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Guitarist Andy Moor and saxophonist John Butcher's "Experiments With A Leaf" is oddly titled, containing no sounds sourced from leaves or nature, instead being a completely instrumental free jazz recording, with an intuitive, chaotic unstructured style characteristic of the genre. Focused on sound texture rather than melody or tonality, the call and response noises exchanged between the two musicians in the duo are something of a conversation, and couldn't adequately be precisely transcribed into 'notes' or traditional sheet music.
Here’s a new release from the wonderful Breaching Static label, as curated by the man behind the superb Boar project (to mention but one). It arrives in a dvd case, with murky, black and white, xeroxed artwork. Both Hooked Talons and Garbage Mask are new names to me (though the former is revealed as another Richard Ramirez project), with the first contributing a near forty-minute piece of junk noise, and the second, two much shorter tracks of squeal.
Ecco is the 60’s & 70’s grind house movie themed walled noise project of respected & prolific French walled noise artists Julien Skrobek. All of the projects releases find Julien creating very raw & sleazed walled craft, which is created with radio static as a source. This cassette release from early 2015 offers up two around twenty minute slices of HNW- the release came in an edition of 40 hand number copies, so all been well you’ll still be able to get your hands on a copy.
Here’s a humanity hating HNW split release that brings together a disc a piece worth of material from the following: highly secretive & brutally intense US walled noise project Nar, and often progressive, but always creative British wall noise artists Clive Henry (here listed as Ch)
French static noise imprint,Textural Nightmares, presents II by Oscuro. Oscuro is just one of a myriad of projects from frenchman Julien Skrobek (The Sandman Wears a Mask, Static Park, Fosse, Serpent Sex). Those familiar with wall noise, will recognize Skrobek as not being only a prolific performer, but also running a number of his own boutique micro labels, specializing in HNW, ANW, drone and related sounds. In other words, dude’s got his hands in a lot of wall related shit!
Not being known for their prolific output, Yen Pox instead has chosen to make a career out of sparse releases that resonate deeply within the community. Between the Horizon and the Abyss marks their first full length in fifteen years, and, for the patient, the wait was well worth it. Legends in the dark ambient genre, Yen Pox's latest builds on genre standards and expands into uncharted territories in time and space.
The Cadaver Pulse I is a slowly shifting & mind altering long form slice of dark/ritual ambience, which features an often dense, darkly morphing, & ritual psychedelic soundscape built around electronics, synths, field recording, modified ritual elements, and the human voice. This is a 2014 reissue of a release that original appeared back in 2003 in an edition of just 80 copies- this reissue comes in edition of 500 copies.
Nothing Under the Sun presents A Means By Which To Break The Surface Of The Real, the new LP by NYC dark industrial purveyors: Theologian. Theologian, primarily the work of Lee M. Bartow (Theologian Prime) is joined on this recording by David Castillo (Primitive Weapons, White Widows Pact) and Daniel Suffering (Whorid), with contributions from Matt Slagle and engineer Kevin D. Reilly, Jr.. If you’re expecting some dark shit, you would be right.
Here’s a cdr from one of the more recent practitioners of wall noise: Big Hole, from Texas. The release takes the very simple, but very effective form of a blank cdr and a stark, xeroxed card insert; a highly contrasted black and white image (of piled branches) on it’s front cover and bold text on the reverse - all making a virtue of the simplicity of the packaging. ‘Kerosene’ is one long, seventy-one minute track of harsh noise wall.
Post-industrial pagan ambient magicians Coil are likely my favorite band of all time, ripping a hole in conventional expectations of music to create truly transcendent, gripping electronic sound textures that contain within them the distinctive psychoactive properties of psychedelic drugs, pushing listeners into connection with a primal and forgotten aspect of the musical brain.
It’s fair to say that God In Three Persons is one of the more serious, sonically classy, and at times troubling albums produced by the avant pop/ art project known as The Residents. The album originally appeared in 1988, and here we have a well-deserved & long overdue CD reissue of an album that had sadly been out of print for the last 15 years or so.
When one thinks of the British underground Folk scene of the late 60’s/ early 70’s names like The Incredible String Band & Fairport Convention come to mind. This recent & rather wonderful compilation adds a whole host of previously unknown names to the list, and like the best compilations it makes you keen to track down work of many of the featured artists. Yet at the same time it managers to be a highly consistent listening experience in its own right over its three discs/ sixty plus track unfold.
Finnish psych doom merchants, Dark Buddha Rising, have teamed up with Neurot Recordings for their fifth Studio album, Inversum. Consisting of two long form tracks, their newest release continues to bring the listener into their dark and twisted world. Sparse and engaging, Inversum takes a slightly different direction than their previous release, Dakhmandal.
Here we have the latest slice of hash-hazed doom/heavy psychedelic rock jamming from this British four piece project. The release offers up two lengthy sonic trips into stoned-out & mystically ribbed jam craft. And I must say this is very much of a return to form after the band’s disappointing last full length release, which came in the form of 2014’s rather bland & uneventful Stoner Rock album.
Burning Tree Records & Rotten To The Core Records presents the fifth release by Oxnard unit Stop Breathing. Available on both digital and vinyl formats, the appropriately titled V, offers 12 tracks of adrenaline pumping hardcore/punk that culls a lot from the old, while bringing in a little of the new, to craft an album that is refreshingly straightforward.
I’m reviewing a download copy of this, but I can tell you that the cover is an abstract image that suggests geological formations and flora; this is rather an apt theme, given the sounds and structures within, but wrong in one very important aspect - the image is simplistic and minimal: Joëlle Léandre and SPUNK are anything but. Léandre is a new name to me, but then so are SPUNK. The former plays double bass, whilst the latter are a quartet (Andersen, Grenager, Ratkje, and Tafjord); taking in trumpet, flutes, cello, voice, french horn and electronics. The album features six pieces, recorded live at Molde Jazz Festival, in July 2011; three collaborations, two solo Léandre performances, and one track by SPUNK alone.
Thomas Koner is perhaps Germany's most significant ambient musician since the original Berlin school, specializing in subtle, acoustically precise environments, often centering around faint atmospheric shifting and undulations of sub bass frequencies only audible in the most quiet listening environments, and on the best sound systems. Many of his skillfully composed works are rightfully considered classics, though it can be difficult to actually sit down and listen to them. His music is known for its desolate, cold and arctic feeling, which has led to be it being labelled 'dark ambient'.
Karol Skrzypiec's Inner Vision Laboratory is back with its third release, Austeros. Thick, spacey ambient drifts and drones, and, unlike most background ambient, this one forces you to listen. Creaking, clacking, sometimes suffocating, this isn't your grandma's ambient. Solid enough to stand on, but light enough to carry you away, Austeros is a real treat for the senses.
Here we have a c30 release from Anonymous Masturbaudioum- an Italian based HNW/ Harsh noise project that themes all of its releases around Feet and Legs/ Nylon Stockings fetish. This project started in 2015- so it’s another fairly recent addition to the euro scene, though it’s already got coming on for ten releases under its belt- taking in CDR’s, tapes, MP3 albums, and splits.
Morte Cammina(aka Death Walks) is a recent Australian wall noise project that focus in on unmoving & intense HNW themed around Italian Giallo movies. Fittingly titled this C60 debut release appeared on Death Sex Electronics- a relatively recent northern English label, which focuses in on walled noise & power electronics releases.
Ace Of Wands is the second release from this British junk metal based walled noise project- it’s planning to put out a single release for each & every one of the 78 Rider Waite tarot cards, and each release is been put out in a tape edition of four copies, and an unlimited digital download- I’m reviewing the tape version of the release.
This split CDR offers up two twenty minute slices of appealing French walled noise- one track is a thick & brutal 'wall', while the others is a more layer detailed yet still dense affair. Both projects here are more recent additions to the growing euro walled noise scene, and they come in the form of: Absurade which is the Paris based husband & wife project of Charlotte & Julien Skrobek, and Chier - a Toulouse based one man project.
Veteran British musician Drew McDowall is likely best known as a person who contributed to many of Coil's most powerful and singular recordings, including the drone album "Time Machines", the more tuneful, ethereal gothic ambient of "Musick to the Play in the Dark" and the "Moon's Milk" EPs. After many years in various projects, he has finally seen fit to release an album under his own name, entitled "Collapse".
I’m reviewing a download version of this split tape, so I can’t comment on the packaging, unfortunately; all I can tell you, is that the front cover has a black and white photo of two young girls in a cage - and I have no idea what thats from, either. So far, so good. This very short tape, a c12, has two short pieces from Cock E.S.P. and one longer track from Ginger Cortes. Cock E.S.P. is a name I recognise from many years back, and I must admit I didn’t realise they were still going. Ginger Cortes, on the other hand, are new to me; but the internet tells me that it’s Jennifer Magee and Scott Kindberg - the latter being behind the She Walks Crooked project.