The Ukrainian-born Portland transplant Markov Soroka has built quite a legacy for himself over the last several years. Now, he stands gleaming and triumphant alongside the ranks of other Lupus Lounge/Prophecy Productions artists.
With his trifecta of crushing personas – Drown, Tchornobog & Aureole – Soroka has subtly shaped the American black metal community, and with each project, has explored a new facet of expression and himself. Each project has a distinct personality, fleshed out with full characters, stories, and his own experiences of synesthesia. This leaves each individual project with its own particular sound, though they all exist in the same world as each other and are all directly interwoven.
After 8 years of writing and crafting, the 2017 full-length ‘Tchornobog’ was finally ready to be released, standing as a surrealistic and dark expression of the world around us, and of human nature itself. Tchornobog is Ukrainian for “black god”, a Slavic mythological figure often associated with darkness, death and evil. The project reflects its namesake’s unholy origins but does not worship him, instead exploring the chaos of our Earth, but focused on the atmospheric self-meditations of Soroka himself through death and black metal narratives.
Aureole is an abstract and ambient exploration of the universe surrounding Soroka. Fuzzed out and distinctly atmospheric, 2014’s ‘Alunar’ is dripping with Cascadian black metal sounds, yet is not part of that community. He has crafted his own world, and with ‘Aurora Borealis’ in 2016, he continued to explore noise, black metal and audible loss.
Drown’s singular album “Unsleep” is a five part doom masterpiece. Crafted in 2014, it follows the story of a man who commits suicide by drowning, and the journey of his body and spirit forever spiraling into the depths of the ocean. Melodic and infinitely creepy, it set the stage for later works of Soroka.
Soroka says:
“Pleased to announce my partnership with Prophecy Productions. This German/American label with over 22 years of experience has supported and worked closely with artists to help achieve their visions. Some great gems — some of which you may not even be aware that Prophecy had a hand in — have been released under their guise. We will be working with Prophecy and Vigor Deconstruct to release my discography as well as new releases on all formats for Tchornobog, Drown, and Aureole. It is great to be working with Prophecy Productions, who are no strangers to creative and exploratory music of the mind!”
The first joint achievements of the cooperation with Markov Soroka are physical reissues of Tchornobog’s self-titled debut album, Drown’s “Unsleep” and Aureole’s “Alunar”.These will be released on August 16 on vinyl and as Digipak CDs.
Pre-order the records here: https://prophecy.lnk.to/tchornobog-aureole-drown/
https://www.facebook.com/Tchornobog