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I’ve got a couple of Stephen Cornford releases, both of which concern themselves with the sounds of audio equipment and “Music For Earbuds” obviously stands in that tradition. From the inlay: “These pieces were assembled exclusively from unprocessed acoustic recordings of the feedback between a single earbud headphone and a cassette walkman tape head.” Cornford then edited and layered these sounds into the five untitled tracks (marked by duration only) on the album.
Luke Younger's project Helm mines a particularly rich seam at the intersection of electro-acoustic, noise/drone and industrial music. Two years after his PAN debut with Impossible Symmetry we find him moving away from his previous flirtations with techno to further refine his art with four dense pieces.
U was the seventh album from this high influential & distinctive Scottish project that mixed together Psychedelic & progressive folk with all manner of other genres. The double album was originally released in late 1970, and it saw the band at their most, challenging, quirky, experimental, and varied. Over the years the album has sadly been in & out of print, but this 2014 Double CD release is surely the most definitive version thus far, as it features a new digital re-mastering, and new inlay booklet taking in recent extensive liner notes, pictures, artwork & full lyrics for all the albums songs.
There’s little doubt that Dead Kennedys 1980 debut Fresh Fruit For Rotten Vegetable is one of the great, distinct & fully formed of punk debuts of all time. It’s up there with the likes of Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, and Crass’s The Feeding of the 5000. This 2014 book tells the story of this classic albums making, the bands formation, and the time before & just after the records release.
David Cronenberg has been inspiring the world for the past forty years, so it's not surprising to see a tribute to his work come about at this stage in his career. Interestingly, this tribute comes not in the form of film, but rather as a jazz/noise hybrid. Combining the talents of Rutger Zuydervelt, Gareth Davis, and Leo Fabriek, Shivers offers up a different interpretation of Cronenberg's work. Using elements of jazz, noise, and electronica, this European trio builds an intriguing sonic atmosphere that not only represents Dave "Deprave" and his oeuvre quite well, but does so in an unexpected manner.
Monotype Records presents Verstörung, the debut full-length by We Will Fail. We Will Fail is the project of Aleksandra Grünholz, based out of Warsaw, Poland. A graphic designer and visual artist, Grünholz created We Will Fail as a further extension of her artistics proclivities. According to Grünholz, Verstörung is the result of many years of collecting sounds (field recordings, samples from old audio tapes, those created with audio equipment, etc.) and wanting to finally collect them into a cohesive album.
After listening to Wolvserpent’s fairly unassuming Perigaea Antahkarana I never bothered to check out Wolvhammer because I got the two bands confused. It’s a damn shame I did, because Wolvhammer have a lot more going for them than Wolvserpent!. Wolvhammer’s third full-length album Clawing into Black Sun was released back in 2014 by Profound Lore after being teased with the Wolvhammer /Krieg split 7” just a month before.
Supersilent's "12" is something of a throwback to the days of early Tangerine Dream, in which ambient music still felt dangerous, fresh and alien. It's not unlike the industrial precursor LP "Biomechanoid" by Joël Van Droogenbroeck, sketching an unwelcoming dim landscape with the unruly neon soundshapes emanated from analog synthesizers.
Pianist Riko Goto and his trio play gentle, nostalgic and patient lounge jazz. Delicately glass-like, fragile piano-tones are the most prominent element, backed by tastefully brushed drums and stand-up bass.
This cdr comes in the standard Altar Of Waste packaging: a dvd case and a smart, professional looking inlay. Part of the black metal-esque design, involves an inside cover that’s a tad hard to read - either that or my eyesight is failing dismally. “At The Throne Ov Kyne” has eight tracks, divided into two halves: “Mundus” and “Anima”; with the release dedicated by Crown Of Ashes to “Nature” and “Mother Kyne”. (Kyne might be a deity from the Elder Scrolls video game, its really very unclear.)
Song From The Forest is the soundtrack from Michael Obert’s fascinating documentary about the Bayaka Pygmies of the Central African rainforest, & their relationship with American Louis Sarno who has lived with the tribe for some 25 years.
800 Saints In A Day is a wonderfully brain frying mixture of psychedelic ‘n’ quirky singer song writer fare, out-there & surreal beats capes, and weird 'n' melting jam-outs which dip in all manner of musical fare - all this creates the very real feeling that anything can & will happen.
Imber, Wiltshire is mix of brooding & ominous dronescaping, & taut electro-acoustic's. The release takes its title, and theme from the abounded British town of the same name, which was to evacuated back in 1943, when the UK government decided to use Imber for army training- in the end the site was never used for training, though it's residents never returned.
I'm always anxious when I get a new review, and, before listening, I fall in love with the band name. I've already pictured myself in their shirts, told friends about them, and framed one of their records. This happened again when Bagman made its way into my email. It's simple, effective, and the dirtiness of it definitely fits the grimy PE genre. Although Bagman has been around for a while, I've never had the pleasure of listening to any of his releases. Thanks to Crucial Blasts' re-release of 2009's In Their Blood and From the Gutter, I was able to remedy this problem. Bagman's dark, oppressive, filthy electronics are not only loud and entertaining, but they also fit his rad name very well.
Vagary imprint presents another massive HNW collection. This time we have a 5 x c40 cassette box set by Small Hours entitled Karen. For those unfamiliar, Small Hours is the project of James Killick based out of the U.K.. An indelible fixture in the HNW scene, Killick creates wall-noise under a variety of guises, but Small Hours (along with Love Katy) seem to be his most active projects. For those more acclimated to Killick’s work, knows that he has a penchant for producing wonderfully themed (mostly light-hearted) releases. In many ways shifting the HNW paradigm on it’s head, he strayed away from the doom and gloom often associated with the HNW scene and embraced pop culture for inspiration. On Karen, Killick’s source of affection is the late/great Karen Carpenter of the Carpenters fame.
Ulver has certainly had the most interesting musical evolution of the Norwegian second-wave bands. Emperor turned into Ihsahn’s lame solo project, Enslaved’s newer progressive rock meets black metal has had mixed results, Burzum is now a terrible folky ambient, Darkthrone’s newer material ain’t half bad, but it’s a far cry from A Blaze in the Northern Sky and Transylvanian Hunger. Other bands like Gorgoroth, Mayhem, Satyricon, and Immortal have stagnated. Ulver on the other hand, left metal’s realm entirely long ago and still manages to release interesting material.
Manilla Road is a band with a long past. Beginning in 1977 in Kansas the band has been releasing classic heavy metal/power metal consistently for the last 28 years. Out of the Abyss is a re-release of their thrash heavy 1988 album. Long under appreciated by fans and reviewers alike, it is probably one of Manilla Roads heaviest and darker releases.
Formed in 2013, Birminghams Khost bestow us with a new release in Copper Lock Hell on Cold Spring records. The project is manned by Andy Swan (of Iroha, Atrocity Exhibition and Final) joined by Damian Bennett on live outings (he of Carthage and Deathless). On Copper Lock Hell guests include cellist Jo Quail (SonVer), Eugene Robinson (Oxbow), remix by Kevin Laska (Novation) and Tunnels of Ah.
Visions of bleakness, the feeling of being overwhelmed by grief and the coldness of isolation; these are the things that describe the newest release by Grisatre. Grisatre was founded in France in 2006, the project of Rokkr (all instruments and vocals). After a few demos and eps Grisatre returns with the 3rd full length, Paroxystique.
A Lizard in a Woman's Skin is one of the less prolific projects of Texas based HNW legend Richard Ramirez- this mini CDR is only the 5th release from the project since it started in 2010. The project focuses in on giallo themed dense HNW/ boiling static texturing, and it takes it’s name from 1971 Italian giallo movie of the same name which was by directed by infamous gore director Lucio Fulci .
This four C20 box set from early 2013 offers up eighty mintues worth of (mainly) set ‘n’ searing extreme walled noise from the Serbia. The collection brings together two of the most prolific projects from the counties HNW/Harsh noise scene in the form of Dead Body Collection and Raven.
Swedish death metal. That term conjures up so many great acts and an instantly recognizable sound. Bands like Entombed and Dismember paved the way for their countrymen while becoming almost household names (y'know, somewhere, I guess...Sweden?). The HM-3 pedal that defined their sound was prevalent in many other acts, and was near inescapable when turning on the newest Swedish death. As enjoyable as that sound is, you can only hear it so much before it gets a bit tiresome. Thankfully, bands like Stench recognized this as well. This Swedish trio's second album, Venture, comes to us via Agonia Records. Combining the tempo and power of death metal with the atmosphere and notes of black metal, Stench put together a solid, entertaining metal album that'll get your head nodding.
Korm Plastics imprint presents Brombron 28: Faded Brown And Gray by Sindre Bjerga & Fabio Orsi. Available in CD format, this album represents another entry in the Brombron series. Brombron is a project where 2 or more musicians become artists in residence in Extrapool, an arts initiative in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, with a full recording studio at their disposal. On this entry we have the pairing of Fabio Orsi from Southern Italy and Sindre Bjerga, hailing from Norway.
Beyond The Darkness is an anthology compilation that brings together some of the lessen known soundtrack work of this celebrated Italian prog/electronic rock project. The single disc release takes in selections from ten soundtracks - moving from the late 1970’s, up to the early 2000’s. And simply put it’s a very consistent collection, which shows both the projects ability to create moody yet memorable themes, and also dart into a few different musical genres too.