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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.
23 treads are a Polish three piece now relocated in New York City- the band summon-up a macabre, at times wonky & darkly psychedelic blend of neo folk, which is often repetitive & sonically locked down, with wordy female spoken word vocals on top. Conspicuous Unobstructed Path is band first release after a 15 year slumber, and I must say I was quite taken by its fairly edgy, stark & often experimental edged take on the neo-folk genre.
This two CD & 40 page booklet set takes the listener into the unequal sonic world of the Yanomami shamen- taking in their rituals & field recordings from their surrounding jungle environment. This recently expanded reissue on respected Belgium based label Sub Rosa; brings together all the material from 1980 vinyl release Hekura - Yanomamo Shamanism From Southern Venezuela. Along with a huge amount of unreleased material from Mr Toops journey into the Amazon jungle between the borders of Venezuela and Brazil in the late 1970’s.
Centre Tapes presents Seasonal Attrition, a collaborative effort by Andy Ortmann and Alex Barnett. For those unfamiliar, Ortmann hails from the windy city and is a long running experimental musician, perhaps best known for his work in Panicsville. Barnett, on the other hand, was a member of Oakeater and is more recently known for his collaborations with Faith Coloccia. Available as a C40, Seasonal Attrition offers 2 longform tracks that I can best describe as a playground of sonic detritus.
I remember when Pig Destroyer unleashed Prowler in the Yard onto the scene in 2001. Scott Hull's (Agoraphobic Nosebleed) newest project sounded promising. However, I hated the band name (still do! haha), so I never really checked them out. Needless to say, they put a lot of grinding fury into their Relapse debut and it made great waves in the scene. My stubbornness prevailed, and until this past week, I never checked this album out. Thankfully, this has all changed.
Here we have the first part of a recent trilogy of releases by this French HNW/ nasty noise/ power electronics project. Presented here for the listeners (dis)pleasure is a taut & dense slab of buzzing industrial drone craft that’s topped with a pained crust of static noise.
I’m reviewing a download version of this album, so I have no idea what the packaging is precisely like; but the cover itself is a somber ‘BROTZMANN’ and ‘MUNSTER BERN’, in a bold typeface, black on grey: serious, weighty, and carrying the possibility of threat. Which is not an unreasonable summary of the sounds within. This is Peter Brotzmann playing solo: five tracks, amounting to just over an hour; the shortest a mere six minutes, the longest being just shy of nineteen minutes. The wonder of the internet has informed me that ‘Munster Bern’ is a cathedral in Bern, and thus the - at times - cavernous reverb that permeates the entire album. Making sound in a cathedral or church is often an unforgettable affair - these buildings were, of course, constructed to amplify the sound of worship to the heavens above - so, in the hands of a master like Brotzmann, you might expect a towering recording: and you’ll be satisfied.
Arizona based ambient music veteran Steve Roach released an album of classic Berlin style synthesizer music in "Skeleton Keys" earlier this year, channeling the original era of the ambient form by limiting himself to the use of classic analog gear. This album, "The Skeleton Collection (2005 - 2015)" came a few months later, something of a post script to the original album, containing a number of similar unreleased tracks both from before and after the actual album was made.
Highways of Tears is the latest slice of blunt, brutal & unrelenting walled noise from this high prolific Serbian based project. It comes in the form of a C40 cassette tape on French noise label Autistic Campaign, in an edition of 50 copies.
Here we have a walled noise tape compilation from 2013- as it’s title suggest the theme here is Video Nasties, and for those not in the know these were a series of films that were banned/ prosecuted in the 1980’s uk. The compilation finds nine HNW artists selecting a single film from the nasties list, and then basing a track around said film. And it’s fair to say this releases is one of the more consistent & worthy HNW compilations to be released in the last few years.
Editions Mego presents the latest offering from the windy city’s Kevin Drumm. This new full-length CD entitled Trouble, offers a quieter side of Mr.Drumm’s output. And by quiet, I mean “hear a pin drop” quiet. For those unfamiliar, Kevin Drumm is a long-running avant-garde, sound artist from Chicago. He has tons of releases and has collaborated with scores of equally impressive artists (Prurient, Jim O’Rourke, and Aaron Dilloway to name a few). This is my second foray into Drumm’s work. Having been thoroughly impressed by last year’s Wrong Intersection, I must say that while his approach on Trouble doesn’t really seem like an odd departure for Drumm, it also wasn’t quite what I was expecting.
Over the course of four years (2011-2014), ambient/drone kings Troum and raison d'etre worked together to create a lush slice of ambient magic. Airy and otherworldly, De Aeris In Sublunaria Influxu harnesses the powers of two masters at the peak of their craft. The sonic landscape crafted by these powerhouses fills the ears with such a vivid picture that one can't help but see an alien world unfold in front of them. This album takes its time, does only what it needs, and the restraint is very rewarding.
I feel honored to have the chance to attempt to describe Atheist's "Unquestionable Presence", one of the best and most important metal albums of the early 90's, and am glad to say this Season of Mist re-issue is as good a way as any to become familiar with this music, presented here exactly as it should sound.
Tarot is the new project from Newcastle Upon Tyne based wall-maker L.M.( of D.S.W.A.C.V). The Fool is the first in a series of releases themed around the tarot pack, and what we have here is a C20/ digital releases that takes in two ten minute slices of junk metal based walled noise.
The follow up to 2013's highly acclaimed 'Open' finds the Necks drawing on their touring experiences over the last two years to deliver a more tense and shadowy set that showcases yet another side to their superlative improvisational chemistry.
Paul Chain Violet Theatre were one of the more distinctive & creative doom/rock/ metal bands to appear from the 1980’s European scene. The Italian project mixed together doom, dark psychedelic rock, death rock, and a few more experimental edges. In The Darkness is the debut full from 1986, and this is the 2013 cd reissue of the album.
Templum N.R. is one of the more obscure projects to appear from out of the mysterious Finish ritual ambient collective/ label Aural Hypnox. This C45 release is the projects one & only release, but according to the labels website the material here dates to over a decade ago.