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Thunderwheel is the new project from Vadim Gusis who is the sonic mastermind behind the wonderful Russian music meets ambient and folk of Agnivolok & respected ethic industrial ambient collective Chaos as a Shelter. And through Thunderwheel shows Gusis usual flair for varied and exotic instrumentation this is quite different sounding from either project.
In two 3" cdr's we get to see two different sides of the Seattle-based musician Kgra, or Kristian Garrard. A nice little package, with nice music as well.
A Minority of One’s sound is very difficult to pin down, describe or put into any genre bracket, which in itself is reason alone to check them out. They mix up a very earthy, organic & often primal sound that often takes in percussive elements, natural based field recordings, droning horn work, dramatic male singing and drone textures.
Fabrikation von Konsens(Production of Consent) offers up a very heady, dense and murky collection of lo-fi electronic mood scapes and dark electroinca that weave in elements of bent and cut piano music, aged soundtrack matter and general effective/ atmospherics noise texture. All to create a series of pieces that feel like they’ve come from some strange and bent nocturnal world just beyond our normal vision.
The Bad Statistics make stumbling, droning and sleazed grange rock that’s rich with jagged discordant edger’s, haphazard sonic slumps and a rather appealing seedy atmosphere but the strangest and most unique element of the bands sound is the madden and manic vocals of lead singer Thebis Mutante; who gives one of the most unhinged and unbalance vocal performer I’ve ever heard.
Hammemit is the new strange post-black metal project from the dammed uk based souls who carved out the strange discordant and off-kilter blacked metal fruits of Emit. Hammemit sound drifts even further away from Black metal origins than Emit to conjure up an album that’s dank with the damned air of Mediaeval monastery’s that have turned to evil.
My Horns Are A Flame To Draw Down The Truth is the second album from grim & ritual ambient endeavour Tenhornedbeast that’s the project solo Christopher Walton one half of the now defunct ocultic dark ambient, neo-classical & ritual percussion project Endvra.
The Last Supper sees Zorn just using the human voice and percussion to create this compelling and surprisingly varied soundtrack for French director Arno Bouchard’s science fiction art and semi erotic film of the same name.
Noisy Pig’s boisterous, manic, daygloy and often dementedly memorable sound is a mixture of hypoactive and additive high Perrey & Kingsley quirkiness, jabbing synth punk /new-wave vibe, off-centre electro pop and careering lo-if toy based electronics.
This is the first volume of Merzbow’s biggest sonic project since the Merzbox in total there will be 13 discs in the Japanese Bird series, with one disc released each month until early 2010. Also when all 13 discs are out a very special hand made bamboo box to store all the disks is going to made available featuring a painting by Merzbow himself; so as you can see this stands as one of biggest works undertaken yet by the Japanese noise master.
Rarely if ever will I go out of the realm of the critic into the sphere of the "fan", but in order to make my point as apparent as a blow from a hammer to the head I will begin this review with the advice that you should do whatever is necessary to get your hands on Generic Flipper. From there you may want to venture on to their next couple albums. I suspect most adventurous listeners will be inclined to do so. I say this with the caveat that Flipper are not for everybody. Some may even find them over-rated. Others may think Flipper were (and in fact, still are) lazy and self indulgent. The fact is, the band themselves have admitted as much, but that doesn't mean their first couple of records aren't great.
Alx sound is about the sleek and rhythmic cutting of instrumental textures and field record elements to make sophisticated, atmospheric and often tuneful electro acoustic IDM. Often Alx feels like a more worldly wise, sleek and grown up version of Aphex Twins early string and instrumental cut-up tracks, but with out the drill ‘n’ bass elements.
Dream Time sees German experimental collective Column One create another very thematically based album that picks distinct musical genre traits to paint and put across its theme. With the albums theme is sex and how it’s used to often sell and promote anything and everything in often very dodgy and sleazy manner.
After David Tibet’s many flirtations with doom metal and 70’s tinged rock guitar over the last few years Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain sees this element well and truly set into the Current 93 sound- to make a very different and distinct record that sounds quite unlike anything the project has produced so far.
This rather pleasing and mellow reissue of 60’s country pop/easy listening brings together the first two solo albums by country/ Bluegrass legend Charlie Louvin;Less & Less & I don’t Love you any more from 1964 & Lonesome is me from 1966.
Vice Wears Black Hose is harsh noise/wall noise project that brings together two respected US noise mongers in the form of Sam McKinlay of The Rita and Richard Ramirez of Werewolf Jerusalem & Black Leather Jesus. This cd takes in one long 40 minute track of unforgiving harsh static texturing and soinc suffocation.
Die Rote Form make very stern yet grimly atmospheric licked power electronics meets old school industrial sonics. Grass Breaks Concrete is the band second full length cdr release packed in a nice professional manner in a glossy paper oversized sleeve.
Snuff Jazz is another unforgiving, deeply searing and caustic slice of noise/ jazz attack from the inventors and masters of the form Borbetomagus. The disk finds them making some of their most grating, punishing and sonic acid tinged work yet; that’s head boil yet wonderful invigorating too.
Cincinnati finds Wiese & Spencer conjuring up a collection of bizarre, jarring and strange sonic pictures that sit somewhere between improv, noise, freak show junk yard percussiveness & off-centre atmospherics. Quite often the album feels like a soundtrack to a very odd and deranged cartoon or Dali type world were the laws of sanity and logic don’t seem to exist- at times it’s nightmarish and at others sadistically comic .
Man from Deep river is the fourth collaborative album between BJ Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa and it sees the pair making their most consistent, compelling and complete record yet.The album sees the pair stepping away from the trilogy of drink related albums Vikinga Brennivín, Drykkjuvisur Ohljodanna & passing-out to look for new inspiration.
Berlin Backyards finds Swiss sound artists Gilles Aubry building pressing/swirling drones and sound texture sheens from subtle manipulated field recordings sourced from various Berlin backyards over the winter of 2006.
Oxygen Flash is another cinematic and sci-fi tinged slice of sonic exploration from KK Null taking in his usual mixture of electroinca, noise matter & field recordings. This time appearing on of all places on Neurosis's Neurot Recordings.
Broken Arm Trio is a mainly up-beat and very bassy sounding jazz trio featuring Cellist Erik Friedlander(solo & various John Zorn related projects) who also composed all the tracks here, Trevor Dunn( Mr Bungle, solo work & various Zorn related projects, etc) and Michael Sarin on Drums.
Ascanio Borga cut his teeth playing guitar in noise rock bands, evidence of which rears its head fairly early into Xenomorphic, his new disk on the under-recognized Afe label. The (title) track starts off in an ambient neo-Eno vein and then splits off into a thumping one chord metal riff. It's only metal in relation to the guitar tone actually. If the tone was different it could pass for a Krautrock motif because of the stuttering, repetitive rhythm. Borga augments the guitar pattern with other guitar noises, sometimes gratuitous soloing, tasteful percussion and a bevy of granulated background sounds. There also seems to be some bass, which sounds like the real deal, though it's getting increasingly more difficult to tell these days, with the advent of digital music programming. Borga has a musical background, and the painterly quality of the aforementioned title track makes this very evident. He starts the piece with noise, subtly piling on each element, slowly building forward momentum, the caps it off with the same noisy background which began it.