Leviathan, by Stephen Roddy

Leviathan

by Stephen Roddy

supported by

Rue des Trois Rois Records (Fan) thumbnail

more...

	/

Streaming + Download

Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.

Purchasable with gift card

name your price
Full Digital Discography

15

releases

Get all 15 Stephen Roddy releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Leviathan, Signal to Noise Loops - Compilation, Darkness Visible - EP, 30 Epoch Opus - EP, Jupiter, Single: Search Party, Wave Grid, Le Son Du Corps Et Un Corps de Sons, and 7 more. , and , .

Purchasable with gift card

€57.75 EUR or more (25% OFF)

1.	Thonis-Heracleion, peaceful beneath the waves 07:36	info	buy track
2.	A Piteraq over Tasiilaq 08:35	info	buy track
3.	There are 99 miles of caves below the Burren 08:58	info	buy track
4.	The Shining of Karakum 06:12	info	buy track
5.	Leviathan 09:49	info	buy track

about

Cassettes available through Fiadh Productions at:

fiadh.bandcamp.com/album/leviathan

“Written in response to the climate crisis, “Leviathan” is a brooding and beautifully unsettling batch of dark ambient songs.” - Bandcamp New & Notable, September 16th 2023.

Album Overview:
Leviathan was recorded around midsummer 2023, from June 20th-24th, with the final piece recorded on July 2nd. It was recorded in response to our rapidly intensifying climate catastrophe. July 3rd, 2023 was the hottest day ever recorded on this planet and 2 days later on July 5th a particularly intense El Niño arrived.
There are many interpretations of the Leviathan concept, but here Leviathan is the mythological world-serpent who encircles the Earth in a ring, and upon whom the Earth is built. It is the anima mundi or world-soul that separates the material earth from the chaos of the immaterial. The death of the Leviathan is the end of the material world and so the death of the Earth too. Iterations and deviations on this central idea recur across diverse cultures with Babylonian Tiamat, Sesha of the Hindu Puranas, and Norse Jörmungandr, but the version described here above is most identifiable with Ophite Gnosticism.
Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan is a totalitarian force for social and political cohesion. Conceived during a time of Civil War and rooted in a deeply materialist framework, Hobbes’ Leviathan is an absolute sovereign to whom members of a society, in social contract with one another, cede certain powers, claims, and freedoms so that they might live alongside one another in peace. Hobbes’ intense fear of anarchy and chaos, represented in his hypothetical state of nature, lent a distinctly fascist flavour to his thinking. Regardless of this, or maybe even because of this, Hobbes’ Leviathan has been deeply influential in the realms of political theory and international law.
Faced with the inevitability of climate collapse, we find our social and political worlds in advanced states of decay while the Earth, greedily exploited and abused now for centuries, winds and coils around us twisting itself into ever more inhospitable configurations. The lives of many are becoming increasingly solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
Leviathan confronts this looming state of ecological and socio-political collapse in a series of sonic tableaus assembled around the four basic elements of alchemy: Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire. Each piece reflects upon a unique real-world location in the context of its relationship to our impending annihilation. Sonically, each tableau is crafted with a combination of electric guitar and sampled instrumentation with musique concrète and computer music techniques. The results sit somewhere between dark ambient, ritual drone, and noise music.
The final piece here is an ode to, and lament for, the Leviathan as the hypothetical anima mundi that once encircled and held together a world that now seems caught in an inescapable downward spiral, in which we edge ever closer to ecological cataclysm, and human tragedy abounds.

Stephen Roddy
July 8th, 2023,
Cork City,
Ireland.

Biography:
Stephen Roddy is a musician and sound artist based in Cork City producing work in a diverse range of styles from noise and drone to avant-garde metal and experimental electronic music. He uses a variety of techniques that center around the integration of amplified instrumentation and inventive computing techniques.
He has been described as “equally adept at crushing soundscapes as he is mysterious melodies” producing “unsettlingly beautiful ambient landscapes” that conjure up a “fraught world where a sense of menace hovers all around”. His work is frequently performed and installed at home and abroad. Previous events have included the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, IMMA’s Eco Rising Festival, and the Helicotrema Recorded Audio Festival in Venice.

Heartstone Veganic Sanctuary:
Digital revenue will be donated to Heartstone Veganic Sanctuary, which has been impacted by the climate catastrophe at the heart of Leviathan.
Learn more about the work Heartstone do here: www.heartstone.earth

credits

released October 6, 2023

Music written and performed by Stephen Roddy.
Recorded and produced at Lava Wall Studios between June 20th and July 2nd, 2023.

Released by Fiadh Productions (FP197): fiadh.bandcamp.com/album/leviathan

Front cover artwork adapted from Gustav Doré's'The Destruction of Leviathan' engraved by Héliodore Pisan.
Ouroboros image by Cleopatra the Alchemist.
All imagery and artwork are sourced from Wikimedia under Creative Commons Free Licenses.

license

about

Stephen Roddy Cork, Ireland

“An experimental composer from Ireland, Stephen Roddy proves equally adept at crushing soundscapes as he does mysterious melodies.”

- Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 13, 2022.

Recommendations

contact / help

Contact Stephen Roddy

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

Stephen Roddy recommends:

Witch's Lament in the Moonlight
by Oblivion Castle

This is a very well-put-together collection of anachronistic melodic pieces interspersed throughout some truly invigorating black metal. Masterful composition with excellent playing. Strong recommend. Stephen Roddy
go to album
Void of Dream
by Zonos

Hauntingly beautiful and noisy ambient works with layers of atmospheric synths. Mixes electronic soundworlds with more traditional reference points to create some genuinely unique moments. Stephen Roddy
go to album
From Dreams to Living Things
by Fiadh Productions

This 2023 compilation from Fiadh production is an introduction to a range of exciting music running in scope from the black metal of Uamh to the beautiful drone of Hellstorm Of Flaming Nothingness. Stephen Roddy
go to album

If you like Stephen Roddy, you may also like:

Noir & Jazz & Dark & Slow...
by NEONNOONE

supported by 35 fans who also own “Leviathan”

Lynchian vibes, all around. deafretrospective
go to album
Somnus
by Splendidula

supported by 32 fans who also own “Leviathan”

Merci Déhà for the download code. Lots of bands use these ingredients – pretty female vocals over doomy guitars always sounds good, but usually that's where the ideas run out. That isn't the case here. Each song is packed with ideas and evolutions, genres and references it's boring to list but not at all to listen to. A pleasure to have been introduced to this. Luke
go to album
Transmissions
by Samuel Goff

The first release on Cacophonous Revival, from experimentalist Samuel Goff, uses avant-garde approaches to get at personal narratives. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 4, 2020
go to album