Loading
Chicago trio Locrian are back with another drony slab of synth and guitar matter. Return to Annihilation is their debut on the legendary Relapse label. Over the years, Relapse have expanded their roster to include many different genres of metal and punk, so it's no surprise that a newer, genre blending act like Locrian would be in their crosshairs. While Return to Annihilation may not sound like Locrian's typical output, it fits very well on Relapse's ever expanding discography.
Ukrainian label ~taqueOT presents Matter by Sphagný. Sphagný is the moniker of Russian sonic artist Anton Auster, who is also responsible for the experimental label Swollen Beam.
English HNW/PE label Kafkex Rex presents My War (Tone Obsession I) by HNW act Catholic. As the title suggests, this c45 offers 2 side long tracks of wall noise dedicated to Black Flag’s album of the same name. Truthfully, I know very little about Catholic, only that they have a few releases on Kafkex, which leads me to believe that it’s likely the project of the label-runner. As with most Kafkex releases, this is extremely limited to 5 pieces, and being released in 2012 I’m most certain this is long gone.
East Of Eden were a progressive/jazz rock project that were in existence between 1967 & 1978. The band had a very versatile & at times experimental sound that mixed together prog/ jazz rock with elements of folk, gypsy music, world music melodies, with dips into free jazz & disorientating tape loop structures. “Snafu” original appeared in 1970, and it’s one of the projects more experimental releases.
“Traurer” brings together one lengthy ambient work, and eleven slices of stark blacked metal meets lo-fi goth rock from this highly prolific Ukraine based one man Black Metal & dark ambient project.
From 2012, this two track release finds ATM offering up two lengthy, mind expanding & krautrock tinged take on the classic space/ psychedelic rock jam-out that is Gong’s “'Om Riff/Master Builder". This release comes in either CD or vinyl format, and it offers up two just shy of twenty minute tracks.
This new split vinyl release from Cold Spring brings us recordings from the UK based industrial veterans Skullflower, and San Francisco based one man black metal project Mastery. The acts couldn't be much more different from each other although the common thread that weaves its way through this disc is defiantly strange breeds of metal. Skullflower has been doing its thing off and on since the 80's and their experience shows itself with the waves of post industrial nausea that flow from this record. Mastery on the other hand started in 2005 and is utterly modern in its approach to musical mangling.
“The Plague Carrier” is the new full length release from this Scottish based walled noise project. And it comes in the form of a CDR release that presents the listener with four lengthy slices of dense, detailed & creative sounding HNW.
Within is the new project from Missouri based Jeff Landgraf(of brutal HNW project Oblive, and more spectral sounding walled noise project Mass Graves). This first release from the project comes in the form of a C30 tape, and offers up two sides of taut yet atmospheric HNW.
You know how sometimes you look at an album, decide what its going to be, and then verbally apologise to the speakers as it turns out you were wrong? Well, this was one of those. Elegantly packaged in a fold-out card wallet, “A Gambler’s Hand” said “post-rock, post-rock, boring post-rock” to me; but I was, indeed, (essentially) wrong.
If you're reading reviews on this website, I'm sure you're very familiar with the venerable Cold Spring label. For over twenty years, Cold Spring has been releasing quality product of varying genres, from the likes of Sutcliffe Jugend, C.C.C.C., and Merzbow, to Psychic TV, Laibach, and Anni Hogan. While not as diverse as an average music fiend's collection, it is still very admirable for a label to put out what they believe in instead of being pigeonholed into one or two genres. Because of this, the Throne two disc sampler has a little something for everybody.
This split CDR from summer 2013 brings together two twenty plus minute slices of dense ‘n’ fixed wall noise pummelling. We have a track from the French black bag wearing master of HNW Vomir, and a track from mysterious & anonymous three piece wall noise project Inanition.
This rather lengthily named project comes from Michigan area of the USA, and they offer-up a intense & searing mix of layer active ‘n’ buzzing walled noise.The project has been active on & off for the last three & a half years. putting out around four or five CDR based releases.
This C46 tapes offers up a series of intense yet inventive HNW tracks that are all themed around the work Japanese director Kôji Wakamatsu- who is seen as one of the major figures in the pink film genre(Japanese adult films with an exploitative or pornographic focus).
Prosektor is a dark ambient project hailing from Hungary, headed by a guy called Attila (what is it with Hungary and barbarians?), and this spray painted CDr is the first release of his I've listened to.
This new release of "Images of the Dream and Death" is the work in its fourth version, reworked at the Elektronmusikstudion (aka EMS) in Stockholm in 2001 (if you are unfamiliar with the studio its worth looking into). The first version of the work was created between 1974-1977 made using Buchla synthesizers and I can't help but wonder which ones, since Buchla was the creator of many strange instruments, most of which are difficult to come by. The artist states that the work is a portrayal of Good and Evil and it certainly seems to move its way through this territory and many others.
A very spartanly presented tape, on sincope, here; very minimal and clean, with black graphics on a red background. Two tracks, one a side, from an artist who I assume is Italy-based, due to their email address. These two tracks (both near ten minutes apiece) are strikingly different in their sounds and tone, but this polarisation can’t hide the patience and attention to detail that they both share.
For his self titled debut, Alberto Boccardi presents an album of sparse instrumental and electronic soundscapes. The album has 5 tracks, and is over in a brief 27 minutes.
This recently released compilation comes in both CDR & digital download format, and it brings together a selection of shorter slices of walled noise- in total this releases offers up 19 tracks, taking in HNW acts from all around the world. And as you might expect with this type of thing the quality, focus & sonic depth of the tracks vary quite a fair bit, with those who have a clear understand of form sitting along side more amateurish attempts at the walled noise form.
This split CDR release appeared towards the end of 2012, and it brings together two slices of walled noise from two known & respected scene veterans. Firstly we have a intense yet ominously underfed track from highly prolific Serbian project Dead Body Collection, then secondly we have a more darkly atmospheric yet still intense shot of walled noise from Brazilian based & horror obsessed Carrion Black Pit.
No Paris is the minimalist electronic project of Sean Gray from Fan Death Records. This release comes to us on City of Dirt and follows up their debut, Cimmerian, from earlier this year (which is on Gray's Accidental Guest Recordings). Past Decussations is both more sparse and more harsh than the previous effort, as odd as that sounds, and a worthy follow up.
Test Tone Music presents this mail-in collaboration between Kikuchi Yukinori (BIlly?) and Canadian artist Tim Olive (Nimrod, Beauty Pear). According to the production notes, Olive recorded a single track in mono, which was later mixed and edited by Yukinori. For a mail-in collab, this album surprisingly sounds like a single cell organism, not a melding of two minds. That my friends is no easy feat.
The Zodiac Killer case is one of the great unsolved serial killer crimes of all time, it’s up there with the likes of Jack the Ripper, Black Dali murder, and The East side Rapist. I first became fascinated with the case in the mid 1990’s, after reading Robert Graysmiths highly captivating book on the case “Zodiac”. As the years have passed my fascinated with the case never waned, and in 2007 celebrated Us director David Fincher decided to make a movie about the case based mainly around Robert Graysmith's book…and this is really where Cory Strand’s massive six disc set comes in. It finds Strand either melting & slowing down the films soundtrack into brooding & unsettling ambience, or roasting & searing up films soundtrack into punishing walled noise attack/ shifting drone based harsh noise.
"ABC" is the debut album of Norweigen trio Bly de Blyant. Classified as modern jazz by discogs, the chord structures and timbres of the instruments place it closer to a form of fusion-informed ambient math rock.