New EP on August 23rd! "Rites of Initiation", the First Chapter of Decompositions Volume 1

“Seven years after the release of their heralded debut, As the Roots Undo, experimental cult rock heroes Circle Takes the Square have announced plans to release their second full-length album, Decompositions: Volume I, in November via their own Gatepost Recordings.

Recorded/Mixed/Mastered by Anthony Stubelek at Rockstudio in Brunswick, GA, Decompositions: Volume I is a collection of songs, comprised of three central musical narratives. Each composition maintains its own identity and story arc, while also playing an integral role in the overarching plot line that will unfold throughout the Decompositions series. Given the self-contained nature of each individual passage, CTTS will be unleashing the complete first chapter from Decompositions: Volume I, entitled Rites of Initiation, as a digital EP on August 23 on their bandcamp page in advance of the full album’s release in November.

Rites of Initiation finds CTTS breaking into new territories, from the crushingly primitive to the technically transcendent, from stripped down metallic riffs to harmony embellished, eerie folk passages, all within a framework consistent with their trademark discordant and experimental approach to high speed, outside the box punk/hardcore.

“We have spent vast amounts of time exploring every fractal peak and recursive valley in the landscape that these songs describe, and we are eager to provide our listeners with the opportunity to glimpse a portion of this realm, and to immerse themselves in the labyrinth of startling curves and staggering depths that we’ve been lost within for so long,” says co-vocalist/guitarist Drew Speziale. “Rites of Initiation documents the ill-lit, inward-leading, forever-winding pathways that eventually take hold, on a search for the authentic in an increasingly artificial world. When the boundaries between thinking and knowing, dreaming and waking, living and dying all begin to blur, a terrifyingly primal vision begins to bleed through the fragile veil of consensus perception. To surrender to it, embracing the other side is our “rite of passage.” We’ve crafted these songs in an attempt to sing that Transition into being.”

Rites of Initiation is CTTS’ first recorded music since their debut album, As the Roots Undo, which was released in 2004, and gives fans a peak at what’s to come on the long awaited follow-up Decompositions: Volume I.”