The surreal movie that already is a cult even before entering homes and the every day more crowded horror clubs pulls ahead of every other production in this genre, managing to tell about the path a symbol follows after having been trusted to an adept through a great mystic, magic, exoteric vortex.
Each frame in the movie, each note in the soundtrack has its own reason to be inside a fatal, exoteric order. A dark impressionistic opera, directed by Doris Norton with a view as usual extremely far away from commercial issues, aiming towards fantastic communication through symbols…. and to the viewer’s cerebral stimulation reached by awakening doubts.
Focusing on the single frames we can notice how enormous is the psychological and figurative density of this extra-human (or… praeternatural) message. Being super-individual and exerting on people a possessive power filling the soul with a cognitive instance… this is a fragment of the concept beyond "Magic Ritual". Magic interest is deep in the human soul as fear and fascination for mysterious things are.
The author, besides the pretty musical episodes in this opera linked to Antonius Rex and their one-of-a-kind live rituals, can give the viewer a mystic feeling, a desire for a spiritual research passing through the epidermic, fragile essence of matter, sitting on the new throne the feminine figure that, long frightened by a inhuman science that – trying to set the human spirit free – ended up destroying humanity, can aim to regain its mediatic essence.
The video, with constantly "dark" tones, heavy colours, strange figures grimly overlapping, also enjoys a perfect synchronicity with a nearly maniacal sound and an editing displaying a great personal style.
The soundtrack.
Composed by Antonio Bartoccetti and arranged by Doris Norton exclusively for the video, the track called MAGIC RITUAL has been recorded in 1990 in Romania, in Monika Tasnad’s studio... an abyssal suite longer than 26 minutes. 15 years after its recording (only on tape), this work appears the absolute vanguard in contents and form, testifying once again the incomparable style have along with their being always against what’s obvious and expected.
In 1990, in the bloom of the electronic age, the two leaders choose an analogical console they found in their new Romanian collaborator’s studio. Great classic-like scores, great sensations, an absolute real-time feeling to drag the viewer/listener in the deepest abysses of his/her own spirituality.
Once again the new, previously unreleased suite (printed for the first time by Black Widow and editorially licensed worldwide by Musik Research to the major Warner Chappell) is a global fusion, a dark carriage in the night in which voices make reason pointless… classic dark ceremonies, infernal choirs, keyboards beyond progressive, ghastly ectoplasms and the good old Gibson SG that, as usual, will give you an incredible emotion… the magic Antonius Rex mystic drug.
The format.
This opera has been published in the new DVD plus format, a single disc whose A side is a video DVD while its B side is a normal audio CD. A vinyl version will be issued in a very limited edition.
Title: "Magic Ritual"
Director: Doris Norton
Production: Italia / Romania
Worldwide editor: Warner Chappell
Featuring: Antonio Bartoccetti, Doris Norton, Zelinda Manson, Natalie McLauglin
Licensing label: Black Widow Records
Product code: BWR DVD 083
Format: DVD plus (Video DVD + audio CD)
(P) (C) Musik Research
Audio Video producer: Rexanthony