Esoterica Landscapes 7

condition (record/cover): VG+ (some surface noise) / VG+ (light general wear)

Two inserts included.

A largely forgotten artifact of the Texas industrial-improvisation underground. Esoterica Landscapes 7 recorded the material that became Hokmah Nistarah during autumn and winter 1989, with all but two tracks cut at the group's own Timeless Studio; the exceptions were recorded live at the Commerce Street Artist's Warehouse and (on 29 October 1989) above the Valhalla pub on the steps of Rice University's Chemistry Building. Remastered from cassette at HCC studios, no overdubs except on one multi-tracked track, and released by the Anomie Records imprint run by "Scott & Bliss" out of Houston.

The album's seven titles (I'll Die For My Own Sins, Repetition As A Form Of Change, Soul Magnetic Conception, Hokmah Nistarah, Arotic Chaorder, Moving Time, Walking On Water) read as position statements. "Hokmah Nistarah" is the Hebrew for "hidden wisdom," a core term in Kabbalistic mysticism, and the album functions as a ritual document of a musical practice committed, per its own liner notes, to total improvisation, "nothing is ever repeated."

The scene that produced the group had its own private vocabulary. KPFT's Chuck Roast, KTRU's Carl and Amy, the Axiom venue, all acknowledged in the liner thanks. Most of the objects associated with that particular Houston underground have since disappeared into collector inventories. Hokmah Nistarah is one of the few to have held on to a second life through small reissue editions, and the original 1990 Anomie LP remains the primary document.