Insect Ark / United States

From New York / USA - Based in Berlin, Germany
Label: Profound Lore Records

Dripping and lurching horror films, gritty noir textures, crushing weight and viciously sensual delicacy: Insect Ark is raw, ominous, desolate, and fearlessly unique.
INSECT ARK is the duo of American artists Dana Schechter (bass, lap steel, synths, vocals - also a member of SWANS) and Tim Wyskida (drums, percussion - also a member of KHANATE). The band is based in Berlin.

Raw Blood Singing - the band’s fourth full-length - is the result of a year’s writing. With a shared obsession with innovation and distillation, the duo merged and created an album that offers a sonic landscape which vacillates between sensory overload and isolation in a seething void.

Many of the songs on Raw Blood Singing were written alone in 2021 by Schechter; they were gutted, reworked, and rebirthed when Wyskida joined in 2022.
The outer realms of avant-metal, psych doom, and experimental goth intersect here, but Insect Ark fiercely refuses the trappings of simple genre categorization. From the tiny whisper of a synth to a monstrous wall-of-sound with Schechter’s blistering lap steel guitar playing and diabolical bass playing, to the mammoth, searing power of Wyskida’s drums, they weave a landscape that is lush, bleak, vast, and expansive.

The title of the new album is deeply rooted in the concept of evolution, on both a human and a univeral scale – stories of physical beings bound by equal parts unchangeable matter and maleable, shape-shifting energy. A fascination of the conscious vs unconscious mind, and of the workings of the depth of the psyche, help us to witness evolution via our own human experience.

The music, too, has evolved beyond Insect Ark’s origin as an instrumental band, this time with a deep honeyed poison in the form of Schechter’s vocals. This will be the very first Insect Ark album with vocals. Schechter's got a penchant for crafting haunted and memorable melodies that get firmly stuck in your head, and the contrast of her smoky voice with the spare, brutal music feels both uncomfortably intimate and icy cold.

Insect Ark was first founded in 2011 as a solo project in Brooklyn, NY by Schechter. Over time, it became a collaborative band that included other members.

2011-2014 - One-woman solo project of Dana Schechter (all instruments). Releases Collapsar 7”, Long Arms 10”, Portal/Well LP; Solo tours in N. America, EU.
2015-2019 - Addition of Ashley Spungin (Spirit Posession) on drums/electronics. Release of 2018’s Marrow Hymns on Profound Lore Records, EU and N. America tours, Composer Residency at EMS Stockholm; appearances at Roadburn, Basilica Soundscape, Northwest Terror Fest
2019-2020 - Drummer Andy Patterson (SubRosa) joins; N. America tour with Oranssi Pazuzu; recording of The Vanishing in NYC with engineer
Colin Marston. Release Feb 2020 on Profound Lore Records, EU tour Feb-Mar 2020 (interrupted by covid 19)
Spring 2020 - Schechter relocates to Europe, joins SWANS; works as co-composer/performer at Volkstheater Vienna
Fall 2021 - Release of Future Fossils on Consouling Sounds; Solo EU tour
Spring 2022 - Drummer Tim Wyskida (Khanate, Blind Idiot God, Azonic) joins
Spring-Fall 2022 - Touring & Festivals, Europe
Fall-Winter 2022 - Writing + Demos
Spring 2023 - Recording for the band’s 4th studio full-length LP