LABEL ABLE: Sentient Ruin Laboratories

I set out to discover more about the Bay Area's "darkness-worshiping DYI label" Sentient Ruin with its owner, the shadowy M. Then, I recommend you my ten favourite releases of theirs.

Whether it’s bringing us some of the biggest 80s metal classics like Metal Blade did, or ushering in modernity like Roadrunner in the 90s, or focusing on some of heavy music’s darkest niches and achieving near cult status like Misanthropy or Necropolis in the past or Profound Lore or The Flenser in the present, or just establishing a steady stream of brilliance that makes its stamp worth something even if you don’t know the band, like Relapse, HydraHead or Southern Lord, record labels (the great ones, at least) have always been an essential part of unconventional music. With this feature, I’m going to be taking a long, hard look at some of the most interesting ones operating today, trying to understand what makes them tick, what are they looking for, what’s their purpose and motivation, and recommending you a few of my favourite releases from each of them along the way too.

Our first victim, based in Oakland, California, self-describes as a “darkness-worshiping DYI label". Celebrating ten years of releases in 2022, they’ve spent that full decade giving us almost two hundred pieces of black, death and doom metal, dark ambient, industrial, noise, punk and grind, constantly pushing the envelope, permanently trying to walk one more extra mile down that scary, pitch black tunnel of ugly and noisy music. Here’s the chat I had with label owner, M.

The label's name is a reference to entropy and chaos, as a deliberate and conscious way of life, which has an awareness, rationality and a will driving it. 

So… let’s start with the usual origin story question, but maybe with a bigger focus on the why, rather than the how. What was the main motivation to start a record label, what did you think you’d get out of it, and has reality corresponded to those initial goals, mostly?
M: Personally I've been a music fan, musician, buyer/collector, show-goer, etc, for literally decades. Music has always been my main hobby/passion since I was a pre-teen, and metal became the main one in my teens. Because of this, throughout the years I amassed a huge record collection. Over the years of buying/collecting music of course I also learned about labels releasing it and the work going into it. It always made me think how I would do it, and what I would do different or better. Just as I thought it'd be cool to get on a stage one day as a musician to play my own songs, I also always thought it would be cool to curate and issue my own releases one day which would show my own personal touch and contribution to them. So here we are now.

Did you model the label on, or were at least inspired by, some of those record labels of the past?
M: Absolutely. Just as you develop a desire to play certain music yourself after you see or hear other bands playing sick tunes, the same applies to releases: you develop a fondness for labels that helped you discover great music, become a fan and follower not only of bands but also of labels, and then from there it turns into inspiration and then a desire or dream to also be able to impact people positively yourself, by bringing them great music to discover. Those labels for me over the decades (which slowly inspired me to start my own label and which I learned from have been) just to name a few have been: Aurora Borealis, Osmose, HydraHead, Earache, Nuclear War Now!, Cold Spring, Prank Records, Cold Meat Industries, Wax Trax, Norma Evangelium Diaboli, Youth Attack.

Did you have well defined the overall kind of music Sentient Ruin (what’s the origin of that name, by the way?) would deal with? And has that scope somehow changed or adjusted throughout time?
M: Yes, vibes-wise yes: everything we opt to release has the common thread of being dark music with an ominous atmosphere and an experimental/cryptic edge. The bands and artists also must have a certain eye for detail and good visual taste, or consider that stuff important at least. In that, the scope hasn't changed much. The label's name is a reference to entropy and chaos, as a deliberate and conscious way of life, which has an awareness, rationality and a will driving it. 

Is there much of a gap between a band you personally like and a band you think is worthy of being signed by the label?
M: A lot of the bands we release now interestingly end up being albums of the year for us on a personal level. Or just stuff that's constantly on rotation while working, exercising, driving, travelling, relaxing, etc. Prime listening choices, so to speak. There is plenty of pop, and softer rock, electronic, hip-hop and other stuff we enjoy and have as favourite listens too, but of course that stuff is not releasable unless it follows the common thread outlined above, to maintain the label's clear vision and recognizable uncompromising identity.

Do you look for something specific, outside of style, in a band for the label? What’s your process for finding the next releases, assuming there is a process?
M: We feel connected to and enjoy working with bands and artists who have a transformative and brave approach to their crafts and a good balance of sound and visuals, with visuals never being too secondary. We've always been into original-sounding and looking, experimental and contaminated cross-genre stuff that isn't afraid of being misunderstood and that isn't looking for validation. I find bands mainly by following the trail of crumbs, so to speak. We have a constant ear and eye out in certain corners of the underground and do all the tedious, boring, and repetitive work which it takes to discover what we're looking for. It's almost like fishing: if you know where the fish are and the good spots, then you've done half the work already. Finding what you want is something that requires work in every aspect of life.

We still have a lot to say and its not a pandemic that's gonna make us suddenly not like music anymore.

Do you feel the same kind of “pride”, I guess that’s the closest word to what I mean, if you have a release that’s solely on Sentient Ruin, as opposed to releases that are also on other labels and where you, for example, do the tape format of?
M: Releases can come in many shapes and forms, as do the decisions and choices bands take in the treatment and divulgation of their music. Whatever makes the bands most happy usually coincides with what makes us happy. We're just stoked to work with bands we like, there is no lesser excitement or pride just because a band also enjoys collaborating with others. I am a musician too, at the end of the day, and I tend to always think as a musician when working on the releases.

Tapes have more or less seemed to be your preferred format throughout the years - do correct me if I’m wrong - is there a particular fascination for that format?
M: Vinyl and streaming/digital have been the preferred formats for years now, actually. Vinyl because of its analog fidelity qualities and big artworks, and digital for its versatility, reach and ease of consumption. Tapes are a great way to offer affordable physical items to people with an analog sound, and CDs represent the same for those who enjoy the big and crystalline digital sound. However, CDs are in decline cross-industry and hard to make a focal point for the label as a result (simply their demand is low), while tapes never went completely extinct and even bounced back somewhat, but that's far from saying they are thriving and growing in appeal at a such level whereas a label could build its business around them. That's our experience at least.

I know it’s not very diplomatic, but are there specific releases that you think have been important to push the label forward in a significant way?
M: Yeah, that's always a difficult one that's really hard to answer. I think the most “diplomatic” way of going about this one would be to mention those bands which have been absolute pillars of the label's sound and vision, but which the general public likely did not fully understand or give it the extra time and work needed to sit down with them to truly understand their marvel. For this reason of being underrated releases on the label, I feel like there is an actual good intention and reason in mentioning them over others. Music consumption today is oversaturated and listens happen fast among endless queues of stuff to listen to, so if a release does not have the gift and simplicity and immediacy to hit home three seconds in, then it may as well go completely and unfairly unnoticed. This doesn't mean it's not good. Somnolent, Emanation, Cryptae, Murderbait, Disimperium, Suspiral, Puro Odio, 6th Circle, Vile Ritual and Hexerei, Prousted, Apostasy, Veneno and Obsoletion are all incredible, quirky and cryptic, yet visionary bands to checkout on the label if you haven't already.

On the other hand, without naming names, have there been any major disappointments, for any reason?
M: Thankfully so far, zero regrets.

A little exercise in imagination - how do you think the label might have turned out without the help of the internet? Do you consider it a necessary evil?
M: That we'll never know. I don't think the internet is the best thing we have, it's just the only thing we have at this point, so that's what we use to work with. We'd probably be working differently like everyone else within the normality of an alternate reality we will never know. If I think about sending promos, press releases, and promoting the releases in general or distributing them without the internet though, well, yikes? How the hell did labels do it back in the day? I guess if I had one back then I would know and have lots of cool stories to tell right now...

How do you envision the future of the label, both the near future and long term? Do you still feel the same enthusiasm and motivation that you had (I suppose, haha) in the beginning?

M: Thanks to you for the time and interest! Right now it's bleak and difficult due to the supply chain and manufacturing disruptions and the inflation that the pandemic first and then this stupid war brought forth. Let's just hope this is a momentary thing but we've definitely felt that this has been the first real challenge and scary moment in the label's life where, yes, the thought has crossed our minds of maybe even momentarily throwing in the towel till things normalize. But this is a labor of love and rationalizing things, everything in life is made of cycles and good times intervaled by bad times, cyclically. And the only way to get through a bad time to enjoy a good time again is to dig our way through and out the bad time. It's like this in every aspect of life. We still have a lot to say and its not a pandemic that's gonna make us suddenly not like music anymore or its publication process, which remains of course still fascinating, exciting, and inspiring to us to continue.

Find Sentient Ruin on Bandcamp, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.

JOSÉ’S TOP 10s - SENTIENT RUIN LABORATORIES

It’s hard enough to pick ten out of the almost 200 releases Sentient Ruin has unleashed upon us, so bear with me if I don’t go to the soul-crushing lengths of ordering them by preference too. So, in strict alphabetical order, you could do worse than starting your exploration of the label with these vicious little fuckers…

american - ‘coping with loss’ (2014, SRUIN003)
Its equally harrowing follow-up, 2017’s ‘violate and control’ (the lower case isn’t a mistake, it’s how they style it), could also have made the list, but nothing will beat the feeling of discovering this duo with their first proper album, on top of it one of the label’s first releases - note the catalogue number, three. It’s how true this album feels that’s scary - it really does feel that these people are racked with grief, and the intensity that this blistering, noisy, industrialised and sludgy black metal horror is delivered with genuinely makes you worry for “jimmy” (vocals and drums) and “mike” (vocals, guitars and bass). Note that the album is 40 minutes long, but the final seventeen are reserved for one long, cold and merciless descent into hell called ‘coping with loss and the insurmountable guilt of existing’ where all concept of music is just thrown out the window, along with your soul, your happiness and what’s left of your will to live.

Coffin Lurker - ‘Foul And Defiled’ (2021, SRUIN135)
Even if you’ve never heard them, you might think you already know what a band called Coffin Lurker sounds like, but trust me, you don’t. Not until you realise this band is a duo composed of René Aquarius (many other bands, including another further down on the list, but main reference being the incredible Dead Neanderthals) and Maurice De Jong (same as René, but Gnaw Their Tongues). From there, you can begin to imagine how skewed and how really fucking depraved and obscure these guys’ take on death/doom really is. Like wading through whatever fresh hell that place is on the album cover in your underpants.

Cruz - ‘Culto Abismal’ (2016, SRUIN027)
Hailing from Barcelona - but with a Portuguese bassist and an Italian vocalist, so a Southern European joint-venture in the end -, Cruz is a good contemporary reminder of why we like extreme metal so much. Nailing the gritty, fist-raising feeling of everything that was great about the 80s and 90s, they evoke the unhallowed ghosts of Entombed, Slayer or Bolt Thrower, all delivered with a reckless, punked up attitude (they mention Discharge and Wolfbrigade as inspirations too, which makes sense) that will wake up the vandal in you and will having you thrashing all around like a maniac in less than five seconds into any song. Now then, where’s the follow-up?

Cryptae - ‘Vestigial’ (2019, SRUIN090)
See, there’s René again, alongside another like-minded weirdo (Kees Peederman, on guitars and vocals). As Cryptae, the duo have stepped outside the usual boundaries of death and doom metal so much that they’re only stepping in a musical no man’s land. ‘Vestigial’, all of its one nineteen-minute track - yeah, I could have chosen the first full-length, ‘Nightmare Traversal’, released a year later, with a more normal structure and amount of songs, but (wo)man up and take the punishment, will you? -, feels almost like a deconstruction of genres, broken pieces that won’t fit anymore put back together and wrapped in barbwire to stick to each other. With a sticker that says “still death metal, kinda”. Terrifying, to be honest.

Petrification- ‘Hollow Of The Void’ (2018, SRUIN064)
In this wild seesaw of a list that goes from extreme experimentation to ultra-classic primitivism, it’s back to the latter with Petrification. Old school doesn’t seem like a strong enough word to describe what this five-piece from Portland, Oregon really does - if Cryptae is a deconstruction, then Petrification is almost a distilling of the most basic and rudimentary components of death metal really are. In other words, simple, skull-bashing caveman music, as if Autopsy, Obituary or even Repulsion had decided their music was a bit too complex and they should dumb it down a little. Fucking awesome, is what it is.

夢遊病者 (Sleepwalker) - ‘5772’ (2017, SRUIN043) and ‘Noč Na Krayu Sveta’ (2021, SRUIN117)
Yes, the two of them! The site is mine and I’ll cheat if I want to. How do you pick one? Sure, ‘5772’ is the one that’s become legendary in the underground. As the label itself defines it better than I ever would, “a hypnotic and disorienting fusion of drone, raw black metal, kraut/psychedelic rock, free-jazz, absurdist noise rock, and surreal tribal ritualism that shatters the synapses. A truly unparalleled mind-fuck suspended between the visionary opposites of bands like Voivod, Zeni Geva, Oxbow, King Crimson, Ornassi Pazuzu, Lurker of Chalice, and Xasthur,” and yeah, believe it or not, there’s no record label bullshit exaggeration whatsoever there, everything in that blurb is 100% accurate. But ‘Noč Na Krayu Sveta’, once it settles in the collective consciousness of the underground, has the potential to even top that, a profoundly bewildering listen that reshuffles and seemingly (but not at all) randomly redistributes all those crazy influences and more. For a deeper dive into this absolutely unique entity, check out the podcast episode I did with one of its mysterious members.

Sutekh Hexen - ‘Sutekh Hexen’ (2019, SRUIN076)
A self-titled album on the tenth year of your existence is something that carries some conceptual weight in and of itself, and indeed, this intimidating trio - Sentient Ruin neighbours from Oakland, too - did rise to the occasion upon the release of ‘Sutekh Hexen’ and delivered their darkest, most expansive, most intense and best album so far. Born of a collaboration between experimental musician (and graphic artist) Kevin Gan Yuen (Ogham) and guitarist Scott Miller (the original guitarist for Cattle Decapitation, for example), the original raw black metal + noise Sutekh Hexen template grew a lot over the years in scope, aided by an impressive roster of collaborators (actually ‘Sutekh Hexen’ was the first recording with current full member Mackenzie Chami), but as soon as the slithering horror of opener ‘Descent’ starts washing its subterraneous filth right over you, you know you’re in for a much scarier ride than usual, a double album that flows between ominous, foreboding dread and face-peeling black metal harshness. All them nice things.

Unyielding Love - ‘The Sweat Of Augury’ (2016, SRUIN029)
Holy shit, 2016 already. Where does time go? Seems like yesterday when this unassuming little EP burst through my inbox, a twenty minute unrelenting blast of oblique grindcore, harsh, noise-infused and (black) metallic, the likes of which I hadn’t heard ever since the much-missed Trap Them redefined the genre for the 21st century. In fact, it’s sort of poetic that ‘The Sweat Of Augury’ is from the same year - released a mere six days after! - as Trap Them’s swansong, ‘Crown Feral’. It’s as if there was an unspoken, unintentional passing of the torch between them, and that’s the greatest compliment I can grant this fantastic record. Thing is, this was also Unyielding Love’s last release so far. Right before the pandemic, they had mentioned a new album on their social media, so here’s hoping.

Vastum - ‘Hole Below’ (2015, SRUIN015)
Yeah, it was mostly a 20 Buck Spin release, but Sentient Ruin put out the tape version, and it would be remiss to not mention such an already iconic album that is, for all intents and purposes, part of the label’s catalogue. It’s Vastum as we’ve come to know and love and admire them - murky, old school death metal that keeps veering off path without losing its cavernous qualities, it has a certain Morbid Angel-esque labyrinthine quality to it which will disorient and crush in equal measure. And though she has a ton more stuff going on besides, it was a pleasure to also discuss a bit about Vastum (and the new material they’re preparing!) with Leila Abdul-Rauf on a recent episode of the podcast, so check that one out if you haven’t yet.

Vermin Womb - ‘Decline’ (2016, SRUIN028)
Handled by Translation Loss for the other formats, but once again released on tape by Sentient Ruin, ‘Decline’ essentially turned everything that was great about their debut EP ‘Permanence’ and made it bigger, noisier and more intense. For those of you unaware, Vermin Womb is Ethan from Primitive Man, Zach who’s been Ethan’s bandmate in both Clinging To The Trees Of A Forest Fire and Withered, and In The Company Of Serpents’ drummer J.P. Damron (who was also a member of CTTTOAFF). That’s enough horrid grind-doom credentials right there, but this band manages to be even more than the sum of its hefty parts, and the blackened, uncontrollable chaos they create feels like being caught in the middle of a crossfire where everyone is armed with a rocket launcher except you. Hey guys, we know you’re busy, but can we have another album soon please?