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Life As Seen Through A Distorting Lens is two track shot of ultra thick & brain churning walled noise from this Vienna based project. It comes in the form of a digital download, and is my first taste of the projects work- thanks for the recommendation from one of our Patrons for this.
Shurayuki-hime's "In The Beginning, Woman Was The Sun" is a C-40 release on the esteemed Geräuschmanufaktur label run by Jan Warnke in Osnabrück, Germany. It comes in a white casing with an extended artwork inlay - featuring a portrait of Raicho Hiratsuka and some explanatory text surrounding the theme of the release. As explained in said text, the release's title quotes the opening lines of the first edition of Hiratsuka's literary magazine "Seitô". The project itself has long been fascinated with the early feminism of Japan and this release extends the projects gaze into that realm.
Cold Spring's release last fall of Visions of Darkness is an eye opening experience. Not a country well known for their musical scene, Iran might as well have been a musical black hole for Western audiences. Music is an amazing outlet for the creative mind, so it's wonderful to hear and feel what's going on at a personal level in Iran, at least among the electronic/experimental crowd. Visions of Darkness (In Iranian Contemporary Music) is a wonderful document of a really interesting scene, and hopefully this will put more ears on the musicians captured by this compilation.
Following on from Krzysztof Penderecki’s – Kosmogonia, Kernschmelze II is another foray in modern classical/ modern composition from Cold Spring Records. The forty-one minute composition is an often nightmarish & seared blend of violently wavering & brooding female operatic’s. Spoken word elements, noise & modern composition cross-breeds, and the occasional dips into psycho-ambience.
The Legendary Pink Dots have been a powerfully unique, visionary force uniting goth/industrial and psychedelic music since the early 80's, charting a relentless prolific path of avant pop music centered around the transporting and detailed lyrics of front man Edward Ka-Spel, who often describes a dystopian or totalitarian future. Amazingly, the pace of their releases has never let up in almost 40 years. "High on Station Yellow Moon" is a new solo album from Ka-Spel, released last year in 2017.
Leatherface is the most recent addition to the long running Texas Chainsaw franchise. Timeline wise it’s meant to be based before the original 1974 film. And it’s somewhat of a bloody-road-movie-meet-mystery-thriller - charting the escape of a group of young adult mental patience’s, and one of their number is to become Leatherface. I’m review the recent Lionsgate blu-ray/ DVD release of the film.
Places And Pages is a two-CD collection of varied & moody modern composition/electro-acoustic works from this British-based, Japanese performer and female composer. The release appears on the always worthy & dependable Sheffield based label Another Timbre.
From 2015 here we have another prime example of long-form ambience from one of the masters of the form- US ambient legend Steve Roach. The release appeared on Roach’s own label Timeroom Editions and came in the form of a CD.
CHRA is one Christina Nemec. On A Fateful Morning, is a six track album released on Mego Editions, and it's her 3rd album. Mixing musical and non-musical sounds creating a haunting atmosphere to straddle internal and external worlds of your own imagining.
Montréal sound artist and composer Nicolas Bernier returns to recordings with a new series, 299 792 458 m/s. The first piece in this series is the sparse and challenging Transfert/Futur. Comprising two long form tracks, Transfert/Futur uses a generally minimal synthesis approach to build and shape quickly moving textures and patterns.
Feed the Light is the debut full length feature from Swedish producer/director Henrik Moller. Moller had previously had a decent level of success in horror circles with several of his short films, and this 2014 film is his first step up to the longer format. Described as a new landmark in Swedish horror and mixing elements of H.P. Lovecraft’s supernatural cosmic horror with the aesthetics of David Lynch, Moller’s debut feature has certainly received considerable praise, but is it worth it?
Drifting In Silence is the monicker of Derrick Stembridge, a composer and multi instrumentalist whose work spans at least ten years years. Dawn, his latest release, is eleven tone-poems that attempts to evoke the movement between, and the relationship of, light and shadow.
Starting off 2018 with a bang, Cadabra Records brings back the Bleak December crew for their fourth release with their adaptation of M.R. James' Casting the Runes. This time around, though, Anthony D.P. Mann and crew have a wonderful surprise in the addition of world renowned actor David Warner. Limited to 500 copies on 150-gram colored vinyl, Casting the Runes is another shining entry in Cadabra's stellar catalog.
80 Aching Orphans tries & completely succeeds in creating a wholly worthy, nicely balanced,far-reaching, and brain- scrambling great anthology of 45 years worth of work from those avant-pop & genre blending mischief makers The Residents. The release comes in the form of a four-disc CD set, which offers up 80 tracks carefully hand-picked by the project & their management team- the Cryptic Corporation.
Frames Of Fear is a decidedly retro themed & lo-fi horror anthology from 2016- mixing together bad gore, loads of VHS references, a fairly large quota of female flesh, a few laughs, and the odd tacky chill. It won’t change your world, or blow you away- but it’s a pleasing enough way for a low budget horror fan to pass two hours. I’m reviewing the SRS Cinema region free DVD release of the film- which is fairly bare bones, featuring just the film & it’s trailer.
Released in 1977 Ruby was a psychological/supernatural thriller blending together elements of The Exorcist & Carrie with aging 1930’s gangsters & a drive-in setting. Here we have a recent extras-packed DVD & Blu Ray release of the film.
Here’s decidedly seared ‘n’ roasted wall noise split-bringing together two Dutch projects- Uitgeschakeld and Ratteknaeghen. The release comes in the form of either a C40 or digital download. With each project offering up a single twenty-minute example of HNW intensity.
Les Males Nuictz is a C60/digital download that presents the listener with two barren, extremely lo-fi, and coldly crude slabs of walled-noise. Marchenoir is one of the more recent(ish) ventures from respected French wall-maker Julien Skrobek( Ghost, Ecco, Ruine, etc). I’m reviewing the tape version of the release- sadly this is now out of print, so the download is the only option at present.
Changing Horses was the fifth album from these psychedelic folk legends. It originally appeared back in 1969, and fitting its title it was very much transitional recording- seeing the band using more formal ‘rock’ instrumentation for the first time & decidedly uneven song structures. From Uk’s BGO here’s 2017 CD reissue of the album, and following their reissues of the rest of the bands back catalog they’ve done another classy reissue job.
A surprising foray for Cold Spring into the realm of modern classical music. Krzysztof Penderecki is less known in Western Europe compared to other doyens of the high avant-garde such as Cage, Ligeti, Stockhausen and Xenakis but these early works - of which four instances are showcased here - stands up well against them. All compositions are performed by the chorus and symphony orchestra of the National Philharmonic Warsaw. Film soundtrack buffs may be familiar with Penderecki's work used in The Shining and David Lynch's Inland Empire.
Le Bambole Di Velluto started in 2015 as a strictly sample-less HNW project of Swiss based noise maker Anto M; most know for Anonymous Masturbaudioum- his Feet and Legs/ Nylon Stockings fetish themed project. Blutige Seide is a recent double CDR release on his own label Archivio Audio Anonimo, and if offers up a selection of subtle shifting & cleverly textured wall-craft, with now the occasional addition of samples.
Comprising of twelve tracks, Arcanas’ latest album Petrichor is a collection of the EPs they have released, on Cold Meat and on Cyclic Law, and compilation tracks and occasional forgotten songs and covers from over the twenty year activity of the band. And Once again we are shown just the depth and variety of this projects material.
The latest release on Zoharum records from Expo 70 is a double live CD bursting with almost 2 full hours of material from Kansas drone master/space explorer Justin Wright. The group occasionally features other musicians particularly in the live setting. The first disc features Wright on electric guitar and Matt Hill on bass and analog drum machine, while disc two features a solo live performance from Wright on electric guitar, moog and analog drum machine.
Finnish ritual dark ambient group Halo Manash are perhaps the best known artists of the Aural Hypnox label, a label known for their united esoteric ethos, cryptic titles and imagery, and elaborate packaging. Like other artists on the label, their style is unconventional in that it uses few electronics and relies primarily upon organic sound sources like drums, rattles and gongs.