Loading
Sala is a project born from the Lithuanian city of Utena, and masterminded by the musician, philosopher,photographer, cinephile Alas23, or to give him his real name Audrius Ðimkûnas. The album, as described in the liner notes, was recorded at the site of “abandoned Soviet machines and building materials near Utena” and later mixed in Sala’s own studio between 2013 and 2016. The album has received a limited edition CD release via Belgian label Unfathomless, hand numbered to 200 copies, it comes with a well designed fold out insert and an art card.
Tantric Doctors' "Karesansui" is a 45 minute duet for clarinet and rough-hewn analog electronics (unprecedented in my collection), presented as a single unbroken track. I was surprised to find out it is actually the work of a single musician, Adam Woolf, who has overdubbed multiple instruments himself.
Mad Mutilator/ Trepanator brings together two synth based soundtracks for ultra low-budget French horror features from N.G. Mount(Norbert Moutier)- a video shop owner/ horror fanzine editor, turned SOV horror fiend. Fans of trashy, gory & often nonsense euro-horror will be probably be aware of Mad Mutilator( aka Ogroff) as it’s one of the more puzzling & lo-fi blends of the slasher & zombie genres to appear. But less so Trepanator- which is a lesser known/ barely distributed Reanimator rip-off from 1992- if you’re a fan of the 80’s/ 90’s moody-yet-crude soundtracking you’ll surely get a kick out of this double-headed CD release.
Jack the Lad are the Geordie folk rock band formed when Newcastle legends Lindisfarne decided to splinter. Alan Hull and Ray Jackson kept the name and Simon Cowe, Ray Laidlaw and Rod Clements formed their own band with a future member of Lindisfarne Billy Mitchell. It’s Jack the Lad was the band’s debut album and a strong statement of intent, featuring ten original songs and one traditional medley. It was an opportunity for Mitchell, Clements and Cowe to highlight their songwriting skills, something they did with aplomb. Interestingly, second album The Old Straight Track which was released a year later, and is also available again via Talking Elephant, predominantly featured traditional songs a strange move when your debut is littered with strong original material?
Once again returning to the well of Edgar Allan Poe's macabre waters, Cadabra will release The Black Cat on vinyl this August. Reenlisting Anthony D. P. Mann for vocal work, Cadabra gives him a wonderful partner in Italian composer Fabio Frizzi. coming in at just under one half hour, The Black Cat is a very engaging new reading of Poe's classic.
Here’s a darkly moody & atmospheric split CD release bringing together two Polish guitar focused drone projects- we have Gdynia based Nowa Ziemia, and Opole based Echoes of Yul.
The project named Klimperei was founded in 1985 by two French musicians Françoise Petchanatz and Christophe Petchanatz. Since 2002, it has become a one-man project, headed by Christophe Petchanatz. From the very beginning, the project declared itself an unusual approach to music. People have called it toy-music, avant-gard, bizarre and so on ...
Gryphon where one of the more intriguing & distinctive sounding prog rock groups to come out of the 1970’s British scene. Initially, they embraced an ornate & playful medieval & renaissance sound within their brand of jazz-tinged progressive folk-rock, which predominately utilized bassoon, krumhorns, and recorders. Later they moved towards more symphonic rock and traditional prog with more focus of traditional rock instrumentation- but still retaining a fairly distinctive sound. Here on Esoteric Records is a double disc CD set, bringing together the bands first four albums on Transatlantic Records.
Antagonist / Agonist is the first album from Jan Warnke - the first using his own full name rather than an alias. Labelhead at Geräuschmanufaktur, Jan has operated under the J. Adolphe alias in the past and has contributed to numerous collaborations including Red Cliffs and The Dead Mauriacs - both duos make an appearance on the tape as Thorsten Soltau and Olivier Prieur present remixes of Jan's work at the end of each side respectively. The release comes as a single pro-dubbed cassette with artwork and design by Jan himself (as he has done with his entire label catalogue).
Doom Asylum is campy, humor edged & often self-satirizing slasher from the tail end of 1980’s. From Arrow Video( Uk & US) here we have a recent Blu Ray release of the film- taking in the first ever 2k scan of the film, two new commentaries tracks, and a nice bunch of other extras.
Here we have a double Split CDR release from two US wall noise projects- with each artists offering up a single hour-long track. The projects here are Crawling Yeast from Crystal Lake Illinois, and I watched You Die from Dubuque, Iowa.
Frank Zappa officially released over 60 albums during his career (1966-1993), if we take into consideration official bootlegs, and posthumous releases – and Ulrich does – that number rises to over 100 releases. Frank Zappa was prolific, of that there is no doubt, he gave himself over to his music right up until his death in 1993 from cancer.
From the tail-end of the 1970’s Sinfonia Erotica is one of the more experimental & disorientating films from the king of euro sleaze Jess Franco. The film is a country-house set period drama, fed through with off-kilter & hazy soft-core, weird camera angles/ tricks, and an often jarringly soundtrack that moves from romantic & lush piano-led classical orchestration, onto atonal & discordant unfolds. Here on Severin films is the first-ever release of the film- which can be brought as either a DVD or Blu Ray edition- I’m reviewing the Blu Ray version of the release.
Finnish power electronics heavyweights STROM.ec team up with Norwegian atmospherist Kristoffer Oustad for New Devoted Human. Under the moniker Stromstad, this Scandinavian collaboration brings forth eight tracks of grim electronics. Mixing gruff crunch with spacey soundscapes, Stromstad brings together two unlikely genres in classic fashion.
When two artists put out a lengthy collaboration /box set, lasting several hours, it’s always an intriguing proposition. But if said artist working in different styles, then it definitely deserves ones close attention. This split is from two French artists working with-in different sub-genres within the wider experimental genre.
Gutted is another highly worthy trip into progressive- yet-intense walled noise from this Seattle Washington project, who theme all their releases around gentrification & soulless building developments. This release appeared in May of this year- as both a physical C64 release with rather neat junk packaging and a digital download.
Centralian Fume is a truly intense, lengthy & unrelenting journey into walled noise brain-battering from this Hungary based project. With the release either coming as a CDR or digital down- and it offers up a single slab of seventy-two-minute wall-matter.
Topdown Dialectic's self titled LP (not to be confused with their several self titled cassettes) is washed out, heavily processed ambient dub music in the rhythm has been blurred and delayed into a faded, sun-bleached swirl. It exists fluidly between the realms of dance music, chillout electronic and ambient listening music. In this way it resembles the work of Vladislav Delay, but has less in the way of broken beats, and more comfortable empty space.
This first Vol of the Racy Reels Series from cult exploitation label Something Weird brings together three slices of obscure sexploitation from the 70’s- all with a distinctive Sci-fi flavour. The release comes in the form of a dual format (all region) Blu Ray & DVD set, which features a glossy eight-page booklet with a new write-up about the films.
Two2 is one of forty-eight number based pieces John Cage composed before his death in 1992. The works for two pianos and was inspired by a statement by Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina: “There is an inner clock.”- meaning that the work has an adjustable duration- with a playing time anywhere between forty minutes, and two & half hours. This recent double CD release on the always consistent Another Timbre- comes in at just over two hours, and if like me you enjoy sparse & skeletal based modern composition, you’ll find it most worthy.
The Case Of The Scorpion’s Tail was the second giallo from respected journey-man director Sergio Martino. It appeared in 1971 between two of his more known & revered Giallo’s The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh & All The Colours Of The Night. Here from Arrow Video we get a new Blu Ray release of the disc, and while film lacks a true punch of originality- it’s a well made, often suspenseful & effectively twist-laden addition to the genre
Aussie death fiends, Vomitor, return after a five year gap with their fourth LP, Pestilent Death. Not ones to rest on their laurels, these rockers have been touring the world and honing their craft for fans all over. Quick but fierce, Pestilent Death clocks in at just over one half hour of fun, old-school death frenzy.
Vampyres is a new(ish) project from renowned UK drone maker Lee Stokoe- whose been creating work under the banner of Culver since the mid 90’s. This new project sees Stokoe joined by Martyn James Reid( of Depletion)- and the sound on this C48 tape is somewhere between drone, murky dark-ambeince, and lo-fi choppy electro effect scaping
Compensation Culture is a haphazard 'n' ramshackled sonic spew-up of cluttering & roasting junk noise, offensive & aggressive dialogue samples, random pop culture/advert snippets and sudden gabbling vocal rants- all mainly centred on angered & dissatisfied side of British culture.