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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.
Eruption of the Missing is yet another release from the productive artist Churner. On average you can count on anything from 10-18 releases per year (counting splits too) and that probably doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of this industrious noise/power electronics project.
Chloë is a new dense, battering and slightly sleazy HNW project that brings together two of the most respected names in Swedish 'wall making'- Karl T of projects Skönhet & Självhat, and he also runs cult HNW tape label HarshFuckedForLife Records thats are known for it's large and elaborate tape boxsets. And the other member of this new project is Hannes H whose one half of highly respected, macabre & brutal long running HNW project Concrete Threat.
“Bed Drifters” is the 9th in the series of twelve monthly 3 inch CDR releases that are been released through-out 2011 by Irelands 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's Richard Ramirez.
"Tasogare: Live in Tokyo" is a showcase of minimalist drone styling’s from deep listening / glitch label 12k. Five untitled avant electronic lullabies, each from a different artist, unfold steadily and smoothly over 10 to 20 minutes, roughly at the respiratory rate of a sleeping person. Slow, muffled drifts of kaleidoscopic digital tones create sluggish suspended states of partial awareness through gentle, welcome repetitions. Entirely made up of gooey, softened percolations and gentle filtered noise loops, these songs are deeply soporific but also quite engaging.
I must admit to knowing very little about Cluster. I know that the late, great Conrad Schnitzler was a member of Kluster with Roedelius and Moebius; until he left, and the “k” became a “c”. I also know that they were pioneers of electronic music, marking out territories that ambient music and electronica would explore more thoroughly later; and thats about where my great knowledge ends. A quick wander around the internet told me that “Live In Vienna 1980” is a cd re-issue of a limited release, and also that its a very experimental moment in Cluster’s discography.
“Smothering Hopes & Crushing Dreams” offers up a highly rewarding & consistent collection of textural shifting and active HNW matter from this Fairfax USA based project. Like much of this projects work this album is once more themed and obsessed with BBW(Big Beautiful Women), plumpers or the large lady, the cover artwork features a grainy green tinged film still of a large lady sitting on a mans face.
“Moon Over Torrelorca” offers up a single hour long slice of descending, dark & deeply oppressive drone matter that seems to pull your mind into the deepest and darkest elements of both the night & ones own spirit.
Before I get into reviewing this split Lp, I think I have to mention that Cristiano/Cris X is a friend of mine. We've toured, played, recorded, harassed girls and ate pizza many times together. So take this review with a pitch of salt if you wish. And I'll try to be as objective as I can.
Blut Aus Nord, as you probably already know, is one of the most "kvlt" french black metal acts. Active since the mid-nineties, it has always been pushing the limits of what can be properly tagged as "black metal". Experimental, ambient, psychedelic or just plain weird, Blut Aus Nord deeply explored a vast range of moods and sounds, obviously with various grades of success.
“Cross –Pollination” brings together highly respected British natural sound recordist & field recording arranger Chris Watson, and British chorister & composer Marcus Davidson for an album that blurs the lines between field recordings & music. The album features two twenty minute plus pieces of manipulated field recording sound art that focus in on the harmonic & rhythmic qualities of both animals and insects.
Mastery is a one man Black metal project from the Bay Area USA who mixed together punked & pounding grim lo-fi Blacked metal with elements of creative & twisted guitar texturing, off kilter 80’s movie or dark industrial synth scapes/ electronics and odd dips into grim/ creepy ambience. “Barbaric Usurpation Of The Hypereonic Black Metal Throne” is a two disc collection that brings together the projects first five demos and on the whole it’s a great ride into blasting bleak blacked metal that’s weaved with all manner of creative, surprising & wonky edges.
Uvesen is a recent project started by Andreas Brandal(Flesh Coffin, Hour of the Wolf) and Borre Myklebust (Boe). The pair create a curious mix of noise and electronic effects combined with percussion and guitars. Seven tracks are represented here, each labeled I through VII.
Norwegian duo Juv deliver their debut release through Miasmah Recordings, fourteen years in the making, the album has been painstakingly edited from material recovered by founding members Are Mokkelbost and Marius von der Fehr. The component pieces of this particular record were committed to tape by the two friends back in the late nineties, until the pair, for one reason or another, ended their friendship and thus their creative output together. After stumbling across the recordings back in 2009, the pair decided to finally put all the elements together and present the material in the manner it was originally intended.
Released last year, Ritenhour’s Earth sees Missouri’s Adam Kalmbach appear once again under his apparently meaningless moniker of Jute Gyte, this time resting his black metal, noise and electronica dabblings in favour of four extended, minimalist guitar cycles of slow doomy refrains stubbornly repeated and carefully extended through long modulating processes.
Mike Fazio's(of orchestramaxfieldparrish, Gods Of Electricity & solo work)latest project, A Guide for Reason, debuted this very year with a full length CDr titled "I - VI", and now continues with this fascinating 3" disk, "VII - VIII". I was hitherto acquainted with his colorful, dramatic forays into synthscaping as Aera, but the sophisticated exactitude and uniqueness of this disk caught me by surprise. One could say the two projects share a meditative, existential approach to music-making, but in the case of A Guide for Reason, the sound sources utilized by Fazio are completely indiscernable to me, and the music itself several steps closer to 'unclassifiable'.
There’s a few seconds of this album that serve to sum it up for me. At the end of the second track, “Ouroboros: First Lesson”, a looped voice says “for his soul” - but to my ears it sounds much more like “rissole, rissole, rissole”. (A rissole being, of course, a tasty treat I associate with 1980s cooking.) The point being, that “Evil Walks” appears to aim at sounding evil and diseased; but instead fails dismally and verges on ridiculousness. Its the work of one man and his drum machine - a combination with a history littered by failure: alas, Korperschwache add no joy to that past.
“Radiation Funeral” is the fourth full-length from finnish band Steel Mammoth (which features members of both Circle and Digitaalimiehet), released in a limited to 500 LP edition by Full Contact/Ektro Records.
Lungwashes "wounded Oak" is the 12th volume of the Infinity series- an open ended and identical artwork based collection of releases put out by Uk based Sweet Solitude label. Each volume sees a different world wide HNW act attempting ambient and experimental forms of walled noise. Lungwash is a fairly mysterious one man USA based project who creates very distinctive & haunting cross breed of ambient HNW, subtle atmospheric textured noise, and minimal drone textures.
Hearse Fetish is a churning extreme industrlized HNW/ Hash Noise project from Mayfield USA. “Prostitution In the Dark” is the projects first released offering, and the CDR consists of three 15 minute tracks.
Here we have Black Piss with their, so far, only release. Just like early Bathory, Black Piss is choosing to be anonymous and vague. Although in Bathorys defense at least we knew of one member, the sadly demised Quorthon. No website, no bio, no nothing; only the entry for the cd exists in Jeshimoth Entertainments website.
New York based Kenneth Kirschner work is very difficult to bracket into one genre or under one label, his work sits somewhere between ambience, slowed electronica and subtle electronic minplation, stripped modern classic composition, and minimalistic modern classical piano music. His pieces are often lengthy, slow, darkly tinged and seemingly sparse, yet strangle hypnotic & cleverly/ complexly built sonic structures that pull you deeply into their slow moving worlds. This new three CD set offers up just four pieces that fall between twenty three minutes & fifty one minutes a piece.
This self titled vinyl Lp collaboration brings together the manic & jabbering analogue noise terror of China’s Torturing Nurse, and the more considered, controlled & atmospheric harsh noise/ HNW of Italys Alo Girl. Each side of vinyl features one side long track of jabbering, deranged & manic noise improv that has the odd dip into more controlled & focus noise making.