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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.
Though this is deceptively entitled vol one this is the third release connected to Rafael Toral's space project which finds him once more creating a distinctive sound which is best described as space bound improv jazz electronics. Think a less sterile, looser, quirky and human take on Frank zappa's latter day Synclavier compositions and your half way there.
Blackout Beach is essentially a solo project by Carey Mercer, who some readers will know from his band Frog Eyes, a Vancouver based outfit. Frog Eyes music is borderline spastic, a wide-eyed multi-directional backdrop for Mercer's wordy, hyper-literate lyrics. The man on his own is similar in some ways to his parent band, but diverges in other instances.
This is the third album from unsettling Scottish mood making duo Human Greed and it finds them bring to life a disturbing and creepy yet at times beautiful sonic rumination on childhood, the place between demented dreams and semi-wakefulness and a very English take on dread.
La Ira de Dios are a Peruvian band with a penchant for some of the heaviest, most punked out space rock to come down the pike in recent memory. The band is known for their extended jams, but Cosmos Kaos Destruction changes direction, opting for a shorter, more concise tunes. I could lazily refer to their music as "stoner rock" because of some similarities to forebears from Hawkwind to early Monster Magnet, but that wouldn't be giving the band their just due.
Brad Barr is best known as the guitarist and vocalist for the the Slip, who began as a jam band, and later transformed into an indie rock band. The Fall Apartment: Instrumental Guitar presents a different side of Barr to folks accustomed to his electric guitar riffing. The fact that this is on the highly esteemed Tompkins Square label gives you a hint that this is an acoustic guitar album, since that is what they deal in pretty much exclusively. And considering the breadth of different musicians on the label, there's a consistence quality-wise which sits well above the bar.
Jailbirds is the third album by Greek bourn sound artist and mood setter Thanasis Kaproulias & it that finds him offering up two lengthy- but utterly engrossing tracks that mix together field recordings, drone matter and emotional charged noise texturing.
Live in Japan finds a mixture of tracks that take in Kylie Minoise heady and creative live noise attack and quirky Japanese TV / field recordings cut-ups giving one the feeling of a noise tour travelogue really.
Free Ringtones! attempts to both sonically and visually shocking and extreme, but more often than it not comes off been ham-fisted, juvenile and amateurishly pained.
Here sonic eccentric and Legendary Pink Dots band leader returns for a second volume of his Dream Logik songs, which on the whole is lot more consisting, rewarding and compelling than the first volume.
Earthless are a jam band of sorts, who borrow heavily from heavy Japanese Psych along the lines of the Flower Travellin' Band (with no vocals), mixed with the heavier side of Krautrock. Add Hawkwind into the mix in relation to the band's "cosmic" side, and you're partway there. The band has the lineup of a standard power trio. Drummer Mario Rubalcaba previously did time as the drummer for Hot Snakes, The Black Heart Procession, Rocket From the Crypt (under the alias of Ruby Mars) and Clikatat Ikatowi. As if that's not enough, he was also a member of skateboard pioneer Tony Alva's pro-team. Bassist Mike Eginton and guitarist Isaiah Mitchell make up the rest of the band.
Glory Fckn Sun is a collaboration between PseudoArcana label boss Anthony Milton, Ben Spiers and Simon O'Rorke. The label description says the band was ”formed in 2003 as a conduit for intense ritualistic sonic exploration" and that "Vision Scorched collects together one studio track and two live pieces. These range through long form rumbling distorted deep space explorations (complete with supernova and the odd blackhole), intense yet ethereal harsh noise to close with a droning metaphysical raga-esque paean to the great cosmic inevitable of the collapse of the sun, And of light itself." How you can hope to intimate the destruction of the solar sytem through improvised noise is beyond me, but the band certainly makes a pretty good go at achieving said goal.
Ensemble Economique is the new project from Brian Pyle one half of strange, haunted and audio acid tinged soundscape makers The Straving weirdoes. And through No GPs is still very strange and deeply atmospheric this is quite a departure from the SW expansive and dense sound.
Kappe is the second full length release by Norse electronic meets acoustic doom project Svarte Greiner and like the first album it’s another lightless and unforgiving journey in bleak atmospherics.