AGONANIST, the experimental black metal project spearheaded by Tyler Henthorn, proudly launches it’s new single “The Gateway,” taken from the upcoming sophomore album ‘The Spirit of Gravity,’ set for release on August 28th via Transylvanian Recordings. The new track arrives alongside a visualizer, available below.
Equal parts haunting and transcendent, “The Gateway” embraces abstraction to evoke the infinite, inviting listeners to contemplate the impermanence of life and the inevitability of what follows. In the artist’s own words, the song is about “death and infinity.”
Watch the Premiere of the Visualizer for “The Gateway” and Read an Exclusive Interview Courtesy of No Clean Singing HERE
AGONANIST is the experimental music project of multidisciplinary artist Tyler Henthorn, based in San Francisco.
The debut album, ‘The Cynicism of Solitude,’ was released by Transylvanian Recordings in 2020. It was written and recorded while Henthorn was living nomadically between London and Ho Chi Minh City, and features microtonal guitars that were hand-fretted by Henthorn using a jeweler’s saw. He also built an improvised zither using fencing wire and piano tuning pegs, played with a bow. Field recordings captured in Vietnam are present on the album.
The project’s second album, ‘The Spirit of Gravity,’ is forthcoming in 2026 on Transylvanian Recordings. It was produced in Ho Chi Minh City and the entire album features guest work by Andrew Lee (Ripped to Shreds), Colin Marston (Krallice, Gorguts, Behold the Arctopus), and Kevin Paradis (Benighted, Svart Crown). Microtonal guitars, bass, and keys are used throughout the album, with side A being a mix of 17ET and 12ET, and side B of 22ET.
Henthorn comments about the album:
“‘The Spirit of Gravity’ represents inevitability, our experience of time being an illusion, causality being a continuous web that spans the entire universe where everything exists at once in a splatter of liquid.”
Pre-order the album here: https://transylvanianrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/agonanist-the-spirit-of-gravity
‘The Spirit of Gravity’ Track List:
- Effacement
- Cry of Cages
- The Gateway
- Silent Absent
- For Mia
- Disruption and Decay
- Collapse
The name AGONANIST is taken from an English translation of a short story by the Polish science-fiction writer Stanisław Lem, wherein a civilization has engineered itself beyond recognition and robots have created a monastic religion which promises nothing.
Lyrically, AGONANIST explores existential themes, drawing on ideas from literature such as the writing of Nietzsche, Pessoa, Cioran, and Camus. Sonically, the project sits adjacent to dissonant black metal in the vein of Deathspell Omega, Blut aus Nord, Xasthur, and Krallice.
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