Sadhaka
Terma

Nothing interested him in what was happening around him on that festive evening: not the fireworks that so amazed the villagers, not the many odors that people, overheated and pressed against the walls, emitted unconsciously and seemingly invisible to them... Scents he had already stored in his time, that he recognized now in an automatic manner and that he let pass without capturing their essence any longer.

Suddenly a gust of wind brought with it something new, something unexpected, that shook him from his apathetic stupor. The tick had awakened, had sniffed an animal approaching and was preparing to latch onto its fur, to then dig into the skin and steal the sanguine essence. A scent never before sensed, a combination of the rarest essences he had sampled in his short life, pulled him away from the shadows, hooking him by the nostrils and dragging him through dark alleys, amidst drunks, prostitutes, filth, and pestilential miasmas, and lifted him up onto the surface, towards a spacious and deserted street. There he reopened his eyes, which until then had been closed so to allow the nose to work at its best, and saw a faint light illuminating a window of a hovel nestled among dark buildings. Silent, imperceptible as nature had created him, he approached the window, circled the building, found an open door, and entered.

In front of him was a girl, a beautiful creature barely fifteen, red-haired and with freckles dotting a milky complexion, a poor vendor carrying out her daily duties, cleaning some apples. He approached the girl's back, who didn’t perceive his arrival: no one ever sensed his approach, not because of any odor he lacked, not because of the sound of steps he didn’t emit, people merely found him suddenly beside them and were startled, and generally did not feel at ease with him. It was almost like having death itself next to you, scrutinizing coldly without uttering a word. He was now standing over the girl, began to sniff her, inhaling the until then unknown fragrance, and an entire world opened up to him. When he inhaled once again her scent, the young girl shuddered, shaken by a cold gust that passed through her from head to toe, and turned around abruptly.

"When she saw him, she was so paralyzed with fright that it gave him all the time to put his hands around her neck. She didn’t even attempt to scream, remained still, didn’t make a single defensive move. He didn’t look at her. He didn’t see her lovely freckled face, the red mouth, the big bright green eyes, because he kept his own eyes tightly closed while choking her, and his only concern was not to lose even the slightest part of her scent. When he had killed her, he laid her on the ground among the mirabelle pits, tore off her dress and the flow of perfume became a tide, submerging him with its fragrance. He plunged his face into her skin and passed his nostrils, widened, from her belly to her chest, to her neck to her face and through her hair and again down to her belly, then down to her sex, on her thighs, on her white legs, He soaked himself in her from head to toe, gathered the last remnants of her smell from the chin, in the navel and between the folds of the elbow’s hollow. When he had smelled her to exhaustion, he remained crouched beside her for a moment to recover because he was filled with her. He didn’t want to waste any of her scent. He first had to block his internal compartments. Then he got up and blew out the candle."

Did he know he had committed a crime? Maybe not, and he didn’t care. As he conceived it, life was now oriented towards searching for that very sensation he had experienced so intensely; he wanted nothing else. For the first time he had a purpose, and would (survive) live the remaining years of his existence solely in that direction. Like a drug the scent had possessed him, and would guide him forever.

Like a shamanic frenzy stemming from a meditative calm and pouring out with all its fury upon the ritual’s adepts, only to explode and vanish in the air, the music contained in the cascadian debut of Sadhaka is able to take possession of the listener simply by growing inside of him. The rhythms are initially calm and hypnotic, the melodies, distinctly perceptible even amidst the controlled yet furious chaos that stirs the heart of the four tracks of this "Terma", are a red thread that guides through a long sonic journey one wishes would never end. Upon reaching the end of the last song, thirsty and eager to desire more, one is almost compelled to press “play” once more and plunge again into the foggy and wooded atmospheres expertly created by the band. The Sadhaka are a newly discovered gem of the always intriguing Pest Productions label, but are not novices in the musical field: among them are also some members of Fauna, whose magical and ritualistic sounds often echo through the tracks. We can define "Terma" as an excellent meeting point between the shamanism of Fauna, the rage of Wolves in the Throne Room which often flows into the blind fury of Addaura, and the sense of melody and atmosphere typical of Alda or Skagos.

In this 2013, still early, they are undoubtedly among the most pleasant surprises in the (Cascadian) Black Metal scene: a listen is more than recommended, and even if you believe you've reached the peaks of the genre in question with a "Two Hunters", rather than with a "Ast", a "Tahoma" or any other album of the great bands populating the Cascadian musical undergrowth (without disturbing Agalloch), dedicate some time to Sadhaka, and you will be pleasantly intoxicated by their essence.