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“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'.
Oblive are one of the most consistent & rewarding acts to appear from the US HNW scene in the last three to four years. This new three track CDR release from this Missouri based project is it’s first full length in a few years, and I’m happy to report it’s up there with the projects normally high & brutal standards.
This 3inch CDR brings together two cult movie themed slices of harsh noise & walled noise. We have New Rochelle, New York based Ballerina in Blood offering their sonic tribute to The Wickerman, and Florida's Vasectomy Party offering their sonic tribute to the first Lethal Weapon movie.
When my first, quick scan of the inlay noted the words “rock & roll” and a photo of some long-haired wastrels in black, I’ll admit I wondered what was in store for my ears. For some reason, my first thoughts conjured up trashy, debauched rock antics; but I was quite wrong - though Rat At Rat R are nothing if not trashy and debauched, but in a bleaker, darker sense than standard glam rock theatrics.
Missouri based Pumpkin Buzzard enjoy screwing with the listeners head with their crazed & often off-kilter genre mixing. Since the early 2000’s they have released albums at a prolific rate, and each new release has seen them darted-into, or mixing together all manner of musical genres. “Sweat Angle” sees them offering another bizarre if not wholly successful dart into the of world of experimental electronic improvisation.
This recent double CD reissue brings together two of Nurse With Wounds more rare releases from the late 1980’s. We have A Sucked Orange from 1989 which was originally released as a full length vinyl release, and Scrag! which originally appeared as C30 cassette release in 1987. Both releases here are comprised of fairly short slices of sonic surrealism & audio odd-ness, so this works as a nice introduction to the distinctive sound world of this long running experimental project that really defiles any genre classification.
From late 2011, this split vinyl 12 inch brings together a side a piece from Texas noise ‘n’ sleazy merchants Black Leather Jesus, and Richard Ramirez -BLJ originator/key player & noise legend.
Taking cue from some of the works authored by controversial Palestinian writer Edward Said, there’s an interesting study to be made on the use of orientalist elements in modern industrial music. Along with the late linguist, one could argue that, however well-meaning and respectful they might be, most of the bands working within the constraints of what is an essentially European phenomenon will always by definition perpetuate a purely Occidental, and as such largely biased, view of the Eastern world. It is therefore with no small interest, I wager, that the Columbia University professor would have given ‘Tribal Zone’, Vasilisk’s first long-play in more than a decade, an authorised listen.