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This CDR release offers up Crown Of Bone’s searing, moody & mainly sonically overloaded tribute to 2005’s harrowing & stark Australian horror movie Wolf Creek.
""1989 Confessions, Vol. One" finds Lethe once again focusing in on infamous & charming American serial killer Ted Bundy, with the release offering up two length walled noise & ambient tracks built around confessions from Mr Bundy in 1989. The projects very first ever release in late spring 2012 was “Theodore Robert Bundy”- a four CDR set that was based around the crimes of Mr Bundy, and sonically mixed together HNW, industrialized harsh noise & brooding drone.
"Dans La Nuit Vampirique” is the 2nd release from Cory Strand’s Les Legions Noire influenced black noise project. For those not in the know - Les Legions Noire where a collective of French underground black metal/ dark ambient projects that existenced between 1993 & 1997, which have gone on to have somewhat of a cult following
London band Glassglue have existed since 2003, but only just now recorded their debut album, "Fantods". Their sound takes the angular rhythms and atonal riffs of Birthday Party-inspired math rock and mellows down the timbres, focusing on simmering electric piano tones, understated percussive funk guitar figures, and awkwardly crooned confessional lyrics.
Well, this is quite a tome: a two disc archive of THU20 recordings, spanning nearly twenty-five years (1986 − 2008). I’ll admit straight off to knowing nothing about THU20, beyond recognising the name “Frans de Waard”; but just reading the origins of each track in the liner notes, shows the depth of work here. It would be fairly futile to try and neatly summarise such a body of work, but it should soon become apparent that this is a release you should hear. The compilation is divided into two discs: “Studio Works + Live In Bordeaux” and “Early Live”.
Technical death metal legends, Gorguts, are back after a twelve year hiatus. After some tragedy, the band broke up in 2005, but reformed a few years later for their twentieth anniversary. No stranger to line up changes, this iteration of Gorguts features Luc Lemay (y'know, MR. GORGUTS) on vocals/guitars, Colin Marston and Kevin Hufnagel of Dysrhythmia on bass and guitar, respectively, and John Longstreath of Origin on drums. With a roster full of musicians well versed in technicality and hailing from well respected technical bands, the return of Gorguts was in very capable hands. However, fans have had a lot of quality metal released since 2001, so can Gorguts still give 'em what they want?
Steve Hauschildt was one third of electronic scene darlings, Emeralds. The band may have split earlier this year, but as all members currently have their own projects, we're probably not going to miss much. During their run from 2006-2012, they released five albums, and a couple dozen EPs, cassettes, and splits. In this same period, Steve Hauschildt released four albums and four cassettes. While this may seem like a lot of material, it's not all of it...there's even more! S/H is a collection of unreleased and rare tracks from 2005-2012. Oh yeah, it's two discs, too.
Relapse presents the 4th studio album from the hardcore juggernaut known as Weekend Nachos. Hailing for Chi-town, this long-running quartet has been weaving the powerviolence, fastcore, hardcore/punk thread for a near decade now. It’s no surprise really. Coming from an area that spawned such acts as: Charles Bronson, MK Ultra, Kungfu Rick, and Hewhocorrupts, they had much fertile ground to cull from. Over the years they’ve honed their sound, tightened things up, become more nuanced, yet have retained their viciousness.
Neige Et Noirceur (meaning snow & darkness in English) is a one man Quebec based project who since 2002 has dabbled in ambient black metal, doom drone, and moody dark ambient/creepy cinematic. This 2013 compilation brings together a selection of the project more ambient & darkly moody soundscapeing side, with only slight hints at the projects more blacked metal side.
This self titled release is the first release on African Audio Documents- a new French HNW label that themes all it’s releases around the violence, dubious politics, twisted sexuality, & mass killing that takes place on the African Continent
'Selected Realities', released by the Viennese label Moozak, is the debut from Tattered Kaylor, the nom de plume of Tessa Elieff, sound archivist/curator of the National Film & Sound Archive of Australia. Across a CD and DVD, it presents four works that all seem to explore the meeting point between recognisable field recordings and acousmatic music to reveal the changing qualities lent by site-specific configurations.
“Wesieni Wainajat” is the first sonic offering in four or so years from this mysterious project, who create ritual themed & charged ambient music. This new release offers up three tracks built around simply yet deeply entrancing & dread filled organ drones, subtly manipulated eerier field recordings, and a few minimal traces of other subtle sound matter. It comes in either CD or cassette format- with the CD coming in a edition of 350 copies, and the cassette in an edition of 50 copies. I’m reviewing the CD version of the release.
On paper, this is xmas come early - improvisations recorded by a trio of Audrey Chen, C. Spencer Yeh and Nate Wooley, processed into an electro-acoustic work by Todd Carter. Carter is a new name to me, but I’ve enjoyed individual works by the original trio; so as you can imagine, this is a release with a lot of promise. The original recordings were sent to Carter (of TV Pow) for mixing and mastering, but instead he returned with this construction: five tracks covering about thirty-five minutes. (I’m reviewing an mp3 version of the vinyl album.)
Cronian, the project of Norweigen / Swedish symphonic & viking metal veterans Øystein G. Brun and Vintersorg (of Borknagar and others), plays a form of stately, ethereal romantic metal, very operatic in tone, heavy on keyboards and clean vocals. They've returned with their 3rd album "Erathems". I enjoyed the pure, triumphant sound of Borknagar on several occasions in the past, so I had high hopes for this.
“Mush-room” sees these avant-garde genre hoppers, bizarre theatrical show markers, and strange pop stars creating the soundtrack for a seemingly equally odd modern dance/performance art show themed around Fungi.
“Paunch” presents the listener with just over an hours worth of grimly yet creatively & subtle shifting walled noise from this irish project- who since 2009 has released both harsh noise, synth based industrialized sounds, and of course HNW.
“Doobie Wonderland” finds this highly prolific Japanese space rock/ psychedelic band attempting to mix funk, disco & a distinctive 70’s edgy into their often wondering & spaced-out sound.
Lee Bartow is better known as Leech, the man behind Navicon Torture Technologies and Theologian. Both are well known and respected projects in the noise community. NTT, as I'm sure you already know, plays an excellent blend of power electronics and death industrial. Lee's Theologian takes a similar approach, but tends toward a more beat oriented sound. The addition of softer melodies on top of the dark industrial add to the genre bending fun and help to separate Theologian from the pack.
UK based label Cold Spring presents Evolving by Wicked King Wicker. The New York based duo of Jim Gibson and Logan Butler have been melding doom and noise since the mid/late 2000’s and Evolving represents their 7th studio album.
Glasgow based artist Richard Youngs has had a steady stream of output since the early 90's playing with a diverse array of groups and releasing many solo records. He is a multi-instrumentalist and has worked in as many styles as instruments he plays, even releasing an a cappella record. Regions of the Old School is Youngs' third release with the London based label MIE.
“Persecution” offers up a highly compelling seventy six minute track that moves from grey moroseness, through to subtly shifting brutal intensity.
Here we have a new(ish) two CDR release from this highly prolific & often brutal Serbian based HNW project. The set conists of four taut 'n' tense slices of ambient walled noise, which are all themed around an intracellular bacteria called Mycobacterium Leprae that infects the nerves, skin and mucosal cells with leprosy
Here’s a very limited tape release on Monoise Tape Project - a sub-label of the esteemed Muzikaal Kabaal label. Its limited to only ten copies, which make me feel bad for having a review copy! It is, of course, sold out at source; so at least I can give you an idea of its contents… It comes in a jewel case with simple, elegant, black and white artwork; with Natalie Portman’s possessed eyes staring out at the listener. Two long tracks, one on each side and each a buffeting piece of Harsh Noise Wall creation.
Iasos provides sublime celestial sound, drifting and peaceful as the clouds, which was some of the original soundscape music in the 70's and early 80's. "Angelic" is a good adjective, however contrived it may sound in today's new age saturated culture. His sounds are transparent and crystalline, beautifully balanced in a vibrant prismatic spectrum. This new release "Celestial Soul Portrait" is a compilation of notable previously released tracks from his most known albums (a 'best of'), in some cases presented in shortened (but still relatively lengthy) form.