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D'incise is an electronica (or I suppose) artist from Geneva. This album is composed of rhythms made from field recordings of, from what I can tell, doors opening and closing and other things.
As winter clouds and temperatures roll in, I am increasingly grateful for albums like Nickolas Mohanna's "Transmission Hue", a wonderful addition to my library of ambient synth music, to be filed with Steve Roach, Tangerine Dream or Biosphere. Though this album is not first and foremost 'comfort music', to refer to it as such would not be grossly unfair. It must be stressed that there is no new age cheese here, but nothing dark or unpleasant rears its head either. The warmth and reassuring slow pulsation of the music, which seems to mimic waves lapping a shore, should draw many listeners in right away. From this initial listenability, one comfortably becomes acquainted with the intense emotional underpinnings of the music, none too obvious at first.
“Incomplete Fracture” is a short, tense and aggravated slice of wall making from this highly prolific Serbian HNW project that has notched-up over 30 release this year alone.
“Welcome To the Standard Nightmare II” sees the Zvukovina label offering up another C60’s worth tape abused ‘n’ battered thick yet shifting walled noise matter. This time around it’s the turn of Drevne Bolesti which brings together Andreas Brandal(Flesh coffin, Hour Of the Wolf, Avmakt and Museums of Sleep) and Smrznik( aka Neven Misaljevich).
“No Title” is a short, sharpe but rewarding shot of crusty judder bound HNW from one of the most know and respected names in the worldwide wall scene French based Vomir.
This is the first in a series of five reissues of classic and genre defining albums by this dark & violent Swedish collective who birthed the style of music called black industrial which mixes together elements of ritual & occult tinged Industrial, dark ambience, power noise, and blacked metal into a brooding to pounding dark sonic soup.
Much like any other form of experimental sound, drone music either does something for your or it doesn’t. “It Seems this too has come to an end” is seemingly the third album from this Spring Texas based project, and I can safely say this indeed does an awful lot for me; I’d go as far to say it’s one of my favourite drone records in a very,very long time.
Von Thronstahl has always been a bit of a mystery to me. The name I’ve heard for years, but other than snippets of their songs on Cold Spring Records website, I haven’t delved into the catalog of their releases. Call it fate, but here we have their latest release, a collection of early works, rare tracks, alternative versions of material released previously and unreleased material.
As any Death In June fan knows, each of the project’s many albums have their own distinctive sound, twist and take on Douglas P’s unequalled and one-off song writing & sonic identity. “Peaceful Snow”, I guess, is one of the most distinctive and different albums of the project’s 30 year career, as it features purely piano as a backing to Douglas P’s gloomy & wordy baritone vocals; instead of the familiar acoustic or electric guitar which has featured in all of the other project’s albums.
This untitled two disc collaboration finds these three brutal ‘n’ bleak Serbian HNW acts blending their combined sounds together to create two hour tracks of truly unrelenting, ultra-nasty & tar-black walled noise.
This album started life as some off-the-cuff group improvisations recorded while Matmos, Wobbly and J.Lesser were on a tour in the USA. The improvisations were thenheavily chopped and screwed, layered onto each other, and then had additional overdubs of drums, organs, and other more unusual items added to them at Snowghost Studios in Montana.
Believe it or not, the 90s wasn't the total end of the American underground music scene. That is to say, it was gradual, but I do remember there were still many off-the-wall rock bands that weren't swept by commercialism.
I swear to God something about Kid606 really irritates me. He always gets his name dropped in all the glossy fashion/music/art/lifestyles magazines but I find little substance in any of his much-ballyhooed hiphop recordings. More like the hipster version of hiphop -- all surface, maybe occasionally vulgar but inconsequential.
Paintings for Animals, self-described as 'an esoteric vocal electronic project', is an outlet for the work of one Pearson Wallace-Hoyt, currently residing in Olympia, WA. His music is occasionally quite traditionally dark ambient, but surprisingly focused and powerful, channeling the calm lucidity of various monastic traditions. His latest, "Thee Forest Ov Psalms" is a deeply meditative and spiritual release overflowing with intensity, not to mention rarer, more exotic attributes such as aural clarity and 'transparency. It is a CD of simple music and masterfully placed moments of emptiness. Each sound source and its role was so carefully chosen that it's easy to be drawn in by textures and timbres alone, and thus, less proves to be more. It is minimalistic and mesmerizing.
Genre mixing and matching. One of my favorite things in the world, especially when the genres are so far apart but the artists can make them seamlessly cohesive. In Sleeping Peonies' case, we are talking about black metal and shoegaze to put it plainly. The only other band I've ever heard do this very well was Crooked Necks, and I am kind of biased because my good friend is in that band.
‘Catharsis’ finds brutal yet creative Italian HNW project Alo Girl (which is of course is all the work of Cristiano Renzoni- whose also the other half of An Innocent Young Throat-Cutter & runs of the great Urashima label) offering up a single fifteen track of ultra thick and punishing HNW.
‘Ex Patris’ is an atmospheric, moody and entrancing collection of instrumental pieces purely for the Baroquote Lute. Dutch born and based Jozef van Wissem is one of the most respected & know modern exponents of the lute. ‘Ex Patris’ is his second solo album to be released on Important Records- it was original released on vinyl only last year, but it now receives a welcome release on CD too.
When you first listen to "Coagula" by Aleph Naught, it might sound like one of the many dark ambient albums you could stumble upon, which have nothing special to deliver beyond some spooky, slow motioned sounds & sonic textures. But however, on closer inspection of the album reveals a much deeper, insightful & bleak collection of music.
Going through the musical history of M.J Harris(who is behind the project 'Lull') would be an endless effort. On the wide spectrum of works he has, "Like a slow river" stands somewhere in the colder, more haunting zones. Those who already know Glacial Movements Records and the various albums this label offers should be able to imagine what this album is about as well. Inside this white digipack album, with a real nice artwork, there are five tracks of chilling electronic sounds, vibrating constantly like distant echoes on Antarctica and ranging from desolate icy deserts to the sounds of monumental icebergs colliding with each other and shaking the foundations of the world as in the process.
At full blast this vicious HNW attack came full force with a jagged blasting style wall. A lot of the intricacies are detectable throughout the progression of the wall and in some instances it will fade in/out and change momentum and in others subtleties bleed through the static interrupting the consistency of textures.
To be enveloped and invited into a dream-like world is the effect Shivers and Voids by The Stargazer’s Assistant has on the listener. The Stargazer’s Assistant is the creation of David J. Smith (of Guapo and Miasma and The Carousel of Dead Horses) joined by Antii Uusumaki, Sara Hubrich and Chloe Herington.
Disco Hospital is a collaborative project from Josh Landry of Nymphomania with Eric Maden from Planet Question Mark. Landrey has his own webzine called In Place of Dreary Patterns, which is also a radio show in his native Olympia, Washington. He has many releases such as this one free for anyone to download, and you can also get handmade CDr copies upon request.
Fennesz Daniell Buck’s "Knoxville" is a an improvised live collaboration album from Christian Fennesz, David Daniell(member of San Agustin) and Tony Buck(The Necks). This album is a documentation of a collaborative set that the musicians recorded on February 7th, 2009, at the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee. Prior to this the group had not met or worked with each other, but were brought together and encouraged by the festival to perform an improvised set.
Operating somewhere in the interstices between the elusive post-rock subgenres of shoegaze and black metal, Lonesummer is a one man band project from Philadelphia. ‘Satisfaction Feels Like a Tomb’, his second album, demonstrates his strong commitment to home recording through eleven tracks, each of around two to three minutes, that often feel like you’ve tuned into the midway point between a thrash metal and an indie-pop radio station.