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The Incredible String Bands first self titled album original appeared back in 1966, and it showed a lot more stripped down and acoustic guitar based sound from the often muilt-layered and genre mixing psychedelic folk sound they became know and loved for.
The front cover of this new untitled album from Vomir features a simple picture of a cracked speaker which is extremely fitting- as for the near on forty minutes Vomir lays down a crushing and caustic slice of HNW that awaits for you when you slip this disk into your chosen playing slot.
Marinos Koutsomichalis claims his music is about texture and qualities of sound, not expression. Certainly, his textures are often as subtle and perfectly processed as the work of Aube or z'ev, high praise coming from me. There is only very loose structure to the pieces, an important distinction from the often mathematical, precise compositional work of the aforementioned artists. He admits this. It sometimes leads to an awkward and discontinuous listening experience; your time is apparently not important to the artist, who also happens to be an incredibly patient, meticulous man. To some, I suppose this merely means he is uncompromising.
A fair number of us, I think, give some token credence to the concept of the earth as a living thing. This album—the latest since Winderen’s amazing Heated: Live in Japan—brings that notion to life in a way that’s as immediate and physical as the previous album. Like that record, I didn’t just want to listen to this music; I wanted to make a meal out of it.
My first listening to the this album by Ulv left me feeling like there was almost no sound on the disk, but I later found that "Stille Storm" is not actually quite as minimal as first impression may convince one it is.
Ah, good ol’ harsh noise. What would we do without it? Sure, we’ve got our power electronics, and our harsh noise walls, and all our various derivatives and sub- and super-genres, and we can probably manage pretty well with just the crunching filth of HNW and/or the misogynist mania of PE, but every once in a while, still, we experience a craving for relentless screeching and white noise and ear-splitting feedback, and it’s at those times that we pull out As Loud As Possible or Love & Noise and fall in love all over again. Vestigial Limb’s Ray Shinn never lost harsh noise out of sight, though, and his project is the best expression of his love for the genre one could wish for.
What’s the best way to kill a throbbing headache? Aspirine’s probably the most conventional solution. Personally, however, I find the best way to get rid of it is by knocking it up another notch. Nothing makes a searing headache feel better than blasting some particularly painful harsh noise at full volume. Some of my most ecstatic and hallucinatory listening I’ve experienced while high on throbbing migraines. Driving home from work and enjoying a massive headache just the other day, I pop in the ruckus that is the White Dog/Gomeisa split. And immediately feel better.
Obskuria is a very large neo-psychedelic group from Germany, and this is their second album. It's a very good mix of retro-late 60s/early 70s psychedelia, acid and doom-metal with a futuristic Hawkwind feel.
The two groups on this split, Ur and Iron Molar, compliment each other well; they are the same kind of music, the same balance of subgenres. They rest neatly between dark ambient, drone and noise. Unfortunately, both groups' tracks sometimes drag on without becoming truly immersive or building momentum, and display an occasional lack of textural creativity.
Inside this impressive, black heavy paper sleeve is Gog's dark, heavy and expansive album "Mist from the random more". The album comprises of three powerful tracks that range between 7 and 23 minutes long, the second track is the central piece as it’s the longest, and the first and last tracks can be seen as perhaps prologue and epilogue for a very heavy and sharp juggernaut of an album.
Sexterminator 69 name suggests they could be either a perverse power electronics project, or a sleazy euro industrial band, or maybe even bondage obsessed hardcore punk band- but they are neither of these three possibilities, instead there a one man Italian based HNW project.
David Cunningham is perhaps best known for being the man behind the Flying Lizards, a collection of experimental and improvising musicians who against all odds had a hit with their quirky version of “Money.” Aside from that brief flirtation with pop he has being a very active as both a musician and a producer (A large number of the Michael Nyman soundtrack albums are produced by him).
“Falsehoods” offers up a c90 worth of battering, hopeless, often crusty and quite detailed HNW & dense static texturing from this Missouri based project that’s all the work of one Jeff Landgraf- whose also in the more spectral sounding HNW project Mass Graves.
This impressive and grim looking art booklet and CDR set came out back in 2007 and sees Griz+zlor offering up four nineteen minute tracks of fearsome, bleak and unforgiving wall matter.
Ecoute La Merde(meaning Listen to the Shit in English) is an French based active HNW project. And this first volume of Dedicated To The Living Dead( the second vol is reviewed here & featured A View From Nihil) sees the project offering up a single near on twelve minute track- so I guess you’d call this an ep or a single on a full sized CDR.
Should the emphasis here be on “twisted” or “cabaret”? Here we have eighteen tracks (plus a sixteen-track bonus DVD) from various artists, all in what could charitably be called a cabaret / music all style, all highly bemused, sardonic, sarcastic and proudly decadent.
“Mondo Cane” is not Mike Patton’s re-soundtracking of the classic 1962 pseudo-documentary of the same name, neither is it a collection of mondo or cannibal soundtracks done in Patton distinctive style. Instead it’s a selection of flamboyant, playful and quirky cover versions of 1950’s & 60’s Italian pop music.
“Alhambra Love Songs” finds Mr Zorn in mellow, elegant and often effortless melodic mood as he conjures up a mixture of easy listening, felt to upbeat jazziness and more filmatic pieces . The album features the trio of: Rob Burger on Piano, Greg Cohen on bass and Ben Perowsky on drums.
A collaborative effort here from two people who have both recently been involved in excellent projects with Lydia Lunch. Perhaps collaborating with Lydia led to them meeting and getting together to record this album.
Elegies For The End is Svartsinns’ fourth album. Released in 2009 (in conjunction with their 10th anniversary), the 2 disc set (in limited editions of 1000 copies) features one disc of songs and another of remixes (containing remixes by Triarrii, Letum, Gustaf Hildebrand and Tenebrious among other).
Birch Book is, of course, another project from B'ee, best known for being the frontman for the excellent psychedelic-folk group In Gowan Ring, who probably don't need any further introduction. IGR are definitely one of my favorite acts, so I'm excited about having to review this release.
'A Colour for Autumn' is one of several albums released by the prolific Lawrence English in 2009. Over time sound-artist/musician English has shown many faces and approaches within electronic world- this album is a delicate and beautiful work within the drone and ambient fields of the electronic world.
Samsara Blues Experiment play truly psychedelic rock with a modern stoner metal twist. They obviously love their classic rock, and do list Led Zeppelin as a primary influence, but their songwriting and perfect synergy as players make this album a real standout from the pack that never sounds much like any single other band.
This double C40 tape set offers up two projects from Uk based uneasy drone maker & general sonic un-settler Lee Stokoe. On the first tape we have two tracks/sides from his most know prolific & project Culver, and on the second tape he’s joined by George Proctor (Mutant Ape, Murder Book,ect) for two sides of the pairs joint project Inseminoid.