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In Remembrance of me is a dense, swampy and often atmospherically licked sonic stew of noise and drone textures built with only the use of vinyl and tapes, the pair of Jay Sullivan and Howard Stelzer building up a rich, strange and haunted sonic world.
Borbetomagus are a boiling pot of jazz, noise, avant-rock, electroincs and improv. This is a reissue of one of their most loved and respected albums, original recorded live on Halloween 1986, here the original issued 32 minute set is joined by an extra equal manic 21 minute set.
Guitarist Jeff Gburek says the title Red Rose For The Sinking Ship takes arcane essence. It's a sonic essay about Mao Zedong's leadership of the Chinese revolution.
Bitter Sweet is sound and ambient artist Sawako forth album and it finds her pulling and morphing organic instrumental colours into beautiful, atmospheric and detailed sonic sheens and lush drone expanse. Though electronic processing is used through out it never feels synthetic or cold, it’s always feels very real, natural and organic as if growing from out of your play back system filling your listening and head space with an often warming sonic glow.
This three way split was original released as a give away for everyone who attended the recent Merzbow, Sutcliffe Jügend and Satori London show now it’s available to everyone else until the pressing of a 1000 runs out. And it’s a nice handy primmer to hear where all of the projects sounds were on the night with these exclusive tracks- with the Merzbow track been a monster size track near 15 minutes.
Recordcompanies complain a lot about dwindling sales, pointing fingers to everybody but themselves, yet on the other end of the spectrum you'll find more releases than ever before.
The Danish trio Svartbag was founded in 2002 by A.REX and Niels Ladefoged. With Peter Kyed they eventually became a trio, occasionally augmented by Dureforsog drummer Andreas Hauer-Jensen.
Miss Autopsy make bitter, murderous, bad feeling and often awkward sounding mix of unwell pop music, droning organs, jagged/sparse indie and wondering punked folk music. I guess the best comparison would be a more barren/ bittered and awkward cousin of the Paper Chase.
This fiery and unforgiving split between Italian noise pervert Fecalove and Hong Kong based power electronics violators Morbid Behaviour is the first release on H.I.E production a new noise label from Hong Kong.
I’ll have to admit I’d been rather underwelmed by the recent live come back album by uk dark ‘n’ surreal electronics/ folk/ what every collective Contrastate, But A Live Coal under the ashes is a whole different kettle of dark ‘n’ heady fish. It's really up their with some of coils best work and one of the finest examples of dark and psychodelic sound scaping your likely to find. The album was original released in from 1992 here it’s reissued with an extra track from the same time.
Broult is a startling, virtuoso and above all entertaining album that shines light on the possibilities of what a rock band can create and do just using bass, guitar and drums. The album sits between been improvised and composed, seesawing and mixing between jazz, fired up rock, world music traits, the blues, funk and more experimental textural rock/ improvised expansive sound.
The Massacre of the egos is the bringing together of five of Australia’s most respected and versatile jazz musicians for a collection of highly rewarding and varied improvised tracks that go from angular and dense, to playful and pretty, to striped down, barren and a little odd- all weaved in and out with melodic edges and atmospheric bite.
Fursaxa's sound is a dense and psychedelic enchanted forest of layered folk & raged choral and harmony vocals lined with hypnotic stuck ambience and ritualistic sonic colour, Touching down in strange wonder, dread and spiritual wonder of the natural.
Elixirs is an exquisitely dark and heady mix of instrumental rock, jazz, shadowy classical tones, world music edger’s, prog and soundtrack tones. Though you can define their influencers this comes across as very darkly fresh and exciting mix of sounds that they make totally their own, having heard mentions of Guapo many times it’s nice to hear the band and for once find their better than expected.
Omen is the final album by Half Makeshift, a one man operation helmed by Nathan Michael. The reason for his retreat from musical activities is very interesting indeed. Michael believes, as a result of his biblical studies, that the world is going to end in 2011, and he needs to expend his time spreading the word. If you have any doubt as to whether or not this is some sort of prank or publicity stunt, see the Profound Lore website. There is, oddly enough, a press release of sorts, authored by Michael explaining the reasons for his lack of future involvement nor any interest in distributing this or any of his previous albums.
Caves hovers between discord and beauty, between drone and improvised to build a collection of pieces that swings between hypnotic, poignant, emotional pulling and strange.
Oxide’s tense, stark and white neon bleak soundworlds are built from corrupted, decaying and damp ruined taped elements & Over the piece's near on hour playing time a very real feeling of anticipation, dread and starkness is built up, that at times almost reachers fever pitch.
Oozing Bass Spasms finds Mr Schirach simplifying and adding more tuneful yet still stomping edger to his once complex and brain frying electronica. But without loosing his very distinct sound this is just more purified and focused- but still as demented, depraved and plainly odd as always.
Invocation of the sleeper offers up one track of rhythmic based dark ocultic ambience that mixers together gong tones, horror curdled synth drifts and general attempts to sound ominous and disturbed.
Lie Down in the Light came almost out of nowhere a couple of weeks ago. There was no huge ad campaign, even by Drag City's somewhat modest standards. Oddly enough, it's probably Will Oldham's most accessible and well rounded album, well, maybe ever. Of course, that's a loaded statement, considering the generally high quality of the man's work over an almost twenty year career. 1999's I see A Darkness is widely considered Will Oldham's best, and justifiably so, but in between then and now, he has displayed a restlessness (which some mistake as recklessness) of spirit, and as a result, his music hasn't always been consistent. His last album, the Letting Go, was a smooth, highly burnished album. The vocals were almost always just barely above a whisper, and the music was hushed and simple. The only flaw being the very same one which has plagued the last few Bonnie 'Prince' Billy albums; there are a few songs which come across more like sketches than finished songs. This lack of continuity has been a source of frustration, especially considering the fact that Oldham may be one the finest songwriters of his generation. It's possible that these sketches are the result of Oldham's eagerness to experiment, and for his reputation as an individual who works best at the spur of the moment. If his muse requires him to explore these seemingly inconsequential avenues in order to gain access to a unique path, then so be it.
River Mouth Echoes takes the listener on a varied, manic, strange and beautiful sonic journey mixing together noise, modern classical, improvising, jazz, orchestral music and Ratkje breathtaking and sometimes frightening voice.
Angry Eelectric Finger is one of the most release heavy projects of NWW career firstly there was the four original cd’s that featured remixes/ retakes of the original NWW piece by other artists, and a futher four disk vinyl set which represented the 3 remixes again and the original and un-tampered & unreleased zero mix. This wonderfully plush box set is really the cherry toping on the top of the whole project- featuring a full colour 220 page hardback book illustrating the 100 original paintings done for the project, the original zero mix of NWW material and a new unreleased album.
Italy has given birth to a wide array of artists whose personalities are frankly peculiar. Though Le Orme has been compared to bands like Emerson, Lake and Palmer, due mainly to the fact that Le Orme itself is a trio, their music is so passionately and carefully played that listeners can’t help but abide.
The Grey Daturas are a relatively prolific trio from Melbourne whose music can be a bit difficult to pin down. Certainly, there's metal of many stripes at the forefront, and to my ears, a post-rock element as well. The Neurot Recordings press release claims that the band is informed by the Stooges and European black metal. In reality, Return to Disruption reminds me more of the pummeling post-prog attack of nineties luminaries as Don Caballero, except the Daturas' music is completely improvised. The black metal connection could be a reference to the hazy production values, which blunt the edges a bit, thus softening the blows a bit. Of course, Neurosis pioneered the shoegaze metal movement with great panache, (Neurosis Recordings is their label) and the Daturas seem to have sifted a bit of their sound into the stew as well. Add to that the shadow of Albert Ayler hovering somewhere in the mist and you're just about there.