Details The Throne of the Third Heaven...

Washington DC seven-piece ensemble, Le Loup have announced the UK release of their debut album, ‘The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly’. The 12 track album is released by Memphis Industries on December 10th.

During certain periods in life, creativity goes beyond serving as an outlet for dealing with stress, beyond being a welcome distraction, and becomes a compulsion. It is at this moment, when creation starts to bridge the gap between superfluity and intrinsic necessity, that some of the best art is realized. For Sam Simkoff, the creative force behind Le Loup, a similar cathartic tumult resulted in The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium Assembly.

Created during a time of personal crisis, The Throne is a cataclysm, an escape, and a journey.  Inspired largely by Dante’s Inferno (also a journey conceived by a man in a time of crisis), here an emotional catacomb is traversed circle by circle. From Dante come apocalyptic scenes, rendered from personal feelings of hopelessness and impending disaster. Descent and escape are the central themes of “canto i” and “canto xxxvi”, which take their titles from the first and last chapters of the Inferno, respectively.  

The complex themes of The Throne are characterized by mounting tension and dramatic swells, coupled with an engaging emotional resonance that lifts just as much as it illuminates. Simple melodies plucked on a banjo are buoyed by keyboard lines, improvised percussion, and sometimes as many as a dozen overlapping and intertwining vocal tracks, creating a complex and lush soundscape which shrouds itself only long enough to surge into hugeness. Conceptually abstruse while remaining fundamentally personal, The Throne is a collection of rushing narratives that connect the individual struggle of each of us to the death of the universe in a manner that is both intimate and unshakably vital.