Loading
Mathieu Ruhlmann's "As a leaf or Stone" is as cinematic as it is intellectual with its perfectly formulated droning and clatter that's able to entice me, even being the most distracted listener when it comes to free forming and experimental sound the abstracted ambiance is flowingly musical without rhythm or melody.
For their second release, The Psychogeographical Commission, an esoterically preoccupied and shamelessly philosophical English pagan electronic and folk duo, have unleashed "Patient Zero", something of an intense and ambitious semi-dystopian narrative concept album, a crystalline astrological tapestry in which the placement and content of every scene has been carefully considered and reconsidered in order to best reflect a distinct moment in the cosmic cycles.
Promotion is, alas, a staple part of the music industry. Years back, when a friend of mine tried to start up a “proper” label, he told me with resignation that realistically he needed to spend twice as much money promoting his releases, as he did actually making them. Tis the way of things. You can get lucky, but there will always be perseverance and hard work. Why do I mention this? Well, this tape arrived to me with one side blank… Ha ha. These things happen…
Stratospheria Cubensis is the second full-length release from Seattles’ Lesbian. Okay first off, if a band named Lesbian isn’t one of the signs that all the good band names were taken then I’m not sure what is. Get past that and you will find a deftly crafted blend of music that combines the best of 70’s prog and early doom with flourishes of experimental black metal.
Ritual Stance is an offten texturally active and atmosphric one man HNW project from Richmond, Virginia. ‘Cold Dark Steel’ offers up three tracks, and just under an hours worth of brutally atmospheric HNW matter.
“Miscarriage Of The Soul” is a tar black, deeply grim and often pained mixture of: horror fed ambience, buried cinematic dread scapes, Harsh noise, distant industrial brooding clunky and the odd blackly seared Harsh Noise wall texture. I guess if you call Demonologists a more cinematic and ambient ribbed, yet more noise seared cousin of Blue Sabbath Black Cheer you'll get an idea of what to expect here.
Ataraxy is a German based one man Hash noise project whose releases move between harsh Noise wall, Harsh noise, and a mixture of the two. ‘Duality Of The Bizarre’ is the projects ninth release and it finds Ataraxy offering up five 15 minute tracks that mixe together brooding & throbbing punk bass drones with jittering, juddering and violently purring HNW textures.
There is a realm of inchoate chaos and darkness, teetering on the void of sheer madness. Within this supreme maelstrom of disorder, there lies a tiny corporeal manifestation of a half-formed, languid essence. Nestled against the swarming darkness is a shimmering image - a ruined Gothic castle, amongst the perversely twisted, gnarled, rotting trees and fauna. You falteringly step over the threshold of this haunted, aeon's old structure, and inside the heart of this putrid and decaying edifice, there is an oppressive, claustrophobic atmosphere. You stand there, shivering from unimagined, shadowy terrors, breathing slow and heavy.
Foredoom Productions second release brings together two London-based noise artists seeking new approaches to experimental noise generation and harsh noise combination.
After a few split vinyl release 2010’s ‘L'homme Saturé’ was Vomir’s first full lenght vinyl release, and what a release it is!. Somehow it managers to feel some much more battering, bleak, morrish, yet grimly enclosing than many of the Frenchmen’s other CDR and tape releases.
The DOD Death Metal distortion peddle is one of the favourite tools of many worldwide HNW acts. This great four disc compilation celebrates this wall-making peddle, with four HNW artists from around the world utilizing purely the peddle to create one full length release each.
Will Gresson's very first release, "Venedig", came out in 2010 on DIY avant-garde/noise label Small Doses, who have released Locrian and Richard Ramirez among others. To my surprise, the music on this disk is quite subdued, and closer to minimalist sound sculpture than anything else I've heard from this label, drawing clear influence from William Basinski, Wolfgang Voigt's Gas project and the basic waveform compositions found on the Raster-Noton label.
Nearly ten years ago, I released a tape by Lea Cumming’s band “Opaque” on my label; bizarrely, I think this is the first complete release I’ve heard since by him. The important thing is that he’s still going; and, judging from this cdr, going strong - so more fool me for my woeful neglect. My ears expected noise, noise, noise; since one of the few times I’ve crossed paths with him, I was on the receiving end of one of his chaotic Kylie Minoise sets. But no, there’s quite a different beast on display here.
Zenith is a Wisconsin, USA based HNW act who makes hypnotic and brutal walled noise from VCR recordings, which are fed through several tape recorders to create layered feedback loops. “Chain” offers up two rather different versions of the near on forty minute title track- one master and one unmastered.
‘Release ' is the first release in the Infinity series which sees worldwide HNW acts attempting ambient and experimental forms of walled noise. This release finds Louisiana based HNW/ Harsh noise project Vargrwulf( aka Joseph Gates also of Slaughter-Fetus, R.S.P, Peiste and runner of Violent Revolution International) offering up a wonderfully constricting, taut and detailed slice of long form ambient HNW matter.
Sound artist, musician and self-taught composer Stephan Mathieu graces us with his 2011 release A Static Place. The cd is created through electro acoustics; using gramophones to play early 78 records, re-recording the sounds through specific microphones and processing these sounds utilizing spectral analysis and convolution his is able to form sounds that are graceful and distinctive.
Following on from their 2009 debut Strange Fruits and Undiscovered Plants, the Dutch psychedelic rock/blues outfit DeWolff here pull out all the stops to drench this new venture in the multifarious styles of 60's/70's classic rock. They are heavily influenced by bands such as Led Zeppelin, T-Rex, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, the Doors and a variety of other legendary bands, but somehow fuse it all into an invigorating and - in the main - successful reanimated rock-corpse.
The cover of “Relations Between Static Objects” features a crude and bleak picture of a man completely warped up(except for his head) in either badgers or fabric. This is highly apt, as the bleak & static slice of HNW with-in very much feels like your been slowly enchased and restricted by unrelenting and bleak sonic wall bombardment.
As a split release, this offering on Utech Records is more a trailer to the musical union confirmed by the latest full album (Mare Decendril) by the Seattle-based Mamiffer, which sees Aaron Turner (ex-Isis guitarist and head of Hydra Head records) firmly inducted into his wife, Faith Coloccia’s project based around her piano compositions. Reflecting the conjugality, Faith features in Aaron’s contribution to this split as House of Low Culture, presented here as a three piece completed by a surprising guest appearance from the legendary percussionist Z’ev. Both tracks feel like they belong together as they experiment with a ritualistic morbidity that invokes the ghosts of extended prog rock interludes much more than the dynamic contrasts of post-metal.
Black Lung's latest, "The Soul Consumer" is packaged in an attention grabbing digipak featuring photos of mauled, bloody and skinless carcasses of unidentifiable origin. Opening the case, we find main member David Thrussell's note, in which he relates having first tasted human flesh several years since, and how his preoccupation with creating an album while subsisting on solely human flesh resulted in this album. Needless to say, I was disgusted and intrigued by this, truthful or not, and conscious of the fact that Thrussell had blatantly crossed a boundary few dare to tread near.
“Extra Space, Extra Time” brings together theses two highly respected and often rhythmic obsessed experimental artist to create an approachable and often entrancing album which ploys the middle ground between each parties distinctive sound.
This very elegantly decorated, fold-out card cover, houses quite a world in its tiny confines... It contains the work of Arcn Templ - a duo from Singapore, who start from a base of quite simple, folky textures and arrangements, and build outwards.
This wonderfully consistent and pro-looking four way split brings together the work of some of the great European HNW acts. Each project here offers up a 30 plus minute track of distinctive and creative walled matter, making this one of the most wholly rewarding HNW collection in recent memory.
Here lies before us Sleeping Peonies newest release, Ghosts and Other Things, limited to 150 copies. The duo has been around since 2009 and this is their second release. Leaning heavily on the shoe gazer/ambient/post rock sound with touches of black metal gives it a diverse atmosphere to say the least.