Cross Purposes

Artist: Forms of Things Unknown

Album: Cross Purposes (Remastered and Expanded Edition)

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Formats:

Uncompressed audio on compact disc, in six-panel digipak available from Panaxis / Pimalia at formsofthingsunknown.com

Download this album at:

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Catalog Number: PIMALIA-4

UPC: 754422714426

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Cross Purposes marks the recording debut of Forms of Things Unknown: a six-track / 37-minute EP of music ranging from dark ambient dirge to medieval pilgrim song to jazz-inflected art rock - Forms of Things Unknown being the delinquent brainchild of San Francisco multi-instrumentalist Ferrara Brain Pan.

Ferrara Brain Pan is a windplayer whose instrumental abilities range from the more familiar woodwinds such as flutes, saxophones (alto & sopranino), bass clarinet and recorders to such non-Western wind instruments as the yidaki (this being the Aboriginal designation for the native Australian didgeridoo), shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute), and kang ling or thighbone trumpet, a ritual instrument of Tibetan Buddhist practice made from a human thighbone - (Track One of Cross Purposes features a recorded performance of the artist playing two kang lings simultaneously). In addition to these and other wind instruments, Ferrara Brain Pan also performs on the psaltery (a 30-stringed zither which is played with a bow), harmonium, glockenspiel, and Tibetan singing bowls.

Ferrara Brain Pan’s checkered musical career includes early collaborations with noise music pioneer Boyd Rice a/k/a Non (1970s), the mercifully short-lived goth-damage fiasco Bad Alchemy (80s), ambient dub project 23 Degrees (early 90s), and a fortuitous uncredited appearance on 1994’s Rien by Krautrock legends Faust (produced by Jim O’Rourke). More recently the artist was co-founder (with Ure Thrall) of dark ambient duo Darmstadt Pharmacy. Ferrara’s past and present creative endeavors extend to the media of visual arts, notably Mail Art and photomontage.

Cross Purposes was mixed and produced from material played entirely by Ferrara Brain Pan, excepting vocal performances by Bob Ayres and Shannon Wolfe and a guest appearance by longtime musical associate Ure Thrall. A study in contradictions, the album features a 16-minute original instrumental doomscape entitled “Black Candles & Pentagrams ‘n Shit”, paired off against a 14th Century devotional Christian song and a cover of the morally ambiguous “Stupid Blood”, penned by UK punk legend Howard Devoto. Included in this reissue is “Mesozoica,”  an eight-minute dark ambient track from the same period as Cross Purposes but unreleased until now.

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Selected Discography of Ferrara Brain Pan (a/k/a Steven Hitchcock)

  • Boyd Rice & Steven Hitchcock - This Priceless Recording (unreleased), 1977
  • Steven Hitchcock - Sheet Tape Registered Black (unreleased), 1979
  • 23 Degrees - ...An Endless Searching for Substance, Silent Records, 1994
  • Faust - Rien, Table of the Elements, 1994
  • Darmstadt Pharmacy - Ether (CD-R edition of 100 copies), 1998
  • Forms of Things Unknown - Cross Purposes, Panaxis Records, 2003 (Reissue, Pimalia 2008)
  • Forms of Things Unknown - Black Trenchcoats & Swastikas ‘N Shit, Pimalia 2008

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Tracklisting:

  • 1 Black Candles & Pentagrams ‘n Shit Part I: Risen, the Judas Moon   6:47
  • 2 Black Candles & Pentagrams ‘n Shit  Part II: Errant Bodies   9:13
  • 3 Mariam Matrem: Instrumental Version   2:50
  • 4 Mariam Matrem: Vocal Version   2:49
  • 5 Stupid Blood 7:23
  • 6 Mesozoica (previously unreleased bonus track)   8:08
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Email Forms of Things Unknown here.

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Artist Links:

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