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Sink's sequel to Holy Testament (aptly titled Holy Testament 2) is released by Svart Records as a limited 12" and a 2xCD. The CD release (on which this review is based) compiles both Holy Testament LPs. So, if you're awesome and handsome like me but also happened to miss the first Holy Testament, you're in luck. While both albums are supremely similar in style and composition, they take slightly different paths to get there.
French based performer/ producer Igorrr is one of the more creative, bizarre & deranged figures to come out of the Breakcore and Drill ‘n’ bass scenes. I first became aware of the project in 2010 with the release of Nostril which saw the Frenchman blend together Breakcore/ Drill ‘n’ bass with baroque & classic music, chugging & black metal riffing, and operatic and choral vocals. Hallelujah sees him pushing the genre mixing even further to create a manic & deranged album that darts all over the place, but also has a few moments of unspoiled lush beauty too.
“The Fruit Of Dreams” brings together two 1950s/ 60’s exotica albums from one of inventors/masters of the form American musician & composer Les Baxter. Both of the albums on offer here are fairly rare & sort after examples of Baxter’s lush & detailed take on this easy listening sub genre.
Ambient black metallers Locrian have teamed with prolific avant-ambient collaborator Christoph Heeman for their self titled debut (as a collaborative project). It is a brooding, regretful vigil over a forlorn, ashen landscape, a wind blasted desolation containing no peace or sustenance.
Safe is an "academic" noise/experimental unit from Ireland, apparently pretty well known but once again my ignorance prevails cause I never heard of them before."Crop" is their fifth full length album and it consists of a single forty minutes long live improvisation track.
Thanasis Kaproulias' (Novi_sad) refreshingly autodidactic approach to electro-acoustic composition has set him apart from his more academic peers in the field. This has perhaps been one of the reasons he has enjoyed many collaborative projects with older, more prolific artists working in similar areas (many of whom are from the mighty Touch roster who also now publish his recordings). And they don't come more prolific than Spain's Francisco López, whose mysterious, untitled and heavily processed field recordings now number well over 200.
“Blotto Folk” is the latest slice deranged ‘n’ unwell sonic fruit from this unhinged & wonky folk project. Behind the project is Romain ‘Roro’ Perrot who is better known to the world at large as Vomir- the unstoppable, extreme and black bag wearing French HNW project.
“Disembodied” is a two c45 set that brings together two tapes worth of haunted house movie themed HNW from this La Crosse, Wisconsin based project.
“Shanda Sharer” is the first release in a bout a year from this Netherlands based HNW project, which offers up a dense, suffocating and darkly violent take on the genre. The release comes in the form of a 3inc cdr that features two tracks.
This was a nice surprise. I was lucky enough to see Bob Corn play a very intimate house show, a few years back; and, despite normally taking a while to appreciate singer-songwriter material, I took to him immediately. He’s an incredibly charismatic performer, the kind of person who can tell you that the world is a beautiful place full of love - and for the duration of the performance, you believe it. This album comes very smartly packaged in a printed card sleeve, and consists of a collaboration between Bob Corn and Matteo Uggeri.
"Nonparallel" is a four movement work of Damian Valles, according to the liner notes constructed from samples of "avant garde Western Classical composers and computer music released on the Nonesuch label in 60's and 70's".
Tsjuder is one of the many bands spawned from the Norwegian black metal underground of the 90's and as usual, their history is full of line-up changes, demo tapes and EPs. "Desert Northern Hell", originally from released in 2004, is one of their most iconic works, reissued by Season Of Mist after the resurgent interest in the band due to their 2011 album "Legion Helvete".
“Christine-A reinterpretation” is one of the more recent soundtrack reinterpretations by Minneapolis based HNW/ stark ambient artist Cory Strand. This four CDR set finds Strand manipulating the original soundtrack for John Carpenter’s film version of Stephen King’s Christine.
"Gettysburg" offers up five CDRs worth of brutal/ hopeless/ war torn walled noise from this mysterious HNW project. Each of the five discs features a single slice of unrelenting walled noise- each track comes in at spot on the forty five minute mark, and each is as hopeless & unforgiving as each other.
The Ghost Time project falls somewhere between thick ‘n’ dark ambience, doom jazz, and drifting dark sound tracking. This recent collaborative project brings together three well respected names in the atmospheric/experimental scenes- we have highly respected & prolific percussionist Z’ev, Scottish jazz fusion drummer & percussionist Ken Hyder, and English pocket trumpeter Andy Knight.
![Concrete Threat / [Untitled]](/images/migrated/9/9736.jpg)
This C30 split brings together two HNW duo’s- we have Sweden’s Concrete Threat, & their brutal/ overwhelming take on the genre. And Texas’s [Untitled], & their more primal & ambient walled noise take on the form. Each project offers up a side long piece of ‘wall-making’ here.
“Loss” finds this long running West Virginia based HNW project offering up a C60’s worth of pummelling & unforgiving walled noise. With each side of tape featuring a single half-an-hour wall.
Packaged smartly in a dvd case, this split purports to be two soundtracks to two films; performed by Sleep Of Ages and Ataraxy respectively. To this end, the cover has two film posters: one for “Escape From Zombie Planet”- soundtracked by the former, and one for “Mental Trauma” - soundtracked by the latter.
Estes Park, Colorado, late seventies. Struggling with alcohol and temper issues and hoping to give his family life and literary aspirations a fresh start, recently dismissed teacher Jack Torrance accepts a position as winter caretaker in an isolated resort somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. This, in short, is the premise of the third novel by then ascending US horror writer Stephen King, adapted onto film by renowned director Stanley Kubrick only a couple of years later and starring a tormented Jack Nicholson in the role of the main protagonist who does but little know at the time that his relocation will mark the beginning of a slow, tormented downfall that will eventually lead to his death. Both book and film are called ‘The Shining’ and the place where Jack lands his fateful position Overlook Hotel.
Dice Factory is a quartet of tenor saxophone, piano, string bass and drums that plays extremely technical jazz fusion. Their self titled is a very long and very ambitious album, and a showcase of extraordinary musicianship. There are 10 songs, mostly between 5 and 9 minute in length.
Light Echoes is Steve Moore's debut on Cuneiform Records. Steve is better known as half of synth duo Zombi (is he? I dunno, yes?). Zombi is heavily inspired by 70's synthesizer music. Their history has the band starting off sounding more like Goblin and evolving into something closer to Giorgio Moroder. On Light Echoes, Steve Moore eschews the Zombi sound in exchange for some supremely spacey and atmospheric synthesizer music.
Hell Militia are a French black metal band formed in 2001, and "Jacob's Ladder" is their third full length.
“Soul Tones” sees this American ambient legend offering up two lengthy submersions in deep & entrancing ambience, which mix together dreamy tonal drifts & haunting harmonic sways.
The Chinese-American Bay Area musician Forrest Fang has progressed from the pure synthesiser compositions he started in the early eighties to arrive at his current approach that blends acoustic instruments into his ambient synth soup. Animism, his twelfth or thirteenth full length release, sees stringed instruments from Istanbul and Turkey join gongs from South East Asia, Spanish mandolins and a Native American flute (amongst other exotic sound sources) to form a series of eight tracks to evoke the title's 'spiritualessence'.