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Geir Sundstøl plays a subtle and sensitive form of instrumental post rock / folk, centered around rustic, twangy acoustic and electric slide guitars and expansive reverbs. Subtle percussion and wind chimes appear on occasion, but most of this album "Furulund" is comprised of orchestrations of overdubbed guitar: lush, watery tones adjusted to play all different roles.
This tape, from Palinopsia Recordings, is very smartly designed and illustrated, using grainy black, white and red to great effect. The album has two tracks, both around the half hour mark; the first side is called Red (side 1), and the second Red (side 2). That’s really all the context the pro-printed inlay supplies, which gives the whole venture a genuine sense of mystery and obscurity.
Shurayuki-hime is one of the more recent wall-noise/static texturing projects of Newcastle Upon Tyne Liam M( of D.S.W.A.C.V, Tarot, and runner of Tera-AntiQu label). This release is a four track CDR/ digital album from the project, which themed around Japanese anarcho-feminist Kanno Sugako.
Here’s another addition to Lurker Bias series of walled noise releases, and this time it’s Rock Island, Illinois based We Also Let Blood offering up a C30 (& digital download) worth of material. On offer here are two slices of decidedly industrial drone influenced wall-craft.
Continuing their series of digital re-releases of Aube's catalog, Iris Light brings us 1998's Flare. Aube's brilliance continues to astound even posthumously, and it's great that Iris Light is bringing his work to new audiences. Using only one source material, Aube was able to make wonderful albums that continue to impress and inspire.
Humbler Records presents More Nasty, a 4 track CD-R( or tape) by Street Priest. Street Priest is a trio from Cali made up of Jacob Felix Heule, Kristian Aspelin, and Matt Chandler, who have spent time in acts Burmese and Ettirck. Released in 2014, this is their only album that I know of to date.
Electronic Ritual is the forth full length from this two piece retro synth ‘n’ electronics project from Newcastle upon Tyne. The release comes in the form of a CDR on respected & cult UK label Reverb Worship- it features four (mainly) lengthy slices of throbbing & up-beat examples of retro synth craft, with noisy/moody electrionc details.
Arriving just a few months after the years-delayed collaborative Mike + the Melvins album “Three Men and A Baby,” “Basses Loaded” sees the Melvins tossing out yet another bizarre puzzle piece in their cryptic tapestry of recordings.
Here we have two pro CDs, presented in a cardboard, gatefold wallet; decorated with scratchy graphics and smeared colours. Splice are a quartet centred around trumpet, saxophone/clarinet, bass guitar, and percussion; though there are notably also a couple of laptops deployed. The album has twelve tracks spread across the discs, with durations ranging from a brief 2.5 minutes to over seventeen.
Death metal all-star team, Gruesome, are back on Relapse with Dimensions of Horror, their follow up to 2015's Savage Land. Continuing their Death inspired mayhem, Dimensions is six tracks of freshly played, throwback fury. Once again using Ed Repka artwork to complete the look,Gruesome's second release sells their passion for early death well through tight riffing and well constructed song writing.
Ne Obliviscaris is an Australian progressive metal band with a huge amount of energy and ambition, crafting bombastic 16 minute pieces filled with emotionally charged shifts from idiom to idiom, taking the epic structure from classic progressive and power metal, the chugging sonic force of death and black metal, and the contemplative chord work of jazz fusion. They released their debut, "Portal of I", in 2012. If are looking for metal with the density and scope of a classical symphony, their 2nd album "Citadel" is it.
Lurker Bias presents Neon Origins by Neighbor’s Nightshade; another installment in their Neon Walls series. As mentioned in previous reviews, the gist of the series is simple: ten cassettes from ten artists, limited to 10 copies a piece, the only guiding concept is Neon Walls. Featured artists include: Cory Strand, Shurayuki-Hime, New Class Identities, and other familiar (and not so familiar) wallers.
Wormed is a brutal technical death metal band from Spain which follows the modern convention of blue-green, sci-fi looking artwork, pseudo-scientific and wordy existential song titles, a higher minded cosmic aesthetic to replace the necro/gore imagery of olde. In this way, they are comparable to bands such as The Faceless. "Krighsu" is their 3rd album, and the first one I've given a serious listen.
For Christian Wolff is another one of Morton Feldman’s later & lengthy works. It features a very tonally narrow collection of patterns played out with just three instruments: Piano, Celesta, and flute. Here we have the 2008 three CD recording on Bridge Records by the California E.A.R Unit.
Following on from Theory Of Obscurity-the recent & excellent documentary on The Residents. Here we have a new book covering the projects whole career from the late 1960’s, right up until 2014.
The Zero Boys blends together two of the most popular B- movie genres of the 1980’s- action & slasher. Here we have a well deserved & long overdue reissue of this late 80’s genre blending movie.
Funeral Musik For You And Me offers up a collection of mainly stripped-back & minimal sonic sketchers that blend together elements of electronica & ambience with dips into slurred industrial, locked 'n' honking jazz, & sparse electro-goth music. Marek Marchoff is most know to me from his work with avant Neo Folk project 23 Threads, but seemingly he’s involved with a few other projects such as Different State, Kalinovsky & Marchoff, The Vein, and a few solo projects.
Here’s a smart little package from Deathsex Electronics: a small black, cardboard box, containing a ziplock bag, which in turn contains a tape and some illustrated cards. The cards depict water breaking against rocks, an abandoned teddy, and a rough texture that could equally be desert surface or crocodile skin. The box, inside and out, is adorned with an odd picture (all the imagery is black and white) of something humanoid - that’s the best I can do for you. The tape has one track on each side, both apparently untitled, and both around the thirty minute mark.
Lurker Bias presents Follow Along in Wonderment by New Class Identities; another installment in their Neon Walls series. The gist of the series is simple: ten cassettes from ten artists, limited to 10 copies a piece, the only guiding concept is Neon Walls. Featured artists include: Cory Strand, Shurayuki-Hime, Neighbor’s Nightshade, and other familiar (and not so familiar) wallers. New Class Identities is a relatively new project as far as I can tell, and this here slab of magnetic tape appears to be their only release to date.
One of the great things about reviewing music is been surprised by something you either expected to dislike, or weren’t expecting much from. And that’s exactly what happen with this 2016 reissue of the third album from this British electric folk project.
Smiling Men with Bad Reputations was the first solo album from Mike Heron- one of the main songwriters behind highly respected & distinct sounding progressive folk/ genre mixing Scottish project The Incredible String Band. And here we have a 2015 CD reissue of the album.
The most well known name in noise, Merzbow, sees one of his oldest tapes re-released by Cold Spring Records. Nil-Vagina Mail-Action February 85 has bee remastered and re-released under the title Life Performance. Originally released by Akita's own ZSF Produkt, Life Performance shows an early version of the King of Japanese Noise doing what he does best.
Die Isolation is a fairly typical, though no less rewarding release from (mostly) one man Ukraine based black metal/ dark ambient project Moloch. This release originally appeared in 2014 as an ltd white vinyl pressing (300 copies) on Desire Records. I’m reviewing the 2015 unlimited CD reissue on Cold Spring Records.
Deterritorialization’s Cold Light is another entry in the Neon Wall series of tapes, coming from the Lurker Bias label. The previous two that I’ve heard, have pushed and stretched ideas of HNW, and these two tracks do much the same. Again, I am reviewing a digital version of the cassette, with two pieces, both around the 16 minute mark.