Loading
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.
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.