Andros Insidium

Through her work across five Vastum albums, Leila Abdul-Rauf has been a sonorous contributor to 20 Buck Spin’s discography for more than 15 years now. Concurrent to that, she’s also amassed an impressive body of solo work whereby she could showcase the full range of her multi-instrumental artistic and vocal talents. Leila now showcases her darkest and most confrontational material to date with new album Andros Insidium. On Andros Insidium, Leila draws us into a ceremonial descent, through the architecture of shadow itself. Unfolding like a ritual text etched in obsidian, each movement traces the violent and sacred geometry of transformation. The presence and wisdom of the feminine divine looms throughout, as an ancient and uncompromising force, in conflict with everything buried, exiled and made monstrous by the machinery of societal pressures and unrealistic expectations. The album delves deep into the dark vastness of the psyche of woman: wild, ugly, vulnerable and powerful. Sonically, Andros Insidium is a mutation of the cinematic dark ambient, industrial and ritual folk expressed in prior releases, now sharpened into something far darker, more narrative and intimate. Leila’s vocal work becomes a new focus with a wider variety of styles and characters, exorcising the demons of patriarchal fragmentation and revenge fantasy as lived myth. In its most potent moments, Andros Insidium suggests that wholeness is not purity or light, but the terrifying act of reclaiming everything that was discarded, and learning to speak with its voice. Leila has also played in Amber Asylum, Hammers of Misfortune and others. For fans of Dead Can Dance, Diamanda Galas, Arcana, Amber Asylum, Jarboe / Swans, Chelsea Wolfe, Cold Meat Industry.