Loading
Has it really been ten years since Montreal’s finest epic rock orchestra put out a record? While we’ve been suitably seduced in the intervening period by the reduced but no less climactic A Silver Mt Zion ensemble, Allelujah! Don’t Bend Ascend is a somewhat unexpected reminder that, just sometimes, more is more. And, even when compared to previous Godspeed releases, Allelujah!... is more alive, more angry, more resolute and, perhaps, more hopeful.
When Michael Gira closed the book on his long-running Swans project in 1997, the act had run the gamut from no-wave post-punk to sludge metal to acoustic male/female-led minstrel pop to experimental ambience soundtracking imaginary films. But no matter what direction the music had taken, Swans was deeply immersed in the goth gutter, a stark habitat that had become progressively more devoid of meaning or relevance the more it was embraced by a “teen spirit”-riddled mainstream, despondent metalheads from Florida named after beauty queens and serial killers, and marketed and sold as a hot trend to kids in mall stores. Gira was smart to end it when he did.
Hashe is a Chilean one man black metal project who summon up a decidedly wonky & haphazard mixture of ambient black metal, slowed post-rock, and off-kilter synth craft. “De Viejos Robles Y Alerces”( English translation Old oak and larch) is the projects second release, and it comes in the form of a CDR ep.
Lord Foul were a Louisville, Kentucky based band who summoned up a malignant through often little tongue-in-cheek mixture of black metal & death metal- the band were in existence between 1993 & 1994. This 2010 cd brings together the projects only two demo releases 1993’s “Killing, Raping, Burning” & 1994’s “The Devils Advocate”.
The new project Sonolumina is a duo consisting of prolific electronic producer "bios+a+ic" (a name which admittedly quite amuses me) and a dancer/musician named Jewl Petteway, who plays several acoustic instruments on their debut album "Solar Logos". It belongs to the 'ethno-ambient' niche, as each track is a sparse pastiche of ambient elements constructed around repetitive tribal drum patterns.
Decayed are among the longest running metal acts in Portugal, with their foundation dating back to 1990. "Lusitanian Black Fucking Metal" is their ninth full length, and with such a clear and self-explanatory term it's easy to guess what to expect.
Goddamn, here it is—Pelt’s first album since 2009, a double LP blast of haunted acoustic drone fit less for vinyl than to be carved in stone by thousands of clay-caked and nameless hands over a period of generations.
“Theodore Robert Bundy” is a four disc set of mainly brutal & sometimes industrial tinged HNW/drone matter. The set's theme/ concept is that most famous, charming and often publicity seeking of serial killers Ted Bundy- who killed 30 plus women in the late 1970’s.
Richmond, Virginia based Savage Cross brew up a stumbling, brooding & fucked-up mixture of noised-up blacked metal, blacked noise, and HNW. Behind the project is Evan Craig of creative HNW project Ritual Stance, and this is the projects first physical full length release after a few digital only releases.
Yog-Sothoth are a three piece Minneapolis Lovecraft influenced doom outfit, who count Cory Strand(runner of the excellent Altar Of Waste label, the man behind HNW/Drone project Lethe, and many other projects) in their number. So as a result I had high hopes for this after enjoy pretty much every thing else I’ve heard him do.
Intellectus Iudicat Veritatem originally hit the scene as a self-released demo limited to fifty copies. It sold out in six days and received rave reviews. All you doomsters caught holding your bits waiting for a used copy to surface can breathe easy; Ordo MCM has re-released it on CD. You've probably already downloaded it, but if you haven't, was it worth the bruised genitals?
Simon Whetham's "Meditations on Lights" is a sprawling 2 disks of soundscapes, the first containing two long form pieces which provide the source material for the second, a disk of shorter remixes by an impressive line up of ambient and deep listening musicians both well known and obscure.
This is the 2012 re-issue on Force Majeure – a sub-label of Lille-based industrial legends Nuit et Brouillard – of the debut, and to date only, album by French dark atmospheric / power electronics project Maison Close, based on the 1971 anti-war movie ‘Johnny Got His Gun’ (which will no doubt be familiar to most through the Metallica video clip ‘One’ which is based around it), in turn adapted from the 1939 novel of the same name by American author Dalton Trumbo.
“Low Volume Music” brings together US ambient legend Steve Roach, and Belgium based guitarist & ambient composer Dirk Serries for an album of entrancing/ soothing synth & guitar based ambience.
Stomu Yamash’ta is a hugely talented Japanese percussionist, keyboardist and composer. He came to fame in the mid 70’s for his seemingly effortless mixing of musical genres, with world music elements. Go was his super group that brought together the impressive talents of: Steve Winwood(Traffic, Blind Faith & solo work), Klaus Schulze(Tangerine Dream & Ash Ra Tempel), highly respected fusion guitarist Al Di Meola, and American drummer/ percussionist Michael Shrieve.
With a title like “Cedar & Apple” one might expect possibly a lulling folk release, but instead this debut from new Minnesota US based project is a head-grinding & ear flaying slice of active HNW/ dense harsh noise. The project utilizes just the sound of wood for it’s sound source- hence the releases title.
When Brooklyn’s Parts & Labor went on hiatus after a ten-year run this year, it was sadly with a whimper rather than a bang. Despite a unique position in American rock, friends in the scene, frequent mention on music sites, etc., they just never got the kind of break that would have made their solid last album, Constant Future, the household release that it probably should have been, at least amongst indie’s cognoscenti. Nobody else is delivering anthemic punk propelled by lo-fi electronic noise in quite the same way: Trans Am is too retro, Lightning Bolt too heavy, and Oneida way too far out on the fringe.
Ichiro Tsuji's Dissecting Table is one of the longest running and most respected Japanese pure industrial projects. "Industrial Document 1988/91" is a double CD-rom release by renown Austrian label Steinklang collecting two live sets from this legendary band.
“The Burning” find this west Virginia based walled noise project offering up thirty four minutes worth of dense, pummelling & roasting HNW.
This intricately-arranged phonographic work from German sound artist Behrens does not disappoint. Listeners familiar with Francisco Lopez, Yannick Dauby, or Scott Smallwood will certainly enjoy hearing Behren’s tribute to Darmstadt, Germany, the artist’s hometown.
Musical movements can take off and stretch the globe. The beauty of this is that everyone gets to experience the power and energy of something fresh and new. Not only do they get to experience it, but they get to add their own local sounds and influences back into the mix. The movement may be global, but the scenes are very local.
A strange beast for sure, this one. Some musicians, it seems, will stop at nothing to try and hype up their latest attempt at getting noticed in today’s suffocating music market and the least one can say is that Britain’s The Nothing Machine have managed to pull a nice one up this time around.
Listening to any of Celer’s music it’s hard to escape the context that these are dispatches from the loving, marital home of Will Long and Danielle Baquet-Long – work that often originated as sonic love letters between the two – made painfully poignant by the knowledge that Danielle passed away in July 2009. Releasing up to ten albums a year, the couple’s sound has swiftly become well-defined as slow, rich and wholly melodic meditations.
Pooh finds UK HNW maker James Killick once again choosing a quirky & unlikely subject for his new walled noise project. The projects is based around that of the most famous of bears/childhood creations Winnie the pooh.