Loading
Here’s a Baltic two way split CDR split bringing together two half-an-hour slabs of walled noise- we have often creative & respected Serbian project Dosis Letalis, and Russian based Extreme Kindness. The release appeared on UK wall-noise label Void Singularity Records .
Ben Bertrand's "NGC 1999" is a largely solo recording of ambient improvisations with bass clarinet and electronics. Though the title makes it sound like a live gig from 1999, it's actually a live (in studio?) recording from 2017. "NGC 1999" is also not the release's catalogue number, as the album was released by Les Albums Claus, and the catalogue number is 'lac011'.
The Forest Of The Lost Souls is a Portuguese horror film with arty intentions- filmed in classily scoped black & white. The film brings together elements of moody & bleak drama, brooding nature footage, and later elements of home-invasion/ slasher elements. Here on Wild Eye Releasing is an either Blu Ray or DVD release of the 2017 film- and I believe both of these are region free- I’m reviewing the Blu Ray version.
From Full Moon Features here’s another reissued slice of Euro-sleaze. This 1980 ’s film a bright, breezing, and decidedly leering sex comedy from infamous Swiss director/producer Erwin C. Dietrich, who of course produced a fair few Jess Franco movies in the ’70s.
Malamorte is one of the projects of Italian musician Alex Nunziati, also of Lord Vampyr, Cain, Nailed God, Shadowsreign and Sepolcrum. The project started in 2014 with an EP titled The Fall Of Babylon, which was black metal with heavy elements. In 2016, the first full-length album, titled Devilish Illusions, was released, made in the spirit of the debut EP. The next album, Satan Goes to Heaven to Destroy the Kingdom of God, released in 2017, showed a change of style towards Occult / Doom Heavy Metal.
Earlier Music is a collection of material from the early 1980s recorded by Officer!- the decidedly wonky & sonically unwell British project helmed by Mick Hobbs( Half Japanese). The CD offers up twenty tracks in all- these move from unbalanced singer-songwriter fare, very off-kilter 80’s pop, unhinged folk rock, world music touches, and generally avant tinged genre blending. The release appeared late last year on Austrian experimental music label Klanggalerie, who in the past have reissued works by the likes of The Residents, Renaldo And The Loaf, and Un Drame Musical Instantané- so it’s the perfect label for this release.
Originally released on cassette in 1988 (and reissued on CDr in 1999), Asmus Tietchens' Linea has been once again reissued for a modern audience. This time, though, Klanggalerie has reached out to Asmus and obtained two extra, unused tracks from his original sessions. This new, special edition CD breathes new life into an old Musique Concrete release.
From early summer last year this is Australian/ French C30 split featuring two side-long examples of walled-noise. The cassette moves from densely searing-yet subtle shifting atmospherics of Adelaide’s Visitation, onto the blunt & rushing HNW batterings of Paris based Vomir.
Here’s a two way Euro wall-noise split bringing together Dutch project Ratteknaeghen, and Spanish noise-droner Damien De Coene. Both tracks here rather have a constantly spinning roller quality about them- with one focusing in on rapid industrial like wall-ing, and the other on a more moody & churning introspective wall- matter.
Disciplining Eugenie is the fifth full-length release from Stockholm based Gamiani- who creates kinky fetish themed walled noise. The release appeared in Oct last year- coming in the form of a C90, and digital form- offering up two forty four minute slices of ear-searing & brain squeezing HNW.
Machinefabriek hails from Rotterdam in the Netherlands. He is the one-man electro-acoustic ambient musical project of musician, sound designer and graphic artist Rutger Zuydervelt. Short Scenes came into existence as a by-product of a soundtrack that Zuydervelt was working on with violinist Anne Bakker.
Blood Harvest seesaws between 1980’s camp-ness & perverse-often-blood spurted unease. This 1987 picture brings together elements rural thriller, psychosexual slasher, and cheesy romantic drama- with the added unhinge-ness of a latter day Tiny Tim; dressed as a dishevelled cryptic poetry & song spouting clown. From Vinegar Syndrome here’s a doubled-headed Blu Ray & DVD release of the film- offering up a great fully-uncut new 4k print of the picture, a new commentary track, and a selection of interviews from around the time with Mr Tim.
From the early 1990s, Star Time is a decidedly arty, relatively bloodless, though fairly original take on the serial killer genre. Here from Vinegar Syndrome- those intrepid trackers of lost cinematic cult fare is a duel Blu Ray & DVD release of the film- featuring a new director’s commentary, and a handful of other extras.
That Would Have Been Decent is a woozy–to-caustically seared journey into modular synthesizing & avant Sax playing. The six track CD falls in the gaps somewhere between avant jazz, often manic improv, abstract electro texturing, and roasting-to-alien sound-tracking.
Originally appearing in 1995 The Venus Bellona is a true genre-crossing oddity- bringing together highly theatrical & wordy male vocals, campy & densely layered synth- scaping, often moody sound effect layered acoustic guitar focused folk. Dark ritual electronica, dramatic & fantasy fuelled soundtracking, prog-bound Goth rock & death rock, and forays into world music elements. Here we have a CD reissue of the album on Faust- the manly dungeon synth-focused sub-label of Ukraine based noise/ industrial label Old Captain.
In more recent years American project Equitant have been performing a blend of EBM /electro/techno style music. But their first two demo albums, The Circle of Agurak(1993) and The Great Lands of Minas Ithil(1994), represented something close to Dungeon Synth. Behind this project is Raymond Dillard Heflin- former member of the cult black metal band Absu.
Dark Heart severs up a selection of greyly surreal, darkly seared, & at times violent slurred modern composition from Canadian composer & painter Lance Austin Olsen. The CD release appears on the always reliable Sheffield based Another Timbre- who are really the go-to label for creative & channelling modern composition, modern classical music, and improv.
Anne Guthrie is a composer and instrumentalist primarily working with French horn and electronically treated field recordings. Her work has emphasised the liminal spaces between field recording, avant-garde composition and the possibilities opened up by electronic processing. She is also the current managing director of the S.E.M Ensemble in Brooklyn who specialise in performing works by modern American composers such as John Cage and Morton Feldman. Brass Orchids is Guthrie's second record for Ohio's Students of Decay label.
From time-to-time, black metal bands form into communities or “secret orders”. For example, There’s the Inner Black Circle from Norway, or the French Les Legions Noires. There is something similar in Portugal called The Black Circle. This organization includes the black metal bands such as Mons Veneris, Decrepitude, Irae, Rainha Cólera and the band I'm reviewing today Vetala.
This review comes as something of a relief and change of pace as for the first time in a while I have approached the release with no prior knowledge of either the artist or the label. Fergus Kelly's "Local Knowledge" was released on CD by Unfathomless and was their 44th release at the time in September 2017.
Meander is the second album from Tañce Snu (The Dances of a Dream) and was recorded live in Warsaw in September of 2017. It features vocalists and mainstays of the project India Czajkowska and Sebastian Madejski, alongside guitarist Christoph Matyascheck and percussionist Adam Rozenman. The band describe the album as “a musical journey inspired by the sounds of the past, often interwoven with avant-garde sounds of neo-classical improvisation”. An interesting premise and one that certainly has some relevance to the project.
Gordon Grdina is a Canadian jazz guitarist who has been a part of countless ensembles. Inroads is the first album for this particular quartet comprised of guitar, sax/clarinet, keys and drums. It was released in 2017 on the Songlines label, my go-to for sophisticated melodic modern jazz.
120 Pieces Of Sound presents us with two thirty-to-forty-minute examples of moodily sparse- to- dread filled & dark modern compositions from Swiss composer and clarinettist Jürg Frey.The release comes in the form of a CD on Elsewhere Music- the up & coming US modern composition/ modern classical label.
In the past decade or so, many new, synthesizer based genres have spawned, covering pretty much any type of synth music one could want. Usually ending with the postfix "wave," these styles have a fun take on current music and often times a loving nod at the synthesizer music of the late 70's and 80's. Many of these acts find their way onto bills at metal and noise shows, showing the openness of influences and the ability for fans to cross over genres. While a handful of acts have done their version of blending genres (Gost's Possessor, for example), none have been as pure in this mash up as Abstract Void on his latest, Back to Reality.