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“Nosferatu the Vampyre” was Werner Herzog’s 1979 take on the vampire movie, and it still stands as one of the most atmospheric & doom laden big screen adaption’s of the vampire mythos. This four disc set finds highly prolific Minneapolis based Cory Strand taking Popol Vuh's original soundtrack for the movie, and stretching it out into a extremely entrancing collection of vast, echo bound & doomed drone scapes/ thickly sinister ambient dwells, which perfect capture the films feeling of time-less dread.
Malabimba are a Austrian duo who try & recreate the retro centred sound of 1970s Italian horror & giallo soundtracks. This is seemingly the projects first release, and it comes in the form of a twenty one track full length CD.
“The Exorcist” is a HNW tribute to the classic demonic possession movie of the same name from 1973. The release is presented in CDR form, which comes in the distinctive see-through DVD case of all Altar Of Waste releases. And this features a effective yet grim cover that reproduces the infamous steps scene from the movie in black, white & red.
Ryan Teague is a British multi-instrumentalist composer who integrates electronics with acoustic instrumentation, and has released minimalist modern classical works on labels such as Type and Sonic Pieces, as well as created music for various TV and film productions. This release of his, "Four Piano Studies" is a stripped down, unthemed collection that is over in less than 12 minutes.
Released in August, ‘So You Are. ..So You'll Be’ is the bands seventh full-length studio album. Featuring Dave W. on guitars, synthesizer and vocals, Ego Sensation on bass, synthesizer and vocals, and Nick Name on drums, this is one mighty slice of psychedelic space rock.
This four CDR set is the 7th release from this mysterious HNW project, who creates unmoving, often creative yet always brutal war torn/ war atrocities themed walled noise. This new release is themed around the truly terrible & shocking My Lai Massacre, which took place during the Vietnam War.
James Killick (Love Katy,Vagary Records), if not the progenitor, is one of the most prolific noise artists crafting wonderfully themed HNW/ANW material. I’ve been a huge fan of Mr. Killick’s work over the past year, especially his Katy Perry passion project, Love Katy. For Mr. Killick, no pop cultural indulgence is left untapped, but is a 4 hour/4 disc set of Kenny G themed wall noise scraping the bottom of the barrel of pop cultural source material?
Violetshaped is a pretty new act/collaboration between Berlin's Shapednoise and "mysterious" Violet Poison (yeah, another one of those). Coming into this knowing nothing of either (bad for Shapednoise, great for Violet Poison) allowed me to take in this project without comparing it to the acts of which its comprised. I was pretty excited, too, as the press release promised "Modern and Experimental Hybrid-Techno that moves between Cyberpunk, Industrial, Noise and EBM." Well, some of the statement is true.
I’m always a little suspicions of bands/ projects who dream up their own genre titles, as it often indicates huge egos & small talent. Cleveland based Pussy & Sorrow create what they’ve called therapeutic noise, and “Opening the Theta Door” is their debut release that’s available in pro printed CDR form, and direct from their band camp site.
This is a two C40 tape box set that brings together the brutal & often bass bound walled noise of Serbian project Dead Body collection, and the hindu/buddhist themed of Czech Republic based HNW project Static Mantra. The first tape offers up a solo track from each of the projects, while the second tape offers up two collaborative tracks.
Akhkharu are a rather mysterious project, who brew-up a dark & blackly ritual tinged sound that mixers together: layers of dark drone matter, creepy/ demonic / backward vocal textures, spoken word elements, gong & ritual percussive textures. Eerier field recodings layered & slurred string ribbed dark ambience, and warbling yet majestic guitar-less black metal keyboard marches. With darts into more up-beat song craft with neo-classical sampled horn textures & militaristic/ slight wonky ritual percussion.
“Takahe Collage” offers up three fairly typical (though mostly enjoyable) slices of psychedelic seared ‘n’ swirling noise making from Merzbow- the most prolific & instantly recognizable name with-in the world wide noise scene.
There’s a thin line between rewarding, captivating & interesting field recordings. And badly executed, edited & rather boring field recording work- sadly & rather frustratingly “Some Memories Of Bamboo” often cross back & forth over said line.
This seven inch, on white vinyl, is accompanied by a screen-printed booklet; containing a series of abstract, garish images, full of scribble and fluorescent shades. There’s an obvious comparison to be made between the colourful abstraction of the visual, and the high-speed splinters of noise in the audio. This audio is provided by MoHa!, a drums/guitar/electronics duo who’ve played in Noxagt and Ultralyd. Their music fits into that same territory of noisy, rock-influenced improvisation; though on “Kriiskav Valgus”, its almost more dance-floor orientated.
Murderabilia Records, recent brainchild of the guys behind excellent italian industrial/power electronics duo Deviated Sister Tv, has been constantly releasing great noise for at least a year and a half. One of their latest works is this split (pro) CDr between Japanese harsh noise legend K2 and Positive Adjustments from Sweden.
Southerlies collects together a series of field recordings each focussing on a single specific area in the South of England. Commissioned and originally broadcast by BBC Radio Solent, the artist, writer and lecturer Sebastiane Hegarty was sent to the eight locations on the suggestion of the station's listeners to "uncover a certain disposition, a particular relationship with time and place," as he puts it.
The dictionary definition of Tenebrious is something that’s dark, shadowy & obscured. So this two man US horror drone project have selected an extremely fitting name, as they create a fairly unique sound that’s disorienting, some times noisy, often black psychedelic, but always dark, unclear & shadowy.
Minneapolis based Cory Strand is fast becoming one of the most prolific artists with-in the underground HNW/stark ambient scenes- this year alone he has released around 50 releases(many multi disc sets)on his Altar Of Waste label. This recent release sees Strand trying his hand at soundtrack composing, and offering up a compelling & fairly varied collection of brooding & dramatic mainly synth based compositions.
This two disc CD set offers up a series of collaborative & solo recordings from American minimalist composer & performer Charlemagne Palestine, and industrial music pioneer, percussionist & sound artist Z’ev. For the recordings Palestine utilized Carillon(a huge small building sized instrument that consists of at least 23 cast bronze, cup-shaped bells, which are serially played to produce a melody, or sounded together to play a chord), and Z’ev plays a selection of different & various percussive matter.
This very professional looking package, decks out cd, insert and sleeve in grey on silver; giving the release a classier look than most plastic digipaks. The metallic shards and smashed car of the artwork, offer a complimentary image to the barrage of Harsh Noise Walls on the cd: one long track, just shy of eighty minutes, of mainly stinging textures.
Disperse are a Polish band that plays a melodic, existential blend of jazz fusion and progressive rock, inspired by such artists as Allan Holdsworth, Cynic (and Aeon Spoke) and Devin Townsend. For their use of syncopated, polyrhythmic permutations of staccato, sludgy downtuned chords, they may also deserve the 'djent' label, or simply be said to be influenced by Meshuggah. Their debut "Journey Through The Hidden Gardens" was released in 2010, and this album, "Living Mirrors" is their sophomore release.
“Dear Diary” is a four CDR set of mainly HNW recordings from this German based HNW/Harsh Noise project. This project started in summer 2009, and has since amassed: around 20 full length stand alone releases, a vast amount of split releases, and 20 to 30 singles or EPs. The projects all the work of Gag G, who also runs the respected German underground label Vomit Bucket Productions, which has been active since early 2007.
Montreal makes me think of underage, horny American kids getting drunk, going to strip clubs, and feeling anything they can get their hands on. I never put any thought into their music scene, and, apparently, I missed a monster. Since 2007, AUN has released a bunch of albums and EPs. Although their earlier output is mostly drone and ambient, AUN have released a synthy, spacey kraken of an album in Alpha Heaven. So, strap on your pack and helmet and get ready to soar.
Good Morning” was the first solo album Daevid Allen released after spliting with space rock/ cosmic hippy/ jazz /prog rock collective Gong.The album originally appeared back in 1976, and it found Allen abandoning the more dense & jam based sound of Gong's work for a mostly, stripped down acoustic hippy folk/ singer song-writer affair; though the album does still have the odd more biting ‘n’ spacey moments too. This reissue originally appeared in 2007, and it has recently been re-pressed.