Seashell and the Clergyman concerns a clergyman who is obsessed with a general’s woman; he has strange visions of death and lust, struggling against his own eroticism. To be sure, there are established characters and a general storyline, but these are quickly forgotten by the audience as the film casts its strangely hypnotic spell.

Although accounts differ, it seems that Artaud disapproved of Dulac’s treatment of his scenario. The version of the film presented here, for lack of a better choice of words, is the “director’s cut.” When the film was originally distributed in the States, the film canisters were mixed up and the resulting sequence was not what was intended by Dulac. Most commercial versions of this film, including those found on YouTube, are of improper sequence.

Transflux Films originally commissioned Roto Visage to create the soundtrack for a version of the film that was edited in accordance to Artuad’s screenplay, though that version never materialized. Roto Visage ultimately wrote material to two different versions of the film, one of which is presented here.

Further reading

The Lost Prophet of Cinema: The Film Theory of Antonin Artaud – Senses of Cinema
La Coquille et le Clergyman – Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear
Kikapu
Transflux Films

Video

La coquille et le clergyman – 720p mp4 (mirror)
La coquille et le clergyman – 480p mp4 (mirror)

Audio

La coquille et le clergyman – 320kbps mp3 (mirror)
La coquille et le clergyman – VBR mp3 (mirror)
La coquille et le clergyman – FLAC (mirror)
download .zip archive

stream audio

Reviews & Coverage

disquiet

Roto Visage appears on Wounds of the Earth IV: Eridanus Supervoid.

Free digital release, comes in mp3 or flac format, and 10 pages of high quality artwork!

Due to expected high traffic, please download from one of the other sites if the bandcamp runs out of free downloads or is down.

Download from bandcamp || preview all / download all (mp3 or flac): here
mirror 1. archive.org || view all files: here || full release: mp3 | flac
mirror 2. full release: mp3

1. Visions – Eclipsed
2. Parhelion – Dark Star Origins
3. Nordvargr – Transmitting Emptiness
4. New Risen Throne – Orbiting Gates
5. Dahlia’s Tear – Hydrangea Wept In Emerald Lake (re-mastered)
6. Emme Ya – IV- Call Of The Hidden God
7. Coph’antae Tryr – Moem pt. 1
8. Coph’antae Tryr – Moem pt. 2
9. Psychomanteum – In The Wake Of Abeyance
10. Svartsinn – …But The Fire Burns No More
11. Worms of the Earth – Drawing The Twelve Sigils Of Set-heh
12. Roto Visage – Window Well
13. Lost Kadath – Voidum MMVII
14. Bunk Data – Angelus Rector
15. Phaenon – Cosmogeny
16. Bloodstalker – Transmission
17. Mystified – Where God Lives
18. Nors’klh – La Marche Dissonante
19. Osman Arabi – Snakes, Lizards and Shamans
20. Triangular Ascension – Post Nubila Phoebus
21. Cyasta Fractis – The Hope Is Dies Here
22. Aythis – The Ground Is Burning
23. The Earth King – Entering The Cosmic Vagina
24. Veniculture – That Is Poetry
25. Circle Six – Caina
26. Ghosts In The Clocktower – V4641 Sgr
27. Access to Arasaka – Holo
28. c.db.sn – Lost Transmission
29. Millipede – The Island Of Perelandra
30. Famine – Everyone Is Medicated (Sincere Trade remix)

Compiled by Dan Barrett for Wounds of the Earth 2011.
Artwork & mastering by Dan Barrett. Many thanks to all the amazing projects that participated in this work and all those that support Wounds of the Earth!

Now accepting orders for the new Roto Visage t-shirt! Click the above image for a detailed view of the artwork.

Two colors, plastisol ink, printed on black. Limited supplies available in small, medium, large and x-large. Amazing design by Erin Fellows.

Single orders are $13usd + shipping. Order here!
Currently we are set up using Paypal. If this is an issue for you, contact me and we’ll figure something out.

Distros, labels and parties interested in bulk orders, contact me for pricing.

Limited physical copies available for purchase: Roto Visage Store & Autumn Wind Productions.
Digital copies available for purchase: Bandcamp & iTunes.

The sounds of Roto Visage can be found on the remastered documentation of Tatsumi Hijikata’s final performance entitled “Summer Storm.” This DVD is available for purchase through Microcinema.

Ankoku Butoh (Dance of Darkness) is the avant-garde dance form born out of the devastation of post WWII Japan but also influenced by Dadaism, Surrealism and Antonin Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty. Its legendary founder, Hijikata Tatsumi, is the supreme figure in the last half-century of Japan’s experimental culture, a seminal and inspirational presence there for artists, choreographers, filmmakers, musicians and writers.

His final performance with his dancers, Summer Storm, took place in 1973 at the Westside Auditorium of Kyoto University. Three cameramen with small 8mm cameras filmed the entire performance in color, one close-up to the dancers’ faces and bodies, the second from the middle of the auditorium, and the third from the back of the hall. As with the other performances, the ghostly images of Hijikata and his dancers were outlined against a deep, engulfing darkness. The following year, Hijikata would choose to live in seclusion until his death in 1986. The celluloid images were restored in 2003 and are presented on this DVD—a first for American audiences.

The site has been given a long overdue face lift. The attention deficit disorder of our culture is proving hard to keep up with. Nonetheless, the functionality of this site has remained pretty much the same. Look around and explore. Protip: there’s tons of free music buried deep in the discography.

Have you heard “Where the Mandrakes Grow”? Unless you’ve supported us, the answer is likely no. To my knowledge, the album still has not been ripped and spread all over the internet like maple butter. Don’t forget the sounds on this page are, in part, sponsored by listeners like you. The rest of the money flows in from the stock I have in the certainty that humans are going to destroy this planet and everything on it. “Where The Mandrakes Grow” can be ordered directly from this site by contacting Roto Visage. You can also head on over to Autumn Wind Productions to support this quality label that was so kind to release the album. Finally, if you’re not into physical media, you can download the album from iTunes, guilt free in knowing that you’re not stealing bread from my table.

New soundwaves are being formed but most are a bit premature to birth. A new full length is currently under way and should be complete by the time I leave US soil… again. More multimedia driven material is on the horizon as well. Please patiently remain on standby.

A while back I collaborated with a very talented collage artist by the name of Danger. Somehow our work got buried beneath the rug here. So, I now present to you, in all it’s glory, thee art of danger + thee sounds of roto visage.

Music is dead.

Boundless Oblivion.

A new Roto Visage remix appears on Inner Vision Laboratory / Hoarfrost bonus CD. Both Hoarfrost and Inner Vision Laboratory are young projects, but it would be an understatement to call them ‘newcomers.’ They both have already released debut albums alongside numerous split releases, collaborations, web extended plays and compilation tracks. Thanks to their work, they have gathered a substantial following among experimental music listeners. It was just a question of time when the men behind the projects would collaborate on a release. The result is ‘Decline’ – a tale of descending into the pits of madness in 8 parts. Inspired by two poems, ‘Madman’ and ‘Modern Icarus,’ takes you on a journey into the realms of dark thoughts. With such a clear concept, it’s no wonder that the music is cinematic, thus slowly building images in the listener’s head. Face the stillness, but remember: something is lingering in the corner. For fans of cinematic ambient like Land, Moljebka Pvlse, Inade, Lambwool, Tho-So-Aa.

Those who ordered the album before the release received the limited edition version including a bonus disc containing 6 unreleased tracks (one collaboration, 2 tracks recorded separately by each project and 3 remixes, one of which is by Roto Visage), video trailer and wallpaper.

Released on: Zoharum Records

The Serpents That Lick The Dust.

A Roto Visage remix appears on the bonus disc for The Angels of Prostitution. Worms of the Earth, the latest discovery of degenerate industrial label bugs crawling out of people, plants itself firmly in the sparse forest of the new generation of industrial-noise music; merging the organic with the technological, and the orthodox with the profane to create epic and mysterious compositions that stimulate the listener both in body as well as in mind. The angels of prostitution is an ancient hulking mechanical apparatus gone haywire with demonic fervor.. sounds buried deep within the earth in time immemorial.. forbidden sounds of latent human evil that had been erased from our collective memory.. until now. inscribed with the language of the ancients, it demolishes any in its cursed path, leaving only sorrow in its wake.

It features condemning text vocalized by wordcore artist it-clings along with five interpretations by prominent up-and-coming industrial acts who were cursed with the task of remixing these forbidden works: dead man’s hill, dym, embodi, to mega therion, and vicious alliance.

The first 50 copies come with “the whores of carcosa” bonus disc containing 4 previously unreleased tracks showcasing the dark esoteric ambient side of worms of the earth and 5 additional remixes by autovoice, ghosts in the clocktower, re: dux tion, roto visage, and vicious alliance.

Released on: Bugs Crawling Out Of People.

“Where the Mandrakes Grow” is conceptualized around autoerotic asphyxiation, forming an abstract narrative into a singular autoerotic experience. A singular moment in flux within the body. The sound compositions consist of consciousness cut ups – flashes of memory and anomalies of the moment interweaving. Dark drone and experimental ambience. Mastered by the legendary Robert Rich. Beautiful 6-panal digi-CD designed by Anastasia Sarandou limited to 1,000 copies. 64 minutes. Released on: Autumn Wind Productions now Bondage Culture Distribution.

Currently available for purchase directly from the artist through the Roto Visage Webstore.
Or purchase a digital copy on iTunes.

Tracklist:
1. Uproot, A Noose of Silk
2. Willows Deep
3. Visceral Monologue
4. Interlude: The Death of Kotzwara
5. Sickly Sweet Fertilizer
6. A Breath, Then It Comes
7. Aural Cavity Obstruction
8. Light Rejection, The Return

Reviews:
Forbidden Magazine
JudasKiss
Heathen Harvest
Plague Haus
Crucial Blast 5/5
Wounds of the Earth 9/10

her final breath.

From the label: Time has come for a fresh collaborative album, released by No Angels Prod. and Beast Of Prey. We would like to present a unique opus, which appears as a co-operation of Inner Vision Laboratory (Poland) and Roto Visage (USA) projects, symbolically entitled “Cinema Stain”. Here, the listener is forced to wale in pathological and “impure” visualizations of human pain, fears and suffering, which are surprisingly seducing with subtle beauty. Some of the soundforms are painted heavily with a brush of rhythm while others flow like the spools of film spinning through a mechanical projector. The aim of both of the composers was to write an original soundtrack to a non-existent horror film – the result is excellent, and by taking vocal samples from other movies, they created also an auditory record of tension and melancholic darkness. For layout of this release, we used modified photographs from the very talented photographer – Karolina Kosowicz.

Packaging is non-typical: professionally printed and professionally duplicated CDR with additional graphical insert are placed in a plastic box (slim dvd box type). Inserts and covers are professionally printed on gloss paper. Edition is limited to 200 hand numbered copies.

More…

Released on: No Angels Prod. & Beast of Prey.

Available for purchase for 6 € sold out!: No Angels Prod. or Beast of Prey.