History
Xasthur was created in December 1995, in Alhambra, Calif. (U.S.), after Conner had played with several local death metal groups in Southern California. Initially, the band began rehearsing and recording in a home studio with an unstable line-up. A 10-track tape of these early rehearsals was circulated on the trade scene. While the original of that tape is now destroyed, some tracks appear on re-releases of later albums.
For the self-released split album with Orosius, Malefic was joined on drums and vocals by friend Mike Pardi from the band Draconis, who used the stage-name "Ritual." Subsequently, Xasthur became Malefic's solo project, although Khaija "Blood Moon" Ausar (of Dacon and Crimson Moon) appeared as session musician on A Curse for the Lifeless and Xasthur. Before releasing its first official full-length album in 2002, recordings were distributed in limited editions, which were later re-released by the Swedish Total Holocaust Records and other small underground labels.
The first album Nocturnal Poisoning (recorded April–September 2001) was jointly released by independent record labels Blood Fire Death and Red Stream in 2002. Southern Lord Records re-released a remastered double-LP version in 2005. In the next years, Xasthur's full-length albums were released through labels such as Displeased Records, Moribund Cult, Total Holocaust Records, Battle Kommand Records and Hydra Head Records. Apart from demo and EP recordings, Xasthur has released several split albums with other black metal acts such as Orosius, Acid Enema, Nachtmystium, Striborg, Angra Mainyu, Leviathan, and Nortt. Xasthur has contributed to tribute albums to Ildjarn, Burzum and Judas Iscariot, and appeared on various compilation albums. Additionally, Malefic has collaborated among others with the drone metal project Sunn O))) and the black metal "supergroup" Twilight and Mord (with Lugubre members).
On March 26, 2010, Malefic announced that he was wholesaling Xasthur's eighth studio album, Portal of Sorrow. He also announced that this would be the last album under the Xasthur moniker, as he stated that he was dissolving the Xasthur musical project. Malefic cited a lack of motivation, among other aspects, for him ending Xasthur; he also stated that there will not be a reunion of this band. Malefic remarked that another musical project was in the works, this one not being a metal project.
The new project is called "Nocturnal Poisoning", named after his 2002 album. The first album is planned to be released some time in 2012 or 2013.
Malefic released the first, and only, music video under the Xasthur name, for the song "Walker of Dissonant Worlds" from the To Violate the Oblivious album on September 30, 2010.
Read more about this topic: Xasthur
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Postmodernism is, almost by definition, a transitional cusp of social, cultural, economic and ideological history when modernism’s high-minded principles and preoccupations have ceased to function, but before they have been replaced with a totally new system of values. It represents a moment of suspension before the batteries are recharged for the new millennium, an acknowledgment that preceding the future is a strange and hybrid interregnum that might be called the last gasp of the past.”
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Sunday Times: Books (London, April 21, 1991)
“The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“In all history no class has been enfranchised without some selfish motive underlying. If to-day we could prove to Republicans or Democrats that every woman would vote for their party, we should be enfranchised.”
—Carrie Chapman Catt (1859–1947)