Artwork by

Christian Degn

Our Breath Is Not Ours Alone

Terzij de Horde

October 10th, 2025

7 tracks

42:37

Our Breath Is Not Ours Alone

1. Each Breath A Flame

0:00

1:37

1. Each Breath A Flame

Terzij de Horde

Do we dare to crawl out Of a history of cowardice, Out of shadowed towers At supremacy’s heart?

1:37

2. Raise Them Towards The Sun

Terzij de Horde

As the hand is raised to halt the wave, The sword must rise as well; The sword must raze the swell. Do we dare to go under, To embrace the glare Of a common purpose So the world may be razed? Carrion, call out for a pyre renewed. Do we give to the blaze, For all those unseen But wished to be whole And treasured one day? As we sieve through the ashes And raise them towards the sun. Do we dare to burn Our precious effigies of self Into a collective conscience, Our trembling masks Of inherited strength? Clarion, cloaked in layers of shadows lost. Can our communal breath Nourish or petrify Our horizons of meaning? Look inward, crawl out, perform, As they sieve through our ashes And raise them towards the sun.

5:31

3. The Shadows Of Prefiguration

Terzij de Horde

In the shadows of prefiguration, Where the crowns and scepters are blind, Unveil, unveil our rage and our grief! Poised to engulf, Metis, soma, our secret fire Burns on. A sleepwalking confidence Has disowned and stolen Our most precious instruments, Condemning the voices Of our hands. Contaminate The waters Of the world’s heart With resentment. But a shadow alembic Distils the secrets of our pasts Reaching out to alchemize All horizons of being. A torrential outburst to end Internalized eternities Of isolation and shame. Transmuted the earth: They will never forget us again! Transmuted the skies: They will never forget us again!

6:53

4. A Hammer To The Great Matter Of Birth And Death

Terzij de Horde

I have tried To live up to this: The call to reach out, To grasp and to shape The heart of being, Shunning contact Nor responsibility. But I have failed. A sanitized frame Of exclusion and avoidance, Acceptance forever An event horizon. Death is here: An oak tree standing In all things. All is impermanence, Passing quickly, quickly, Along with all great illusions I will be subsumed. Haunting all pasts, Tainting all futures, The poison web Of fear and regret, The teeth of traps Set in inner worlds. And beyond the walls: The golden pavilion Circled by hatred And separation.

7:56

5. The All-Consuming Work Of The Soul’s Foreclosure

Terzij de Horde

I am a soothsayer in a court swarmed by soothsayers. My frantic and fearful constructions spread; Daylight powers consume and subsume my nights. Dreamlands colonized, organized, mobilized, To serve the master of dawn once again. I amass tremendous spiritual power For the slavery of re-articulation, To help reason’s creature survive, Foreclosing all gates Lest a myriad feral things thrive. Frantic and fearful constructions spread For the pale which must have no beyond. For I am a soothsayer In a court swarmed by soothsayers, And I myself in my depths Am only and fully a construct of worth.

4:25

6. Justice Is Not Enough To Leave The House Of Modernity

Terzij de Horde

We must leave this house, This foundation of separability, These carrying walls of universal reason; A reign of habitual poison, This nightmare epistemicide, North of the north. Under this roof: The harnessing of fears, Of death, pain and loss, Of obliterated desires, A trapping of all life. Destroy to open to greater meaning, Follow the guidelines emblazoned, Score upon score upon score. We raise this tool as a weapon And let the wind take us in its care. Take us to the howling of endless worlds! We ignite a hunger for the depth and darkness, We mark a kinship with the sacred and the monstrous, So long disowned and denied. Make this presence a mark of being! I have taken up the master’s tools, And it might not be enough, But I must separate myself from this house That traps all life. I raise this tool as a weapon And let the wind take me in its care. They will see you when you move. They will hear us when we scream. Make this presence a mark of being!

6:47

7. Discarding All Adornments (with Amelia Baker / Cinder Well)

Terzij de Horde

All powers divested, Naked and bowed low, We have become willing corpses Hung from the hooks of the underworld. To deify deeper ecologies We await our rebirth - To the light of the morning star, As accusers and resistors Of all heavenly plots Enliven, awaken, From the tyranny Of a reified self among the stars. Opening our hearts to the great below. We descend As forms of life That abandon the world For us to embrace Her, our death and defeat. We have adorned ourselves In the treasured symbols Of our immortal class, Of strife, life, desire. We have adorned ourselves In shivers of awe, In the highest energies, In divine resonance. All the currents of the universe, All the horrors of power. But now is the time To forsake all adornments. We have adorned ourselves In shivers of awe, In the highest energies, In divine resonance. All the currents of the universe, All the horrors of power. Having thus fed the roots, We await our rebirth To the light of the morning star. Discarding, forsaking all self-seeking and adoration. Discarding, forsaking all insight and clear seeing. Discarding, forsaking all care and protection. Discarding, forsaking all standing to govern. Discarding, forsaking all divine commitments. Discarding, forsaking all formations of judgement. Discarding, forsaking all presence and guidance. Discarding, forsaking all.

9:28

Because each breath is a flame to feed a collective fire. But the work that forecloses the soul is constant and all-consuming. Discarding all adornments, we descend into the underworld together to be reborn. We look for the courage to accept that we are completely entangled with life. To face the great matter of birth and death - our mortality, our vulnerability, our failures and our shadows. To take responsibility, harnessing our rage, our grief and our fear. To find that our wellsprings of power are buried deep below in our communal darkness. Here in the shadows of prefiguration we find the strength to rise up and break the hegemony of tyrannical realities. And raise their corpses towards the sun.

Bibliography

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Laurel, J.-T. A. (2014). By Night the Mountain Burns. And Other Stories: Sheffield.

Lorde, A. (2018). The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House. Penguin UK: London

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Olufemi, L. (2021). Experiments in Imagining Otherwise. Hajar Press: London.

Peel, B. (2023). Tonight It’s a World We Bury: Black Metal, Red Politics. Repeater: London.

Reid, C. (2009). A Scattering. Arete Books: Oxford.

Rosa, H. (2021). Resonance: A Sociology of Our Relationship to the World. Polity Press: Cambridge.

Sladek, R. (1974). Inanna’s Descent to the Netherworld. PhD thesis, Johns Hopkins University: Maryland

Summers-Effler, E. (2010). Laughing Saints and Righteous Heroes. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago.

Verplaetse, J. (2016). Bloedroes. Uitgeverij Nieuwezijds: Amsterdam.

Credits

Recorded at Studio Independent Recordings by Quintijn Verhoef, Oct - Nov 2024.

Mixed by Quintijn Verhoef and Demian Snel.

Mastered by Arthur Rizk.

Artwork by Christian Degn.

Lay-out and typography by Mirko Meerwaldt.

Photography by Void Revelations.

All music and lyrics by Terzij de Horde.

Voice and strings on “Discarding All Adornments” by Amelia Baker (Cinder Well).

Our Breath Is Not Ours Alone

Terzij de Horde

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