Lacrimorta fearlessly explores new territory on One Flesh, One End, and it is brilliant, gorgeous, deathly, and theatrical, where a vibrant vintage and operatic character meets gothwave, trance, and metal. The songwriting is patient and purposeful, populated with electronic melodies, a mixture of blistering, core shaking percussion, and vocals that feel like multiple characters in a play delivering lyricism with salient imagery. The care and craftsmanship poured into each moment are to be revered.
One Flesh, One End is a concept album based on “The Locked Tomb” trilogy written by Tamsyn Muir, a tale of necromancers in space, which Nikoletta Winters – the mastermind that is Lacrimorta – read before writing the album. She said, “This album is both a love letter and a fan project aimed at capturing a lot of what happens in those books. Doing a concept album around some books I liked seemed like an amazing idea.” Nikoletta commented that other artists have also written concept albums based on books, such as Summoning with “Lord of the Rings” and Caladan Brood with “Malazan.” Lacrimorta did it with “The Locked Tomb.” Much of the lyricism on One Flesh, One End captures pivotal moments from the “The Locked Tomb”, and even the album title refers to the entwinement of key figures in the story, necromancer and cavalier.
Nikoletta said, “Am I saying that ‘The Locked Tomb’ is as good as ‘Lord of the Rings’ or ‘Malazan?’ Why yes, yes I am. ‘The Locked Tomb’ is on the same level in my opinion. It’s probably the Star Wars of our time. It’s absolute poetry. Of course, I also believe that Muir’s masterwork is different from something like Star Wars in that it could be widely offensive to a huge contingent of people who continually can’t seem to release themselves from the chains of societal norms. She really gets into the idea that our bodies aren’t really what define who we are, especially in “Nona the Ninth,” and I truly think that it is a story that needs to be experienced in times such as these.” Nikoletta added, “It was fucking awesome to write a concept album about lesbian necromancers in space.”
Lacrimorta albums are worth the deep dive, so I quickly took to reading “The Locked Tomb” trilogy to more fully appreciate One Flesh, One End, and it has brought to life the lyricism and the imagery of the album. The gorgeous cover art showcases a [SPOILER ALERT] moment between Harrowhark Nonagesimus, on the left, and Alecto, on the right. The moment comes from the end of “Nona the Ninth,” the third book in the trilogy, where they meet, in a way. Nikoletta said, “Kat Laurange, the artist who did the cover art for One Flesh, One End perfectly captured this moment in a 1980s Filmation ‘She-Ra’ vibe.” The cover art originally started as a drawing on a napkin and that Kat instantly took to the subject material as a fellow “Locked Tomb” fan. The striking final product took about nine months complete.
One Flesh, One End is like a castle, not unlike the Canaan House in “Gideon the Ninth”, with its hallways, corridors, atriums, laboratories, and unknown adventures behind locked doors. The complexity of the album is reflected in many of the life transitions Nikoletta experienced while writing the album, including a move to the middle of nowhere and leaving her religion.
Middle of Nowhere
Writing One Flesh, One End was a three-year process. About 1 year into the production of the album, on November 17, 2023, Nikoletta decided to move to Guam, which happened to be the same day as the first and only live show Lacrimorta played at a gig in Tucson, AZ. Nikoletta’s decision to move happened quickly, although she did not make the move until April of 2024.
Nikoletta said, “I have uprooted myself many, many times in my life, but none of those moves were so drastic and paradigm shifting as it was to move to Guam.” To make the move, she had to cleanse herself of everything except her three pets.
Guam is a small island that sits in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Nikoletta described Guam as a place where survival feels like the first priority. She said, “Typhoons are a real threat, earthquakes occasionally occur, our power goes out regularly, and during the rainy season our water can too. It can be very uncomfortable here if you aren’t mentally prepared.”
The move had a major impact on Nikoletta and One Flesh, One End. “The impact that my move had on One Flesh, One End was manifold”, including how she lives her daily life, which has inspired some of the songwriting on the album. Nikoletta told me, “I never go out into the sun, and when I do it’s with a parasol and lots of sunscreen. I have been more isolated here than I have anywhere else which means embracing a lifestyle where sleep doesn’t happen as regularly as it should. I spent a large portion of my waking hours thinking about what I wanted the album to be. A lot of my day-to-day life made it into One Flesh, One End. “Soup” for instance, was a song that served as a lyrical departure from my previous works. I mean, it literally is about making soup. I even go into minute detail on how to do it, albeit poorly.”
Leaving My Religion
The writing of One Flesh, One End coincided with other transformative experiences as well, including Nikoletta leaving her religion. Nikoletta told me, “Just as Harrowhark [a main character in “The Locked Tomb” trilogy] discovers that her religion is run by flawed individuals, and what she actually believes, so have I been ever in search of my own truth for the intangible intelligence that exists within and without.” Nikoletta has been a lifelong practitioner of the Left Hand Path but has challenged her own ideas about what exactly that means, and doing so has been difficult and come at a steep cost.
Nikoletta explained that organized religion is sometimes viewed as a dangerous thing, but it also can be a very positive toolbox for the daily struggles that we as humans encounter. She told me that most organized religions emerged out of love, understanding, and a belief for something greater but, unfortunately, over time have become slowly transformed by selfish elements of humanity in search of personal power.
Nikoletta decided to leave the Temple of Set, which is an occult religious organization that practices Satanism, on the day she found out she was leaving for Guam. Nikoletta said, “I did not take my decision to leave lightly, and in fact, in some ways it broke my heart. I care(d) very much for many of the people and ideas that organization has brought into my life. All that said, I wasn’t about to waste the opportunity of using the combined energies of a live show, finding out I have to move, and leaving an actual snake cult on the same day.”
“I think it was an important life experience to walk away from my religion. There’s nothing more Satanic than saying ‘No’”, Nikoletta said. She hasn’t spoken much about her feelings with regards to leaving the Temple, but the energy surrounding that decision made it directly into One Flesh, One End.
I Made Some Soup
The sound on One Flesh, One End is not unlike soup. It’s a mix of different ingredients, cooked down, stirred until a synthesis of sound emerges. Like all Lacrimorta or Virtual Intelligence – Nikoletta’s prior music project – albums, several listens and deep study are in order. Read our stories about PAINSYNC and Lacrimorta’s self-titled debut. When you listen closely to One Flesh, One End or listen over headphones and let it encapsulate your world, the tiny details that make the whole of every song come to life.
The detail that went into the songwriting process on One Flesh, One End is remarkable. Nikoletta said she started writing the album by sitting down and writing piano lines, which was especially true on some songs, such as “Reverend Daughter.” She doesn’t own a piano, so she used an MPE (MIDI polyphonic expression) capable controller called a Linnstrument to get her ideas down. Nikoletta told me MPE was a game changer because the note velocity and MPE expression are two important details to the new album. She said, “I was so happy when Ableton implemented MPE as it gave me the ability to add more dimension to certain sounds, especially synth leads, dreamy pads, and orchestral strings.
Lacrimorta’s sound is layer upon layer, which Nikoletta refers to a “wall of noise.” Nikoletta said, “I wanted the quiet parts of the album to stand out. I also wanted the songs to be more dynamic, which meant paying closer attention to automation targets, changing volumes as needed, but also finding the correct sounds to bring my ideas into being. I spent a little more time on the sound design of One Flesh, One End than I did on the first album.”
One Flesh, One End is more vocal and more lyrical, but it still features Nikoletta’s minimalist style of vocals – say the most in the fewest words, squeeze the most out of every phrase. I encourage listeners to read lyrics while it plays. Lyrically, One Flesh, One End is magical and romantic and rich in imagery, an experience enriched even more by reading “The Locked Tomb” trilogy.
One Flesh, One End boldly opens with “Reverend Daughter,” named for Harrowhark Nonagesimus, with the lyrics I deserve to die at your hand, you’re my only friend, sung with a sense of lonesomeness, ending the first verse with One Flesh, One end…bitch. These lyrics capture a moment in “Gideon the Ninth” when Harrowhark and Gideon float together in a saltwater pool and Harrowhark tells Gideon the story of her creation, one of two hundred deaths, and the secret of what lies beyond the locked tomb. The sound of “Reverend Daughter” feels like it picks up where Lacrimorta’s self-titled debut left off with heavy lead guitar work, gothic vocal melodies. This makes some sense because Nikoletta said it was one of the first songs she wrote for the album.
One Flesh, One End is loaded with bangers, and one of those is “Soup,” a song that is quite literally about making soup and features heart-pounding, thrashing percussion and raving synths. Although the song is about making soup, it stays true to “The Locked Tomb” theme with references to the Emperor, prayers to the Locked Tomb, and swords, as the trilogy is populated with cavaliers bearing their swords, sword fights, and swords pierced through the gut. Nikoletta pushes the boundary of her vocal prowess with the speed, intensity, and number of climaxes with which the vocals are delivered. Nikoletta said, “There’s an element of gallows humor and comedy to that song [Soup] and the album as a whole that I have never explored before. In Tamsyn Muir’s novel “Harrow the Ninth,” the main character Harrowhark goes through a transformation of her own which includes leaving behind her religion, trying to survive, and being incredibly isolated in the far reaches of space on the Mithraeum. There’s also this element of her being a fraud or incomplete. All of these things are things I have experienced and explored here on this tiny far flung island in the middle of the Pacific.”
“Beautiful Labyrinth” features dazzling synth melodies like meandering through a maze, chugging, aggressive guitar riffs that warn of impending doom, and thunderous beats. “Psycho Shadow Vestal” opens with a dreamy ethereal melody and galloping rhythm. Vocally and atmospherically, the song feels lonesome, with catastrophic piano notes dropping with varying intensity, constructing their own melody through time. The song also features variation in Nikoletta’s songwriting, featuring two pre-choruses.
Nikoletta told me that she made a conscious effort to get away from the intro > verse > pre-chorus > chorus > bridge structure. For example, she said “on ‘Suite Sister Lyctor (The First Flower of My House)’ I made the verses much shorter, by about four bars to get into the meat of the track quicker. I am very much an eight bar sort of person, but breaking away from writing songs in that way resulted in a lot of different little details that made this album much more fluid and less cold. Some songs, like ‘Alectopause (Suffer and Learn)’ have two choruses in a sense. I also sometimes skip choruses where they are expected to be like in the second chorus drop in ‘Prayer to the Locked Tomb.’ For that song, I put a huge emphasis on the bridge of the song as a way to explore varying choral vocal styles as a way to challenge myself into using the full range of my vocals.
“Suite Sister Lyctor (The First Flower of My House)” opens with the deathly melody like the breath of the dying, an ominous riff like a horse galloping in the night through a black forest, hard-hitting beats, sounds that stab, breaking the skin as they pulsate and dark magic melodies as if coercing a snake from a basket. The lyricism captures part of the final climax in the book “Gideon the Ninth,” the first in “The Locked Tomb” trilogy. “Prayer to the Locked Tomb” captures a scene from the book “Gideon the Ninth” when Harrowhark prays with the people of the House of the Ninth before departing for the House of the First. The song features multiple theatrical deliverances of the prayer, I pray the tomb is shut forever, I pray the rock is never rolled away. “Alectopause (Suffer and Learn)” shares the warm glow of tones, atmosphere, melodies, and lead guitar work found in PAINSYNC with beats that softly pummel, bass lines that pulsate, and digitally textured melodies that play like electricity fizzling in water.
Nikoletta explored some new styles on One Flesh, One End, notably trance. “I spent a large portion of my writing process exploring ways to get more organized, and also taking a chance to study 90s/early 2000s Trance properly. As a friend of mine recently pointed out to me, there’s always been a strand of Trance running through my music, going all the way back to Virtual Intelligence’s “Interface to God” EP back in 2012. In a sense, One Flesh, One End afforded me the opportunity to get back to those roots, while also making an attempt at making more polished and professional sounding tracks. The end result speaks to itself, and I believe culminates in a track like ‘Blood of Eden’ which I believe can stand on its own two legs as one hell of a Trance vibe.“
“Blood of Eden” is a psych trance best, the lone instrumental on the album clocking in over seven minutes. The song features bone crushing beats that will not quit, hammering eternally, while electronic melodies flutter like digital butterflies flapping their wings, leaving the head rolling back and forth, while sounds of a bionic grip clinching pulses.
One Flesh, One End was written in stages. Nikoletta described the process. “All of the music (without guitars) was written first. I then explored writing vocals in a different way drafting each song in Dreamtonics Synthesizer V. At one point I was just going to release the album with vocals from Synth V [software that can be used to create vocals by inputting lyrics and selecting a voice], but managed to talk myself out of it. I will say that drafting vocals with Synth V was hard but it gave me more control over the final result when I actually went in to record vocals. This was the first time I finished lyrics for an album before recording vocals. I usually write lyrics as I record vocals, I absolutely think writing lyrics in this way was much more efficient. Following that, I recorded rhythm guitars, then guitar leads, and then I double tracked all of the guitar solos on the album.” Nikoletta said One Flesh, One End is the first album she ever used a seven string guitar on. “Personally, I like six strings better, but it was fun to find ways of implementing that extra string. I then recorded lead vocals, double tracking them instead of triple tracking like I did on Lacrimorta’s self-titled and Virtual Intelligence’s PAINSYNC. I think this was a wise call as it allowed me to get a more intimate sound. Vocal harmonies were recorded after that, followed by several months of post-production.”
The final product is stunning. Nikoletta commented, “I think the real magic of this album is derived from the simple fact that I could’ve chosen to be lazy many times during the production but chose not to. I always chose things that served the album, no matter how difficult it was to execute. I think pushing through the pain of that difficulty really speaks to the end result of One Flesh, One End. I am incredibly happy with how it came out and the choices I made to get here.