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From early Summer 2016 here’s another four way split wall noise release from Spokane, Washington based label. Back in 2015 the label put out a most worth/similar cassette box set- which purely featured US artists; this second set brings together a mix of HNW artists from the US & Euro scenes.
Teksti TV 666 hail form Finland, apparently they employ a wealth of guitars and have only formed 3 years ago. Described as kind of a cross between Neu!, Ramones and shoegazing Hellacopters…my mind was a blur. What the hell will that sound like? More to the point, Why?Finish shoegazing?Christ I’m not looking forward to this. That’s what my mind told me.
The Weaver's Daughter is a yin yang album blending together rich harmonic elements, with more soured & out of tune matter. And the project’s sound is very difficult to pin down into just one genre too. As it’s a slurred, jarring, and at times difficult blend of: wydfolk, neo-classical, moody avant composition, world music, stripped gothic composition, the blues, stripped-back Americana folk and ambience. With female vocals that move from lush & angelic, onto stark spoken, through to sensual & dark.
Here’s another release from the esteemed Line label, presented in its usual format: a simple, sombre, card wallet. The front has an odd, black and white image - perhaps a collage, perhaps a magnification of cells - whilst the back contains track details, and a short spiel on the release from Jobin. The spiel explains that the album was created by putting field recordings ‘through a series of editing and manipulation processes’. Singulum has four tracks, ranging from six and a half minutes in length, to nearly 17 minutes.
Gone is a C16 cassette release late 2016, and it offers up two slabs of battering, hellishly dense, and nasty HNW. The Norfolk Trotter is the new ‘wall’ project from Norwich based Multimedia artists Michael Ridge, and it’s his first foray into the genre since 2014, when his Acerbitas project came to an end.
Here’s a HNW split from way back in 2012. The CDR brings together French master of crude & unstoppable wall-matter Vomir, and Michigan based RedSK- who are known for a more noise genre roaming sound, but here offer up straight & dense wall-craft. Each party offers up around twenty five-to-thirty minutes of noise.
House Of The Black Death is one of the more(relatively) recent project from respected & multi-project linked US noise-maker/ wall-noise pioneer Richard Ramirez. The release I’m reviewing here is a c32 tape on Lurker Bias, and is part of the labels respected Neon Wall series- which over the last year or so has been releasing a whole host of both walled- noise & more experimental static texturing based noise craft.
For its third release, Glass Apple Bonzai (Daniel X. Belasco) finds itself in the capable hands of Toronto's Artoffact Records. Bringing synthpop and light dance to the masses with a retro vibe, In The Dark has a fresh, yet comfortable sound. Eschewing the current, self-aware tribute trend and taking an approach closer to Italo Disco, Glass Apple Bonzai create a fun and engaging pop album that is genuine with it's love of synth grooves.
Fossil Aerosol Mining Project are an obscure veteran group of industrial cut up collage artists who have eluded my notice until now. While their oldest releases date back to 1986, most of their activity has taken place since 2005, with a very prolific release schedule of multiple albums per year. Their latest work "Revisionist History" presents a loop driven style quite similar to vintage Zoviet France or Rapoon, as well as other records of the classic industrial era from Hafler Trio ("Bang! An Open Letter") and Nurse WIth Wound ("Spiral Insana").
The new full length by Shrine is dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster that happened on April 26th, 1986. This 6 track album was composed during a post-operative convalescence period in 2015. Shrine’s Hristo Gospodinov says of the process: “To me the Chernobyl theme has always been very special... I witnessed the nuclear sunburn effects myself back in 86...its the closest glimpse of a pending apocalypse we have seen so far.”
This self-released CDR is restricted to a limited edition of 13 copies, a shame, since it deserves to be heard by many, many more. The release itself couldn’t be any barer: a glossy, double-sided, black and white, card inlay, featuring just the project name, album title, and track titles. (The rest of the information I’ve gleaned from the Discogs website.) The front and back of the inlay feature the same image, possibly a woodland pathway, whilst the inside panels are dominated by a grinning skull. The two tracks, I, and II, are both around 30 minutes long; both are harsh noise walls.
Here we have the first release from LACH- a new collaborative project that brings together two rather creative euro noise makers. The release comes in the form of a C60 (and digital download) on up & coming Russian noise/ walled noise label Reason Art Records. The LACH project brings together Uk based Clive Henry( known for his progressive & experimental walled noise work), and Italian based Lorenzo Abattoir( of suicidal walled noise project Nascitari, and more experimental noise projects such as PSICOPOMPO & Tomorrow I'll Shoot Myself In The Mouth)
The Complete Sonambient is an eleven CD & thick booklet set that brings together some of the most distinctive, unique, and original sonic works you’ll have likely to have ever heard. Harry Bertoia, was an Italian-born American artist, sound art sculptor, and modern furniture designer- during the 1970’s he created a series of eleven vinyl release based around sound works he created via his various steel sculptors- playing them either by hand, or letting the elements move them.
Swedish death metallers, Usurpress, are back with their third full length and first on Agonia Records. Culling a darkness from the band members' lives during recording, The Regal Tribe's subject matter of life/death, and worldly woes bring a deeper gravity to an already heavy release. And, with beautifully grim cover art by Marald van Haasteren, this bleakness is really hammered home.
Kurai Keshiki is an alias of dark ambient musician Emanuele Lago, responsible for such projects as Black Mountains Chronicles, Tombstone, Lost Fairy Realm and And the Posters. I've heard scattered albums from his discography, largely CDrs with homemade packaging and rough sound. I reviewed his collaborative album with Invercauld (under the name Ghastly Marshes) earlier this year. "Mozaiku" is one of 4 albums under the Kurai Keshiki alias, indicated by the artist to be devoted to industrialized sound environments.
Here we have the debut album from Patrick Leagas new project Godlesstate, and it’s dark, dense, and layered journey into electronica, noise, modern industrial music, and creative genre blending. Leagas started off his sonic life as a key member of the fledgling Death In June, going onto form respected post industrial/ electroincia/ experimental project 6comm in 1986- in the last year or so he officially announced their would be no more 6comm…with Godlesstate being his new sonic outlet.
Composed in 1985 Piano & String Quartet was one of the later works of Morton Feldman’s output. Structure & sound wise this just under eighty minute work is fairly characteristic of his later composition in both it’s sparse feel, slow-moving pace, and pared back patterns/notation.
Here’s a two disc CD set that collections together a good selection of pieces for Piano & Violin composed by the master of sparse, pattern based, yet often highly atmospheric minimalistic/modern classical music Morton Feldman. The collection takes in both shorter works (between one & five minutes), mid-length (eleven to fifteen), and longer (seventy plus minutes) works.
Here’s another CD from the Another Timbre label; a gatefold card wallet, white, but for a cover image and the barest details. The photograph on the front depicts a small sail ship, foregrounded against a hazy dock scene, with larger ships, and a blurred, murky sky. Granberg has assembled nine other people to play his composition alongside him, I won’t list their names, but I will list their instrumentation: prepared piano, objects and percussion, objects and electronics, bass recorder, chitarrone, baroque violin, bass recorder, viola da gamba, analogue synthesiser, spinet and objects. As you can see, this is an incredibly varied palette, which mixes traditional instrumentation with electronic instrumentation. On top of this, it also mixes things in a temporal sense, using instruments from the Renaissance and Baroque eras - the viola da gamba, for example - alongside those modern electronic devices. (I had to research the chittarone, which turns out to be a large, bass lute.) The piece is one long track, 24 seconds short of lasting an hour.
Born from an album concept for a 4AD project Songs From Trhe Haunted South was originally intended to feature different singers and musicians recording songs that were both covers and originals. Old Fire features a myriad of exceptional musicians including DM Stith - piano and guitar, Christopher Barnes (Gem Club) - Piano, Warren Defever (His Name Is Alive) - Guitar, Thor Harris (Swans) - Drums, Christian Madden - Rhodes piano & Organ and Semay Wu -Cello.
Electric Sewer Age is the alter ego of former Coil, Psychic TV, Depeche Mode and Nine Inch nails producer Danny Hyde. Bad Corpuscle is the follow up to debut album “Moon’s Milk in Finale Phase” which featured guest performances from the much-missed Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson of Coil.
Cologne based artist Paul Wirkus returns with his newest, challenging ambient work, Disours Amoureux, from Edition Beides. A delightful mix of field recordings and laptop electronics, Discours moves and shimmers through time periods all from the safe prospective of Summer 2016. The combination of laptop recordings and processed field recordings adds a wonderful dimension to this soft, subtle work.
Ghastly Marshes is a collaborative dark ambient project between D. Finley (AKA Invercauld) and E. Lago of Black Mountains Chronicles. I am already a fan of Invercauld's surrealistic environments from releases a decade prior, but have never listened to Black Mountains Chronicles. This CDr "Ancient Spirits of the Fen" is their 2nd album under this alias. It contains 15 tracks 2 - 5 minutes in length.
As it’s title suggest this CD brings together a selection early examples of Philip Glass repetitive yet highly hypnotic brand of minimalism. And it’s all played by respected German pianist Steffen Schleiermacher, who played on the excellent three volumes of later Morton Feldman Piano works (also on MDG Scene).