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Gunpowder Temple of Heaven finds Birchville Cat Motel in a more ambient, droney and growing harmonic warmth focus, though still built around Campbell Kneale distinctive guitar and sustained elements this feels more spiritual, calm and peaceful then much of his work.
Enos is the first new release in a bit from the San- Francisco label/ artist collective gigante sound who mix together sampled and experimental elements in an original and refreshing manner, but I’ll have to say I’m rather underwellemed by Enos.
This collaboration mangers to be edgy, atmosphere and at the same time surprising, erratic and chaotic, built around often dense droning and sinister organ throbs and layers of often intricate percussive matter and detail.
Zelphabet volume A is the first release from new label zelphabet and the first in a series of 26 compilations each featuring sound/ noise/ experimental artists who names starts with each coinciding letter of Alphabet - so on this hour plus disk we have pieces from the following Achim Wollscheid, AMK ,Arcane Device & Asmus Tietchens.
This is my first taste of Manchester's Smear Campaign and I’ll have to say I’m very impressed with the variety, quality and depth of the noise art on display here, they seem to give their own particular angle on noise- which is always highly rewarding and refreshing.
It depends how much you’ll enjoy Rock Dream on what you’re expecting- if you’re expecting a decent re-treading of past Boris material with some added sound textures and the odd creative touch- you’ll have a whale of a time here. If though you’re expecting a new or fresh collaboration in the mould of Sun Baked Cave – you’ll be very disappointed.
World Winding down is a beautiful homed and often epic collection of folk/Post-rock/pop songs, lined with field records, drone expanses and beautiful, calming & sad instrumental interludes. Taking in a double disk set but never becoming tired or sprawling, the songs are often deeply personal and almost always memorable.
Noise and sound have a long history of being used in warfare and crowd control with it’s first mention been in 1550 BC according to the informative booklet that comes with this compilation, Less-Lethal Vol 1 offers up 11 new sound/ noise weapons and attacks from the cream of today’s noise and sound artists.
This is this Scottish trio’s second album of buoyant yet biting guitar indie pop meets folk edged song craft, that’s lined with clever ‘n’ quirky, sometimes pained and cutting lyrics.
Menstrual Hoax is a brutal and degrading meeting of sludgy, grey and nasty lo-fi rhythmic torture, electro noise drains, and musty discharge covered feedback- all sliding along at a infected slugs pace.
Boissche Untiefen gives the listener ten shots of edgy, slick and darkly playful modern techno. All slamming and grainy dark funked locked beat patterns changed with dark pushing ‘n’ bassy synth lines, clustered with noisy to ambient textures and flamboyant/sleazy melody lines.
Mother of Moons Bathing flits, jumps and dodgers between been quirky/ bizarrely comical, darkly sinister and airless, noisy, cranky ‘n’ surreal and mysterious/ expansive- an hell of an ride really.
The Garden of Forking Paths is a compilation of hypnotic, haunting and beautiful solo stringed instrument based music selected by folk Guitarist James Blackshaw and unlike a lot of compilations he's managed to make this cohesive and flowing album that makes you want to return to its beautiful and atmospheric shores often.
Rigor Sardonicous make raw apocalyptic doom thats often reduces to a crawling sludge pace with highly impressive and downright terrifying guttural utterings that sound like a demon talking just at your ear. Add to this some creative and experimental touchers that makes this rather blackly pleasing for much of it’s running time.
The power station picture on the front cover of Here is very apt for the three tracks that appear With-in, as they are all in places touched with the feeling of powering up and building electronic tension and textures.
Eternal Jewel is a collection of atmospheric and cinematic guitar scapes primal composed on Baritone Guitar. Mixing together doom, metal and ambient elements to creating dramatic and mysterious guitar based instrumental unfolds.
One of the oldest traditions in music is the drone and one country doing well in preserving it, it resounds even in modern popmusic (even when encapsulated into a hip r'n'b beat) is Albania. One of the the ensembles that preserves it best is the Lela dynasty from P�rmet, Albania.
I’ll have to admit in the past Philip Jeck's take on ambience and soundart has always underwhelmed me, it just felt too vague, too out of focus and wish-washy. But Sand has really impressed me, there seems a lot more focus, depth and listenability here; the tracks invite you in and make you want to stay and revisit them often.
Coleoid is a collection of eerier, hope smothering, bell & bass like harmonics drone tracks, which seems to drill deep into ones psyche souring and greying your mood. As the covers illustration suggests like the slow melancholy and hopeless crawl of slugs in endless dank tunnels.
Jahrtal make rich, soothing and sometimes sombre but always beautiful folk music lined with an earthy and warming 70’s spirit. All finished off with sleepy and hazy mainly male but sometimes female German singing.
One of the most compelling & clever things about We are all guests in the house of the lord is you can interpret the emotionally searing material with-in from several angles. It can be seen as a statement of decline of a once great civilisation or a personal and mental decline- the clever thing is they let you add your own angle and interruption on to it.
I apologise for the brevity of this review, but rather than bore you with a long winded attack on something which I consider to be a part of the problem with music versus an antidote for drone-ish conformity, I will go straight to the heart of the matter. This is not the Target Market is a title that would lead one to believe that Steriogram are a band attempting to defy conventions, but unfortunately that could not be further from the truth.
ORCHESTRAMAXFIELDPARRISH is Mike Fazio, a composer, as well as a member of New York City's Black 47. The Silent Breath of Emptiness seems miles away from the Celtic inspired rock of Black 47. It's important to note then, that Fazio, and a couple other members of Black 47 originally backed up Avant-Garde musician and poet Copernicus (Joseph Smalkowski). Maxfield Parrish was a Philadelphian painter and illustrator, who lived from 1870-1966. Though he was a commercially successful illustrator, his paintings were quite often fantastical. I'm not sure how his work ties into Mike Fazio's project, but Parrish's art is well worth exploring.
Electricity is a great introduction to the weird and wonderful world of Captain Beefheart, this double disk set brings together a fine section of tracks from his first two albums and approachable rare odd ‘n’ ends from the same period leading up to his avant classic Trout Mask Replica- without which the experimental music scene of today would be very different place.