Top Bar
Musique Machine Logo Home ButtonReviews ButtonArticles ButtonBand Specials ButtonAbout Us Button
SearchGo Down
Search for  
With search mode in section(s)
And sort the results by
show articles written by  
 Review archive:  # a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Go to the Various Artists website  Various Artists - Belly of the Whale [Important Records - 2006]

Sadly in the past Whale sounds have been the reserve of dodgy new age mediation/ relaxation cds . This new project/ compilation from Important records redressers the balance, seventeen artist utilizing Whale sounds (along with other deep sea sounds) in provocative, interesting and varied ways.

Dropping down in lots of different musical areas from: ambient, electronic beat scapes, noise, Jazz, aquatic guitar blues, and lots more in-between, pretty much something for every musical taste. All of it is touched  by a very watery, strangle alien hue. The whole album has a floating unreal vibe, for most of its playing time and the track seem to neatly fit together making and enjoyable whole which you can leave on to paint the room in eerier aquatic colours and vibrate coral red and greens. Jim Nollman’s Real time interspecies music, appears to be just that, he plays blues twang guitar which the whales or dolphins then replicate the tune, all of this is going on over subtle watery tones, making a interesting and strange landscape, quite unlike anything I’ve heard before. David Rothenberg’s Inside the whale, marries haunting clarinet tones, against the echoing tones of whale song and oddly water almost tabla like percussion. Cetacean Somnolence by Yannick Duaby is a gorgeous  and eerier mix of harmonic tones, with creepy undersea clicking, coming off like a more sea bond version of Nurse with wounds Soliloquy for Lilith, you can almost imagine drifting slowly along the seas floor, in the deep blue quite.

One of the more interesting sound albums your likely to come across, which aptly mixes sound source  recordings and an eye for song craft, so these come off as 17 fully formed musical adventures , instead of vague audio water colours. A must have!. Pop along here for soundsamples and more details of the project.


 

Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5

Roger Batty
Latest Reviews

Various Artists - Belly of the Whale
Sadly in the past Whale sounds have been the reserve of dodgy new age mediation/ relaxation cds . This new project/ compilation from Important records redres...
290126   The Assassination Bureau - T...
280126   Spent Stiletto/ No Fun Harsh ...
280126   Evil Damn - Eons of Horror
280126   Pink Wool/Sado  Ritual - Split
280126   Olion - Glimmers of Hope
270126   King Futile - How To Have Fun
270126   Devil Times Five - Devil Time...
260126   Slaves No More - House Of Dolls
260126   Martyn Ware, Charles Stooke a...
230126   Lee "Scratch" Perry - Black...
Latest Articles

Crude ‘n’ Hope-corroding Wall...
Back in 2024, I got my first taste of Absurd Reality, and I was so impressed by how crude and nasty its take on walled noise was. Behind the project is South...
290126   Crude ‘n’ Hope-corroding ...
231225   Creepy Images Books - Killer Art
221225   Best Of 2025 - Music, Sound &...
041225   The Spectral Sounds of The Pr...
281025   Michael Hurst Interview - Unb...
071025   Xiphos - The Rise And Fall Of...
030925   Third Window Films - A Label ...
130825   HNW fest- Barcelona- 12th Apr...
250725   Raté interview - Walled-in F...
180625   Matthew Holmes - Of razor-sha...
Go Up
(c) Musique Machine 2001 -2025. Twenty four years of true independence!! Mail Us at questions=at=musiquemachine=dot=comBottom