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Passing Images finds respected Norwegian Accordionist Frode Haltli been joined by noise maker,vocalist & modern composer Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje, Trumpet player Arve Henriksen (supersilent & solo) and Voila player Garth Knox(Ensemble Intercontemporain).
The musical entity peculiarly named Bluermutt (a word suggested by eBay) creates, like the infamous Perrey & Kingsley, quite catchy pop through 'avant garde' means.
From Sweden comes Auton, a trio consisting of Douglas Holmquist, Petter Samuelsson and Rikard Heberling. Apart from regular instruments like electric guitar and Wurlitzer they also have a thing called a 'vibrafonette'.
Halfway to Dangerous has the feel of melancholic 70’s celluloid bleak social commentary film or a bizarre yet barren 70’s horror movie with burst of very real violence bourn into audio form. With it’s mixture of mournful flute, flattening doom riffs, grim organ cinematic tone, accordion down swoops and waling female vocalising.
This release on Lotus House Records is a black-bottomed CD-R presented in a nice high quality paper wallet-sleeve, with attractive silk screened gold printing. My copy is numbered as 137/200, so it's also a "limited edition" release. Kind of reminds me of the old "if a tree falls in the woods and nobody's there to see it, does it make a sound" expression. Every CD-R is more or less a limited release now. Hand numbering a release which will only sell out if it's given away to all of the band's friends and relatives has become commonplace, thus cheapening the idea of a "limited" release.
Trieb is very satisfyingly grim, suffocating & dank excise in murky old school industrial, damed electro-acoustic, barren ambience and noise matter. As the album progresses you are pushed deeper and deeper into a subterranean, decaying and clanking hell hole.
Fragments & Compositions brings together six breathtaking, exquisite and often melancholy tinged tracks of drone craft and minimalism that utilize classical strings, piano,subtle electroincs & field recordings.
Rehab is the new project from John Hegre(Jazzkammer & Noxagt) & Bjørnar Habbestad(PHO, Lemu & N- Collective). Man under train Situation is the duo's first full length and it's a manic ride into guitar improv, noise matter, quirky electronics, Cut up expansive sound scaping/ ambience and general controlled chaos.
The wonderfully entitled Folkfuck Folie is the second album from distinctive sounding French Black project Peste Noire who line their blacked craft with touches of NWOBM, punk, prog and all manner of bizarre & surprising edger’s.
In Bocca Al Lupo(in the wolfs Mouth) is the third full length album from Uk electroinca/ experimental one man project Xela. It finds J.P Twells (Xela creator and type label boss) slowing, blacking and making more cinematic his sound. Following on from the horror tinged tone of his last album The dead Sea, but dragging things down mostly into a darker and dense black ambient tone.
Black Desolate Winter / Depressive Hibernation is the next chapter in Displeased records reissuing of old albums by Striborg -the prolific and often avant garde touched one man Black Metal project from Tasmania. These two albums come from 2005 and were originally released Asgard Musik and make up near on an hour & twenty minutes of suffocating grimness.
Ghosts (Omnia Exeunt in Mysterium) is the second full length from British Dark electroncia Duo Formication,and it really sees them kicking into high gear to create some of their most psyche and head effecting tracks so far.
The Stupids were an often tuneful and humour lined British hardcore band who gave birth to a slew original, quirky, skateboard and junk Americana obsessed albums in the late 80’s. The wonderful funny,speedy memorable but highly un-pc Retard picnic from 1986 was to my mind their greatest hour & here it is reissued for the first time on cd groaning with extra tracks.
Original Darkness ten songs are acrawl with a tangible feeling paranoia; 4am sweat drenched panic and claustrophobia. All to make a very human, pained and what’s life all about album that seems to hypnotise the listening into bleak state
Falkenstein make offten sombre and ancient tinged yet memorable Germanic folk, this is the southern German collectives first album and it’s wonderfully focused and rewarding bringing to mind the more sombre side Sturmpercht.
Further Materials is a follow up to 2002's Other Materials. Both are collections of non-album tracks which originally saw the light of day on compilations with like minded artists. Richard Chartier is a sound artist, installation curator, and sometime lecturer who needs no introduction to anyone mildly interested in electronic music. He is one of the originators of the "microsound" or "lower case" form of digital music, which is, as it sounds, minimal music, usually played at minimal volume. What's intriguing about Chartier's music is that if you listen carefully, and with the volume pegged to ten, there's incredible depth to his music.
tiMOTHy is the artist behind Crow Tongue, a solo project which takes a slightly different path from acid-folk/psych ensemble Stone Breath, with whom he takes part. Crow Tongue does include some acidic touches to be sure, and some folky elements as well, but it follows a dronier, doomy path. Ghost:Eye:Seeker is one strange album, and I mean that in the positive sense of the word. The first couple of listens may leave you scratching your head though. It's hard to say whether tiMOTHy is totally serious or whether there's a deadpan, dour sense of humor beneath it all. You could compare some of this music to the droney side of the Current 93 catalog, especially since the subject matter is said to be linked to Christianity. You'd have to be either psychic or observant on some level beyond ordinary to be able to pick up on the religious aspect, as the lyrics are obscure, to say the least.
'Shamisen metal'… liek wtf? As one would type out loud on the internet. The Japanese instrument with the weird, huge plectrum seems as distant from metal as noodles to French fries. But it's a small world after all and these guys, in one form or another connected to Estradasphere prove it.
Secrets Beyond Time & Space is the debut solo release from guitarist and instrumental mood maker James Woodhead who is best know as been one half of the Pagan, psychedelic and folk project The Elemental Chrysalis, which he does with Chet W. Scott(Ruhr Hunter, Blood of the Black Owl & Glass Throat Records owner).
Anakrid make dense, darkly psychedelic and often intense and surreal electro soundscapes and dark electroinca. You can hear traces of more beat bound Coil or Cyclobe at their more filmatic, doom horror organ soundtracking, ambient industrial tone and slight noise tendencies and even slight traces of more demented Resident like cinematic and surrealism stirred into the dense mix.
After last years superb post black metal masterwork Mourner Temporary Antennae see’s one man project Caïna pushing the envelope further to breed an album that is still just linked to blacked metal but drifts effortless into post rock, 80’s shoegazing and gloomy pop , folk and all manner of sonic genre. All to build an album that is shiver inducingly great managing to be epic and personal, noisy and harmonic.
Astro is Hiroshi Hansegawa’s (C.C.C.C, solo work, ect) noisy, spacey and psychedelic drone project. And with The echo from the Purple dawn he offers up three planet sized shifting drone nirvanas to get lost in.
Saisons mixers together nature bound field recordings, improv guitar elements, electronics and clever sound editing to conjuring up strange, alien and organic sonic worlds, which for the most part remain quirky, atmospheric, none threatening but often psychedelic.
Canadian based Blood ceremony make wonderful flare shaking and devil worshiping 70’s occutic rock with odd touches of folk/ rock-ism and prog. This is the bands debut album and it’s a very satisfying dark, atmospheric and enjoyable brew.