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‘Mrs Wardh’ finds this two piece Italian & USA giallo influenced HNW project doing their sonic tribute to Sergio Martino's 1970’s classic giallo film ‘The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh’ (Lo Strano Vizio Della Signora Wardh). An Innocent Young Throat Cutter are Richard Ramirez(Werewolf Jerusalem, Black Leather Jesus, ect) & Cristiano Renzoni (Alo Girl & runner of the Urashima label),
Named after a now extinct Hawaiian bird ‘O'o’ finds John Zorn offering up another laid-back, memorable & easy listening focused collection of tracks that take in elements of: exotica ,surf, light melodic jazz, mellow soundtracks & all manner of laid-back, tuneful & sometimes lightly dramatic music.
This double disc set brings together the two volumes of the Houston Noise compilations which were complied by one of scenes originators: Richard Ramirez (Werewolf Jerusalem, An Innocent Young Throat-Cutter, Vice Wears Black Hose & many other projects)back in the mid 90’s. It’s a fiery, quite varied & grim collection through-out that offer up a great snapshot of what was sonically going on in one of America's most prolific & searing noise scenes in the mid 90's
Anthony Pateras’s Chromatophore comes waving all kinds of good pedigrees. The disc itself comes courtesy of John Zorn’s excellent Tzadik label; the composer himself has all kinds of accolades and credits to show off on the inner sleeve. It’s a shame the music itself isn’t more compelling, which forces me to say this sort of disc will appeal to two kinds of people: existing fans of Mr. Pateras, and folks who feel Jocelyn Pook is too melodic.
Sur Fond Blanc’s eleven monosyllabically-named tracks segue into each other describing a journey through modern city life. All arrangements are sparsely constructed using minimal materials: recordings of the urban environment, from footsteps in a stairwell to the creaking of a door, place the listener in a voyeuristic position, while a cold, Rhodes piano-like pad wanders almost constantly throughout the disc providing versatile glue as melody, drone or percussion, balanced by a warm bass tone.
Arecibo was Brian Williams (of pioneering Dark ambient project Lustmord) space bound ambient project that also mixed in hints of techno & electroncia too. 'Trans Plutonian Transmissions' was the projects one & only release from 1994 & here it gets a much needed reissue after been out of print for many years.
‘Demons in The Mist’ presents a c40 tape with two twenty minutes sides worth of black storm ripping, diabolic crunching & thick Harsh Noise Wall with slight sludgy industrial undercurrents from Flesh Coffin- which is one the projects of ultra busy Norwegian based Andreas Brandal(Hour of the Wolf, Drevne Bolesti, solo work, ect).
HiM(not to be confused with the finish dark metal pop band of the same name) make a vibrate, colourful & often buoyant mixture of: bright Afro Beat textures, tight & complex yet harmonic post rock & jazz rock. Pretty & ornate oriental music, dub elements & all manner of other bright yet genre mixed & world music traits. I know this sounds like it could be a mess, but HiM really pull it all off with an sunny, harmonic yet virtuoso flair through-out all of‚ñ.
Madlove is Trevor Dunn’s(Mr Bungle, Secret Chiefs 3, many Zorn related projects & solo)stab at a guitar pop rock band; but as with anything connected with Mr Dunn this is far from a straight take on the pop rock as he throws in instresting often suprsining twisted & off-kilter edgers into the mix
‘Gauze of Blackened Veils’ finds this Canadian based noise project summoning up a violent dose of blacked backwoods & psychotic sleazed Harsh noise or more active HNW attack.
This self titled album is Fearthainne debut album & it offers up two disc & over two hours worth of earthy, primal & emotional raw forest folk. The four piece project features two members of Ambient/ folk Black Metal project Fauna; & though Fearthainne are purely acoustic based project this does sometimes have the barren & angered spirit of black metal raising in it’s veins.
‘Floods’ is the last in a series of albums on the Utech label that are adorned with the dark, surreal artwork of Stephen Kasner, sleeve artist of choice for many of today’s so-called avant-metal musicians. But, unlike all other releases in the series (that includes work by Skullflower, Justin Broadrick and Runhild Gammelsæter) the sound here has also been recorded and mixed by the artist alongside a handful of select associates with the aim of translating paintings into musical concepts.
After to been rather taken by this Italian based HNW projects ‘Untitled’ Second album & it’s clean, digital take on the genre. I was egger to hear their début album, but sadly while this has it’s moments for the most part it sounds like a rather run of the mill excise in wall making.
'The Voyage Of The Decima MAS' sees The Rita return to the Troniks/Pacrec label which released such landmark & genre classic Rita/HNW recordings as: 'Thousands Of Dead Gods' , 'Bodies Bear Traces Of Carnal Violence' & 'Total Slitting Of Throats'- but this is far from simply another HNW record or a retread of The Rita’s past work.
On offer here is 60 minutes worth of violent & at times darkly atmospheric HWN collaboration between Werewolf Jerusalem(Richard Ramirez's most know & prolific project) & Remlap(the harsh wall noise project of Canadian Jake Vida who also runs Pointless Blank records).
There’s been so much experimental, digital, post-this and post-that stuff entering my ears lately that a disc of music as it might be performed live (gasp) by real people (double gasp) is as refreshing as a hike in the country after years of city asphalt. Such music is far from dead, but I fear it’s been shoved so far into the margins that it has become as much of a niche as, oh, Merzbow.
Æra's "To the Last Man / Index of Dreaming" is a 2 album foray into a distinct, although quite conventionally 'space ambient', soundworld. The closest touchstone I can think of is the always surreal but ultimately playful and warm French group Lightwave, though Æra has a greater emphasis on thick pads, relaxed zen pacing and lots of nice, thick swells of low-mid frequencies. Like Lightwave, Æra evokes the subterranean bathed in the colorful, comforting light of bioluminescence. He also finds much in common with Steve Roach's synthesizer driven works.
"Original Warmth" feels like a "for completists only" live bootleg release designed for fans of an established group. Unfortunately, as an introduction to the work of Warmth, its a bit underwhelming, although enjoyable in the right moods and in small doses.
The five lengthy pieces on ‘Oltre’ are thick with tarry dread & pour soaking doom; sound artist & uneasy mood setter Robert Curgenven users a mixture of :Resonating dubplate, Turntables, field recordings, guitar feed back & ventilation/ fan sounds to create these thick oppressive & doomed slow moving sonic places.
Riot are a old school heavy metal band who later turned into more a speed/ power metal band. The band originally formed in New York back in 1976 & are still active today, through they’ve had many line-up changers over the years with Guitarist Mark Reale been the only original member in the now present line-up. This double disc reissue offers up two of the bands most popular & respected albums from the late 80’s & early 90’s; when they had become more of a speed/power metal band with some old school metal edger’s.
Asmus Tietchens barely needs an introduction, I’d dare say: since the late 70s, this veteran of electronic music has been producing increasingly more experimental and captivating sounds. Starting out with a fairly accessible or at least fairly more traditional sound, encounters and collaborations with personae such as Masami Akita (Merzbow), Steven Stapleton (Nurse With Wound) and Dirk Serries (Fear Falls Burning, Vidna Obmana) saw him drift towards the more sonically abstract and challenging.
The term supergroup fills me with a sort of indefinable fear and apprehension; it evokes – at least to me – images of sweaty 70s men with 70s haircuts and 70s outfits, and it seems to say guitar wankery, gorilla drumming and general instrumental chest beating; what’s more, the common supergroup seems defined only by its super-ness.
‘Big Ripper’ is a punch drunk, rugged, feed-back buzzed & on the edge of a nervous break down rock record. With each track being like a staggering, lumbering big & beer heavy man tottering from one foot to another trying to do a rock ‘n’ roll dance
Multi-instrumentalist Emil Amos is most likely to be found playing as part of his psychedelic rock quartet Grails, or as the newest percussive half of Om, and yet his solo project, Holy Sons, precedes these by well over a decade.