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This bizarrely entitled album is another fevered and improvised trip into musical and sound from the minds of the @c (Miguel Carvalhais and Pedro Tudela)- it’s a dense mix of rhythmic elements, field recording, modern classical and avant jazz textures, electronic elements, noise and of course improv- having been quite taken by their De-Tour collaboration from last year with Vitor Joaquim I had high hopes for this.
Music for Phantoms is the new project from My cat is an Alien brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio, which mixers together melodic and haunted acoustic guitar elements with primitive wooden instruments / percussive tones and the odd feedback glide- all to make a strange, edgy and beautiful one long track cd with an accompanying film on DVD-R disk.
The second full length by German drone artist Feu Follet, is about as icy as his debut, The Icycle Lectures, Vol. 1.
Small Doses is a label which released this small dose indeed. A cute 3" cdr by the American electronic musician Nicholas Szczepanik (I'm starting to be able to type his last name without having to check on it).
Sic Alps are a band who really know how to mix it up. It's hard to know what direction these guys are going to take from one recording to the the next. This handy compilation CD collects a bunch of currently expensive vinyl and cassette collectables in one package. Though a little less scarce than the singles this is drawn from, A long Way Around to a Shortcut is itself limited to 1000 copies.
Don’t be fooled or put off by the title this has nothing to do with what you’d usually associate with dance music there’s no beats, dramatic sonic movements or any real melody or structure here. The two long tracks here are built around piercing and persistent feedback drones and mimlistic noise texturing and electronic tones.
Sub Templum is the second album from crushing UK doom project Moss and it sees them moving away from the dammed seething lovecaft pit doom of their 2005 debut album Cthonic Rites, to a more polished slow ocultic descent into hell it’s self.
This is a 1987 collaboration between post industrial/ electroincia/ experimental artist 6comm and self proclaimed ‘Norse Occultist’ Freya Aswynn, who’s also appeared on several Current 93 albums. The album consists of nine tracks of spoken/ dramatically acted out Norse gods based texts over 6comm's shifting post industrial, cinematic, often horn heavy and brooding soundscapes.
Steve Von Till's reputation precedes him, as a member of Neurosis, a band who, on his watch, have experimented just about as much as possible within the bounds of punk and metal. A Grave is a Grim Horse is a continuation of Von Till's journey through gothic America, as well as folk, all filtered through a grimy whiskey glass. What strikes me immediately is that Von Till's voice sounds remarkably like Mark Lanegan, though I have yet to see it stated by anyone else. The music's pace and rustic melancholy could also be mistaken for Lanegan's style, especially his Sub Pop albums. You certainly can't fault Von Till for these similarities, perhaps it's just coincidental that the two have similar musical preferences.
Keith Kenniff is most know for his harmonic electroncia project Helios with this his third album under the Goldmund name he strips the electronics complete out to produce 15 piano only tracks of great harmonic and atmospheric depth which hint at the likes at of Erik Satie, Ludovico Einaudi, etc -but with Kenniff's own distinct twist on piano music.
After the excellent acoustic based new album The Rule Of Thirds, Black Angel–live sees Death In June presenting a great snappy, no nonsense and highly enjoyable live acoustic set recording in Esplanade Hotel in Melbourne, Australia in May, 2000- this was one of the first stripped acoustic show- released here for the first time.
Dyonisus- Dyonisos harness the surreal sound scapeing of Hoor-paar-Kraat and the seething noise power of Feaclove to create something quite unique and rewarding in its own right away from either parties already impressive work.
High Mountain Tempel make swirling, psychedelic, spacey, dread filled and dark ritual chocked soundscapes with a mix of guitar, theremin, vocal effects, effects peddles and ltd percussive matter. A screaming comes across the sky is the projects first release.
This wonderful double disk collection shows a very different and often un-noisy side to one of the originators of the Power electronics genre Kevin Tomkins(Sutcliffe Jügend, Ex whitehouse,ect), with the tracks going from drone and ambient, electroncia, modern classical, electro- acoustics and all over the experimental map really to make a wholly consistent and rewarding set that will appeal to any experimental music fan.
Automne Fold follows the trend of many recent Raster-Noton releases by taking their distinctive and often clinically minimalist electronic sound into new and fascinating sonic places. Automne Fold is possible one of the most accessible, dense and atmospheric release so far on the label with some tracks even featuring vocals.
Bff is a day glow often dense mix of electroinca, hip-hop beats, disco, funk and jazz with the album starting off quite hectic and all over the place with beats, funky bass lines, synth, smoky sax and all manner cut up samples come at you from all angles, but later on it gets a bit more atmospheric and a bit more laid-back.
Wooden Shjips self-titled debut was a strange, yet cohesive album which was preceded by couple of hard to come by 7"'s and a 10", which were gobbled up very quickly. Vol. 1 performs the laudable service of collecting those releases for those who missed out the first time around. Last years' album, (also on the superb Holy Mountain label) included a lot of the elements hinted at in the grooves of the singles, yet in a more refined, somewhat more laid back form.
Paralyzed is the second album by Witch, a band who have generated a little ink as a result of the occupant of their drum seat, J. Mascis. Of course J. is better known as the guitarist and lead singer of indie-legends Dinosaur Jr., but his influence doesn't appear to figure too deeply in Witch's sound, at least on the surface. Instead, these guys seem way more intent in resurrecting the beast of Uriah Heep or something.
Pestilence and Peril is a bit of an off kilter take on black metal. If one chooses to categorise it as such. It's got quick tremolo riffs, scary voices, and distorted, post apocalyptic, burned world sound affects, which have certainly found their way onto many metal albums. Sometimes the vocals head a bit into death metal territory, as they're delivered with a guttural growl. But where black metal is, sometimes purposefully, poorly recorded, to the point where such a sound has become somewhat generic, Pestilence and Peril is clearly and professionally recorded. I say clearly, but that's not to say there isn't a fuzzy ambience present.
The Fun years are a duo, consisting of turntablist Isaac Sparks and baritone guitarist Ben Recht. Their music takes a few approaches to create an ambient space, some of which may spark memories of several similarly aligned artists, both recent and vintage. The scratchy, possibly old records used by Sparks will inevitably draw comparisons to Philip Jeck. The differences may be subtle, but what stands out is the fact that the Fun Years' music sounds relatively modern, not aged, as Jeck's music does. Some of the guitar passages throughout the album do echo Fripp and Eno, to the extent that the guitars are used to create a soft atmospheric backing. It seems as though anyone who uses a digital delay these days is designated with that comparison for some reason, yet Recht invokes "Frippertronics" without any of the stiff, unemotional detachment which often goes along with that tag.
Somnaphobia is a two way split between Polish based noise project The Sleep sessions and north Carolina horror obsessed harsh noise and dread filled grey drone project Thirteen Fingers with each party offering up six tracks each.
Arijigoku finds Merzbow returning to his former musical life before noise as a drummer, with heavy use of live drum rhythms to create what’s best described as a jamming noise record with rock and jazz influence rhythms abound. It’s another curious often rewarding progression in his shifting sound world.
Mattias Petersson take on electoinca is damaged, juddering and stuck, though it often shows great melodic flare and beauty as well as noisy and atmospheric learning’s too. Floodlight is his second full length and his first release for Ideal Recordings.
The Fighting Cocks make a very English and often comic mix of punk, rap, easy listening and cheesy music sampling/turntabling, pop, gypsy and world music, film samples and all manner of other madness. Think a deranged cross between Chumbawamba, Jive Bunny, Pop Will Eat Itself, drunken doo wop and plundertronics, chugging punked guitars. Music For Lapdancers is their second album on their label Fekete Galamb Zene