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“Vastgebonden” is the 12th & last in the series of twelve monthly 3 inch CDR releases that were been put out through-out 2011 by Ireland's Bored Bear Recordings. Each release in the series celebrates, pays tribute and chronicles one of the many projects of highly influential & respected Texas noise artist Richard Ramirez.
The practiced musicians of Combat Astronomy have valiantly attempted to further bridge the gap between free jazz and extreme progressive metal with "Flak Planet", a smoothly flowing 8 track album of 30 minutes, describable as a sinewy, concise and confident statement executed with flawless musicianship.
For some people, it is easier to appreciate a musical genre or movement when free of the exigent cultural pressures associated with said genre or movement. That is, it’s more enjoyable to listen when a chunk of society is not telling you that a certain album or band DEMANDS your attention. For example, it was much easier for me to enjoy listening to Faust after they initially folded and before the nouveau appreciators (hipsters) were telling anyone who would listen that Faust Tapes was beyond brilliant…..and that they scored a copy for 3 bucks at a local flea market. Or, learning actually to enjoy the Deftones without someone screaming about their importance to Western musical culture and covering you in toxic flop sweat. Having a calm re-appreciation in a quiet corner is more conducive to having an open mind and ears; no noisome hucksters trying to bludgeon and sell you the hype du jour. Not to mention friends ruining your tequila buzz with some partially-regurgitated promo bilge while you vainly try to enjoy that GYBE album being played at an otherwise interminable party.
Marcus Fjellström is a young Swedish composer now based in Berlin and Schattenspieler marks his third album to date, but also his first that was wholly conceived after graduating from his studies in composition and orchestration in 2005.
“The Narrow Garden” is the latest work by the violinist and composer Eyvind Kang. It has seven tracks, all wonderfully cohesive and yet different; roughly speaking there are four songs and three instrumental tracks - two of which enter more textural territories.
‘Black Metal’? Does the term actually mean anything in 2012? Or has the term actually become almost functionally meaningless, like say ‘ambient’, ‘experimental’, ‘krautrock’ (nasty term), ‘prog’ or ‘shoegaze’? Additionally, what is one to make of compound terminologies like ‘atmospheric black metal’, ‘blackgaze’, ‘depressive black metal’, or ‘postgazemetal’? Are such categorizations even really useful at all except as nebulous marketing terminology? For me, ‘black metal’ functions best as a term when used in a more historical context (though still fraught) or as a general term to describe a set of musical/production techniques resulting in a certain type of sound (fraught as well).
Despite hailing from West Philadelphia, Fursaxa’s Mycorrhizae Realm invokes a magical land of fairy tales and folklore where woodlands reveal their secret paths. Like her several earlier albums, Tara Burke revives European folk music but somehow twists its wholesomeness in a similar way to David Lynch’s contortions of the American dream to imply dark or surreal undercurrents.
“Communicants” finds Missouri’s Jute Gyte serving up a mixture of: uneasy ‘n’ unwell synth texturing, lo-fi & wonky electro beat patterns, wavering & sickly electronica, off-kilter & sour ambience, and genreal warped & bent electronics.
Often in the realm of pop music the focus of a given piece of music is the percussion/vocals; a sort of ‘figure/ground’ approach to the musical sound-space. Pop songs are usually mixed so that these elements are to the fore, hopefully making them somewhat more listenable when coming from small speakers or ear buds…..which is how a good portion of us listen to music these days.
Blood Box is the solo project of Yen Pox member Michael JV Hensley. Funeral In An Empty Room is the third full length release from the project. On this latest release we find an otherworldly declaration of dark ambient.
Dead Body Parts” is a truly huge, lengthy and inescapable submersion in brutal, unrelenting, macabre & grim lined walled noise. This tape box set conists of five c90 tapes, and offers up near on seven & half hours of battering ‘n’ body fluid splattered HNW.
“Untitled” offers up a very sparse & spaced slice of minimalist ambient HNW. Missing Girls is the more minimal crackling ‘n’ static HNW project of Swedish based Karl T of Audrey Hepburn obsessed HNW project Skönhet, & the great HNW tape label HarshFuckedForLife Records.
You know that feeling you get, when you are roused from a deep slumber quite suddenly and the realm of dreams bleeds through to your waking existence, resulting in a constant battle of wills to keep yourself from slipping back into that comfortable cocoon of blissful catharsis? That feeling could be used to sum up the effects of this digital release from German soundscape and drone artist Mirko Uhlig perfectly.
Francisco López' "Fango De Euriptéridos ", one of the earliest of his countless works, was originally released on highly limited cassette in 1990, and now finally sees remaster and reissue on this 3" CDr from Agxivatein. They've opted to unite side A and B into a single 18 minute track, an improvised and loosely thematic foray into the most impossibly frigid submerged depths. Blunted impacts, scraping/whistling resonances and stifled rumblings make up the entire sound palette.
Well, here’s a monstrosity. A three cd compilation, with fifty artists and nearly four hours of sounds. The discs cover a lot of ground, although primarily its different shades of noise, and feature many lesser known projects alongside more familiar names (Vomir, Churner, etc). In keeping with the title, the cds are named “Foreplay”, “Orgasm” and “Afterglow”; and the “o’s” in each word are beautifully portrayed by the spindle holes on the cds themselves. A nice touch.
“Liber AL vel Legis” offers up just under an hours worth of brutal ‘n’ morbid walled noise from this Louisiana based horror & occult themed HNW project.
Yet another untitled release (this is 20th vomir release to have untitled as it title) from the French king of crusty, brutal & unmoving walled noise. On offer here is a single just under 32 minute slice of unbroken & battering HNW done in typical fine Vomir fashion.
Emmanuel Mieville is a Paris born sound art composer & musique concrete sculptor whose been creating intriguing sonic emersions since 1986. “Four Wanderings In Tropical Lands" finds him mixing field recordings from four exotic lands with subtle avant composition.
“Lonely Teenager” finds The Residents collecting together old ‘n’ new songs for deeply theatrical, darkly humorous & often un-nerving album that sits somewhere between drifting space /psychedelic rock, melted pop song craft, unhinged spoken word & off- kilter ambience.
The project Bionulor began in 2006, a one-man experimental/ambient project founded by Sebastian Banaszczyk- he bases all the projects recordings on “recycled sound”. Mainly he builds his musical foundation on one sample (or fragment) and then processes the snippet adding or expanding the sound it was built on.
Botanist is a one man black metal project from the Bay area of the USA, and they create a very distinctive & one off sound with a very unusually set of sonic tools. The project uses just drums, vocals, and most unusually a Hammered Dulcimer. This double CD album is seemingly the projects first release, and it certainly gives one a very unequal & grimly usually take on the blacked metal form.
Let’s be honest here folks many of our favorite artists do have an ongoing sound or ’style’, which they often run right into the ground for fun and profit. Why do we as listeners tolerate such shenanigans (i.e., endless remixes/reissues)? Is it we or the artists who are just too bored or jaded to care? Sorry to say, but some of our heroes just run out of ideas. And we really do not need to mention names, do we?
Phantom Heron Seas is the nom de plume of Allan Upton, a sound artist based in Dorset who also goes under the equally ornithologically oblique name Textured Bird Transmissions. The Unkindness of Ravens comprises one piece split into two parts that, despite Upton’s flock of feathery clues, avoids any sonic suggestion of bird-life but instead takes the listener on a flight over more land-based natural sound textures.
“Mono Fluido” collects together two rewarding & creative slices of drone & sound craft from German sound/ambient artists Christina Kubisch. Both pieces here come from the early to mid 80’s, and both pieces find Ms Kubisch creating very distinctively haunting & at times alien yet emotionally sounding sound worlds. This is Important records fourth release of retro recordings from Ms Kubisch, and it’s up there with the best experimental drone/ sound art that the label has put out thus far.