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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.
“Notre- Dame De Bonne Mort” offers up three twenty five minute plus tracks of thick, grim, oppressive yet hypnotic Wall-making from this mysterious skull, crypt and graveyard obsessed project from western France.
“Que Crève Le Vieux” (roughly translated “"the old world must go to hell"”) is a HNW tribute to 18th century French anarchists and writer Albert Libertad who founded one of the worlds most important anarchist journals L’Anarchie.
R.S.P is rough ‘n’ nasty power electronics meets brutal ‘n’ sludgy noise drone project of Louisiana based Joseph Gates(Slaughter-Fetus, Vargrwulf and Peiste). Reptilian Sexual Predator is the projects second release after a C47 tape which also appeared on Violent Revolution International (as does most of Mr Gates releases).
It seems as though since the band DEVO has become popular again in today's post-ironic age (or whatever this age is supposed to be) there's been lots of bands dressed-up in bizarre costumes, such as the PeelanderZ and (I'm assuming) this new band from Austria called simply "Ni". In this case, this band prefer Led Zeppelin-style spacesuits. And yet this music is heavy, but more in a discordant King Crimson style...
This four disc release finds this highly prolific Serbian based HNW project taking the work of eight other HNW acts (Griz+zlor,Självhat,Smrznik, Å, Oblive,Svartvit and Werewolf Jerusalem.) And feeds it through his peddles to create depraved and mainly more brutal takes on the original tracks.
I don't know what musical style Comparative Anatomy are calling themselves. I read the phrase "experimental drum and bass" somewhere, and there's definitely some kind of pervasive wannabe grindcore thing going on here, but really this album "Mammalia" is first and foremast a lazy collection of shallow and unlistenable novelty gags. Basically, they play simplistic fist-in-the-air groove metal patterns with a distorted bass (which sounds okay but very bland - and exactly the same in every song!), add in some ham fisted distorted kick drum and snare sounds and repetitious stock recordings of animals and call it done.
“Isolation der Essenz” is the newest release from this slightly off kilter yet grimy atmospheric ambient black metal meets dark synth scaping project from Rivne Ukraine. The project is a one man band, and it has been active since 2004 so far amassed just over 60 releases.
This two tape split brings together a c60 and a C30 tape from two fierce and unrelenting HNW acts from either sides of the globe. On tape one we have Croatian based one man project Placenta Lyposuction, and on tape two we have mysterious Californian four piece XSXCXEXBX.
This c30 split brings together two side long tracks from two openly gay ‘n’ proud noise acts(just check out the cover pic of the muscular man). On side one we have Irish extreme electrionca/ Harsh noise/ HNW project Where Is This(aka Mark Ward who also runs the Bored Bear label). And on the second side we have a side long track from Richard Ramirez's static textured HNW project Werewolf Jerusalem.
"La volupté de la destruction est une volupté créatrice"(rough translation The pleasure of the destruction is a creative pleasure) finds this unrelenting French HNW project offering up a single five minute track of crusty static locked judder.
Maintained and directed by core members Lasse Marhaug and John Hegre, longrunning harsh noise and avant jam rock supergroup Jazkamer has surged into 2010 with a slew of releases, including this full length, "We Want Epic Drama", which sounds something like a violent hurricane caught on tape. This album features a line up of a whopping six members (noise makers), making for a frenzy that is curiously constant and unstructured. One gets the sense that all the musicians, whether they are laying into a drumset as fast and heavy as humanly possibly or creating chaotic, metallic feedback textures with a guitar, are reaching for the same heavenly roar, but there is no distinguishable pattern or rhythm to the sounds. The mammoth sonic presence they have achieved is formidable to say the least, but I don't know if 'epic drama' is the best term for it - I would not attempt to describe this recording in terms of the emotionality or sentimentality often found inconventional music.
2010 has brought us Allerseelens latest release Rauhe Schale. The creation of Gerhard Halstatt; here he is joined with musicians Dimo Dimov and Marcel P. (also members of Miel Noir), Annabel Lee (Blood Axis) and Meri Tadic (from Eluveitie). Allerseelen has been playing their innovative brand of music for 20 + years now. What they create is a unique mix of what can be described as Folk Industrial. That may sound a bit contrived but in Allerseelens’ hands its hardy the case.
MW presents two 13 minute drones, one per side of the cassette, the format playing a strong part in adding a light crumbling texture and hiss to the minimal, monotonal proceedings.
I know nobody likes reading what the jerkbag reviewer thinks of an album BEFORE he listens to it. "I thought this was going to sound like _______ but boy was I wrong!" Well, I think I have an excuse this time to write about my "judging a book by it's cover" moment because I was exactly right. For some reason, I had a feeling this was going to be a beautifully recorded, avant-garde, free-jazz, freak-folk jam that would end up really impressing me. It was only 20 seconds into the first track that I was giving myself a pat on the back.