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“What Space Is Made For” is the latest slice of space bound improvisation, star ribbed ambience & planetary sound scaping from Italian brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio. This new release comes in the form of a three CD set box set, and it finds the pair in a mainly more ghostly, stripped & often quite organic sounding sonic mood.
This great c30 tape brings together a side a piece from two creative yet very distictive sounding Canadian & USA based HNW projects. Side ones taken up by relatively new walled noise meets ambient HNW of Sleep from Winnipeg, Canada. And side twos taken up the BBW obsessed HNW project Gluttoness who are from Fairfax USA.
This new untitled CDR from Texas based White Gimp Mask offers up two half an hour slices of moorish, persistent & unrelenting walled noise that are sure to brutalize & hypnotize the listener in equal measures.
Originally released in 1995 on cassette tape, Surface of the Earth's self titled album has finally gotten a reissue this year on experimental label Utech Records, who have released several gems in the last few years including albums by Locrian, Daniel Menche and Jazkamer. The album, one of only two full lengths from this obscure trio, is primarily guitar amp feedback drones, dirty and bass heavy, that crackle and quake with unstable volcanic imperfections. Recorded long before the modern boom of doom metal bands, there's no actual guitar playing or chord structures to be found here, rather it's more of a noise album, with the only structure created by the sonic consistency each track keeps throughout its running time.
‘The Talking Book’ is a new project from Bill Gould of Faith No More and fellow Bay Area sound artist, Jared Blum, that focuses on the sound of deterioration and the way it can affect memories before they’re inevitably condemned to the forgotten. Such a bleak concept is delivered through a small collection of instruments, mainly guitar, bass, piano and synth, all eroded to varying degrees by the omnipresent crackle of a warped, antique magnetic tape.
There’s quite a tradition of subversive rock bands operating secretly, in the communist pasts of some countries - the most well-known example being Plastic People Of The Universe in the old Czechoslovakia. From the same conditions, but now in the Czech Republic, come Uz Jsme Doma.
Charalambides are an two piece male & female American psychedelic, experimental folk band thats been active since the early nineties, with releases on well known labels like the infamous Kranky. "Exile", is available in both CD and double LP versions, and the album offers roughly 75 minutes of highly lysergic music, diluted in eight -sometimes very lengthy- tracks.
“Giallo Duro Muro Rumore E Sadomasochismo Elettronica”(or Giallo Harsh Noise & Sadomasochist Electronics) is a two tape compilation that brings together two HNW acts & one death ambient/ harsh noise act to sonically celebrate Italian Giallo films, and there kinky & depraved black gloved killers. The first tapes a c60 & the second a c30…..so there’s over 80 minutes worth of sonic murder & depravity on offer here.
“Illusionen eines verlorenen Lebens” (Illusions of a Lost Life) is 8th full length album from Ukraine one man depressive black metal/ dark ambient project Moloch. And as with most things put out by this hellishly prolific, dark quirky & creative project there’s much to like and enjoy here.
“Domine Rex Inferum” is the fourth in the series of five reissue of classic MZ.412 albums by Cold Spring Records. This album original appeared back in 2001, and it offers up an sleek more cinematic take on the projects black industrial sound which here mixers together: blacked soundtrack elements, often subtle ritual & occult tinged Industrial elements, dark ambience, dark & noise lined electronica, and subdued/ moody black metal & noise traces.
Petrychor is the new one man sonic project from Tad Piecka (Carbonscape/Beware of Safety)…presented on this double disc album from the Khrysanthoney stable, is the debut album bundled together with the projects demo release ‘Dryad’. The release is a bit of a difficult beast to get to grips with, drawing in equal amounts from a variety of styles, but mainly focusing on Black Metal influences combined with deeply rich elements of folk and neo-classical music. That is the easiest way to ‘pigeonhole’ this record, for the purposes of a brief overview, but the overall content goes way deeper, challenging your preconceptions at every turn.
This rather lengthily entitled release is the first sonic fruits from this decidedly retro sounding synth project that boil up a mixture of wonky, noisy ebbed and lo-if instrumental synth tracks that come across as a either lo-fi horror synth sound tracking from the late 70’s or early 80’s, or wound down, basic and noise fed electronica with some subtle old school industrial edges
“Chromosomal Abnormality” presents the listener with tow near on forty minute slabs of brutal, totally unrelenting & ultra thick Walled Noise from this hugely prolific Serbian project. The project themes it's releases around either ghoulish medical procedures/ diseases, or female rape, torture & murder. This release is in the medical themed bracket, and is seemingly about defects with in a foetus.
Despite the mysterious triangle at the end of this album’s title, the shape most synonymous with the sounds found within is a circle as Bologne’s Marcella Riccardi debuts her solo song psycles formed of loops of guitar, bass and vocals supported by minimal hand percussion and maximal flange and delay.
With his new album "Life (...It Eats You Up)", avant electronic veteran Mika Vainio leaves behind even the loose structures of his monochromatic minimal beat workouts in Pan Sonic, and records an album of even darker and sparser music than ever before. Surprisingly, it falls comfortably into the category of macabre ambient doom metal along the lines of Sunn 0))), and I suspect with this album we are witnessing the result of a longtime appreciation of the genre. While the music retains the unforgiving, vertiginous coldness that has consistently characterized Vainio's output, sterile digital electronic elements are kept to a minimum.
It’s strange to think that Balam Acab's See Birds Ep released in August last year was Tri Angle records first ever release. Since then the sort of post-dubstep, synth and psychedelic pop influenced music showcased by that release has become the hallmark of the label which has amassed a consistently impressive string of Eps not to mention the full length from How To Dress Well. So it’s safe to say that expectations were high for this record.
This split cassette release from Der Bünker Records could be argued to represent two generations of performance-based noise: Jupitter Larsen’s The Haters have been around for over thirty years and only started making recordings as a way to signify the beginning and end of their destructive performance art, while Hal Hutchinson is a relatively new kid on the block who, over the past three years, has been making a name for himself through his method of wall-making that also uses the physical agitation of specifically selected objects.
A very simply and elegantly packaged cdr, here, on Triple Bath. All seven tracks are performed by Coti K. on the electric contrabass - an electrified, less cumbersome version of a double bass; and this instrument is the sole source of any sounds. This maximalist approach - taking one element, idea, sound source (etc) and then pursuing it as far as you can - is one that can reap real benefits in terms of ideas and techniques; but clearly presenting an album as being “maximalist” brings some baggage with it.
Control is a long running (more than ten years now I think?) and well known American industrial/power electronics project, with releases on Freak Animal, Eibon Records, L.White Records.
Austrian born Christian Fennesz should need little introduction, but for the uninitiated, Fennesz takes control of acoustic guitar, synths, field recordings and computer manipulation to create astonishingly intense soundscapes, incorporating darker and glitchier sensibilities. His earlier works played heavily on the glitch side of things until he started to explore more ‘melodic’ and accessible realms with the likes of his ‘Endless Summer’ album or his collaborations with Japanese artist Ryuichi Sakamoto.
“Cri” is an total unforgiving & horror themed slice of long form HNW. The single near on 80 minute track on offer here pummels & batters away at the listener like an unstoppable and complete overwellming blacked storm of sound.
“Zel” is the third full length release from this progressive & ambient two piece French HNW project that brings together Ghost(who runs Slow Death records and is in few other HNW & non HNW projects) and Alois Richter.
Germanys LOTAO (Lodge of the Ancient Order) project see’s the light of day on this exquisitely grim little 7” from Hellville Records. A very simple but classy cover, with silver print on a sheen black background, offers little in the way of a clue to the source of the sounds within, even though there is definitely an air of satanic intent afoot. Some research sheds very little light on the main practitioner, referred to only as ‘Malik’ and nothing more. A quick view on Hellville’s website affirms this concept of unknown quantities with the slogan ‘Art & camaraderie before profit & fame’, certainly this little ditty will not be hitting the bestsellers charts any time soon, indeed the release itself is extremely limited, with only 105 copies being pressed in total. Other notable acts that have been released on Hellville include the omnipresent HNW artist Vomir alongside the likes of Ptomain, who themselves also wield intense sheets of noise to bludgeon the listener into remorse.
“DISCriminate” is an excellent, varied & wholly consistent two disc compilation of some of Death In June’s finest work from between 1981 to 1997. This collection original appeared back in 1997, then was re-pressed/ reprinted in 2000, and here it is once more again back in print. And it's easy to see why it’s been reprinted so many times as really this is one of the most balanced and approachable in roads into this cult bands large discography.