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Dusty Mason is Ben Purscell, a rural Pennsylvanian stone mason by trade, who has recently taken to carving headstones. Ahab's Revenge - Hot Tears, Cold Ocean is undoubtedly a more refined and cohesive album than his previous work with the Grave Cowboys. Their lone album, Dead Man Shoes includes some fine songs, and listened to in pieces works well enough. In the end, though, it comes across like so many first albums do, as an unfinished work in progress, an artist, or in this case a band, figuring out how to navigate their way through the recording studio. Dusty Mason on his own sounds relaxed away from the confines of the hard-lined clock tick-ery of the studio, having recorded Ahab's Revenge... at home. With no outside intervention, these recordings are almost like diary entries, personal reminiscences of daily events and thoughts. Not that these songs aren't well though out or, if you'll pardon the pun, carefully hewn. It's just that Dusty's personality is indelibly imprinted onto each one. It would be easy to lazily file this music under alternative folk or country, and though there's certainly a little of both folk and country elements, it doesn't fit neatly into either category. It's distinctly American music, seen through a dirty lens, slightly out of skew.
Musically Kinit Her sit in place somewhere between mid-pace 90's Scandinavian black metal, dark horror metal, darkly hued folk rock, blackly sounding Russian and Jewish sounding string pluck and bow, along with hints of ritual elements and a damned theatrical air. And if all that wasn’t an interesting enough concoction just wait until you hear the vocals.
From Wasteland Mausoleums, the last collaboration between Finish noise maker Cloama & the more atmospheric fellow countrymen Blutleuchte was one of my favourite releasers of 07; with it’s mixture of gothic cinematics, dammed world music and general creative/atmospheric genre pick and mix. So I was very excited to see this appearing.
Violent Nun is a reissue of the first 7inch from Uk Hardcore funster The stupid’s; this was originally released way back in 1985 & it shows the band with a more American punk based sound than their later distinctive speedy and memorable UK core sound.
Perceiving The World with Hate is the next grim yet creative sonic chapter in Striborg’s distinctive take on the black metal genre, it shows Striborg repeating old tricks effectively but adding in a few new ones to the blacked pot too.
Adventures in sound is a rather splendid compilation that focus in on early electronic & Electro-Acoustic composition, musique concrète, and avant garde composition. Collecting together tracks from: Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry and Edgard Varèse. Making this an highly enjoyable, varied primer and introduction to these old avant-garde masters
Varde follows on from the dread soaked sea bound wonder of Elegi 's first album 07's Sistereis- but offers up a denser, more aged, textured and varied edge to the projects doomed classical meets grainy electronics sound.
Jaennerwein are a new Austrian folk band from the Salzburg area that mix together the alpine folk sound of bands like Sturmpercht & Falkenstein with neo-folk and old school folk elements along with often quite cinematic and atmospheric leanings.
One-way Ticket to Candyland pumps out a manic and strange melding of jagged hardcore meets overloaded lo-fi synth and wavering gone wrong synth drum patterns; with the odd drifts no less strange, un-nerving and sickly ambient dwells and ebbs
Urfe is a double disk concept album based around a deranged, surreal and sinister take on an Alice In wonderland type tale. It finds English Post Black metal project The Axis of Perdition focusing in on the more grim, unhinged ambient and black industlized cinematic side of their sound, with defined blacked metallic elements not appearing until midway into the second disk and then only fleetingly.
The Bujùn Freak Show is a two way split between two acts that mix: quirky beats, noise, Plunderphonics elements, the odd hints of industrialized matter and atmospheric guitar scaping. All in all it’s an fairly enjoyable and creative split packaging in a eye catching 7 inch card sleeve with retro pictures on
O Ajuntas das Sombras is a darkly enchanting, often hypnotic and at times very creepy shot of earthy woodland and ritual based dark ambience and chilling drone craft with hints of slowed and damned folk matter woven in here and there along the albums deep dark and compelling woodland track.
Box is Stupid is a really luxurious and rather neat boxset that brings together 10 cd's worth of early out print 1990’s tape releasers by Japanese noise tearing duo The Incapacitants. It's really a must have item item for any serious and discerning noise fan
Ram Black is an ultra bleak and violent mixture of noise, blackened metal and doom guitar tone, brooding pitch black ambience and the odd primal industrial battering.
RST is New Zealand's Andrew Moon, an artist who, though he has been known by those three initials for over a decade, seems tailor made for the Utech label. His electric guitar experiments are carefully arranged as to appear fully composed, yet on the other hand naturally flowing, indicating at least some level of improvisation. Moon's approach to the guitar is not unheard of; he shapes feedback and seems to rarely if ever actually touch the strings of the instrument. What he culls from what has become an increasingly commonplace practice is what sets him apart; he creates a massive, cavernous atmosphere by overlapping elements created by plenty of analog effects and more than enough amplification.
This is a rather active, quirky, textural varied and enjoyable long form piece of improv that was original recorded and put out in 1977 and here returns in a digital remaster form.
Sum of R’s sound sit’s in an heady and atmospheric place between doom metallic’s, guitar drone craft, filmatic post-rock scaping, grim ‘n’ glighty ambience and general atmospheric dwell and unfold
After using a fair bit of percussive matter and bombastic live improv drum battering on a few of his recent albums, Tombo finds Merzbow returning to a dense, psychedelic and swirling noise attack that’s total striped of all percussive matter.
Krallice take on black metal is precise, epic and virtuoso yet still blackly satisfying and often brutally speedy; this their debut presents six lengthy and complex tracks of blacked harmonic and memorable black metal craft.
New York Nuts & Boston Baked Beans brings together C Spencer Yeh’s(Burning Star Core & numerous of other projects )Violin sawing, noisy improv and weird vocalising. And Paul Flaherty Tenor and Alto sax work-outs that flirt between been noisily honking and violent, and harmonic and raggedly smoky. With the pair been joined by the searing trumpet burns of improviser Greg Kelley on the last two tracks.
The Idealist is Joachim Nordwall, known as a member of the Skull Defekts. This solo excursion may surprise people acquainted with the usually more extroverted, guitar oriented music that the latter band puts forth. I am the Fire consists of what might be termed industrial drone music, but beyond that, it defies description. It's not clanking industrial noise, nor is it of the ear-piercing feedback variety. It's quiet, almost silent at times. But underneath it all, there's a pall which hangs over this music which is hard to shake.
Cisfinitum sound sits in a wonderful place between chorale and classical based ambience, subtle industrial and electronica elements to make music that’s both haunting & beautiful yet at times edgy and head swimming- but it’s always captivating and deeply atmospheric.
"Thanks to: family and friends for inspiration", it makes you wonder what inspiration this could be, as Home Is Where The Hurt Is drags you in into a pitchblack pool of noise, dark ambient and power electronics that seems to be an adequate depiction of nothing less than hell.
‘Percussion’ as percussion presents it self as a fairly high brow and scholarly project and is supposable a reading/ performance of John Mowitt’s book Percussion: Drumming, Beating, striking; but in reality it’s an attack on the sonic sensors using wall noise, deeply layered and bewildering spoken word elements and overload sonic collages that take in TV chatter, crowd sounds, all manner of music and other sonic matter.