Loading
PTRKLLR is a new ‘lower-case’ project from multi project linked Seattle based noise maker Peter Keller(Geißt, Condo Horro, Bacillus, Unser Verhängnis). Anatoma Tobeyoides is the first release from the project; it came in the form of either a pro-pressed CDR or digital download, and appeared on Russian label Reason Art Records.
Here we have another collection of Russian literature themed walled noise from Bitum- which of course is one of the projects of highly prolific noise maker Sergey Pakhomov from Elektrostal- of projects Train Cemetery, Leichen Kara, etc, as well as the owner of the excellent Reason Art Records. This audio DVD/ digital release offers up three hours worth of taut 'n' tense walled noise, themed around the searing satire Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov.
Since 2011 this US wall noise project has slowly but surely released a series of releases themed around the 80’s children fantasy film The Labyrinth. The project takes it name from the grumpy and obstinate dwarf that leads around human teen Sarah around the magical other-world of the labyrinth. The Wiseman And The Hat is the tenth, and most recent release from the project- it comes in the form of a c62 tape on Minneapolis based Altar Of Waste.
Humanity...Failing severs up two side-long slabs of battering ‘n’ blistering walled noise with a bomb-dropping & apocalyptic theme. This release appeared in early 2016 on Altar Of Waste- either as a C30 cassette, or a digital download- from Dosis Letalis band camp. I’m reviewing the physical version of the release.
November 17th saw the worldwide release of two previously Japan only Shakatak albums, Fiesta and Utopia. This 2 CD set from Secret Records is 23 tracks of British, jazz-funk-disco whizzes at their silky smoothest. Whether putting the listener in the mood for love or in the mood for dancing, Shakatak nails each approach.
This is a project hailing from the Polish port city of Gdynia. The project operates under the auspices of Artur Krychowiak, from the Polish post rock band God’s Own Prototype, and features two long tracks of ambient, experimental improv.
Canadian Jazz drummer/composer/bandleader Harris Eisenstadt has created a brilliantly intelligent hybrid of melodic and free jazz over the course of a long and prolific career, dating back to 1999. The new album "Recent Developments" is the first recording of his I've heard that isn't part of his 'Canada Day' series, which maintained a similar lineup for its four volumes. Many of the same collaborators are still present here, such as Nate Wooley on trumpet and Eivind Opsvik on string bass.
Early To Late brings together two lengthy works from two composers who blur the line between modern composition & detailed/ quiet improv. Each of the pieces here manager to be both lulling moody & angular soothing, as well as creatively eventful & involving in their unfolds.
Satan’s Cheerleaders is a tame-if-enjoyable slice of 1970’s exploration campiness, bringing together the teen sex comedy with light satanic themed horror. This is a dual format reissue of the film, which offers up a new 2k remastering & two new commentary tracks.
What is it to capture a place in sound? Ever since the advent of portable recording equipment that question has taken on a more realist tone. A question of technique perhaps, but also one of decisions, omissions and edits. The sound artist or field recorder can never abstract their presence from the midst of the subject they wish to capture. As such every sound portrait betrays a particular embodied experience of place and of listening. There is no neutrality, no objective conveying of the place in question. Rafal Kolacki appears aware of these aporias and has carved for himself a suitable standpoint from which to record his subjects without however any need for the semblance of neutrality. His previous work Hirja. Noise from the Jungle was a reportage style collection of recordings made in the refugee camp which sprung up at Calais during the height of the migration crisis in 2016. Kolacki's recordings exposed both the dire conditions in the camp but also the compassion of aid workers and solidarity and wit of the refugees themselves. This new set seems to continue along a line of flight from the Jungle camp to one of the countries from which many migrants were arriving, Ethiopia. A'Zan. Hearing Ethiopia draws its title from the Arabic word for the Islamic call to prayer and focuses the microphone upon the capital Addis Abeba.
Master Of All Times is a double CD set worth of work from the Paul Chain project. The release features a selection of eight tracks recorded in 1999, and these offer up the expect creative blend of throbbing 80’s synth scaping, experimental blues rock, and dark, at-times prog bound rock.
Any B-movie or cult film fan worth their salt will know the name Charles Band. Since the 1970’s this director, producer, writer, and publisher has been heavily involved in the B- movie market, producing near on 300 films, directing 55, and writing around 50. He was most known in the 80’s/ 90’s for his company Empire Pictures- which release such B classics such as Ghoulies, The Dungeonmaster, Terrorvision, Re-Animator and From Beyond. In the 1990’s, after the demise of Empire, he formed Full Moon Features- releasing cult fare such as the Puppet master series, Pit and the Pendulum, Castle Freak, and the Killjoy series. It Came From The Video Aisle!, is a 500-page book charting Bands career from the 1990’s up to present day- bringing together 50 exclusive interviews, honest overviews/ reviews of all his output from this period, plus a host of rare artwork, and behind the scenes pictures.
23 Treads last album 2015’s Conspicuous Unobstructed Path was somewhat of a revelation, with its angular & darkly psychedelic brand repetitive & sonically locked down neo- folk. Really giving this often cliché ridden genre a different twist & unbalancing flavour. The Ornaments( The Ghost Of Miranda) deepens their experimental & atmospherically unsettling tendencies, to create another extremely worthy trip to the outer limits of Neo-Folk.
British electronic act Colossloth is back with his second release on Cold Spring, Heathen Needles. Featuring eleven tracks of diverse but well connected electronic grimness, Colossloth defies classification and has the freedom to do compose as he chooses. Heathen Needles benefits greatly from this freedom, and Colossloth's textures and tones can be appreciated fully for what they are.
Black Metal is a genre that has always intrigued me beyond just the music. Many bands have drawn on fascinating events in history and folklore to create their own personal mythology by which they live. Much is particularly known about the Scandinavian Black Metal scene which has seen numerous attempts to catalogue its near 30 year history. Most famously Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Søderlind, with its contentious front cover of a burning church, and more recently and less controversially Dayal Patterson’s Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult.
Here we have a double blast of caustically dense, ear-scorching, and perversely seared Harsh noise. The C40/ digital download sees the bringing together of US smut noise jam-mers Black Leather Jesus, with the often high pitched ribbed noise nastiness of Stockholm based JSH.
Here from Severin we have a much deserved & long needed reissue of the ultra-bleak, extremely harrowing, yet highly compelling British Docu-drama detailing the day(s) after the bomb drops. Originally released back in 1984, and broadcast on the BBC during the height of the cold war. Treads stands as one of the most intense & disturbing things to ever appear on TV- and it still has so much bleak power & soul-shattering impact even after all these years, which I don’t think can say about many films 30 plus years old.
Free As Dead is (as far as I’m aware) the first film foray from Frenchman Romain Perrot- most known for his walled noise project Vomir, as well as spastic folk & rant project Roro Perrot, and avant funerary chapel projects Trou Aux Rats & Free As Dead. Here on Perrot’s Decimation Social label we have a region free DVD, and it’s certainly a crude, ghoulish & ugly slice of ultra lo-fi art house horror- think a shorter, more nonsensical, corrupted, and unsettling take on Begotten- and you’ll get a rough idea what to expect.
Here’s the second in the recently rediscovered wall releases, that ‘repapered’ in the M[m] sort-out. This split C60 comes from early 2016, and brings together Serbian Dead Body Collection & Eugene, Oregon based Willowbrook.
While having a clear-up/sort-out at M[m] we came across a few wall noise titles from a few years back, which had slipped through the cracks, and here we have the first of these. It’s an excellent C60 split from 2015 bringing together the taut & shifting textured detail of Italian project Nascitari, with the dense & crude shredding walled noise power of Frances Vomir
Although Fred Weldont Warmsley III (Dedekind Cut) made his mark as a hip-hop producer, he's continued to grow and expand and show his talents in other genres of music. Differing quite a bit from last year's The Expanding Domain, Kranky's release of Tahoe shows Dedekind Cut with a more refined, further reaching scope. The fun, fairly disconnected, near-industrial beats have given way to lush ambient, and reveal Dedekind Cut's passion for artistry.
The split between Clive Henry and Trou is untitled, that is the spine gives us only the titles given to each artist's track ("Untitled / Scorch I"), and comes in a white case with black text on grey paper for the artwork.
Robert Schwarz' previous effort on Gruenrekorder, The Scale of Things, was a superlative amalgam of dense musique concrete, treated field recordings and modular synthesizer that conjured worlds of amplified natural processes and disquieting soundscapes. The beauty of that record was how it showcased a variety of techniques in such a way to produce a unified, highly composed, not-to-mention dramatic vision of avant-garde electronic composition. Like its predecessor, Double Negative features a cover that hints at what lies within the grooves of the record. The strange almost claustrophobic collage which adorned The Scale of Things gives way here to a seascape, on the horizon of which drifts the unmistakable geometric form of an iceberg, or could be a shark fin or even the prow of a sinking ship? The picture is almost abstract in its composition and finds kin among the similarly abstract and musically dissociated music on the record.
Talibam describe themselves as Dadaist provocateurs with an innate love for the history of music. Talibam! grew out of the New York avant garde/improv scene and have two members Matt Mottel and Kevin Shea. Stretching out from basic musical concepts Talibam! explore sound and structure to create something interesting and unique that lies beyond classification. "Endgame of the Anthropocene" is their latest in a long line of releases spanning the last 11 years and apart from being a wonderful title, it is a record cramp packed with possibilities and ideas.