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Bastard Sapling’s a name I’ve heard thrown around but never gotten around to investigating. Back when Dragged from Our Restless Trance was released in 2012 I made a mental note to check it out based on the band’s name but never actually got to it. As luck would have it, these Americans have placed themselves in my sight once again with the release of a new album Instinct Is Forever.
'Shade Themes from Kairos' is far from the first collaboration between Oren Ambarchi, Stephen O'Malley and Randall Dunn. These artists have been increasingly occurring on each others releases and those of their peers to suggest a strong network of highly experimental rock that spans the globe from Ambarchi's Australia, through O'Malley's base in mainland Europe to Dunn's studio in the States. Indeed, throughout the past decade Ambarchi and Dunn have participated in numerous releases from O'Malley's Sunn O))), while O'Malley and Ambarchi also get together in Nazoranai, a power trio with Japan's Keiji Haino, and Dunn was involved in the recording of Ambarchi's triumphant solo album, 'Audience of One', released on Touch in 2012. However, this is the first explicit union of the three, promoting Dunn from his usual credit as producer or engineer.
This C60 tape is the 2nd in the revived ‘Infinity Series’, and it finds respected Texas wall-maker & searing yet creative sonic experimentalist Sean E Matzus (aka thewhitehorse) offering up two lengthy tracks of atmospheric industrial focused wall-making, that flits between both HNW & ANW.
Exivious is an instrumental heavy jazz fusion project with two Cynic alumnus in guitarist Tymon Kruidenier and fretless bassist Robin Zielhorst. With Dodecahedron guitarist Michel Nienhuis and Pestilence drummer Yuma va Eekelen to round out the picture, the quartet creates a brainy, contemplative, spiritual and upbeat sound highly reminiscent of recent rising stars such as Disperse and Animals as Leaders. "Liminal" is their second album.
Fecal Dam is a new name to me, but the black and white inlay (adorned with an inconclusive photograph of women, in some kind of dormitory) tells us that J. Landgraf is behind the project. Given that this is the same person behind the excellent Oblive and Mass Graves, expectations were high. The tape has four tracks, amounting to about fifty minutes of sound.
Belgium: chocolate, beer, waffles, Aborted. I know, the Homer Simpsons in all of you is saying, "Aborted? You can't eat that." Well, contrary to his belief, now you can! The newest release from these death metal goremeisters comes to us in a crunchy CD, a chewy LP, a nicely stacked, buttery, limited box set, and, unfortunately, an inedible digital edition. While the various editions have different goodies and bonuses, they all share one thing: blistering, gore soaked death metal.
Aaltra Records presents Horror Vacui by Norwegian experimental noise project Flesh Coffin. To my delight I discover that Flesh Coffin is another project by Andreas Brandal, whose album Turning Point I glowingly reviewed a couple weeks ago. That album had a very dark cinematic sound to it, almost like a stripped down Goblin or Tangerine Dream. Flesh Coffin or the other hand is a different beast altogether. There are certainly some commonalities between the two projects, however Brandal’s work on Horror Vacui is far more sonically grounded in the harsh noise idiom.
Concrete and Clay offers up five ‘walls’ worth of moody & creative textured noise, which falls some where between HNW & ANW. As the CDR titles suggest there’s often a very earthy & layered feel to many of the tracks presented here. Often the ‘walls’ here bring to mind images of vast yet stark ‘n’ bleak building sites busy with odd sounds, strange subterranean borrowing’s ‘n’ tunnelling’s, or weird muddy twisting of massive semi aquatic beasts. Yet for all it’s earthy, wet, and organic feel, there is often an undertone of eerier alien-ness present, which takes this release beyond just purely organic focused sound texturing.
Both Falls of Rauros and Panopticon are rising stars in the American atmospheric black metal scene following their releases of The Light that Dwells in Rotten Wood and Kentucky respectively. And, both being signed to Bindrune Recordings, a split between the two bands was almost inevitable.
This four disc CDR release finds this highly prolific & often creative Minneapolis based ambient/ drone/ HNW artists doing his sinister & brooding deep drone reinterpretation of the Halloween II soundtrack.
This four CDR box set is one of the great lost recordings of the early Harsh Noise Wall scene- it originally appeared back in 2007, and quickly sold out- it has gone onto become one of the most mentioned works connected with Vomir & the wider walled noise scene. This recent reissue appears on Victimology Records in an edition of 50 copies.
This cd comes in a very distinctive digi-pak - distinctive in the sense that its unusually unadorned: it’s plain white, except for a green bar along the top and the artist and title details. This lack of information and clutter is compensated for inside, however; with the recording information actually listing the tubes used to master individual tracks. The trio, whilst all singing from the same song sheet, come from very different starting positions with their set-ups. Nakamura coaxes a no-input mixer, Ikeda plays a SD404 (string decoder) and a DX7 (synth) and Date equips himself with toy piano, pump organ, vibraphone, piano and field recordings.
Archspire is part of a new heavily classically inspired wave of technical death metal first indicated a few years ago by bands like Obscura and Necrophagist. I have heard them compared to Braindrill, and while the percolating, sweep heavy guitar playing is similar, this band's sound is much more melodic and coherent. "The Lucid Collective" is their second album, following "All Shall Align" in 2011.
Electronic group Outer Space is back with their first release since 2012. Phantom Center 12" comes to us from Editions Mego and is the first release to showcase the group as its core duo. Comprised of Andrew Veres and John Elliot (Emeralds), Outer Space mix up a nice batch of danceable electronic music on one side and vast, bleak, space electro on the other.
Italian label Super Terrore Z presents Drukkend by HN/HNW act Doodshoofd. For this massive single track of noise, Doodshoofd utilized a minimal setup using a mixer, a few distortion pedals, an analog synth, and a bass amp. This album is an aural representation of what the artist experiences out in the public sphere.
Believe it or not, Mortualia is actually yet another of Shatraug’s (of Horna, Sargeist, and Behexen fame) many projects. And honestly, if it were anyone else being this prolific I’d have my doubts as to the quality of their releases. However, it being Shatraug, I had reasonably high expectations for this album. This is the second full-length put out by Shatraug under Mortualia, which was actually first released back in 2010 but is now being rereleased by Moribund Records.
"...how can a work, if it is authentic, be described in words? This is the absurdity of all musical analysis."Pierre Schaeffer, First Journal of Concrete Music, 1948-1949
JAALJTH is a collaboration between respected sound artist/ electro acoustic sculptor Francisco López, and experimental artists/ Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) researcher Michael Esposito. This CD release is made up of a selection of untouched EVP recordings, and then a selection of soundscapes created from manipulated elements of the original EVP recordings.
‘The Hebrides Suite’ is soundscape release themed around the Scottish Outer Hebrides islands. It mixers together field recordings, conversations, oral histories, and interviews to create a multi layered work, that is takes in both the present & the past of these remote islands.
A split cdr from Claustrophilia, here; with one long track from Ecoute La Merde and two shorter pieces from Sleep Column. The release comes packaged in very diy packaging, utilising photocopying and sellotape; but the cover itself is a somewhat “retro” looking piece of abstract art - which actually sets the whole package off perfectly. The split also comes with a drawing from Lorenzo Abattoir (the man behind Claustrophilia), which depicts the aftermath of a massacre (of human and horse) in his creepy, “crude” style.
Melodic dark ambient veteran Raison D'etre is renowned for his ability to create haunting gothic soundscapes both unsettling and indisputably pretty, which possess a remarkable ability to fill one's head with images of history, particularly Medieval Europe. He has created a steady string of albums since coming to prominence in the 90's, the latest of which is "Mise en Abyme".
Croatia's Tehom has had a sparse recording schedule. Lacrimae Mundi is the act's third release, with their first being in 1996. Sadly, part of this is due to the passing of founding member Sinisa Ocurscak in 1997. Many years after what fans figured was the band's burial, Miljenko Rajakovic resurrected the project with Lacrimae Mundi. Coming in a limited edition from Cyclic Law, Tehom's latest release is a grim and organic sounding slice of dark ambient.
The Police Station finds this progressive 'n' creative UK wall-maker paying his sonic tribute to the Resident Evil games. And in particular the second game in the series Resident Evil 2, which appeared on the first Play Station gaming console in 1998- the release takes it’s name & influence from one of the games main settings.
La Goccia D'Acqua (English translation The Drop Of Water) is another new walled noise project from the highly prolific & multi project linked French noise artists Julien Skrobek (Sadistic Fall,The Killer Came From The Bronx ,Ghost, The Sandman Wears A Mask, Ruine, Butch Bag). Tradere is a 3inch CDR, and it’s the first release from the project, and it appeared on Julien's own label in late march 2014- the labels site lists the release as out of print, but I’m sure some searching on the likes of discogs might help you find a copy.