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Ak'chamel is the simplification of the full name The Divinatory Monkey and the Sovereign Plumed Serpent, namely, the divinatory monkey and the sovereign plumed serpent, a rather offbeat name for the western/kabbalistic group being discussed. They seem to come from Texas and present themselves at their concerts or rituals, with their grotesque and flamboyant outfits, masked as masters of ceremonies. An example of how Middle Eastern folk or folk from other parts of the world can be adapted into the loudest and most dissonant Psych Rock. It's complex music, containing a flexible blend of neolithic psychedelia, spiritual folk, hypnotic raga rock, and ancestral ethnonoises. The message in extreme synthesis is the desertification of your poor world dominated by the false deities of neoliberalism and the wild exploitation of the Planet.
It's interesting to note that Ak'chamel, with the first three tracks, traverses three very different situations, as each track displays a set of influences to decipher. The Great Saharan-Chihuahuan Assimilation is an intelligent cross of Saharan nomadic instrumentation playing Mexican melodies that can remind one of Mariachi music, just as Clean Coal is a Porous Condom plays with Maghreb scales imitating the sounds of arriving in a North African city on a camel's back. The third track, Amazonian Tribes Mimicking the Sound of Chainsaws With their Mouths, is a farce sung aboard an Irish ship sailing along the Amazon in the 19th century, attempting to keep the natives at bay with the label of alleged dangerous assassins.
However, the opening of the fourth track "Ossuary from the Sixth Extinction" shows majesty in the arrangements and doesn't rely solely on semi-acoustic instruments. When they then let the velvety acoustic guitar play a solo in the middle of the track, the non-western soundscape returns, often supported by a perfectly blended wind instrument, which could be Indian, Middle Eastern, or perhaps Turkish. In this sense, Ak'chamel is also a truly rewarding project because it challenges our somewhat stereotypical way of thinking about music, highlighting that the same sounds can come from very different parts of the world, and one should never feel too sure of their roots. The whole world plays, and everyone hears each other's music.
A track like Soil Death Tape Decay shows us a lo-fi production, perhaps intentional. The overall touch is rigid and metallic. Sheltering Inside a Camel. is intelligently arranged and is so enchanting that it seems to encapsulate the essence of the entire work. The Cabinet of the Atomic Priesthood is the final chapter and features an electric organ with a deeply sinuous bass line and some chants whose religious/ritualistic character is clear from the start, but whose origins are nebulous.
These are tracks of atavistic heritage, recorded with analog means using esoteric techniques. They have roots all over the world and in many of the most desert, inhospitable, and sandy regions. Are they tracks of cultural cannibals of the fourth world or the Chihuahuan Desert?
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