Blood Wizard

Out on 16th September, Blood Wizard releases the follow up to their critically acclaimed debut record Western Spaghetti - a chaotically triumphant new EP Imaginary House.

With a fascination for dissonant chords and jolting rhythms, the music of Blood Wizard provides a space for Cai Burns to express a side to their writing unrestricted by the pressures of genre. Having grown up surrounding themselves with punk and metal, it was not until Burns began collaborating with others that they found themselves falling more and more in love with the world of folk. And this was a love cemented when he stumbled upon the works of Bert Jansch.

“I’m not sure how I first stumbled upon Jansch, but I was blown away by him. I was never taught how to play guitar so my technique is pretty sketchy and hearing the liveliness and clunkiness of his playing really spoke to me. I saw him as my bridge into playing folk guitar.”

And whilst Jansch acted as an entry point into the world of folk, it was the persona of Blood Wizard that proved to be the biggest gateway for Burns. Under the guise of the mystical cloaks and robes of the wizard, Burns had found a home for his experimentation. Floating between both the subcultures he was raised within and the ones he presently found himselfwanting to explore, Blood Wizard sits between the worlds of art, punk and folk. Influenced by the likes of Cate Le Bon and Arthur Russel, Blood Wizard was born out of a fascination with folk-lore and a desire to challenge their creative limits as a writer.

“There’s almost something to live up to with the name Blood Wizard. You can’t have this name and not make eccentric music. It almost forces you to be Avant Garde.”

An artist who straddles genres to create a sound uniquely their own, Blood Wizard’s brand of ‘Wonky Folk’ blends components of classic folk with this aforementioned avant garde to create an environment to which his distinctive character can wander freely. Drawing similarities to the narrative led by murmurings of Kurt Vile as well as the unpredictability of Crack Cloud, it’s less about fitting in for Burns and more about developing a world, where the mystique and sheer eccentricity of Blood Wizard can be fully let loose. 

Blood Wizard announce the follow up to their critically acclaimed debut record Western Spaghetti, with their chaotically triumphant new EP Imaginary House: http://ffm.to/imaginaryhouse. With the same stomping synth fuzz that drew acclaim in The Slip, Imaginary house places the deceptively hypnotic spoken word of Cai Burns at the forefront of the piece. As his Kurt Vile-esque vocals lead the listener through the track, it soons becomes clear that Imaginary House not only acts as an introduction to the forthcoming EP, but a gateway to the sheer beauty and eccentricity of Blood Wizard. Just as the track lays the foundations for what lies in store for listeners, it also played an integral part in the development of the EP for Burns himself. “Whilst it wasn’t the first song written on the EP, it felt like the glue that finally stuck the EP together. I was going through this ‘limbo’ period in my life and Imaginary House encapsulated the aftermath of this claustrophobia. I’d lost touch with the outside world and the inside had become some sort of fantasy. I consider Imaginary House to be the walls that contain the other tracks and it was soon clear that it would be the title track of the EP.” About the video - “Nearing death in the Atacama desert, Cai’s final drop of sweat awakens ancient microscopic hydration demons who, in hedonistic celebration of their endrenchment, rudely stir our hero from his terminal slumber”