photo: Yani Beel
Ominous, desolate, and fearlessly unique, INSECT ARK is the Berlin-based duo of American artists Dana Schechter (SWANS) and Tim Wyskida (KHANATE, Blind Idiot God).
" Asickening descent to a hallucinogenic abyss...desolate, ambient dread, desert-like sceneries and heavy riffs, slithers and moves in circular motifs” – Pop Matters
"Dana's vocals, and her smoky, dulcet tones sound so confident and add so much emotion to tracks it almost feels like a missed opportunity that Insect Ark has existed as an instrumental entity for a full decade." The Ouietus
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"INSECT ARK returns with an otherworldly and compelling sci-fi landscape of noir, subtle menace and mystery" - Ghost Cult
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“Angular and creepy and mystical in all the right ways…instills that anxious discomfort which, counterintuitively, translates into an enjoyable but tense listen”
– Invisible Oranges
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Raw Blood Singing - the band’s fourth full-length - is the result of a year’s writing. With a shared obsession with innovation and distillation, the album offers a sonic landscape which vascillates between sensory overload and isolation in a seething void. It marks a rebirth for Insect Ark, with a crushing weight and vicious sensual delicacy elevated by the all-new addition of Schechter’s smoky, bruised-angel vocals, which deliver deep melodic hooks to the visceral layers of noisy gothic-noir lap steel guitar and bass, crackling drums, and haunted synthesizers.
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Many of the songs on Raw Blood Singing were written alone in 2020/2021 by Schechter; they were gutted, reworked, and rebirthed when Wyskida joined in late 2021. Fearlessly shape-shifting, Insect Ark has continued to defy simple genre-categorizations, weaving together the outer reaches of metal, goth, avant garde drone, doom and experimental noise. The new songs bristle with a tactile sense of aliveness. Vast, boundless riffs fuse with silvery, snaking refrains. Chaos consumes structure, releasing extreme dynamics and moments of deafening silence.
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The full album was released on 07 June 2024 via Debemur Morti Productions.
In 2024, Insect Ark began performing songs from Raw Blood Singing live as a trio:
Dana Schechter (bass, vocals), Tim Wyskida (drums, electronics), and Lynn Wright (electric and Lap Steel guitar, vocals)
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BAND HISTORY
When Dana Schechter started Insect Ark as her “true” solo project in Brooklyn NY in 2011, she set out to build desolate and hallucinogenic galaxies of sound completely alone. Working solo offered an escape into the deepest realms of self-reflection, dredging and birthing a sonic beast that was utterly unhinged and totally liberating. Focusing on experimental, noise, and avant-garde drone, Insect Ark’s first years produced records that were raw, ominous, and totally unique. While defying comparison, these new sounds possessed Schechter’s distinct musical spirit, found woven throughout her 20+ years of band/collaboration work.
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After years of working alone, live drums were added, showing that Schechter’s singular vision could also expand into heavier and more crushing territory within a collaborative space. From 2015-2019 Portland-based drummer/electronics builder Ashley Spungin played in the band. Highlights include 2018’s “Marrow Hymns” on Profound Lore Records, EU and N. American tours, a recording residency at synth mecca EMS Stockholm, and appearances at Roadburn, Basilica Soundscape, and Northwest Terror Fest. The duo toured heavily, often DIY-style, including on trains, boats, taxis, and cars. In July 2019, Spungin and Schechter stopped working together.
In September 2019, drummer Andy Patterson (SubRosa, the Otolith) joined. A month of rehearsals and a massive N. American tour with Finland’s Oranssi Pazuzu were the band’s laboratories to prepare a new album, recorded by NYC engineer Colin Marston after the tour. The result: “The Vanishing" (February 2020, Profound Lore Records).
The EU tour for "The Vanishing" got started in March 2020 and was cancelled after one week, due to the first wave of Covid 19. Schechter made a short DIY mini-film documenting the time around making the album (viewable HERE). Dana stayed behind in Berlin and Andy returned to Salt Lake City; they stopped working together in early 2021, unable to continue due to living thousands of miles apart and 1.5 years of pandemic-related disassociation.
In September 2021 "Future Fossils”, an exercise in the spirit of stark minimalism was released by Consouling Sounds – a collection of solo archived outtakes, excerpts, and live improv tracks from 2016-2018. Re-embracing solo work after a break of 7 years, the EP's A side features three all-synthesizer solo tracks, recorded at a Guest Composer residency at EMS Stockholm. On the B Side, a live noise improv set, performed at a church in Brooklyn NY in 2016, has Schechter on lap steel/synths, and former collaborator Ashley Spungin on synths/percussion.
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Now settled in Berlin, Schechter continued writing music for the new album. In 2022, drummer Tim Wyskida (Khanate, Blind Idiot God, Azonic) joined the band. They gutted and reworked Schechter’s newest songs in their rehearsal studio - a WWII air raid bunker - and the intensely potent pairing of the two musicians bore a strange and beautiful fruit: 2024’s “Raw Blood Singing”. The new songs bristle with a tactile sense of aliveness, with a clarity distilled. Vast, boundless riffs fuse with silvery, snaking refrains. Chaos consumes structure, releasing extreme dynamics and moments of deafening silence. Having taken a ten year break from singing, Schechter’s vocals deliver deep melodic hooks to the visceral layers of noisy gothic-noir lap steel guitar and bass, crackling drums, and haunted synthesizers.
In June 2024, the band played its first show as a trio to perform the songs of Raw Blood Singing, by including Berlin-based musician Lynn Wright on Lap Steel and electric guitars. Wright and Schechter have a long history, having played together in their band Bee and Flower. Insect Ark will continue to perform primarily as a trio.
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Raw Blood Singing was released on 07 June 2024 via Debemur Morti Productions.
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RELATED PROJECTS:
In Spring 2020, Schechter joined as a recording and touring touring member of SWANS, and of the duo Schechter/Wallfisch. Other collaborations/bands include Angels of Light, Zeal & Ardor, Arabrot, Wrekmeister Harmonies, Gnaw, Bee and Flower, Gifthorse, and more. Schechter is also a video artist and computer animator by trade, having worked in film, TV and multimedia for over 20 years; more info at danaschechter.com
Tim Wyskida’s collaborations include KHANATE (co-founding member), Blind Idiot God, Azonic, Broken Spirit XX, Jodis, Khlyst, w/ Stephen O’Malley, Marc Urselli, Mick Barr, James Plotkin, and more. More info at timwyskida.com
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Live member Lynn Wright is a Berlin-based composer, lyricist, producer, and musician. Projects include his band And the Wiremen, Bee and Flower, and session work / composing for Film/TV shows internationally.
Discography:
2024: Raw Blood Singing, LP/CD, Debemur Morti Productions
2021: Future Fossils, LP/CD, Consouling Sounds
2020: The Vanishing, LP/CD, Profound Lore Records
2018: Marrow Hymns, LP/CD, Profound Lore Records
2017: Portal/Well, Ltd Edition LP, Sleeping Giant Glossolalia Records
2016: Long Arms/Maria W. Horn split, Cassette, XKatedral Records
2015: Windless, 7” Lathe Cut Single, Utech Records
2015: Portal/Well, CD, Autumnsongs Records
2013: Long Arms, 10” EP, Geweih Ritual Documents
2012: Collapsar, 7” Single, Lancashire & Somerset Records
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insectark.com
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