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The piano and saxophone duo Albatrosh released "Yonkers" this year, an album with 8 original compositions around 5 minutes each, mostly in a melodic classic jazz style, with a few passages of looser improvisation peppered in for good measure. There are many abrupt chord changes, and the arrangements are often quite technical, but rarely dissonant and never abrasive.
Tighten That Muscle Ring is the second album of erotic body music from the mysterious Harley Phoenix and Thee Majesty's Bryin Dall. It's combination of pelvic thrusting rhythms and samples of commanding sex talk plus (apparently real) orgasmic moans 'n' groans generally comes across as a (ahem) tongue-in-cheeks comedy album.
Eternity were founded in Thuringia, Germany, back in 1994. Their "Pestiferous Hymns - Rev. I-I-XXXIII" is their third full length if I'm not mistaken, and it's indeed devout to the simple and grim trademark sound of early 90s black metal.
Burial Ground is a HWN project from La Crosse, Wisconsin, and it been active since 2011 releasing around 13 or so releases. Burial Ground’s take on wall-making is dense, brutal & totally unforgiving. All of the projects releases are based around Horror movies, and this four disc CDR Boxset tattles the Phantasm horror/ fantasy movie series.
This is a smart, sombrely presented cd; which I actually assumed would contain some post-rock of some description. A textured gatefold sleeve, with monochrome woodcut/“artistic” images: post-rock, right? However, theres practically no trace of rock in these recordings, which are drone through and through.
“Fragments From The Aethyr” blends together brooding kettle drum rolled dark ambience & sawing pitch black violin grimness, with traces of guitar led doom & noise matter to create a suite of songs which summon-up a wonderful malevolent & tar black doomed cinematic vibe.
“Love” is the 13th album from mysterious ‘n’ unhinged US project Pumpkin Buzzard. And as always the album offers up an extremely quirky & off-kilter mix of musical genres, with this time around the band going for a distinct focus on piano based/ singer-songwriter fare.
Just to Feel Anything is the second release from Cleveland's Emeralds. This electronica three piece has a tough task following up their very well received debut, Does It Look Like I'm Here. Having never heard the debut, I can't comment on how the two compare, but Emeralds put together a really solid album with Just to Feel Anything.
“Son Of A Bitches Brew” is Acid Mother Temple's stab at Mile Davis’s Electric period, mixing jazz rock fusion with ATM’s often manic & space bound sound. It’s an interesting experiment for sure, but sadly it’s some what of a hit & miss affair.
This self titled collaboration between respected steel guitar master BJ Cole & Bergen based trio 1982, mangers to mix & meld various genre traits together in a mostly fairly laid back & woozy sound soup.
Thewhitehorse is a solo HNW project of Texas based noise maker Sean E. Matzus(Black Leather Jesus, Last Rape, theNIGHTproduct, A Week of Kindness, [Untitled]).“An Eternity Of Black & Red” is a two c90 box set that came out in October 2011, and it offers up four side long tracks of dense & sometimes creative walled noise.
Broken Harbour is the ambient project of Blake Gibson. He released a self titled album in 2009, and in 2011 came back with the follow up, "Gramophone Transmissions". He cites Stars of the Lid and Vidna Obmana as influences, and indeed this is very similar in sound and mood. Soft, repetitious swells of pad synth and sampled strings are the primary tools used.
2010's 'Kinison-Goldthwait' was Danny Saul's last solo release, its processed loops of strings, piano and guitar present a clear midway point between his earlier acoustic-based songcraft and the more wayward manipulations of electroacoustic composition that he is now studying in his hometown of Manchester, England. But the most curious thing here is the concept imposed on the elegant sound structures by the album and track titles.
Carlton Melton is a psychedelic quartet from Mendocino County, essentially the marijuana center of Northern California. Their music is recorded live and improvised inside the restored geodesic dome home of one of its members. It should be no surprise then that Photos of Photos, the group’s third album, primarily comprises long, shapeless, textured guitar pieces with the goal of filling space that likely takes on another life when stoned out of your fucking mind.
Vasectomy Party is the brainchild of Mr. Hal Harmon, also head of the Forever Escaping Boredom label hailing from Florida, U.S.A.."The Wulfgar Command II" is the first release I listen to from this project, and I must say I'm positively surprised.
“Entreaty” is the first full length release from this Canadian based HNW project who summon up a very thick & encasing tonal based take on walled noise.
Necrostasi project is a collaborative HNW project which finds each new collaborator adding their own of noise layer to the same track- this new release sees mostly old horror movie themed USA project Nightmare Castle adding his elements to the wall.
"La Nuit Gruille" is another slice of death scented, intense & oppressive walled noise from this fairly prolific & ghoulish French project. The CDR presents the listener with just over a hour worth of unmoving & inescapable HNW. This release comes in an edition of 25 copies.
Pietro Riparbelli spent three days recording in the remote Sanctuary of La Verna, a monastery on a mountaintop in Tuscany. With a simple mic and field recorder set-up, he documented the sounds of the Sanctuary, inside and out; as well as the life that goes on within its boundaries. He took these sounds and constructed the six tracks found on this album - whilst also making the original recordings available from the label website.
Anyone who follows the dark ambient scene closely will know that Italy, however surprising it may seem coming from a country more famous for its sunny beaches, overblown sense of fashion and culinary merits, has spawned quite a wealth of interesting projects over the last few years. ‘Altered Nights’, the latest album by Hall of Mirrors, is nothing less than a mammoth double disc distilling nigh on two hours of quality nocturnal mesmerism boasting some of Transalpine’s top-names in the field.
Japan's Devilman has released its debut album on UK's Small But Hard Recordings. This industrial/dub three piece takes their name from the iconic anime/manga character, Devilman. That seems like a much better choice than Panty Robot Alpha or Lieutenant Tentacle Rape. While I could spend all day making up wacky pervert cartoon characters, let's take a look at the album.
For Dave Nuss, Sabbath Assembly's drummer, producer and only constant, the Process Church's synthesis of God and Satan (as well as Jehovah and Lucifer) reconciles the difficult duality he developed as a child, reared in Southern Texas by a staunch Calvinist family while falling in love with heavy metal and its candid demonic cabaret.
This split CDR brings together two twenty to thirty minute slices of dense horror themed walled noise. The split brings together Werewolf Jerusalem( one of Richard Ramirez most known & respected projects) & relatively recent New Rochelle, New York based HNW project Willows (aka Dom C also of brutal HNW project Faggot Front, & ANW/HNW project The Structure).
“Craft” is a c14 tape that offers up four short yet highly rewarding slices of walled noise/ textured noise from the always brutal yet creative Iowa based Boar.