The highly influential Khanate return with their first album in 14 years,
developing their singular and signature precise, temporal abstract doom beyond
all thresholds. Khanate are Stephen O'Malley (Sunn O))), KTL), James Plotkin (OLD, Scorn, Phantomsmasher), Alan Dubin (OLD, Gnaw) and Tim
Wyskida (Blind Idiot God).
Unflinching and brutal, the seeds for To Be Cruel were planted in October 2017
when Tim and Stephen spent a week in the English countryside at Orgone
Studio with Jamie Gomez Arrellano. James began working these sessions into
overall suites of music, a process the band has classically used on all of their
prior albums. By spring 2018 initial song arrangements were proposed and over
the latter half of the year bass, synth and vocal tracks were added. 2019 saw the
completion of writing and recording at which point it was passed to Randall
Dunn to mix, alongside the band, in 2020.
The three songs that comprise To Be Cruel are complex, powerful and multidimensional. The music is all-enveloping; dry, alive, rich, and blistering.
Concurrent with the release of To Be Cruel, Sacred Bones will digitally reissue
Khanate's four prior full lengths - Khanate (2001), Things Viral (2003), Capture
& Release (2005), Clean Hands Go Foul (2009) - with a physical reissue campaign
to follow.