Herbcraft Discovers the Bitter Water of Agartha, by Herbcraft

Herbcraft Discovers the Bitter Water of Agartha

by Herbcraft

supported by

jasonk Very psyched about grabbing this on tape as I was a Herbcraft & Cursillistas fanboy before coming across Flower Room. Thank you, Matt.

Driftwood Lodge / Chris Heightchew thumbnail

Andrew Norton, Night Folk in the Afternoon thumbnail

Subscription

Subscribe now to receive all the new music Flower Room creates, including this release and 97 back-catalog releases, delivered instantly to you via the Bandcamp app for iOS and Android. You’ll also get access to subscriber-only exclusives. Learn more.

Subscribe Now $35 USD/year or more
Full Digital Discography

98

releases

Get all 98 Flower Room releases available on Bandcamp and save 85%.

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Lilac of the Valley, On Garudan Wing, Flight Path, ML rootless, Crop Circle, Searching, Flowering, On the Crystal Seas, and 90 more. , and , .
Excludes subscriber-only releases.

Purchasable with gift card

$54.53 USD or more (85% OFF)
10th Anniversary Limited Edition Cassette
Cassette
Hand-numbered and limited to 50! 10th anniversary edition of the out-of-print album, officially released on cassette for the first time with an exclusive 2020 remix and remaster by Matt LaJoie. Home-dubbed Type I c39 with black shell, individually typed green A-side label and hand-stamped B-side. Held in clear polybox with double-sided pro-printed wraparound tip-on cover that interpolates the original vinyl album cover art.

Note: This is a physical-only exclusive, with no digital version included. For digital, please seek via your favorite provider.

Sold Out

	1.	Road To Agartha
	2.	Dark Deities
	3.	Bow To Drink The Bitter Water
	4.	The Domain Of The Arianni
	5.	Many Dark Ages
	6.	Outward Journey
	7.	No Hope For Mankind

about

10th anniversary edition of Matt LaJoie's fever-dream lo-fi psychsploitation Herbcraft debut! Birthed from an unusually lucid dream in which he discovered a long-lost 1973 post-hippie cult-rock private press LP inside a trunk in an unfamiliar attic, LaJoie awoke invigorated and spent the next 24 hours recording as much of the astral album as he could remember. With only a borrowed electric guitar and microphone, a few effects pedals, and a Y2K-era digital 8-track capturing the results onto zip disks, the LP took its crazed, homespun form naturally.

Thematically and lyrically, the record was based around Admiral Byrd's apocryphal account of a trip to the center of the Earth and subsequent council with the highly evolved beings of Agartha, who warned of the great potential of humans destroying the planet through nuclear war and environmental destruction. Connecting this tale to the Planet Earth Rock & Roll Orchestra's canon, Herbcraft Discovers the Bitter Water of Agartha melds bedroom psych-folk, miniature space-rock / prog epics, faint echoes of classic rock radio, and sci-fi verite (Orson Welles' notorious 1938 "War of the Worlds" broadcast was also a tangential reference point) into a singular statement of DIY ambition and resourcefulness. Written and recorded entirely in final tracklist order, from opener "Road to Agartha"'s bootleg-PERRO chug and shred to closing track "No Hope For Mankind"'s Recife-folk homage, the album is a trip in every sense of the word. As Byrd and his crew are pulled ever-deeper into the domain of the Arianni, the sonics become gradually more warped and disorienting: classic rock fake-outs and Fangs-and-Arrows-era experimental folk segue into an abstract drone-noise spoken word collage and one truly bizarre appearance of an otherworldly acapella choir, right at the record's (and planet's) center. As the "Outward Journey" begins, the music grows more earthbound until we finally land in the jarring, awakening light of dawn.

Originally released exclusively on vinyl in 2010 via the Woodsist subsidiary Hello Sunshine, Agartha's lone physical edition has been out of print since 2018. We are excited to offer the first official cassette release in a home-dubbed limited edition of 50, with an exclusive remix and remaster by Matt specifically for this tape edition.

(This is a physical-only exclusive, with no digital version included. For digital, please seek via your favorite provider.)

credits

released February 28, 2020

Matt LaJoie: electric guitar, vocals, glass jar, fx.
Recorded December 21-22, 2009 at New Wyrd 33 (Portland, ME).
Mixed December 2009; remixed February 2020 by ML at Green Lodge (Brunswick, ME).
Photos, text, and design by Nicholas E. Barker; cassette edition redesign by ML.

license

about

Flower Room Portland, Maine

Exploration & discoveries in improvisation & harmonization ☄ Tonal cosmology, virtual rurality, and hymns to the cosmos and the natural world, to heal and inspire a more harmonious You-We-All ☤ Welcome

Recommendations

contact / help

Contact Flower Room

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

Flower Room recommends:

Urban Driftwood
by Yasmin Williams

Williams' music is narrative storytelling in instrumental form, a stunning achievement that stands alone in the solo guitar canon. A singular vision & style, and inspiration for each to likewise seek. Flower Room
go to album
Spells
by Nailah Hunter

Hunter's unique blend of harp, voice, field recordings & ambient electronics made Spells our favorite tape of 2020, and this new vinyl edition (with 2 top-tier vinyl-exclusive tracks) is perfection. Flower Room
go to album
Blanket of Black
by kafari

One of our favorite contemporary artists crafts his ambient-jazz masterwork. Timeless piano melodies loop and brush up against complex and endlessly intriguing beats, with cosmic swaths of synth atop. Flower Room
go to album

If you like Herbcraft Discovers the Bitter Water of Agartha, you may also like:

Headless
by Sunburned Hand of the Man

supported by 28 fans who also own “Herbcraft Discovers the Bitter Water of Agartha”

beautiful dreamy album, blissed out Was Ist Das?
go to album
Deep Fried Grandeur
by Ryley Walker And Kikagaku Moyo

supported by 27 fans who also own “Herbcraft Discovers the Bitter Water of Agartha”

we go to last live in tokyo. love sound hide420
go to album
The Space Voyage
by Secrets of the third planet/S3P

Take a trip through the cosmos with these gorgeously expansive songs, that move from haunting ambiance to driving EBM. Bandcamp New & Notable Jun 6, 2021
go to album