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Bowline gives the listener four tracks of often doomy,stormy and improvised drone works. The projects brings together David Maranha(Organ Eye,Osso Exótico,plus solo work) and Francesco Dillon(Alter Ego, plus various collaborations).
One Hundred Fifty-five’s grotesque cut-up collage cover and artwork booklet suggests this is going to be either plunderphonics territory or surreal cut up tapestry of sound akin to early NWW- but instead we get a collection of often melodic instrumental tracks with a slight back bone of sampled/ cut-up matter.
Aldebaran is plain & simple an industrial / dark ambient masterpiece original released back in 1996, this is its third repressing. And easy to see why this has been so popular as it mangers to balance perfectly slowed industrial rhythms, deep, cavernous ambience & alien tones into a hypnotic & distinctive sonic package, that hardly shows it’s age.
Reverend Beat-man makes foot tapping, shit kicking, shambolick and often quite funny mix of punk, blues, rock ‘n’ roll & country. Having a singing voice & talking tone akin to a mix of GG. Allen, Nick Cave and Jello Biafra – if you can imagine that.
Tau Emerald's debut album is a dense, dirgey, often improvised sounding darkening ritual of primeval folk forged by the female duo of Tara Burke (Fursaxa) and Sharron Kraus, It seesaws between great barren beauty and discordant/ doomy sentiments.
Ancestors are a five piece band from Los Angeles who play a memorable and epic, mid-pace to up-beat mix of 70’s soaked doom, jammed-out rock grooves & psychedelics, with touches of more modern doom and metal here and there. Neptune With Fire is their debut album and the first release on new label North Atlantic sound.
Steven R. Smith is Ulaan Khol, another in a series of his solo guises. He has worked extensively under his given name, as well as Hala Strana, and as a member of Thuja and Mirza. I is being billed as the first installment of the Ceremony trilogy, and it's a stunner, I'm happy to report. I'm most familiar with Smith's work as Hala Strana, which is multi-instrumentalist music performed at least in part within Eastern inflicted modes and scales. Hala Strana's recordings are usually relatively lo-fi and primitive in nature, and seemingly at least partly improvised. This first Ulaan Khol album is a bit of a departure from the Eastern inflected, more folky (for lack of a better term) sounds of Hala Strana.
Summon with electric Sorcery finds the Starving weirdos returning with some of their darkest, unnevering and brain altering material so far. It finds them Moving on and developing their sound, but still keeping the air and sonic taste that makes them one of the most original and unclassifiable projects around today.
This is Aube first new, original and non reconstructing of others work or collaboration in some years- made using synthesizers instead of his usual manipulated sound source. Offering an hour of new sound works in all.
[BaryoGenesis] is another brain melting and psychodelic trip into the audio world of KK Null. Stepping away from the more approachable and structure momentsof his recent Gamma Blaster and back to the deranged sonic rollacoaster ride that takes in electronic, noise, ambient and what ever else he fancies.
This has been one of the strangest concept albums both in execution and theme. The concept is about the collapse of the Roman Republic, which is told in deep mock demon vocals over a mix of synthzised repetitive jazz and guitar synth noderling. You think you’ve heard everything then a bizarre cookie like this pops up and really screws with your head.
The Bees made Honey in the lion’s Skull is the next step in Earth’s evolution- the refining, detailing and making more atmospheric of their trademark and distinctive heavy sound.
This excellent disk brings together three great & varied soundtracks from the late 60’s and illustrates perfectly Morricone's versatility, creativity and real genius as a soundtrack composer.
Dark night is an eerier; often pitch black and doomy collection of dronescapes and bleak ambient expanses, and discordant piano unsettling. Fittingly the title really tells you exactly what’s in the box- this is music for unsettled dreams and creep-out/ paranoid early mornings.
Zinc Room is another creative slab of lo-grade industrial beat craft,creepy & apocalyptic soundtrack elements, chugging guitar hits and avant edger’s from this mysterious project whom I can seemingly find little or no info about on the net.
Veleno De Texixo is this Portuguese collectives second full length release for the Austrian Ahnstern lable. It delivers an often bombastic, epic and strange mix of traditional Portuguese music, folk-rock, prog, field recordings and the avant garde.
Having been aware of Robert Ashley as a major influence on the likes of Nurse with Wound and many other sound/ surreal artist it’s nice to finally hear some of his own work. Tap Dancing in the Sand is a selection of pieces of musically avant grade repetition offten text linked pieces with the Dutch Ensemble MAE.
Wild Flowers under the sofa is an emotive, often very touching, beautiful and haunting collection of sound worlds, which move between ambient, folk, emotional/ stretched out guitar scapes and deeply felt cimatics.
Glass Forest is Daniel Menche 67th release since his beginnings in soundart/ noise scene in the mid 90’s, it’s also apparently his last cd release as in future he plans to focus just on Vinyl and DVD releashers. This sits in the more ambient & percussive side of his material staying mostly away from the noise tendency of some of his work.
This collaboration between wall noise specialist The Rita and dark ambient/sinister guitar drone project Wilt does what every great collaboration should do, it takes elements from each parties sound to make something new,different and on this occasion very frightening.
Altars of science is a very messing with your head experience, it’s built around a collection of accelerating, stretched, droning and bent electronic tones which Marcus Schmickler has put together in often jarring, breathless, alarming and at time almost suffocating sound collages.
The splendidly named Wounded Knee is an Edinburgh based project who make organic sounding & repetitive electronic music, Show some Humility! Is a near on twenty five minute offering.
To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie is a duo who's name sounds like it would make a great title for a Crass or Flux of Pink Indians reunion album. The band's website, rather than serving as a typical band site, is a humorous if dry social critique on consumerism, corporate culture and blind conformance. In concept, it's not unlike Radiohead's commentary on the subject, in that it provides the information in the form of the first person view of the hypnotized consumer. It's an increasingly valid point, in this age of widespread public indifference. It's hard not to approach the subject without some measure of anger and resignation, and To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie do so with a good measure of both.
Serpents In The Dawn is an rather elegant and tuneful collection of string swooned tragic/ romantic melancholy pop & neo-folk songs from Russian, with all the tracks sang in English tongue except for a few.