Liam Blackburn’s Ancestral Voices project has announced the release of Navagraha on Berlin-based label Horo, scheduled to launch as a 3LP set on March 1. 

Navagraha means “nine celestial bodies” in Sanskrit, and each Graha is a specific vibration and relates to the nine planets of our solar system, as well as the different parts of our body. 

It references Hans Cousto, a Swiss mathematician and musicologist who discovered the natural law of the cosmic octave as the link between different kinds of periodically occurring natural phenomena, such as the orbit of the planets, the weather, colours, rhythms and tones. ​Ancestral Voices has taken Cousto’s “frequency” of each planet and created a unique tuning system that he uses for each track. 

The music is abstract, drenched in a field of delays, long-form tones, ghost-like whispers, and illuminated layers. Rhythmic stretches are also scattered throughout, revealing the album’s exploration through sequenced motives and elongated note progressions. The music stays darkly tinged, cinematic with its emotional vitality and shapeshifting design work. 

Navagraha is Liam Blackburn’s third release under the Ancestral Voices moniker, following 2018’s Mycelia LP on his label, The Fifth Kingdom. It can be pre-ordered digitally/physically via Bandcamp, with streams of the tracks “Prithvi” and “Shani” below.

Tracklisting

01. Surya 

02. Budh

03. Shukr 

04. Prithvi 

05. Mangal 

06. Brihaspati

07. Shani

08. Arun

09. Varun 

10. Yam