Loading
This C40 split brings together two fairly long-running Baltic state walled noise projects- there’s Croatian based Placenta Lyposuction, and from Russian Segment Aura. Both parties offer up worthy & fairly different take on the walled noise genre- all making for a most worthwhile split.
Arizona native ambient electronic veteran Steve Roach has continued an incredibly prolific output long into his forty plus year career. Bloom Ascension is one of nine albums released in 2019 alone. While I've found some of these releases to contain more substance than others, the celestial beauty of his signature pad tones and reverberant soundspace remains intact in all of these releases.
Electric Sewer Age were the band started by Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson (Throbbing Gristle/Psychic TV/Coil) and producer Danny Hyde. Sadly, Christopherson’s death in 2010 meant that he would only appear on the band’s first album Moon’s Milk which was released the following year in 2011. Hyde has kept the project running sporadically ever since, working firstly with John Deek who would pass away in 2013 and since then as a solo project. Hyde’s experience as a producer for not only Coil but Nine Inch Nails, Pop Will Eat Itself, Depeche Mode, Chris and Cosey, and Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia highlights his knowledge and experience for creating innovative and interesting electronic music, continuing the pioneering work of Christopherson and Balance. Contemplating Nothingness is their third full-length album release- here on Hallow Ground is a vinyl edition of the release, following from last CD issue of the album on Old Europa Café.
Surroundings severs up two sides of sound craft that sits somewhere between subdued walled noise and ambient texturing- not extreme enough to be called all-out HNW, but too seared to be labeled ANW or low key static texturing. This C60/ digital download appeared on Brooklyn based Modern Tapes label in April of this year- coming in an edition of fifteen copies, which are sadly all sold out now.
Concrete is a digital split that brings together an around a twenty-minute slab of walled noise from French crude master of the form Vomir, and a manipulated field recording of concrete mixing truck from Brit sound maker & hardcore- punk-ranter Emile Bojesen. This is the second release on recently launched label Hoopoe Industries- which is run by Bojesen with it been 'home to music from a variety of disciplines, often implicitly or explicitly relating to written work.'
This is the first solo album from Chantal Dumas, released on empreintes DIGITALes, a Montréal label ’widely considered as the world leader in electroacoustics / acousmatics’ - though I’ll admit that it’s not a name known to me. Oscillations Planétaires consists of nine electroacoustic pieces built around the interesting premise that the Earth contains ’undulatory motions of extremely varied temporal scales,’ contrasting, for example, imperceivable geological shifts with the daily movements of tides. This is an interesting, provocative idea but ultimately these things stand or fall, for me, on the quality of the sounds attached; Dumas does not disappoint.
After a year or two away here's the most welcome return of Something Weird’s Racy Reels series- that uncovers more quirky, themed, or slightly twisted examples of soft-core cinema from the past. For this third Vol, we get two Danish/ Swedish co-production from the late ’60s/ early ’70s which I guess you'd class as erotic dramas/ thrillers. The region free blu ray takes in new prints of the films, a commentary track from respected critic Tim Lucas, and an inlay booklet.
Here's a two-disc CD set that offers up a selection of manic-to-atmospheric elector focused mood scapes based around Sci-fi aesthetics. With the release title 'been a play on words on Philip K Dicks Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep- which was of course what Blade Runner was based on- though the albums far from the alternative soundtrack to said book or film, using wider & more varied Sci-fi themes for its influence on the seven tracks featured here.
Krzysztof Kieœlowski, stands as one of the most respected & revered names in Polish cinema, with his key works been the early 1990’s Three Colours trilogy, & late 80’s ten TV film series Dekalo. This recent four Blu Ray boxset focuses in on the director's early films from the late 1970’s-to the mid-1980s, and all of these focus in on the realities of everyday life under communism in Poland during this period- they move between moody-to-grim social realism and political/ government focused drama with arthouse traits & arty imagery. It’s fair to say that all of the films featured here are more than a little downbeat & troubling, but none the lesser worthy & powerful works. This set appears on Arrow Academy- and as with any of the Arrow sub-labels, we get a good selection of extras & nice new scans of each film.
Australian composer/producer/performer JG Thirlwell is currently based in Brooklyn NY and has worked under a vast number of pseudonyms, releasing over thirty albums in a variety of musical styles, most notably as avant-garde post-punk legend Foetus. Thirlwell has also collaborated with a host of top names within the alternative music field including Swans, Melvins, Nine Inch Nails, and Nick Cave to name but a few. This latest collaboration is with Simon Steensland, the Stockholm born composer who has released nine solo albums and has scored well over one hundred & fifty plays in his native Sweden. The two met at a workshop in 2017 and quickly struck up a friendship which led to the recording of Oscillospira. The album features nine tracks that whilst rooted in the soundtrack style go all over the musical spectrum to create a diverse and fascinating collection of songs.
What is (currently) the final release for long time British power electronics juggernaut Sutcliffe Jugend, The Deluge shows a pretty restrained, somewhat audio book styled narration approach for the duo. Seeing their final chapter result in a softened narrative, Sutcliffe Jugend has gone full circle before ending their nearly forty year project. Restrained but still recognizable, The Deluge is an interesting and evocative album and a fitting swansong for this long running act.
Recurring Manifestations of Esoteric Lunacy is the first new work in six years from US Dark ‘n’ dense noise-ambient project Tenebrious. It finds the two-piece sliming down to the solo project of Indianapolis based Ralph Bates, though the sound here is a thick, oppressive & layered as it ever was.
SculptOr [Hepworth Resounds] offers up a series of glitch bound & pared-back electronics works that utilize the voice of respected English modernist/ abstract sculptor Barbara Hepworth. The release comes in the form of a CD which is present in a slim-line DVD case digipak, which features a pink, black & white color scheme that takes in dense scribbles & texts.
During its existence, the ambient form has evolved into many different sub-genres, each of which, in turn, has generated its own subspecies. I think one of the largest branch is the sub-genre is Dark Ambient, which is characterized by deeper, darker and lower sound. One of more recent prolific names in this sub-genre is AJNA which was founded in 2008 by the New York based Chris F- and has released ten full-length albums, fourteen singles and EP's and five miscellaneous releases in its discography. In early 2020, German label Cyclic Law released AJNA's new full-length album, Oracular. The album is presented in the form of a 4 panel digipak sleeve CD and digital format
Chordioid is a two-CD set that severs up two lengthy, skeletal, and decidedly haunting modern chamber pieces for piano, vibraphone, and violin. The release appears on the always worthy British label Another Timbre- who over the years has put out some great releases in the modern classical, improv, and lo-key electro-acoustic genres.
Verotika is the directorial debut of Glen Danzig- aka the evil Elvis who was/is the frontman, key songwriter for horror punk legends The Misfits, Death-rock meets Goth metal Samhain, and classic prime evil rock band Danzig. It’s fair to say that this film is getting a lot of decidedly mixed press- what we have here is a horror anthology picture, bringing together three tales from Verotika, Danzig’s erotic horror comic- and it’s a sort-of-rough ‘n’ ready blend of 70’s erotic horror, surreal pulp, and lots of scantly glad women. Here on Cleopatra Entertainment is a three-disc release of the film, bringing together region free Blu Ray, DVD, and CD.
Originally released back 1973 How Sweet To Be An Idiot was the first solo album from English singer-songwriter Neil Innes- who is most known as one of the key songwriters for genre-mixing & surreal humor tipped British band The Bonzo Dog Band. The original eleven track album offered up a fairly safe ‘n’ tuneful blend of pop-rock, that very much nods towards 70 singer-songwriter fair, The Beatles, old school rock ‘n’ rock fare, and generally less risky songcraft- that's lightly edged with both humor & sly sonic playful-ness. Here on Cherry Red sub-label Grapefruit Records is an expanded CD release of the album- pushing the original thirty-seven-minute album runtime to well over seventy minutes with a selection of rewarding B sides & singles.
Appearing in October of last year here we have a C90 split bringing together two particularly brutal & sludgy examples of the walled noise form- we have prolific & at times creative French project Chier, and Croatian based Placenta Liposuction- each severs up a single side-long track, and each is as nasty & sonically claggy as each other.
Long awaited LP follow-up to 2012's Secular Hymns, Divergent Series unleashes Xiphoid Dementia's latest, Prison of Hope. Continually impossible to pigeonhole, Egan Budd (Existence Establishment, Headstone Brigade) rolls out the big guns for his full length return. Departing from and adding to his sound from his recent split with Bastard Noise, Xiphoid Dementia melds together cinematic grandeur, industrial urgency, bleak ambient, and almost pop sensibilities.
There are a huge number of styles of heavy music, each, in turn, are divided into even more sub-genres. But to me bands that play in the doom-metal style are some of the most creative and original. Perhaps this is facilitated by a fairly broad framework of style and the ability to realize the full musical and creative potential of musicians, as well as use fairly original musical instruments. Back, in the late nineties, I heard the album Lead And Aether by the Finnish funeral-doom band Skepticism. I was impressed by the original sound - the musicians using the organ as a keyboard instrument, and their general distinctive take on doom. Since then, I’ve closely followed the work of the band, which has become legendary. So it’s great to be able to talk about this reissue of the bands 2008 album Alloy.
Originally released in 1980, this was the follow up to the John Renbourn Group’s 1977 album A Maid in Bedlam and follows in much the same vein merging medieval and renaissance music with folk and Indian ragas. The band are top-notch and feature John’s Pentangle colleague and folk legend Jacqui McShee on vocals, Jazz legend Tony Roberts on woodwind, John Molineux on dulcimer, tabla player Keshav Sathe and Glen Tommy on snare drum.
Orbis Tractus is Sci-fi/ futuristic themed noise release, which moves from ambient & textured noise blends, and more searing & laser slicing harsh noise. The C40 tape appeared on Uk’s Void Singularity Recording late last year in an edition of twenty copies- and as of this review, the label still has some left for purchase.
From KV & GR Records here we have a pro pressed wall noise split, pulling together two slices of wall matter from US wall-makers- one is raging-yet- atmospheric, and other is dense yet more layer active. The CD release is presented in a DVD case- with black, red & grey cover artwork- colorful oriental art CD face, and color card inlay card featuring a reproduction of postcard of an oriental stream train- so a very nicely presented wall noise release.
Here’s we have the 7th Volume in the 'Gruesome' series from Germanys' Meat Hook Butchery label- and once again the release is a two CDR set offering up two full-length shots of walled noise. This time we get a disc from the at times progressive (though not for this disc) UK based Clive Henry, and Germans Cannibal Ritual offering up one of their most consistent releases in some time.