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The Stargazer's Assistant is a project of David J Smith, most known for his work in the highly experimental, sometimes prog rock outfit Guapo. "Remoteness of Light", the 4th release to come out under this name since 2007, is a complex and magickally charged eclectic soundscape which uses a large variety of instruments and sections to create a heady mystic atmosphere. The album contains 3 long pieces, each nearly 20 minutes.
It was Hannah Arendt who argued in her book on imperialism that no other figure demonstrated the insufficiency of the concept of universal human rights that that of the refugee. These individuals who in their plight should embody the demand and concrete instance of fundamental human rights instead mark its utter failure. It was in the wake of the second world war and the mass migrations that the conflict engendered that Arendt wrote. She did so from a very personal experience having had to flee Europe herself. In 2016 Europe is again faced with the mass movement of migrants and refugees fleeing conflict and hardship outside of the borders of "fortress Europe". As they move from East to West, from South to North, the thought to be unimaginable sight of camps of desperate people have once again appeared across Europe. One prominent camp sits just outside the main transport hub of Calais in Northern France. Here in this place known as "the Jungle" several thousand men, women and many unaccompanied children live in squalid conditions in something akin to a state of limbo. The French are unwilling to re-house them, the British steadfastly refuse to let them cross the channel to seek asylum. The more able attempt to cross to the UK via a number of highly dangerous roots; sneaking into or hanging onto the underside of lorries, swimming across to the port, even running through the channel tunnel itself. Several have died and many have been injured in the attempt or in conflict with the French police whose tactics have increasing taken on the appearance of paramilitary camp guards.
Handmade Birds presents Kleines Biest a full-length cassette by Kevin Hufnagel. Hufnagel is a long-running American guitarist, known for his solo output, as well as membership in Dysrhythmia, Byla, Sabbath Assembly, Vaura, and the most recent incarnation of the legendary death metal outfit: Gorguts. Truth be told, I’m most familiar with his musicianship in Gorguts. That said, Kleines Biest is a far cry from death metal.
You know when you get one of those albums that promises to be wonderful from what you’ve read? One of those albums you think you’ll play to death just from the description? Well this is one of those albums.
Slugs is Spanish/American creature feature from the late 80’s- what it lacks in plot & acting is made up for by some quite effective gore & effects set up. Here we have a 2016 release of the film on Arrow Video- coming in either DVD or Blu ray format, appearing on both Arrow UK & Arrow US.
Well, this tape is a good, old-fashioned, homemade job: a colour, printed inlay, holding a Maxell blank tape, with handwritten titles. I think this is the most notably diy release I’ve reviewed for a long time, and it’s nothing but refreshing. The tape has two tracks from each project, with both sides amounting to 45 minutes each. Cannibal Meat Holocaust is another persona of Ivan Sandakov - the figure behind Sleep Column, Oasis of the Zombies, the Wall Noise label, et al; whilst Ataraxy is the long-standing project of Gag, the man behind Vomit Bucket Productions - so we’re in safe hands, here.
New York synth trio Forma returns with their third full length, Physicalist. Released by kranky, in either a CD or double LP format- it comes in a gatefold jacket designed by Robert Beatty. The surreal landscape on the cover is a hint at what lies on the inside, and helps the listener get closer to the kosmische and synth that Forma delivers.
Here’s the second in the new batch of the ‘Neon-Wall’ releases from Lurker Bias. This time around we have two wall’s from the always worthy French wall-noise project Chier. And the C32 offers up two side long slices creatively textured wall-craft from the project.
Here we have the first in the new batch of ’Neon Wall’ releases, put out by Lurker Bias- each release finds a new or more seasoned HNW artists offering up two sides worth of tape. The initial series featured ten releases, and this new set offers up yet another ten tapes. This first release in the new set comes from London Uk based project A Raja's Mesh Men, and offered up here we have two slices of constricted, often dense, yet interestingly layered wall-craft.
Following on from the likes of Dead Body Collection & Raven, Dosis Letalis is another highly prolific walled noise project from Serbia. The project seemingly stared in October of 2015, and has so far amassed coming on for twenty releases in just under a year. Perpetual Panorama Of Wane is a cassette/ digital download on New York noise/dark ambient label Endless Landscapes Of Decay- it features two quarter of an hour tracks
Self Hate is the first wall-noise release from hermit- a Californian based noise project that’s all the work of the mind behind the Grey Matter Productions label. The release came as either a cassette release( with a whole extra side/ track), or a digital release. I’m reviewing the cassette version- which is sadly now out of print.
In the mid 1980s a young Dutch director Alexander Oey set about capturing something of the strange sub-cultural music scene centred around London which had grown out of the breech created by Throbbing Gristle and the first wave of Industrial music in the 1970s. The groups he chose to work with were Coil, Foetus, Current 93 and Test Dept. The result was a collection of interviews and live footage released on VHS in 1988 called The Sound of Progress which Cold Spring have now seen fit to give a remastered DVD release.
Cornucopia della Morte is the latest album from American doom legend John Gallo. Originally recorded in 2013 and shelved whilst Gallo worked on his solo project John Gallow, whose debut album Violet Dreams was also released on I, Voidhanger Records.
On this their third album for Cyclic Law, Beyond Sensory Experience have produced an enjoyable and immersive musical adventure filled with lush yet unsettling melodies and that wonderful sense of darkness that pervades much of Swedish culture. BSE are the Dark Ambient project of Swedish duo Drakh and K. Meitzer from Uppsala to the north of Stockholm and have been making music together since 2001.
Wolvserpent hail from Idaho. Using drums, guitars, violins and vocals this “metal” (apparently) duo are writing some of the most intense, dark and eerie music I have heard in a very long time.
This might be Troller's second album, however it’s my first experience with the project. And given the press release I was really looking forward to checking it out. Here’s a snapshot of said press release “Lush, lugubrious sound ...heavy synths, slow-motion rhythms...haunting vocal melodies... brooding blasts of dark pop...the songs seemed to emanate from some cavernous subterranean chamber.” So does it live up to the claims made? In my opinion sadly not. On the whole the album smacks of the year 1982, with it’s sub-standard light-goth & hint’s at prog rock.
Receiving The Approaching Memory is a new composition from British minimalist/modern classical composer Bryn Harrison. The work is for Violin & Piano, and is built around an entrancing & subtle shifting selection of interweaved notation patterns.
Tales of the Scissor Killer comes in a slim DVD case, with no-nonsense, black and white graphics and design - though the thing that will catch your eye first (fittingly), is the cover image: a pair of scissors, nestling points first between someone’s thick eyelashes… The CDR contains three tracks, with the shorter, second piece - 10:38 minutes - bookended by first and last tracks around the half hour mark.
Dave Ball & Jon Savage's collaborative album "Photosynthesis" is a synthesizer odyssey with a deep underlying warmth, a resounding low end that comfortably drones as dramatic intervals are struck like ominous horn calls. It has the reassuring consistency of a machine steadily running for hours and hours and all night, the hum of the motor persisting even in the darkness. It brings to mind patiently scrying for anomalies in a softly shifting bed of static, and long planetary orbits.
The Glittering Thing On The Mountain brings together a selection of fascinating, beautifully recorded, and varied field recordings made in one of the more remote & untouched jungles of Japan.
Synopsis:…is the latest selection of dense ‘n’ depraved sonic noise fruit from this mysterious collective from Northern England. The release comes in the form of a three C90 set, offering up four & a half hours worth of perverse noise-craft. The set moves between: dense blends of grey pummelling harsh drone & soured harsh noise. Unmoving & crude walled noise, and blends of both harsh noise & HNW.
This rather wonderfully named and seemingly quite mysterious project brew-up a heady & subtly genre mixing sound that moves from: drifting ‘n’ psychedelic, onto smoky/ filmatic, through-to-moody-yet taut, onto quirky & loosely Avant-grade. Ectopic Apiary is the project’s debut release, & it comes in the form of a CDR released on UK's Reverb Worship in an edition of 50 copies
Geräuschmanufaktur presents Ate Gena, a full-length CD by Miguel A. Garcia & Alfredo Costa Monteiro. Released earlier this year, Ate Gena is the first offering by this collaboration of multi-media artists. I wasn’t at all familiar with either artist, but Geräuschmanufaktur has released a pretty solid slate of releases over the years, so color me intrigued.
Now legendary noise/industrial outfit, Controlled Bleeding, released their debut, Distress Signals I, on Broken Flag in 1984. Having never been properly reissued on CD or vinyl, this tape debut became much sought after and very hard to find. Working with Paul Lemos, Artoffact reissued Distress Signals I, and also unearthed an interesting tidbit: this wasn't what was originally intended for Broken Flag. Lemos had a second version that has been unheard to this day. This version will also be released later by Artoffact.