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Originally released back in 2000 on Cold Meat Industries ….The Last Embrace was the third full-length album from Swedish neo-classical project Arcana. And as it’s title suggests the album offers up decidedly sombre-yet-often grand & ornate Neo-classical music, with a heady & rising blend of synthesized orchestration, dramatic-to-rolling martial percussion, cello, and a blend of gloomily epic-to- darkly soaring male and female vocals. Here on Cyclic Law is a CD reissue of the album, presented in a four-panel mini gatefold.
Mysterious and evocative, Undirheimar's Heljarrúnar is the sonic representation of Thursian sorcery, practice, and inner workings. Based on primal musical themes, their latest album creates a oneness with the energy surrounding the listener and almost puts them directly into the cold forest or dark cave in which this ritual is being performed. Delivered mainly through vocal expression, Heljarrúnar taps into the human being, its connection to the world around it, and its ability to tap into Thursian energy.
Throughout it’s nearly forty years of existence controversial Neo-folk project Death In June has often dabbled in the sinister, darkly uneasy and subtly troubling. But, I think it’s fair to say of all of their twenty or so studio albums 1989’s The Wall Of Sacrifice stands as one of their most unsettling, blackly disorientating, and at points downright chilling, releases. Here we have a recent reissue of the album as a CD with bonus tracks, and a 3 track 7" all packaged in a 7" single-sized thick card gatefold sleeve.
Colour Out Of Space, or Die Farbe aus dem All as it’s sold here under its German title- is a recent stab at an H.P Lovecraft adaptation. The film features Nicolas Cage, and his decidedly quirky family under attack from what’s inside a meteorite that lands near their woodland set house. The film attempts to blend & balance brooding cosmic dread, day-glow pink-tinged visuals, The Thing like melting & deforming creature effects, and haphazard family drama- at points, it works, but at others it feels a little lopsided & uneven- not sure if it’s trying to creep you out, be campy, or soak you in spraying psychedelics. Here from German company Koch Media is a Region B Blu Ray release.
KMRU is the alias of Joseph Kamaru-a Kenyan ambient soundscape artist. This album, entitled Peel was released this year in 2020 on the famed Editions Mego label.
The charmingly named Cervical Smear is an extremely mysterious German project- that zero is known about, aside from they’ve been active since 2017, put out around seven release, and they make a very dense & nasty blend of PE and death industrial with death and transgressive sexual themes. Real-Death Enthusiast is the project's second full length, and it sonically rams into your ears thirty-nine minutes of purely nasty audio filth.
Gard Nilssen is a Norwegian jazz drummer and composer, born in 1983 in the town of Skien. He has played in bands Bushman’s Revenge and Puma but has also collaborated with a wide range of artists on a variety of different projects. If You Listen Carefully… is his first solo project, and what he has put together for this release is an impressive sixteen person ensemble. One of the first things you notice is that every member of the band is listed as a percussionist, three including Nilssen are listed as drummers, there are three double bass players and the remaining ten are all reed or brass players. With such an unusual lineup it feels most appropriate to dig straight into the music.
Polwechsel is a name I know purely because the ever impressive John Butcher was once a member, and on the strength of Unseen it’s a name I should investigate further. Put simply, this is an incredible album, and you can stop reading now… Polwechsel is a quartet, here consisting of Michael Moser on cello, Werner Dafeldecker on double bass, and Burkhard Beins and Martin Brandlmayr on ‘cymbals, selected percussion.’ They are joined on Unseen by Klaus Lang on church organ, and, as the liner notes rightly point out, the ’resonant space’ of Grosskirche of St. Lambrecht’s Abbey, where the album was recorded. There are three tracks, all long - 25, 16, and 25 minutes respectively - and all occupying the same territory, without becoming boring or repetitious.
Walkabout is one of the more visually devious & tonally unpredictable films of the 1970s. The film slips ‘n’ slides between grand natural awe, cruelty & brutality, dramatic adventure, unease & sleaze, fear, wonder, and longing. It sits somewhere between lost-in-wildness drama, heady-to-troubling travelogue, and coming of age tale- all wrapped up in often grimly arty touches, and liberal stabs at the treatment of indigenous people by the white man. Here on Second Sight is a new deluxe Blu Ray release of the film- bringing together a new commentary track & extras on the disc, three booklets, and a classy slipcase.
Taking its name from a bleak abandoned village & slate mine in North Wales here’s Dinorwic- the second full-length release from Welsh dark ambient project Lllyn Y Cwn(aka Ben Powell). This new CD album takes in seven tracks, and spot-on fifty one minutes worth of deep dark ambient-meets-often grim field recordings.
In The Teeth is an eighteen-minute shot lower cased walled noise- that's busy, detailed, and well balanced in its layer mixing. The release appears on Tatô- which is the lowercase noise label of Seattle based noisemaker Peter Keller. The release appeared in May of this year as either a rather neat origami pouch presented 3inc CDR, or download- the CDR came in an edition of twenty-five copies, and as of writing this this review you can still pick up copies from the labels Bandcamp.
It is generally thought that Black Metal originated in Scandinavia in the 1980s. I think that this statement is partly correct, because the more known/later popular take on the genre, began its journey in Scandinavia. However there was also USBM which appeared around the same time, and there was always been a tangible difference between the representatives of the European and American schools of this genre. During its formative years, European black metal, for the most part, was a dark and mystical opus, permeated with the spirit of nature and the North. This music had a minimal amount of outside influences, therefore it represented a new and original style of heavy music. American black metal, on the other hand, was more open to different influences- often mixing Scandinavian black metal, classic thrash, and death metal in its sound. In terms of themes, American school was guided by more occult topics. In the nineties, the difference between Scandinavia & USBM was quite noticeable, but over time, this border started to lessen & disappeared.
Pete Helmkamp (Angelcorpse, Terror Organ) returns with Abhomine, his solo project. This time joined by Cazz Grant (Crucifier, Grand Belial's Key) on drums and sharing vocal duties, Proselyte Parasite Plague is a quick, rough little number bound to darken your day and get your fist pumping. Grimy, grim, and dark, Abhomine's latest is a return to the old school, vile, underground sound.
The Comic is, to be frank, a real oddity, that sadly more often than not tried both my patience and sanity. But who knows it may well click with you- as exploitation cinema is a wide & varied church, and one man’s trashy oddity is another’s strange gold. The 1980’s film a blend of grim dystopian drama, haphazard noir, dry iced heavy 80’s pop gloomy video vibe, and extremely mixed acting. Here from Arrow Video is a Blu Ray reissue of this very distinctive picture- bringing together a new scan, commentary, and cast interview.
Dans Le Noir is release number four from Exquise Esquisse - one of the more recent/active walled noise projects of French female noise maker Charlotte Thevenin-Nikoliæ - the release was either C60( which is sadly sold out), or digital download( which is still available)
Hanging Cold In The Cellar is a C30/digital download of dense, searing, and detailed walled noise with a Giallo theme. A Lizard In A Woman's Skin is one of the less active projects of respected and influential US noisemaker Richard Ramirez- this release is it’s first full-length release since 2016- and what we have here is a wonderful densely feasting & detailed example of the wall noise genre played by one the innovators/ masters of the form.
Perfect Strangers aka Blind Alley is a 1984 thriller written and directed by exploitation/horror king Larry Cohen (It’s Alive, Q the Winged Serpent, God Told Me To). It’s a bleak low budget crime drama that doesn’t get the same level of love as some of Cohen’s other more well-known titles, however, Vinegar Syndrome’s new Blu-ray release hopes to change that with this sharp new 2k restoration.
Six Scores is modern composition release that darts ‘n’ dips all over the place. Going from creepy–to-manic vocal effects & field recording blends. Onto searing avant-to-mellow jazz drifts, choppy guitar noise, general off-kilter noise constructions, and a few more conventional atmospheric moments. It’s an album very much like a derange sonic chocolate box- you really don’t want you’ll get from track to track.
Ator, The Fighting Eagle was Joe D’Amato’s early 80’s stab at the sword & sorcery genre. It found the king of cheapie euro exploitation trying to mimic Conan The Barbarian, but of course on less than a shoestring budget- we get muscularly-yet-scrawny hero, shaky sets, bad wigs, little or no special effects, and parkland as wildness. Here from Dark Force & Code Red is a recent region free Blu Ray release of this cheap, cheesy, yet charming enough euro-fantasy romp.
Offering To The Morning Fog is an extremely apt title for this new release from US ambient legend Robert Rich, as the whole album has a very hazy, yet warningly ebbing & drift quality about it- with at points one almost getting the feeling that you've drifted up into the clouds themselves. The six-track release- which is available as either a CD or digital download- is very flute forward in its sonic make-up, making for very lush-yet-hauntingly soothing album.
London five-piece July are seen as one of the great forgotten band of the 1960’s. Their 1968’s self-titled debut tied together psychedelic experimentation of The Beatles or early Pink Floyd with lo-fi garage rock- sadly due to lack of the proper label push at the time, the album didn’t get the praise/ recognition it deserved. But that’s not the end of the band's story- in 1995 Cherry Red reissued some of the bands early demo tracks under the album title of Second of July, and this, in the end, led the group to re-group recording another three albums- this six box set from Grapefruit, Cherry Red's Psychedelic sub-label tells the bands whole musical story.
Rising from the ashes of church fires from the Norwegian Black Metal scene of the early 90's, Ulver has continued to change and grow as their creative development deemed fit, putting a vast chasm between their current output and their roots. Passing through many genres on the way to their latest, Flowers of Evil, Ulver has shown how malleable their sound can be, as long as they continue to reach onward. Ulver's newest album sees the band discussing the themes of good and evil, once again through a poppier lens.
The Shudder of Anguish is one of the solo walled noise projects of American noisemaker Sean E. Matzus(Black Leather Jesus & Last Rape). Here from 2017 is Bell, the first in a series of sonic tributes to queer icons Matzus admires- and the Bell in question here is none other than Andy Bell lead singer of UK synth-pop duo Erasure - a bit of an unusual/ curious theme for walled noise, but hell over the years we’ve had walls themed around female pop singer Katy Perry & Pooh Bear…so why not Andy Bell!.
Here we have a CDR/ digital download split bringing together two French noise acts- we have the king of nihilistic & unchanging walled noise Vomir. And seemingly fairly noise sub-genre-shifting project Corporal Abuse, whose work has shifting from Harsh noise, noisecore, and ambient.