Loading
Parade Ground, the pioneers of Belgian cold wave and EBM, was the brainchild of two brothers Jean-Marc and Pierre Pauly in 1981. After a few maxi-singles released between 1983-1987, Cut Up (originally released on PIAS in 1988) was the band's mighty and wonderful full length debut and represents their "synth period". A genius pop music of 80s underground that pierces your soul.
From September 2015 here’s a very troubling & suicide focused two split way between Minneapolis based Dejection & Denton, Texas Big based Big Hole. The tape offers up a blend of pressing & airless synth drone, and bleakly battering walled-noise.
Conquest of Space is a C30 release consisting of two side long slices of Psychedelic tipped & spaced themed walled-noise/ harsh noise. The release appeared in late 2016 on Minneapolis-based label Altar Of Waste- it came in a rather scene generous edition of 50 copies, and as of writing this review, there are still copies available.
Here we have "Jinn", the second album from dark ambient project Gaap Kvlt. This CD was released in 2016 on Polish experimental mixed genre label Zoharum
Dumbed Down, the new “full-length” by Cleveland hardcore band Fuck You Pay Me sure sounds familiar. A quick look at the label blurb and I realize why this sounds so recognizable….Tony fucking Erba. One could argue that geography defines a band’s sound, but in this instance, one look no further than Tony Erba, who has spent time in a number of legendary Clevo bands, including Face Value, Gordon Solie Mother Fucker, and 9 Shocks Terror.
This arrives in quite a package: a very neat, wooden box, with the front cover image printed onto it, containing a cassette, and a smartly printed insert. The box itself perfectly fits the tape inside, and it all adds up to a very impressive object. The front image, repeated on the insert, gives no real clues as to what to expect in terms of sound, and the rest of the insert is just as ambiguous. Roadside Picnic present us with two, long tracks, one either side of the cassette.
From late 2015 this C30 release is Vomir’s take the now rather over-populated HNW subgenre of feet & nylon-themed walled noise. The release appeared in either a physical form, or a digital download- the tape version is now long gone, but you can still download it from the labels band camp site.
Here's the recent Blu Ray, DVD & CD soundtrack reissue of this sleazy & gore slasher-meets-Giallo movie from the 1980's. This new edition appears on the always quality bond & extra heavy Arrow Video.
When it comes to IDM, Arovane has been one of the artists to take notice off from his beginning in the late 1990s. Albums like “Atol Scrap”, “Tides” and “Lilies” gained the Berlin based electronic musician a great reputation for his subtle blend of warm melodies and refined beat programming, a distinct sound that is highly accessible and experimental at the same time. After touring the world excessively Arovane decided to go on a nine year long hibernation from where he reappeared in 2013 – since then, he has been more productive than ever and already released a dozen solo and collaborative albums.
Well, this CD comes with the barest of details… It’s a professional affair, with a pro-pressed CD, and a letterpress printed card wallet. The wallet has really the minimum of information (performers, date and place of recording, track titles, and credits), and a minimal image of a road exit sign (presumably), with the bottom half of the sign missing - a very formal and mysterious package. Which really reflects the collaboration within rather well. The album has four tracks - 63, 64, 65, and 66 - with three of the pieces between 13 and 21 minutes in length, and one shorter track at 6:14. All four are harshly stereo-split, with Olive in one channel, and Owen in the other.
Canadian Death 'n Rollers Zombie Assault see their debut album released through Eclectic Productions. Combining classic Death 'n Roll with the tried and true genre fodder of 70's/80's horror films, Zombie Assault's Video Nasty is the boxed macaroni & cheese of the metal world; nothing wildly unique, but still comforting and familiar.
Split albums are a popular way for band to release material that tends to be shorter than a full-length album, however this project is a little different in that respect. This release comes packaged as a double CD with enough material for a full-length album from each artist, however in this instance the album is divided up into four section Earth, Air, Water and Fire, with each artist taking on two of the elements. 100 Schoen take on Earth and Fire whilst Ab Intra tackle Fire and Water. The album is a double disc release from Polish label Zoharum.
The Ghost of Hope is the first studio album of new material from this infamous avant-pop/sonic-art collective since 2013. It finds the project offering up an often multi-layered, sonically-shifting, and genre-darting concept album based around American train wrecks of 19th Century.
Latvias’ leading industrial group offer a collection of their finest recordings from 1992-1997. Spanning five years and eighteen tracks this limited edition of 250 copies works through dark ambient to neo-classical and darkwave, and a beautiful walk through this projects history it is too.
Sub Rosa imprint presents Desert Tracks by long-running experimentalist Michel Redolfi. To my chagrin, I wasn’t that familiar with Redolfi’s work prior to exploring this release and afterwards I was ready to compare his work to several contemporary soundscapers. However, that would be foolish considering the album at hand was recorded way back in 1987. As the story goes, back in 87’ Redolfi traveled through the California desert trail. He explored the Mojave Desert, Death Valley, and Palm Canyon to capture “hypothetical poly-sensorial desert tones.” Available as CD and LP, Desert Tracks is the sonic representation of his travels.
This pro-CD from Dragon’s Eye is presented in (what I now assume is) the house style: a sombre, formal card wallet. The text on the back cover reveals the starting point of this release, ‘All sounds generated by physical & electronic manipulation of a red flexi disc of the first Dragon’s Eye release: George Winston’s ‘Medley: Bread Baker’s Stomp’.’ Thus the mind is straight away pushed towards certain ideas about what the CD will contain, and in line with this - and the quote - the front cover is a collage of fragments of said flexi. On a more practical level, the album has 11 tracks, interspersing short pieces less than a minute long, with longer pieces up to ten minutes in length.
The K. are an artful hardcore punk 3 piece from Belgium that takes after vital late 80's / early 90's groups like The Jesus Lizard, NoMeansNo and Melvins, who managed to be brutally aggressive yet structurally unpredictable, experimental in approach, reflecting an irreverent intelligence. "Burning Pattern Etiquette", released in 2015, is their 2nd album, following "My Flesh Reveals Millions of Souls" in 2012.
Murderlust is serial killer drama from the mid 80’s that focuses in more on rounded character study, than gore or torture. Here we have a recent DVD reissue of the film- which sees the first ever fully uncut release of the film. Plus a rather bizarre & lo-grade Sci-fi film from the same writer & director team.
Here from Russian wall noise project Train Cemetery we have a C60- bringing together a selection of four brutally moody & texturally interesting ‘walls’. Each of the four tracks have running-times between eleven & nineteen minutes, and each is worthy in both their textural reward & wall enchantment.
Torture Treatment is a Mexican based noise project that blends together a few different noise sub-genres to create a fairly original & distinctive sound. This self titled C22 tape appeared on Stockholm based Ominous Recordings, & is seemingly the projects first release.
From late 2016 Vestiges is the most recent full length release from US ambient legend Robert Rich. And on the whole it finds him returning to the darker & more melancholic waters of his early work- to create a release that is both haunting yet sonically detailed in it’s unfold.
Big Business are an avant garde metal band from Seattle, Washington. The band are a two piece made up of bassist, Jared Warren and drummer, Coady Willis, both of whom also play as members of the Melvins. Command Your Weather, released on Joyful Noise/Gold Metal Records, is the band’s fifth full length outing and features regular collaborator Scott Martin on guitars.
Kurai Keshiki was born in mid 2013 as a side-project by Emanuele Lago of Black Mountains Chronicles, dealing with a type of industrial-ambient more focused on field recordings and experimental sounds. “Tokubetsu No Tokoro” is the latest release from this project.
The fruitful partnership between the Groupe de recherches musicales (GRM) and Peter Rehberg's Editions Mego has for a number of years been reviving some of the French institution's classic works on lavishly produced LPs, complete with suitably retro sleeve art and Rashad Becker on the knobs at Dubplates & Mastering. This is the second instalment drawing from the much loved corpus of electro-acoustic and tape works of French/Italian composer Luc Ferrari, following on from the collection of 'Presque Rein' compositions issued in 2012. This single LP offers up a real treat, not just in the fact of being the first appearance on vinyl of Petite symphonie intuitive pour un paysage de printemps, but in being paired with Hétérozygote - one of Ferrari's earliest long form compositions utilising what we now tend to call field recordings - it offers the listener a clear-sighted experience of the development of Ferrari's technique and compositional approach.