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Upon first glance, I thought this disc was just a CD sampler that fell through the cracks of the Musique Machine office. It was published back in 2010. However, after some further investigation, I discovered this release is part of GX Jupitter-Larsen’s massive Zelphabet series.
Sub Rosa presents as part of their Framework series, Fog Horns by Luca Forcucci. The Framework series is dedicated to: concrete, electronics, and noise. Fog Horns is the 14th installment of this series. Mr. Forcucci is a long-running bi-national Swiss and Italian composer and artist, known for both sound and visual art.
It’s been some six or seven years since this Uk based avant black metal, darkly experimental, and sinisterly atmospheric project last released anything new. Back in 2008/ 2009, I reviewed the two excellent collection of old material- Abortions (on Autumn Wind Productions) & The Dark Bleeding Gods (on GoatowaRex), and each of these releases showed the project brew-up a distinctive blend of free-form, lurching avant grade blacked metal, and quite damned wonkily cinematic. This new tape sees the project really pushing it’s sound even further away from blacked metal, towards a mix of slowed experimental dark rock, spiralling 'n' aged sinister synth drift, marching yet slurred synth hazed beat-scapes, and beyond.
“From Destruction Comes Rebirth” is series of 3inc CDR’s put out by Florida based noise/ experimental label Forever Escaping Boredom. Each release in the series brings together two noise/experimental projects who each present an around ten minute track a piece- this forth volume brings together one intense & pounding wall noise track, and one searing slice of harsh noise.
“From Destruction Comes Rebirth” is series of 3inc CDR’s put out by Florida based noise/experimental label Forever Escaping Boredom. Each release in the series brings together two noise/experimental artists who each present a ten minute track a piece- for this first volume we have two walled noise projects.
“Moon Pix: A Reinterpretation” finds Minneapolis based Cory Strand offering up another extreme remix/ deconstruction release. And this time he’s focused in on the work of Cat Power(a.k.a. American singer/song writer Chan Marshall), and in particular the projects 1998 album “Moon Pix”- which became a big break-through release for Ms Marshall. Strand’s reinterpretation comes in the form of a three disc CDR set, in which finds him stretching out the albums original 11 tracks to epic lengths.
This is a ridiculously lavish affair from Gruenrekorder, with the cd accompanied by a small book containing words and pictures concerning the project. The focus of this project, are two farming families who work the land in Sanrizuka, Japan; though their farms are anything but ordinary - the soil they tend actually falls within the territory of Narita international airport. The airport was built in the early 1970s, and was the scene of intense confrontations between police and a coalition of local farmers and activists - objecting to the forced evictions of the farming community. By the time that Angus Carlyle and Rupert Cox undertook this project, there were only two farming families left - working land at the end of runway B, completely enclosed within the airport.
“III” is a CDR release from this UK based progressive HNW artists, and it was released back in late summer 2012. The release features three tracks in all, & they move from tense & punish yet creative walled noise, onto more unsettling ambience/ experimental sound-making.
“Silent Treatment” is anything but silent- on offer here is a forty one minute track of dense & truly suffocation walled noise from the mysterious Nar project.
Mathias Delplanque is an artist who made his debut in 2006, and released several full lengths since then as well as a number of single tracks. The music found on his new album "Chutes" is a sort of loosely organized ambient flotsam of liquid metallic instrumental timbres, often skipped, warped, or blurred into reverberant soup. Pondering that it was (according to the liner notes) improvised in real time, it starts to sound like some kind of lethargic, electronically augmented freeform lounge jazz.
Partikel III is the third and final part of the Merzbow/Nordvargr collaboration that began nine years ago. All three Partikel releases have been on the well known and respected Cold Spring label, which is very fitting for a collab between two experimental music giants. This release, like the two before it, was recorded in both Sweden and Japan and the resulting recordings were sent to the other for the addition of their own sound. A collab done in this style leads to a subtle but noticeable difference in song composition, while keeping a similar tone throughout.
Italian label Sincope presents the cassette Night Conference by European duo Crystal Plumage. Ostensibly named after the Argento film, Crystal Plumage is a collaboration between Benjamin L. Aman from France (guitars and electronics) and Sean F. Barrett from Germany (electronics & synth).
Brazil’s Carrion Black Pit returns for a new micro release on Lorenzo Nascitari’s imprint Claustrophilia. This 3” CD-r entitled “If These Walls Could Talk,” contains a single track of very “human” sounding HNW. For those unfamiliar, CBP is the moniker of Elias C. (also of Sleep of Ages and EXU) who hails from São Paulo, Brazil. CPB is known for creating horror-themed HNW/ANW, but personally I’ve always been drawn to an inexplicable natural/earthy quality that feels present in the walls Elias produces.
In 2010 metal fans had a reason to be cheerful, when it was announced that ‘Exhumed’ were going to reform after a long hiatus. Exhumed is a death metal band from California. They originally formed in 1990. Their early albums were heavily influenced by bands like ‘Carcass’ with gory lyrics full of medical jargon and a ‘muddy’ sound that has since been termed ‘deathgrind’ (or goregrind). There is a great compilation of their early material called ‘Platters Of Splatter’ on Relapse, which is highly recommended!
Well, here’s a joy to review: an eight hour long mp3 on a cdr. Its from loopool, and its packaged very simply with a card insert. This insert contains the following warning: “…Oddly with today’s formats and the ever expanding possibilities of length, it seems that the attention span of the public is growing shorter. Since the beginning of recorded music the maximum length of the medium dictated popular taste and how music was written. Somehow all this changed. This album is an attempt to bring the two together again.”
Technical death metal band Revocation's self titled album is their 4th full length album since their debut in 2008. Fans of the band have often described them as thrash influenced, but I just don't hear much of that on this album. Instead, I hear traces of modern bands like Between the Buried and Me, Burnt by the Sun, Botch, and other denizens of the ferocious technical hardcore scene.
“Helgoland” finds Lasse Marc-Riek (German sound artist & field recordist) visiting the island of Helgoland (Germany’s only ocean island)to make a series of captervating, primal, sometimes haunting and alien sounding field recordings.
Nihil Obstat (Nothing Hinders) sees this Dutch lutenist returning with another six tracks of entrancing, ornate, and atmospheric lute music- which mangers to sound both timeless, yet still modern in it's use of melody & structure.
Vermis is the latest release from New Zealand three piece (Kiwi Threepee?) Ulcerate, and their first release on on the legendary Relapse label. Their first three releases have been very well received, and although early, Vermis looks to continue the trend. The (not so) secret to their success? They're challenging the genre. Not content to stagnate in a style rife with cliches and genre trappings, Ulcerate's technical chops, complex song structure, and inventive approach to death metal have the strength to make them stand out from the crowd.
“The Complete Solo Works” brings together two solo albums from the largely prolific & multi project linked Jussi Lehtisalo- who is most known as the bass player/ key mind behind locked riffing/ multi genre finish project Circle, but is also connected with the likes of Pharaoh Overlord, Steel Mammoth, Rättö Ja Lehtisalo, Krypt Axeripper, etc. Lehtisalo also runs the Ektro label, which focuses in on old & new Circle recordings, a selection of creative & mixed genre Finish sonic fare, quirky & odd reissues- that take in everything from: macho 80’s metal, Finnish post-punk , US noise Rock & hardcore punk , Finnish death metal, and beyond. So as you can imagine this release is very difficult to pin down into any one musical genre.
“Horn” is a CD reissue of a live Pharaoh Overlord vinyl only release from 2011, and it finds the band at their most raw, rocking & repetitive. Coming off like a churning ‘n’ dirty fixed mix of US noise rock, 1970’s Garage rock, with hints of Neo-psychedelic guitar scaping, and locked down 1980’s rock guitar soloing.
The ‘Metal’ scene has become infamous for its proliferation of sub-genres. It seems like new ‘genres’ pop up on a daily basis. This abundance of classifications often borders on the ridiculous, but that is a discussion for a later date!
Shiver is a pretty new (and totally unknown to me prior to this review) noise/power electronics act from Genova, Italy. That region has quite a good history of industrial/noise/bizarre music (Runes Order, F:A:R: being the first names that come to mind, try to find some of their stuff on youtube if you don't know them), and I'm very pleased to discover new material from an area this close to home.
Cold Spring have rescued 'Chthonian Music' from total obscurity by reissuing this 'transposition' of an underground, multi-channel acoustic installation previously limited to just 50 copies when first released in 2010. And we can be thankful that they did, as the results provide for a surprisingly coherent album, despite its convoluted concept and absence of the original presentation's staging. Indeed, it succeeds in its ambitions to bridge "contemporary art, post-industrial culture and the avant garde black metal", deftly assisted by contributions from a generous selection of suitably underground (ahem) artists of note.