55YT MQRT – Self Titled

55YT MQRT – Self Titled

55ytmqrt.bandcamp.com

55YT MQRT was formed in Redwood City, CA way back in 2006. At that point in time, my friend Neal Jensen and I were high schoolers deep diving into the world of psychedelic and progressive rock, our favorites being The Mars Volta, Pink Floyd, and King Crimson. We had just left our post-hardcore outfit Ending Reason and we very much wanted to explore some more experimental sonic territory ourselves.

We originally formed under the name Hellships. For reasons unknown to me now, we ended up dropping that name and instead chose to go by 55YT MQRT. Something about progressive rock that has always made us laugh is how often people complain that bands within the genre are “pretentious,” so we chose a name that we found maximally pretentious as a way to poke fun at the people who make such complaints. (Neal later ended up properly forming Hellships in Olympia, WA with Robin Flowers and Alex Freilich. I produced their two studio albums, Leaden Hum and Doom Organs in 2012 and 2015 respectively. I consider Hellships and 55YT MQRT to be sibling projects… Hellships is a bit more of an unhinged and “off the grid” fellow, whereas 55YT MQRT is an equally strange individual who somehow manages to hold down an office job.)

We developed the band’s compositional approach in the early days. We would do long improv sessions that were then edited down in Pro Tools into seamless songs. From there we would add elements, cut parts, and rearrange things until the songs felt complete. We released our early tracks on MySpace.

Within a year of forming the band, Neal moved to Olympia, leaving our project with an uncertain future. In 2010 I ended up deciding to move there as well. We became roommates and revived 55YT. We assembled an untitled album consisting mostly of ambient noise tracks. When we moved from our apartment into a house where we could make loud music, we started properly practicing again. Over the next roughly 4 years we would occasionally work on 55YT material, but during that time we did not properly record anything due to focusing on other projects (Hellships, A God or an Other, Bird Surgeon, The Lunch).

Neal eventually decided to move to Montana to pursue a master’s degree, and again this left the band with an unknown future. In January 2016, before he left, we decided to properly document what we had been working on, again following the edited improv approach of our early works. We quickly had solid recorded versions of our songs that represented what we had been doing live during that time: Neal playing a single guitar accompanied by myself on the drums. The lone overdub was bass for fullness. Neal then left for Montana. This version sounded complete to me, but not to Neal. He wanted to overdub some additional parts he had been imagining.

He came to visit Olympia and we recorded his extra ideas. Now that there were additional elements on certain scattered parts, the parts with no overdubs sounded empty to me! And thus, a nearly 8 year process began. Parts were added and edits were made in short bursts, usually when Neal would come to visit for a few days here and there. Sometimes the session sat for literally years without being opened. Finally, in November 2023… we knew it was complete.

It shocks me when I think of how different my personal world and even the world in general was when we began working on this album. I was pursuing music full time living in Washington state. Donald Trump was just beginning his first run and the idea of him becoming president was ludicrous. Since then, I moved halfway across the country, had a son and a daughter, worked as a cable technician for 4 years, and made my jump into software development as a career. And the whole pandemic thing happened.

This is my longest-running recording project to date. I don’t know how many people will connect with this album but this is one of my personal favorite releases I’ve ever put out. We had been envisioning creating something like this since high school. The vision is finally fulfilled.

Over the last couple of years Neal has regularly been coming from Iowa, where he currently resides, to visit our family in Colorado. During those visits we have been recording new tracks which will be the basis for the next 55YT MQRT album. If the pattern holds, we’ll release the next album somewhere around 2031. We’ll see!

Album art by Garrett Botkins.

Gapless w/ Lyrics on YouTube:

Stream or Download/Purchase (name-your-price) on Bandcamp:

Consequence of Sound – Mining Metal – The Fractal Ouroboros Blurb

Consequence of Sound – Mining Metal: Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze, Dwelling Below, Ὁπλίτης, Myaelin, Narzissus, Phobocosm, Resin Tomb, and Saevus Finis

It’s always frightening when a promising group goes silent for an extended spell, especially when that group does so in the midst of COVID, which wound up taking many many projects from us. So it was with tremendous relief that I saw Bull of Apis announce they had a new record in the can, and then exceeding delight when I finally heard it and found it to be better than the previous in every metric...

Full article here.

Grug Listen Music – The Fractal Ouroboros Review

Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze – The Fractal Ouroboros
So fun to say name this band. Feel like cast magic spell! Like summon ancient spirits! Grug love that cover and lyrics add to feel important. If no listen this yet Grug think you listen with read lyrics must! Words make poem. Flow so nice. Make think. Not just about evil or sads. Important for society. Spoken word feel so good!

Guitar sound stunning. So big! Big snow storm mountain soaring tremolo! So many times grug feel guitar pierce into mind! Some parts make go "heck yeah" some parts give Grug goosebumps! Parts calling back to other songs make song family. Grug adore guitar feedback. It big player in album. Happen on most songs. Like secret man peek behind curtain. Come on stage for big moments! Know something important happen when guitar feedback sounds come! Grug love how express vocals from talk to sad to shout to fire. Hear and feel what being said. Work so great as extra instrument and as cling to words.

Full article here.

Noob Heavy – The Fractal Ouroboros Review

Album Review: Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze – “The Fractal Ouroboros” (RABM)

Four years ago, Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze broke out onto the black metal scene with their phenomenal debut Offerings of Flesh and Gold, an album I adored so much I bought it on all physical formats (tape, CD, and vinyl). It was my album of the year in 2019, as well as one of my first real introductions to RABM... Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze have somehow managed to take a perfect debut album and use it as a building block to create something even better with their sophomore project. I had begun to wonder if they were a band who would drop one perfect album and disappear never to be heard from again, and I am beyond grateful that was not the case, as they continue to cultivate an S-tier discography that I can only hope will continue forward from here.

Full article here.

Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze – The Fractal Ouroboros

Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze – The Fractal Ouroboros

bullofapisbullofbronze.bandcamp.com

Today marks the official release of our album The Fractal Ouroboros. It was a massive undertaking. We began recording nearly four years ago, early in the awful year of 2020. The process was slow and painstaking, continually interrupted by the realities of our lives and the reality of living through the pandemic. The isolation and subtle terror of those times deeply informed the final piece, but so did hope. Hope for a better immediate future, as well as hope for a longer term reality where humans are kinder to one another, and where our culture overcomes feeble tendencies like racism, sexism, and homophobia. I am proud of this creation and have been quite pleased to see the reception to it so far. It means a lot to me that it has been finding its way to people with whom it resonates.

I played the drums and mixed and mastered the album. It is being released digitally, on cassette, and on double LP vinyl via Fiadh Productions in the US and Vita Detestabilis in Europe.

Double LP / Cassette (US) – Fiadh Productions Bandcamp

Double LP / Cassette (Europe) – Vita Detestabilis Bandcamp

Digital / 3 Shirt Designs / BOABOB Tea (Worldwide) – Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze Bandcamp

The Headbanging Moose – The Fractal Ouroboros Review

Album Review – Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze / The Fractal Ouroboros (2023)

A rising force in the American Black Metal scene returns with their stunning, antifascist sophomore album, a brief on occult liberation in seven parts... the band is unleashing upon our rotten society their sophomore opus, titled The Fractal Ouroboros, the follow-up to their 2019 effort Offerings of Flesh and Gold. Mixed and mastered by Jon Lervold at Big Name Recording Studio, and displaying a stunning artwork by Alex CF, The Fractal Ouroboros is as grim and dark as it’s delicate and touching, being a must-listen for admirers of classic Black Metal with a strong atmospheric and epic vein. 

Full article here.

Wonderbox Metal – The Fractal Ouroboros Review

Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze – The Fractal Ouroboros (Review)

Brought to us by an ex-member of A God or an Other, The Fractal Ouroboros is an ambitious and bold work that’s utterly absorbing. Across an imposing 75 minutes Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze unleash music that is affecting like few others.

Holy crap, this is some seriously good stuff. It only takes a couple of minutes to get the feeling you’re listening to something special, and that feeling only grows over time. Upon each relisten this album grows in stature and impact, until it becomes a towering entity of brazen intensity that cannot be denied. Yep, Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze have produced a record that is shockingly good.

Full article here.

No Clean Singing Coverage of The Fractal Ouroboros

No Clean Singing – 2023 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE PERSONAL TOP TEN

But Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze have, so far, proven themselves to be absolute masters of their craft, marrying caustic fury and cathartic intensity with lengthy passages of meditative melancholy... allowing for a series of captivating contrasts which keep you constantly on the edge of your seat, waiting for the next explosion of energy or devastating collapse.
..

It also helps that the band are a dab hand at putting together some of the most seething, yet utterly spellbinding, tremolo riffs and bleakly melodic hooks you’re likely to have heard all year, and that their excursions into more atmospheric and reflective territories are as mesmerising as they are mournful... it’s my sincere hope that, once you all finally get to hear it in all its glory, you’ll understand just why it’s so high on my list.

Full article here.

NCS also mentions our album in their 2023 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE GREAT article.

Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze – The Fractal Ouroboros Preorders and Pre-Release Full Album Stream (Invisible Oranges)

Explore “The Fractal Ouroboros” With Infinitely Consuming Black Metal (Early Album Stream)

Drums and bass factor heavily into the record's sound, giving it a muscular punch whether delivering blast beats or minimalist ostinatos in the more shoegaze-y sections. Though the formalized ass-beating that tracks like "Trophy" offer is exhilarating, their violence comes with extra weight when compared against slower, drone-heavy tracks like "Liberation," which definitely slants toward the ritual sacrifice side. The excellent pacing and structure is a major part of The Fractal Ouroboros' impact: the peaks here are exhausting, and the torturous ascents and uncontrolled descents multiply their effect.

Full article here. The article is the premiere of the entirety of the album.

Preorders:

Double LP / Cassette (US) – Fiadh Productions Bandcamp

Double LP / Cassette (Europe) – Vita Detestabilis Bandcamp

Digital / 3 Shirt Designs / BOABOB Tea (Worldwide) – Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze Bandcamp