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Chains is the newest metal project of E. Chains (Bleeding Fist, Naberius) from Slovenia. For "Dancing With My Demons," Chains picked up drummer Lord Samhain (Hour of 13, Anu, Mountain of Judgement, et al). Chains has a full length forthcoming, and one would presume this will be the line up on it.
For those who are not familiar with the variegated world of underground noise smut- Grunt are one of the longest running and most widely respected noise/power electronics acts from Finland, connected to a vast number of other projects and to the legendary Freak Animal label.
This 3inc CDR gives the listener a just under seventeen minute shot of addictively brutally & unrelenting walled noise. Dead Body Collection is a Serbian HNW veteran who has released coming on for 100 releases since it started in 2010.
“Vixen’” finds James Killick’s (Love Katy & Small Hours projects, and runner of Vagary records) more kinky & sexualized fixed wall noise project tattling the work of big bust loving American sleazy icon Russ Meyer, and in particular the three films in his Vixen’ trilogy- 1968’s Vixen, 1975’s Supervixens & 1979’s Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens.
This two disc CD set brings together two out-print albums from the mighty yet unpredictable locked riff multi genre wonder of Finland’s Circle. Golem is a live album recorded in 2003, and Vesiliirto is a studio album from the same year- and both releases find the band in a more free-form, experimental, and largely jam based mood.
“Sal Mineo” is the product of a collaborative effort between Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart and Oxbow’s Eugene Robinson. The album is ostensibly named after the American actor best known as John “Plato” Crawford in the film “Rebel Without a Cause.”
When Sunn O))) were invited to play in Israel in 2006 Greg Anderson couldn't make it, so instead Stephen O'Malley, Oren Ambarchi and Attila Csihar decided to go and perform under the guise of Gravetemple. Their set, while still firmly in Sunn's high volume, low frequency suspended territory (documented on Gravetemple's debut release, The Holy Down), felt perhaps more liberated with steps towards both free improvisation and modern composition amidst the blackened, ritualistic atmosphere.
"Savage Rite” was seemingly the 4th & last album of this quirky project that offered up a late 70’s brew of funk, film-matic horn/ brass work, ethnic percussion, and grooving to wow-wow fuelled guitar textures. The album originally appeared back in 1975, and this new reissue gives the album a remastering, and adds in a couple of pages of liner notes uncovering who was behind this project, which at the time was seemingly rather mysterious.
Gospel songs or songs of praise come in many different forms & shades- going from the polished, showy & flamboyant, all the way through to the quirky, raw, and off-kilter. “Everything-God Is Love 78” falls very much in the latter category. And this reissue of a 1978 album offers up eight slices of wonky, often wrong sounding, yet passioned songs of praise, which mix togeather Hammond organ playing with a fairly constant & locked drum machine pattern, & Mr Johnson’s wavering but sometimes oddly emotional singing.
‘V’ is the latest album from Jon Porras and Evan Caminiti a.k.a. Barn Owl, an album which combines the persistent throb of drone with the sprawling nature of psychedelia and some classic krautrock synthesizer flares. Recorded last summer in San Francisco, with production by Phil Manley of Trans Am and The Fucking Champs fame, it is the follow up to 2011’s’ Lost in the Glare’ and sees the duo incorporating electronics and synthesizers into their guitar based dronescapes.
While he spent time studying the Dogon tribe of West Africa in the 1930s, French anthropologist Marcel Griaule was puzzled to discover that they possessed what then seemed far-advanced astronomical knowledge. Thus, they apparently knew that Sirius, the brightest star of our night sky, is in fact a binary system, despite its companion star not being visible to the naked eye and its existence only having been discovered through mathematical calculations. In his 1976 book ‘The Sirius Mystery’, American author Robert K. G. Temple argues that the Dogon inherited this knowledge from the ancient Egyptians who, in turn, had received theirs from extraterrestrial beings. More interesting to the reader, perhaps, is the fact that the Dogon also believe in the existence of a third, yet-undiscovered star in the Sirius system, which they call Emme Ya.
“Trente Belles Années” offers up a live set from 2009 of these legendary American noise/jazz masters. This cd presents the listener with just over forty six minutes worth of gloriously searing yet rewarding noise/ jazz craft.
“2011” brings together the French master of walled noise Vomir, with fellow French-man & respected musician, film director, painter, poet and producer Marc Hurtado. Vomir will hopefully need little or no introduction to readers of M[m], as we’ve reviewed well over 40 of the projects releases over the years. Marc Hurtado is the co- founder with his brother Eric Hurtado of the French multimedia band Etant Donnés, and since 1977 he made over 20 albums collaborating with the likes of Alan Vega, Genesis P Orridge, Lydia Lunch, Michael Gira, Marc Cunningham or Bachir Attar and the Master Musicians of Jajouka
“The Oubliette” is 6th release from this Santa Fe based HNW project that themes all of it’s work around the 1980’s classic Jim Henson family fantasy puppet/live action movie The Labyrinth. This two set C32 releases takes it’s name from the French word for dungeon with an opening only at the top, which is mentioned in the film.
“What Lies Beneath The Woods” is the second release from this rather mysterious & information-less HNW project. This is a CDR release that offers up one dense & rather rewarding slice of walled noise.
“Keep Me Warm In The Winter… Give Me Shade In The Summer” is a four track CDR that offers up a selection of varied & creative walled noise, which goes from HNW to more soothing ANW runs, and even touches down in doom metal territory towards the end of the release.
“The Bound Man” presents the listener with two dense slices of battering ‘n’ raging wall noise that have slight taut ‘n’ thick industrial feel to them.
Automating, the bleak ambient project of Sasha Margolis, has existed since 2007, and released more than 10 CDrs in that time. This album "Givens", released in 2012, is a lengthy lo-fi industrial noisescape which blends from one track to the next.
Black/doom act Nahar is back with its third album. The two piece was formed in 2000 by Sorghal, a member of many French black metal bands. I'm not sure how Nahar compares to Sorghal's other bands, but Nahar puts forward a solid black/doom/sludge effort on The Strange Inconvenience.
Dethscalator are a Noise Rock/Sludge Metal grindcore band formed in 2008 in Hackney, London, and ‘Racial Golf Course No Bitches’, 5 years in the making, is their debut album. Imagine Motorhead crossed with Whitehouse with a good dash of added Sabbath and you’re somewhere near the awesome power of this 35 minute release. The 10 songs here represent some of the most insane psyched out riffing I’ve heard for years, all recorded in crystal clear, ear bleeding fidelity.
Here's a deliriously chunky slab of lathe-cut vinyl, from Lighten Up Sounds. It contains two tracks from Men Of Science - the nom de plume of a collaboration between Andreas Brandal and Matthew Himes - Mr. Lighten Up Sounds himself. The slab-like nature of the release, further emphasized by being cut to a square shape, is initially softened by the artwork: weathered pictures of nurses, possibly from old romance novels; but the viewer soon becomes aware of the staring eyes of the masked nurses, which assume a haunting dread...
NDE is a pretty obscure Belgian death industrial duo, with an extremely narrow discography and a good old crust of disinformation and ambiguity around them. In an era when we're overloaded with futile information from our favorite artists, this approach is very welcome.
Jim Haynes is multi-media artist, who has a theme of “decay” running through his work, regardless the medium. Released on the avant garde label Editions Mego, “The Wires Cracked” is an amalgamation of atmospheric drones, electro-acoustic manipulations, shifting static and feedback.
More often than not, one-man black metal bands tend to be the affair of slightly depressed youngsters who harbour romantic ideas about self-sacrifice, leave their dungeon-looking bedroom less than is generally deemed healthy and consider ‘Hvis Lyset Tar Oss’ the pinnacle of musical achievement.