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Lungwash of one of the more distinctive & sonically recognizable projects to appear from the noise/ambient underground scene in some time. This North Eastern Usa based project brews up a original, organic & primal fed mixture of HNW/ANW/ grey ambience. This release comes in the form of a double C20 tape set, which offers up four ten minute slices of hypnotic & atmospheric noise/ ambient craft.
“Dogging Afternoon” is 12th in series of twelve monthly three inch CDR releases, which are been put out through-out 2012 by Ireland's Bored Bear Recordings. Each release in this new series offers up a debut release from one of twelve new projects that are been put together by highly influential & respected Texas noise artist Richard Ramirez.
“All In Your Mind” is 11th in series of twelve monthly three inch CDR releases, which are been put out through-out 2012 by Ireland's Bored Bear Recordings. Each release in this new series offers up a debut release from one of twelve new projects that are been put together by highly influential & respected Texas noise artist Richard Ramirez.
Nevertheless We're Gone is the new Emo HNW project from two of Europe’s most prolific, controversial & brutal wall noise figures- it brings together Serbian based Aleksandar Nenad of Dead Body Collection, [C. T. D.] & Creation Through Destruction. And Uk’s James Killick of Love Katy, Small Hours & Fan Service.
Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe - Timon Irnok Manta...a lot of words for a pretty simple album. Rob Lowe (recording under his full name) has had his hand in a number of projects and almost as many recordings as the Brat Packer of the same name. While I'm familiar with Rob Lowe's homemade pornography antics, I'm unfamiliar with Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe's oeuvre. I find this beneficial, though, as it allows me to give the record an unbiased review...and this is the exact type of recording that I would be swayed on.
Thomas Koner is one of the oldest and most distinctive voices in ambient music. His debut "Nunatak Gongamur" came out around the same time as Lustmord's "Heresy", and along with that album marked the beginning of an era of explorations into the colder and less sympathetic possibilities of the soundscape genre. Koner's work lacks the forced satanic cheesiness Lustmord often embraced, instead serving as a description of those untouched parts of nature furthest from human society, particularly the arctic. "Novaya Zemlya" is the latest in Koner's ever thematic string of albums, one of the sparsest and quietest of the bunch.
“Island Terminus” is a 2 track album by Adrian Dziewanski. Recorded over the the span of 6 weeks, the album is Mr. Dziewanski’s attempt at capturing Tinnitus as songs. Yes, Tinnitus, the equivalent of an aural hangover after a long night of live music. Working with the musical hallucination, as he put it, he wanted to achieve the sensation of having a song stuck in the listeners head to the extreme. Does he succeed? Maybe....maybe not. What he does deliver is over 40 minutes of well-crafted and engaging field recordings taken over a series of ferry rides.
“Bush Craft” is the debut full-length by Canadian quartet Baptists. Having been kicking it around since 2010, Southern Lord releases this follow up up to their well-received 2011 “Untitled” 7”.
Semai is a Czech dark ambient/sludge/black metal-ish one-man band active since 2004. After a handful of demos, singles and splits, "Delubrum" is his first full length.
"Dead Existence" is the first full length pro done CD from this highly creative yet brutal Iowa based harsh noise project. Boar (aka Alex Nowacki) has been in existence since 2007, and has amassed coming on for 40 releases that take in CDR’s, cassettes, and compilations.
Its not often that you get a piece of metal included with a review cd (though, actually, this is the second time in my reviewing career), but here it is: a piece of aluminium with “VARRST” scratched into it. It accompanies a jewel case cdr, adorned with biker and Hells Angel imagery, on the Claustrophilia label. Two long tracks of noise, noise, noise; each weighing in at just under half an hour.
Seventh album from NME photographer Steve Gullick’s band Tenebrous Liar and what a corker it is. A magical distillation of all that is good about down and dirty Rock and Roll in 39 minutes of grubby fuzzed out dynamite. Most tracks are around the three to four minute mark and they sear into your head and stay there etching into your brain. Echoes of the finest shabby bands from the last 50 years are all here, from the Groundhogs, via Joy Division and Sonic Youth to P J Harvey, they’re all here. Albums of this type come along rarely but when they do they deserve a warm welcome.
'Grower’ is the follow up album to ‘Drape’ which appeared in 2010 and again features British bass clarinet abuser Gareth Davis together with Dutchman Rutger Zudervelt, also known as Machinefabriek, who on this release concentrates on guitar loop effects. Apparently, both albums are drawn from the same recording session and ‘Grower’ marks the fourth time the two have collaborated.
Tenebroso - dark, gloomy, murky or a style of painting which violently contrasts light and dark. Also, a brilliant, hour long sonic sculpture by William Fowler Collins.
Enticed by a very efficient Edward Gorey-like black-and-white cover artwork and some glowing reviews (you’d think I’d know better by now), I had meant to check out this album for quite some time but somehow never got the chance to. What with the flow of releases being unleashed upon us poor music-loving souls every month, it is already hard enough to keep track of the bare essentials, thank you. And since the unknown is often full of promises but expectations prove disastrously deceiving more often than not, it was with a mixture of apprehension and curiosity that I approached Heldtentod’s first professional full-length album.
“Purification/Dissolution” finds this composer and clarinettist offering up a collection of tracks that move between seared intensity, edgy broodiness, and great beauty.
This C40 split brings together two European HNW acts- firstly we have the French master of the unmovable wall noise Vomir, and secondly relativity recent scene new comer Belgium based Crucifix Eye. Each project here offers up a side long slice of wall-making.
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.