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“The Shining:Tarriance” finds this highly prolific & often creative Minneapolis based noise/ambient artist giving his drone reinterpretation/ remould of tracks from the unused soundtrack work that Wendy Carlos did for Stanley Kubricks horror moive classic The Shining.
Italian doomy noisers OvO are back on Supernatural Cat with their follow up to 2011's Cor Cordium. Trying to put OvO into one genre is difficult, so take "doomy noisers" as descriptive instead of calling them doom or noise. Both are apt descriptions, though, and it's more than evident on their newest, Abisso. The two piece continue to slay with their drums and guitar, but have also added samples, drum machines, and synthesizers to the mix. These added instruments help to thicken the sound and make Abisso a force to be reckoned with.
So here we have a split EP from the Maryland’s Full of Hell and Poland’s Calm the Fire. Some like to exclaim that the 7” format is dead...a waste of petroleum products. However, I’ve always found the format to be the most perfect delivery system for hc/punk in all it’s guises and permutations. It’s a great format to introduce listeners to new bands who are likely purchasing the record based on a single artist. Such is the case of this split on Holy Roar Records. You had me at Full of Hell, but now I’m curious about Calm the Fire.
Catastrophe Point #9 & # 10 is the most recent release from Lethe(aka Japanese sound artists, subtle improviser and uneasy mood-setter Kuwayama Kiyoharu). And the two CD set offers up three most satisfying journeys into building based sound-making, which moves from: metal on metal texturing, onto moody & creepy drone making, through to more layered composition. But unlike some of Kiyoharu other work, this release doesn’t feature any minimalist piano elements, as its purely a building based sound composition.
Heres a duo album from a pair of very recognisable names, although its possibly the first time I’ve heard them both proper. Both Stetson and Gustafsson are associated with interesting saxophone work and they don’t disappoint on “Stones”: four duets amounting to over half an hour of spiralling notes and gruff bellows. I’ve always been drawn to the “invasive” intensity of solo recordings, but I’ll admit that duos hold a special place in my heart; they allow for some of the “hardboiled” aspects of solos, whilst also presenting the possibilities of split-second co-operation and disintegration. “Stones” is a very listenable example of this “telepathy” at work.
Experimental guitarist, improvisor and ambient musician Mike Fazio is someone I've given numerous positive reviews to in the past; across his various projects and alises (A Guide for Reason, orchestramaxfieldparrish, Aera) there is a remarkable degree of consistency and quality. The glassy, undulating drones found on most of his albums possess tastefully emotive melodic hints, and a pleasant hollow transparency. "Interiors", his latest release, is roughly 40 minutes of sparse atmospheres, organized into 3 longform pieces, all over 10 minutes in length.
Max Eilbacher is part of Baltimore's Needle Gun, and has performed with Matmos and the excellently named Horse Lords. Solo, Max has only released Mescalin Headache on cassette in 2011. Red Anxiety tracers from Spectrum Spools is his vinyl debut, and a proper testament to the experimental craft to which Max plies his trade.
Crucial Blast presents You Are Transparent by Texas-based blackened drone/dark ambient project, Husere Grav. For the uninitiated, Husere Grav is the moniker of one Todd Watson, former member of the black metal duo Homunculus. This makes sense because the overall mood is really bleak and while the album doesn’t necessarily have any definable black metal attributes soundwise, the influence nevertheless seems to permeate the mood of the pieces presented.
“Cinematic & Dramatic” is c80 tape release from this English walled noise project, which themes all of it’s release around Us pop singer Katy Perry. Behind the project is James Killick (who founded the influential and respected HNW/ANW label Sweet Solitude, and is behind such progressive & creative walled noise/ANW projects as Small Hours & suddenly Seymour).
This six CDR box set presents the listener with six seventy minute plus slices of some of the most brutal & truly unforgiving harsh noise wall you’ll ever have heard. The set also has probably the one of most disturbing themes I’ve ever seen- the different abnormalities that can occur in a female human babies vaginas, with the set including medical pictures of these abnormalities, along with a eight page booklet detailing the abnormalities- so this is certainly a release for those who can take both sonic & visual extremes.
Such are the clumsy assumptions that genre-led considerations can impose, minimal composition is not necessarily the first 'style' that comes to mind when you hear that an ex-pro skater and rock guitarist has gone solo. But this is path Duane Pitre has been following since he left the San Diego-based, post-hardcore band Camera Obscura in the early noughties. In this way, many first encounters with his solo work may well confound expectations.
The Nine Gates is the second release from this Australian one man ambient black metal project, who creates a chilling & hazed mainly slow-to-mid paced sound. The album original appeared as a tape release on Germanys Schattenkult Produktionen in February 2013 in a edition of 100 copies, then it got released in CD form in late 2013 by Moribund Records- which is the version I’m reviewing.
W/M is a double cd set that brings together two albums worth of improvised fare from these two Norwegian musicians. Each of the albums is mainly focused in on utilizing just one instrument, & each album finds one of the pair covering a fair amount of sonic ground going from noisy & rhythmic, onto more tuneful & moody, through angular & off-kilter sonic fare.
This 2004 double CD reissue brings together the 10th & 11th albums by this highly influential & often distinctive sounding 1960’s to 1970’s Scottish project. The band mixed together psychedelic folk, world music elements/ instruments, and all manner of different musical genres. The double disc set takes in two albums from the bands time with Island records, and these come in the form of 1972’s EarthSpan , and 1973’s No Ruinous Feud.
Here’s a tape from Bruital Orgasme, on sincope. Its packaged very smartly with a colour inlay and tape stickers; both of which depict a woman tied to a tree (the context being porn - not kidnapping). The first side is made up of eight short pieces, whilst the second has one long track; all amount to around half an hour of sounds.
This split CDR release brings together two twenty to thirty minute slice of dense, punishing, yet textural rewarding HNW from one European, & one USA based project. Vilgoc is from Wroclaw Poland, and Abyzm is from Kansas City USA.
Malignant Records presents An Occasion For Death by long-running power electronics, death industrial artist The Vomit Arsonist. Hailing from Rhode Island, The Vomit Arsonist is the moniker of Andrew Grant, also known for doing time in projects such as: Bereft, Thee Virginal Brides, and Nau-Zee-auN. While being familiar with the name for some time (often mentioned as one of the premiere U.S. industrial noise acts going), I admittedly haven’t delved too deeply into the project’s output. That said, I was rather looking forward to deflowering my ears, with The Vomit Arsonist’s 13th full-length.
Hail Spirit Noir is a black metal influenced progressive rock band, formed in 2010 by core members Haris and Theoharis, who had previously played together in such bands as Trancending Bizarre? and Rex Mundi. Their 2nd LP, recently released in 2013, is titled "Oi Magoi", and contains 7 songs averaging 7 minutes in length.
Finland's Demilich burst onto the international death metal scene very quickly. After a few quick demos in 1991 and 1992, they released their only full length, Nespithe, in 1993. Then, as quickly as they came, they left the scene behind with nary a word. Nespithe was originally released by US label Necropolis, which was an interesting choice for a European band. This allowed American death metallers the chance to hear something really different; Demilich sounded like neither the Floridian nor the Swedish death metal scenes. As well received as Nespithe was, Demilich's quick exit from the death metal scene pretty much secured this release as a mythical gem never to be repeated by the band again. If it hadn't been for the advent of the internet and older fans getting the message out there, I'm sure Demilich would still be horribly unknown instead of getting the deluxe treatment from Svart Records.
“Les Escaliers De La Cave” offers up just over sixty five minutes of dense, brutal, and fixed noise from the French master of walled noise. This 2013 release was jointly put out by three underground noise labels, and these are: France's Decimation Sociale(Vomir’s own label), Dutch based Skum Rex, and Portuguese based Narcolepsia. The release is one of the larger numbered releases from Vomir, coming in at 200 copies.
This is a download release, on the ever interesting Gruenrekorder label. Its a short collection of field recordings made by Flavien Gillié on a trip to Krakow and Auschwitz-Birkenau - a place most of you will know better as simply “Auschwitz”. Frankly, this set off all kinds of alarm bells in my head; namely, that making field recordings at an extermination camp was somewhat “cheap” - with the “exoticness” or historical resonance of the site over-riding the content of the recordings themselves.
Sao Paulo Underground is a trio of multi-instrumentalists formed by Chicago composer Rob Mazurek after his move to Brazil. They play a brand of loud and distorted but quite melodic bluesy rock sludge that sounds as if it were emitting through several blown tube amps at the same time.
Rape Victim Revenge is a HNW project from Washington State USA, and this C30 is the projects second release after a self released c60 that appeared in late 2011. This tape takes in two side long tracks of head roasting & brutal walled-noise.
Long-running German, HNW act Cannibal Ritual presents 2 new walls on Punishment Of The Yacumos. After years of dormancy, this act has resurfaced with a flurry of new releases on HNW staples Vagary and Claustrophilia as well as this new release on net label Meat Hook Butchery. As evident by the project’s moniker, Cannibal Ritual creates grim, static walls based on Italian Cannibal films. You can almost listen to the pieces present on Punishment Of The Yacumos as twisted alternative scores to such classics as Cannibal Holocaust and Cannibal Ferox.