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The packaging for this split is rather curious, mixing obvious effort with distinct ugliness - to my eyes anyway. The oversized cassette case has a simple insert, adorned with a bloody image; inside is a translucent red tape and a small bag with another insert and what appears to be an animal tooth. All good so far, but the top of the bag is taped to the case; and to my nit-picking eyes it looks a little ugly. I realise I’m being picky, but here we are.
“Ripping the Flesh Out of Your Guts” offers up two brutal ‘n’ dense yet layer detailed slices of raging walled noise. Foul is a West Virginia based HNW project, and behind it is long term wall noise scene-ster J Cadle who has being in projects such as: ...Massacre, White Torture, Oasis Of Fear, ect.
Although perhaps climatically similar with its Nordic center of origin, one does not usually associate the city of Chicago with the genre of black metal. Regardless, Nachtmystium has called the windy city home and with the release of Silencing Machine scrawls a dirty line in the frozen soil demarcating its tenth year of activity. Following the release of a pair of diversionary albums (2008’s Assassins: Black Meddle Pt. 1 and 2010’s Addicts: Black Meddle Pt. 2), Silencing Machine revels in a return to form of sorts for the band which employs mainly straightforward compositions and minimal use of extraneous “non-black metal” elements.
Swiss-French sound engineer Kassel Jaeger’s fifth album—his first on vinyl, and for Editions Mego—is a triumvirate of miscellaneous works, two of which are extended soundscapes commissioned for multi-channel environmental performances or experiences and appear here in standard stereo for home release. Both of these pieces are fairly heady experiments.
After Aluk Todolo had organised a show in their hometown of Paris for Austria’s Der Blutharsch the two bands agreed to make an album together. Each set about creating a couple of basic tracks that were subsequently swapped and redeveloped resulting in this untitled album.
“Wastrel Projection” is the latest attack on the sonic sensers from USA grindcore/ noisecore/caustic improv collective Sissy Spacek. This full length CD features a total run-time of just five minutes, and offers up 32 two tracks of rapid yet controlled mayhem.
“Zeit” is the third album from German electronica /ambient innovators Tangerine Dream. It was originally released in 1972, and it saw the band taking their early & experimental space ambient sound to its epic & extreme conclusion- the album offered up four epic tracks with fall between the seventeen to near on twenty minute mark a piece, each taking up a side of vinyl on its orignal release. This 2011 reissue remasters the album, adds in an extra disc of un-released material, and offers up a new expanded booklet.
Originally released in 1971 “Alpha Centauri” is the second album from Tangerine Dream. The album saw the band deepening & cementing the experimental textures of their debut album, to create a cohesive space-bound sound that utilized more electronics. This 2011 reissue remasters the album, adds on three extra tracks, and an expanded inlay booklet.
"The Sleeper Has Awakened" is the 3 track self titled debut of a musician who creates lo-fi ambient / melancholic rock instrumentals with guitar/bass playing and electronic beats. The release is short, around 15 minutes in length.
Another colourfully packaged tape on Lighten Up Sounds, with equally colourful contents. The smartly designed and printed inlay, wraps around seven tracks spread across approximately forty-eight minutes. The overall sound of these pieces is scratchy and noisy; though more in a lo-fi sense than in an abrasive one.
Debuting from Poland, Noiko (Micha³ Kêdziora) demonstrates a high degree of craft for a first release as evidenced by his restraint, professionalism and bravery. Electroacoustic is the general schema here, but don’t let this qualifier lead you down the path of stereotypical components: dark, sterile sounds; overly “high-minded” postmodern conceptualizations; boring stretches of barely audible static. No, this a fresh and unique work certainly worthy of the attention of longtime fans of the genre as well as newcomers.
"Death Radio” finds this often progressive French walled noise project offering up a slice of creepy & deeply oppressive ANW.
“No Hope” is the 4th release from Centuries Behind A Gate, & this CDR pins you to the floor & never lets up. Behind the project is prolific HNW Iowa based noise maker Alex Nowacki of Boar, Phantom Rib & I watched You Die.
“The Lesser Key Of Solomon” is the 7th 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
Thy Darkened Shade are a black metal band from Greece, and while this "Eternvs Mos, Nex Ritvs" is their first official full length, they've been around since 1999.
Well, as the saying goes, you wait around for ages for public transport field recordings and three turn up at the same time: first there was the Psychogeographical Commission’s ‘Widdershins’, a disorientating trip on the Glasgow Subway system, followed a few months later by Chris Watson’s glorious ‘El Tren Fantasma’, providing compressed sonic highlights of a Mexican railway journey, and now Chicago-based composer Ernst Karel brings us a generous selection of sounds from Switzerland’s mountainous vehicles.
Thorybos are a four piece German band who summon up a grim, crusty & horror filled mixture of blacked metal & mid-pace/sludge bound death metal. “Monuments of Doom” is the bands first full length release after releasing five demos over the last five years or so.
“ESK” is a sound poem/sonic tribute to the twenty eight miles of the river Esk, which runs between the North Yorkshire National park & the North Sea. The forty minute piece utilizes field recordings taken over winter, spring & summer in six sites of scientific interest & natural wonder along the river Esk
This DVDr offers up two very lengthy ‘n’ un-moving slices of HNW from this mysterious European project, which themes all of it’s releases around WWII/ WWI battles or atrocities. This new release is based on one of the most bleak/ hopeless battles of WWI- The Battle Of The Somme, and this DVDr offers up two three hour ‘walls’ of truly unrelenting/unchanging bleak walled noise.
Blank Depths is an AWN collaboration between UK’s James Killick(Love Katy, Small Hours & various other ANW/HNW projects) and Canadian Pat Klassen of the excellent HNW/ ANW project Sleep. This new collaboration sees the pair theme their ambient walls around nature/ weather, and this untitled full length CDR is the projects first release.
“Electro-Static” is a two tape box set which sees French walled noise king Vomir collaborating with Italian based noise/HNW project Fukte. Instead of the pure HNW work-out you might expect from such a paring this release is more of a mixture of experimental static fed sound scaping and HNW, through there are a few more pure HNW moments here too. The set is subtitled ‘A static research on magnetic fields and electronic devices' which nicely guess sums up what’s on offer here.
Rock artists, musicians, poets, and other artsy types have always been somewhat fascinated by witches and witchcraft; see Broadcast’s last album with the Focus Group or Liars’ They Were Wrong So We Drowned as indie electronic albums that have mined this territory recently. But rarely do such projects come from former dance producers and electronic gizmo purveyors who have invited middle-fame actresses to narrate their albums in an alluringly cynical and brash tone to essentially lambast her own stomping ground.
The grim faced Richard A. Ingram has returned with "Happy Hour", another ode to tape and its degradation, following up last year's "Consolamentum", an album of depressive loops for guitar and piano. For the purposes of this album he has either left his guitar behind or totally obscured its sound, which turns out to be a wise decision. This album's palette contains mostly gradations of dry, grainy winds, as if tape containing field recordings of sand gusts had been further degraded by the elements. Loud, quavering tape hiss permeates the entire album. There are 4 tracks, 10-15 minutes in length.
A very simple and elegantly packaged cdr, here, from Void Seance. A printed, brown card wallet; containing a black paper wallet with the cdr and two inserts - one, a blurred image of the sun and sea, and the other a boldly designed information sheet. All very simple, but achieving a classy, professional look.