Mater Tenebrarum
Mater Tenebrarum (2020-Present) is Maria Del Carmen’s latest solo and collaborative project in which she explores the intersection of sound, performance art, and dark divination using various tools including but not limited to instrumentals, visuals, and punk rock theater. Inspired by the youngest of the Three Mothers in Dario Argento’s 1980 film Inferno, the name Mater Tenebrarum translates from Latin to “Our Lady of Darkness/Shadows”.
Corpus 2021 Spring Residency
In April 2021, Mater Tenebrarum was the first selected recipient of the Corpus Family Studio Residency, Spring 2021. The Corpus Family Studio Residency is a bi-annual, week-long program that provides local musicians with 36 hours of free recording time and the use of professional equipment and engineers at Corpus Studio in Blissville, Queens.
During the residency, Mater Tenebrarum performed, wrote, and recorded SANTA MARIA - a collection of original compositions and experimental recordings exploring themes of identity, persona, perception, creation, and more. Listen here:
All photo documentation for SANTA MARIA shot on 35mm film by Roy Baizan
On location at Green-Wood Cemetery & Corpus Studios
Santa Maria, 03-11-20
“Santa Maria”, Mater Tenebrarum’s first recording, is part of the larger performance art project Never Records by NYC-based artist Ted Riederer. In a 3-hour time slot, Santa Maria was performed, recorded, and cut into a pvc record in the Rudin Family Gallery at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on 03/11/20. Mater Tenebrarum composed and performed separate guitar, vocals, and drum tracks with an additional bass track added by her soul sibling Quinn. Ted Riederer produced, directed, and assembled Mater’s arrangements. The record cover was painted by Mater Tenebrarum on 03/07/20 and the lyrics are a Latinx-femme edit of the catholic invocation to the sacred mother: Santa Maria.
Dios te salve Maria/ Llena eres de gracia/ La Señora esta contigo
Bendita tu eres/ Entra todas las mujeres/ Bendita tu eres
Y bendito es el fruto x6
De tu vientre x6
Santa Maria madre de dios, ruega por nosotros pecadores
Ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte
“Her kingdom is not large, or else no flesh should live; but within that kingdom all power is hers. Her head, turreted like that of Cybèle, rises almost beyond the reach of sight. She droops not; and her eyes rising so high might be hidden by distance. But, being what they are, they cannot be hidden; through the treble veil of crape which she wears, the fierce light of a blazing misery, that rests not for matins or for vespers, for noon of day or noon of night, for ebbing or for flowing tide, may be read from the very ground. She is the defier of God. She also is the mother of lunacies, and the suggestress of suicides. Deep lie the roots of her power; but narrow is the nation that she rules. For she can approach only those in whom a profound nature has been upheaved by central convulsions; in whom the heart trembles and the brain rocks under conspiracies of tempest from without and tempest from within. Madonna moves with uncertain steps, fast or slow, but still with tragic grace. Our Lady of Sighs creeps timidly and stealthily. But. this youngest sister moves with incalculable motions, bounding, and with a tiger's leaps. She carries no key; for, though coming rarely amongst men, she storms all doors at which she is permitted to enter at all.
— Suspiria De Profundis, Thomas De Quincey (1845)