This past Friday, California-based multi-instrumentalist Leila Abdul-Rauf released a sonically intense album when she dropped her sixth studio effort, Andros Insidium via 20 Buck Spin. Known for her work on five Vastum albums, Abdul-Rauf has been working on her solo efforts for a while now. This time around, her album serves as the darkest, most confrontational piece of music in her career.
Described as a deep dive into the “dark vastness of the psyche of woman,” the album is appropriately cinematic and dark, with ambience and industrial flair building the backbones of the entire release. The whole project comes with some special guest contributions from Samuel Foster (ex-Saros, ex-Weakling), Kienan Hamilton (Cartilage, False Figure), Gregory C. Hagan (ex-Common Eider, King Eider, ex-Thomas Carnacki), and Drew Zercoe (Field Of Fear), so be sure to keep an ear out for them.
But enough jibber jabber from yours truly. Here’s Leila Abdul-Rauf giving a deep dive breakdown of each track on Andros Insidium.
“Descent Into Kur”
Among the ceremonial din of gongs, a choir narrates Inanna‘s treacherous descent into the underworld. The militant drumming (courtesy of Sam Foster) signals the calling that lures Inanna into the underworld as she braces herself for a journey of violence and harm.
“Stripped Before the Eye of Death”
Steeped in an ambiance of doom-laden synths, the lyrics continue telling the myth: Inanna has reached the deep darkness of the underworld. She is murdered by the sister goddess Ereshkigal, her corpse hung from a nail on a wall. She is later rescued and brought back to life through the help of her servant and gods, and sacrificial killing of her husband.
“Eros Anima”
The most cinematically epic track on the album, the lyrics describe the incestuous dance of the two goddesses, free to roam in the darkness and explore their innermost desires away from the gaze of male dominance. Lute sections deftly performed by Kienan Hamilton, and Sam Foster reappears on percussion. One of my personal faves on the album.
“Senex Rule”
Ancient sounding horns call and respond to the deeply resident throat-singing courtesy of Gregory Hagan, evoking a landscape of medievalism concurrent with the decline of a matriarchal goddess age, and a rise of patriarchy in myth and religion. Originating from a trumpet improv, this was the first song written for this album, from which the rest of the tracks developed.
“Fractured Body”
An electronified, industrialized reimagining of Vastum’s “Corpus Fractum”, I love how hard this song hits – a relentless frame drum beats among a backdrop of heavy distorted synths; it’s a staple in my life set. Drew Zercoe contributes a few vocal lines at the end. The lyrics are more philosophically driven, describing someone on the brink of a crucial inner development, digging deeply and searching, always questioning…
“Andros Insidium”
Stripped down instrumentally to just voice, piano, and synths, the title track is the most emotionally raw song on the album. The lyrics depict a revenge fantasy of a survivor against their abuser through castration and sodomy, which in this story, is enacted by a vengeful goddess. It speaks to the rage-filled fantasy the individual has against an attacker as well as the collective rage caused by systemic abuse through sexual, political, relational, emotional control. The goddess’s acts of revenge symbolize a reckoning against patriarchal harm and an imagined dawning of a new age where feminine power and wisdom are restored – violent and unapologetic.
“A Requiem For Ishtar”
The title track hits such a nerve, I felt that the listener needed space to sit in grief during whatever track would follow it. Featuring more of my signature ambient drones and horns, this was my first attempt at plainchant style vocals, and it felt appropriate to sing about the death of Inanna-Ishtar, as a symbol of the death of the feminine divine, weakened by a rising patriarchy.
“Return To Anu”
Almost the entirety of this album deals with such dark subject matter – a darkness that keeps compounding upon itself – I felt its conclusion needed some semblance of light at the end of the tunnel, a bittersweet finale. Kienan Hamilton makes a reappearance with wistful lute passages. The lyrics tell of Inanna’s eventual return from the underworld reuniting with her people. Not unscathed, she bears her scars as badges of honor. It describes the journey of Everywoman and her survival amidst a world that hates her and wants her shrunken, silent or dead. We rejoice the return of Inanna, not taking her power for granted, as we visualize the path towards a new goddess age in the modern world that benefits all, hardened and restrengthened against the threat of an ever-present manosphere.