Mnemonists – Gyromancy

I recommend to anyone ineterested with Mnemonists to read this fascinating interview :
https://blog.navelgazers.co.uk/2023/08/mnemonists-gyromancy.html
The vinyl original version becomes even more valuable when you read the whole story here, absolutely amazing !

This wonderful magic record belong to what sounds like a trilogy to me in the Mnemonists discography. A trilogy which started with "Horde" in 1981, followed by "Biota" LP in 1982 then "Gyromancy" in 1984. What the Mnemonists had done before is slightly different in nature. The 3 records share this infectious alien-ness and fascinating organic generation of whirlpools swirling with hypnotic sounds.
On the 3 records, there's something sort-of funny to read that there are instruments played in these : "piano/cello/double bass/viola/harpsichord/soprano shawm/bagpipes/clarinet/crumhorn/curtal/cornetto/trombone/voice/metronome/bass drum/bodhran/side drum/"
Because, honnestly, there's almost no moment where you can recognise any. And when it happens briefly, it's even creating a more intense feeling of confusion and disorientation. Early AMM had this quality, but Mnemonists music is another world.
Mnemonists on this trilogy, create something with sounds appearing like organic living systems, having their own motion & will and generating their own everchanging inner world. Pursuing what sounded like a plan in the 1980 LP title "Some Attributes Of A Living System".
Listening to all 3 in a row is a splendid experience.
What makes the CD version on Recommended Records pretty valuable is that the ReRec 7" "Nail / Tic" is offered as bonus tracks and are absolutely completing the LP experience. So unless you are able to get a copy of both LP and 7", for a pretty heavy amount of gold, this CD offers the exact experience you need + a magnificient booklet respecting the Mnemonists visual strategies.
It's also interesting that ReRec found an interest in re-issuing "Horde" and "Gyromancy", because what Mnemonists were doing there is very different from what was produced on ReRec (still, the last "song"of Art Bears, "Albion, Awake!", on "The World as it is Today" share obvious similarities with Mnemonists - was it Zeitgeist, was it from a shared iration, total coincidence, i have no idea...). Instead, you have with these 3 records something fitting wonderfuly the mood of experimental unit such as the Hafler Trio, Organum, early Jeff Greinke works or Nurse With Wound.
But the great point is that ReRec made this US project available in the good old Europe. And i feel immensly greatful for that.
Now, why the 1982 "Biota" LP was never re-issued then, is also a mistery to me, because this is the missing link master-piece between "Horde" and "Gyromancy"and a Mnemonists LP rather than a Biota one (if we consider what would become their composition signature in their long discography).

The most intense, alien and abstract Mnemonists work of all time. Gyromancy was a step-up from already brilliant Horde and a peak of their experimentation and concentration, this was also confirmed in the booklet of the ReR boxset edition.

Compelling masterpiece of twisted, manipulated sounds and shuddering, spectral atmospheres.