Loading
“Limited with Coffee” (it’s ltd to 15 copies, and it’s stained with coffee... so hence the odd title) finds Hour of the Wolf offering up just over thirty minutes of dense, locked and storm bond noise of the highest and most brutally quality. The project is the one of walled noise projects of highly prolific and creative Norwegian noise head Andreas Brandal’s (Flesh Coffin, Drevne Bolesti, Avmakt, Museums of Sleep), and this is certainly one of my favourite release thus far by Hour of the Wolf.
“Gletscher Cassette 60” is a c60 tape that offers up two sides of cold, dense and brutal HNW from this Sarajevo based project that’s all the work of Neven Misaljevich- one of the minds behind the great Zvukovina label and in other HNW projects like Drevne Bolesti(with Andreas Brandal) and Ïîòåðÿííàÿ Ãîðëà( with Alexander Kibanov)
Archaic Visions is Dark Tribes’ 2010 release from Black Hate Productions. Formed in 1997, this is the bands third full length release. Dark Tribe, who are manned by Asordis and Paranoth accordingly, has been previously (and still) labeled under the Black Metal (or in their own words “insane black metal”) moniker, but on Archaic Visions we find a depressive bent too.
A neat little pro-printed and pro-duplicated package, with very elegant photography, on Alethiometer Records. (Isn’t an alethiometer that device from Phillip Pullman’s "His Dark Materials" trilogy..? I think it is.) The cd has four tracks, all about six to eight minutes long; bar the third, which is a wee two minutes.
Sometimes, when something is presented to me in beautiful packaging, I hesitate to actually listen to it. What if its shit? It changes from a thing of beauty, into a thing of beauty with a nasty surprise inside. So, somehow, All Shadows And Deliverance have jacked straight into my brain and produced a mini-cdr, in a clear mini-dvd case, with a nicely drawn inlay (black metal style), printed in black on clear, frosted plastic. Beautiful. So my eyes are charmed, but what about my ears?
Adam Kalmbach, a young music student from Missouri, has been self-releasing recordings under the arcane name of Jute Gyte for a few years now, indicating a precocious cross-genre dabbling that takes in industrial, melancholic electronica and black metal stylings. ‘Broken Door’ though is a pure digital noise workout on a 3” CDr lasting just over twenty minutes.
I’m Nothing” is the thirty first release from this extreme, brutal and highly prolific Serbian based HNW project. It also one of the most suffocating, nasty and bleak releases from the project thus far- think the sonic equivalent of looking into a searing and blackly roasting abyss for just under twenty minutes, and you get a idea of what to expect here.
“Ascolta Con Dolore” (meaning “listen with pain” in english) is a four way split between four Italian based HNW projects. And as the release title suggest each track here is an very violent, very nasty yet often quite creative take on the walled noise genre.
This three inch CDR finds this Danish HNW project offering up two slices of seared and brutal improv guitar texturing mixed with grating lo-fi walls of noise textures. It brings to mind the kind of thing Merzbow does when he’s in his more manic guitar shredding form.
Hauschka is one Viktor Bertelmann, a classically trained contemporary German artist known primarily his work on the prepared piano. "Foreign Landscapes", however, is an album of traditionally orchestral chamber music, which features the prepared piano on only a couple of occasions. It consists of 12 pieces which are quite short by traditional classical standards.
Falkenstein’s third offering ‘Kraftort’ takes a melodic neofolk approach to making traditional sounding music with a psychedelic twist.
GR & The Full Blown Expansion is the solo work of Gunslinger’s own Gregory Raimo. It erupts as a spazztic rock and roll album raging with chaotic rhythms and psychedelic free jazz elements. There is a very eccentric feel to this record and comes out a little offbeat with strange Captian Beefheart-esque vocals, freak out drumming, psychedelic organs and some reverb heavy guitar work.
Jazkamer’s Peanuts is an experimental field recording album and part of a series of cd releases the group did in 2010 where a cd of the groups varying styles was released each month.
This is going to be a difficult review for me, as I really don't like what is called "alternative rock". It may surprise some on this site, but I nearly gave up on music when the overrated band Nirvana became extremely popular.
“Murder Castle” offers up two lengthy slices of blackly roaring 'n' ripping storm-bound slices of HNW from this West Virginia based project that's all the work of J. Cadle(White Torture, ...Massacre & Oasis Of Fear).
“Les Ecoutis le Caire” is a collaborative effort, with Gilles Aubry being responsible for the sound and Stephane Montavon being responsible for the accompanying text.
Smegma arrive to me through pretty innocent ears; I’m well aware of their revered status, but I really haven’t heard much of their output. I’m old enough and hip enough to have bought the “Ism” album about ten years ago, but it did little for me; and I saw Ju Suk Reet Meate & Oblivia perform a duo at the Colour Out Of Space festival in 2009, but again it did little to excite me. So I came to “Mirage” looking to be impressed.....And I was.
“Oak Folk” is a new compilation of edgy and experimental, to more traditional and Germanic tinged folk tracks that pay tribute to mighty Oak tree. The collection appears on the always rewarding Austrian experimental and quirky folk label Ahnstern which is home to the likes of Allerseelen, Jahrtal , Phase II, Sangre Cavallum and Svarrogh
“Smacked Red” offers up five tracks and near on an hours worth of Black leather Jesus distinct ‘n’ perverse brand of thick boiling drone matter, screaming noise tonalities and overloaded industrial noise texturing.
This is the first release from new French HNW project Ghost, and it’s also the first releases from new French HNW slow Death records. On offer here are four long eighteen minute plus tracks of walled noise meets often textural shifting ‘n’ atmospheric tinged sonics.
Le Voci Del Buio (The Voices of The Dark) is the work of Maurizio and Roberto Opalio (from My Cat Is An Alien) and Ramona Ponzini (from Painting Petals On Planet Ghost and Praxinoscope). Using an obscure group of folk musicians of the Western Alps and combining that with acoustic guitars and various homemade wooden string instruments, the trio creates something that is noisy, yet melodic and heartfelt.
This is the first release from the new, mysterious and quite primal/ elemental sounding HNW project of Iowa based Alex Nowacki whose main project is the excellent hard hitting, yet creative Boar.
This is seemingly the second release from this active ‘n’ multi-textured HNW project from that comes from near Paris. The projects first release “Il Ya Longtemps” came out on download/web based only HNW label Hum and Hiss.
RM74 is Swiss multi-instrumentalist Reto Mäder’s solo project of the past decade or so. Reflex, his fifth solo album, collects eleven short sketches of cold, bleak scenes described by a small array of treated sounds usually centred around a droning, processed electric guitar.