Gil Barte - Claviceps Purpurea

Claviceps Purpurea is Gil.Barte turning to actual botany for his psychedelia, eight tracks named after the ergot fungus that once triggered mass hallucinations and, centuries later, gave a chemist the raw material for LSD.

Barte has spent his catalogue on Neubau, Big Science, and his own Meth'O'Tapes label chasing trance states and near-death atmospheres, but this record for Teenage Menopause shifts the method. Rhythm takes over where drift used to dominate, and the whole album reads as a kind of field guide to altered consciousness, western witchcraft's actual pharmacology standing in for vague occult signifiers. It's a genuinely clever conceptual pivot for an artist this committed to sound over concept, and it sharpens rather than dilutes what he does.

The title track opens the record on its own eponymous ground, establishing the exotica-tinged menace that runs through everything after. Kobold turns folkloric mischief into a genuinely club-ready stomp, Martha's Doll is the record's eeriest detour, all fever-dream electronics with barely any rhythm to anchor it, and Cordyceps closes the album on a note that loops back toward the opening, a fungal cousin bookending the fungal start.

Raving and ritual treated as the same activity. Barte has never made that argument quite this directly before.

Tracklist

1. Claviceps Purpurea
2. Kobold
   
3. Machaon
   
4. Elhwah
   
5. Martha's Doll
   
6. Bronca
   
7. Anax
   
8. Cordyceps