DARK ALCHEMY VII WITH SPECIAL GUEST AARON STAINTHORPE
Last autumn we collaborated with Aaron Stainthorpe (High Parasite / ex My Dying Bride), and performed our specially created arrangements of My Dying Bride songs together as opener for the captivating Darkher at the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge (pictured). We are honoured that Aaron will be joining us for Dark Alchemy VII at St Thomas the Martyr's church, Bristol, on the 19th September, to play these songs again - with added cello! The lineup is completed by our Dark Alchemy co-host T.G Edwards (modular synth) and Eldermother (harp, voice, guitar and cello) with whom we are crafting a new piece just for this event. This will be a unique experience, and we can't wait!
ZIELE KLANKEN (SOUL SOUNDS), ANTWERP, FEBRUARY 2027
We are thrilled to be reuniting with both Aaron, and with Jo Quail who we toured the UK with in 2023, on collaborations for Ziele Klanken (Soul Sounds) II in the beautiful AMUZ concert hall, St Augustines church, Antwerp, Belgium, in early 2027. This will be a very special event with an array of exciting artists - including an exciting mystery headliner...!
NEW ALBUM IN PROGRESS
We are currently working on our 3rd album, with studio recording by John Scott (Stereocillia), and mixing & mastering by Tom Berry (The Corner Productions).
For updates on the above and more, join our mailing list and follow us on socials!
“Deeply storied and gloriously doomy…a mix of beauty and heaviness, ancient and new.” - THE QUIETUS
“An excellent band...Compelling and totally genius. It’s like the soundtrack to the best film you’ve never seen and a thrilling journey
into painting with sound.” - JOHN ROBB, LOUDER THAN WAR
“Hypnotic ritualism from Bristol’s finest neoclassical goth alchemists.’ - HEADFIRST BRISTOL
“Their innovative approach to the creation of sound is something to behold...This is dramatic, and this is exciting, unexpectedly so…I found myself practically paralysed by the sheer sonic intensity. The focus of the three musicians was absolute...The effect is nothing short of stunning, making for an almost overwhelming finale to a night of the most remarkable music."
AURAL AGGRAVATION (April) review and photos
"I put my pen and pad down for a while and simply watched what was unfolding in front of me. The crowd was transfixed by the splendour unravelling on the stage...what followed was even more wonderment. They create something so beautiful from something so simple...soul-stirring and tender melodies fused magically with doom laden rhythms that showcased a different approach to music and what is possible."
THE SLEEPING SHAMAN review and photos
"I can honestly say I don't believe I have ever heard anything quite like the sounds they produce. The band give you deep, dark - and we are talking very dark - folk with gothic incantations...you need to check them out."
WITH JUST A HINT OF MAYHEM review and photos
"Their unique blend of early music, goth, ambient doom metal jam band, with some more experimental trappings for good measure and most likely other stuff if I think on it some more, totally pulls you into their universe. They were on thunderously exhilarating form and I felt fortunate to be present. Anyone at all sympathetic to these leanings should definitely get involved and experience it when at all possible. Really fantastic."
BENJAMIN HOULIHAN
“The interpretations of (historic) songs, some of which are in Welsh, others in Latin and Old English, and the decision to envelop them in heavy sound and enlightening percussion make them resemble sonic omens. To experience the newly unlocked energies within these songs live was again a very powerful experience that left a mark. We salute the band’s meaningful, thorough, creative, and theatrical interpretation of these songs and the added emotional weight the songs acquired.
In the hands of Dead Space Chamber Music, the original music is completely transformed from its classical past with heavy psych and doom metal elements. Ellen’s memorable endings of each song but especially ‘The Pit / Dissolved in Ashes‘ were testament to the fact that nothing was redundant in the sound, nothing was there to just fill the space and time, every breath and every shriek was there for a reason and that reason became apparent at the very end of each song – an incredible quality never experienced before.
After the performance, Ellen mingled with the audience but, to my eyes, this was no longer just a musician who stepped off the stage, but a creature whose movement transcended the ordinary at this point and therefore should have been undisturbed at that moment, not interacting with our world of ordinary ideas and feelings. Congratulations for another memorable performance, and thank you for opening up our minds to all sorts of ideas and concepts.”
BLAUEROSEN WEBZINE review and photos
“Live music should carry a warning over its addictive properties. Witnessing a band playing a set so good that you’re buzzing for hours, even days afterwards is a unique high, and one that sets a seed of a desperate need to replicate that experience. I’ve seen a lot of live music since I started going to gigs over thirty years ago, but the number of acts who have ignited that sense of fervent excitement is limited. I’ve seen many, many amazing shows, but few have blown me away to the extent they’ve felt in some way transformative. Dead Space Chamber Music are one of those few..."
AURAL AGGRAVATION (Nov) review and photos
“The audience were captivated to the point of hearing a pin drop. Emotional at the right moments and a feverish listen that left the crowd enthralled from the darkness of their distinctive performance."
DISTORTED SOUND MAGAZINE review and photos
“The essence of a beating dark heart."
THE RAZORS EDGE review and photos
“Jo Quail and DSCM commanded your attention…and Ellen joined Jo for a song to provide improvised vocals, which they said changes from night to night, so maybe this was a glimpse into a future collaboration? Here’s hoping."
THE SLEEPING SHAMAN review and photos
"Mesmerising from start to finish."
THE PROGRESSIVE ASPECT review and photos
"Unique bleak atmospheres and haunting vocals...during long notes of dark electronic sounds, slow beats and lingering guitar notes, vocalist and multi instrumentalist Ellen added an extra bit of art performance by using mirrors to reflect around the room and kneeling down to play broken crockery while the music fades. The tension could be felt around the room. The audience was deathly silent, unsure whether to applaud or not. Unsettling and a superb performance." SPARK BEAN review and photos
"The guitar ranges from delicate picking with volume swells to thunderous e-bowed distortion, and everything in between. The percussion comes from a variety of objects and devices I can't put a name to enhanced by backing tapes of wind and rain. The vocals cover a range of styles from chanting to something like medieval polyphony to shrieking...it's an astonishing mix of sounds. A lot of the vocals are wordless, some of the words may be Latin, old French or a made up language, but it's the sound of the voice that is important. They never speak which adds to the immersion of the whole performance. The pieces flow into each other but even when there is an apparent end to a piece nobody claps. But the applause at the end of the 40 min set leaves no doubt as to how well appreciated it is. It just felt wrong to break the spell until it was over. Certainly one of the most unusual bands I have ever witnessed."
DAVID MEADOWS review and photos
“Compelling and totally genius. DSCM somehow combine neo-classical with moments of opera with musique concrete and medieval themes…confronting and embodying many emotions, from the boldly visceral to the melancholic with an edge of eerie. There is found sound and improv, neo-folk, soundscape, a clatter and a whiff of industrial and ambient but somehow they intertwine these into a thoroughly captivating whole. This is no normal performance and no normal group. It’s like the soundtrack to the best film you’ve never seen and a thrilling journey into painting with sound.”
JOHN ROBB, LOUDER THAN WAR review and photos
"An excellent 55 minute support slot that does them great justice - combining minimalism, medieval music and experimentalism in generous dollops, and with a visual aspect appealing to the senses. A delightful surprise."
UBER ROCK review and photos
"This live recording of the improvised collaboration between the darkwave outfit hackedepicciotto sees Dead Space Chamber Music's manipulation of arcane musical forms meet cold, clinical modernism as drone, industrial percussion, noise, and random flecks of traditional melodic contouring melt together in a work both anachronistic yet oddly familiar."
HATE MEDITATIONS review collaborative release recorded live with an audience in the Crypt of St John on the Wall, Bristol
Alastair Power https://www.instagram.com/strangefuturesmusic/
Jim and Deb Dark Earth records
Keith Bolton https://www.instagram.com/old_aged_punk/
https://www.instagram.com/natural.light.photos/
Doug and Gwen https://www.instagram.com/futures_we_lost/ https://www.instagram.com/trianglecuts/
Carya Gish https://www.instagram.com/arcanepub/
Jai Dee Photography https://www.instagram.com/jai_dee_photography/
Rob Innell https://www.instagram.com/rob.xan/
Amy https://www.instagram.com/blackandbone_/
Peter Daniel Chamberlain
D Nietze Fotografie https://www.instagram.com/d.nietze_fotografie/