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Still Alive joins the long line of instrumental hip-hop/ experimental records on Anticon label(seems they do little else these days) which have gone from superb to rather lacklustre, thankful Still Alive is one of the aces in the pack, aptly mixing in jazzy textures and rock/indie influences to the crunching distinctive dusty Anticon beat sound.
All the work I had heard before by finish artist cloama fitted fairly squarely into the noise genre, so it was a surprise to find this collaboration with other finish artist Blutleuchtel treaded a more gothic cinematic and often creeplydialogue path. Mixing together horror film cinematics, pale and sinister jazz, metallic elements and damned world music vibes. Creepy found sound elements & noise elements appearing just here and there, but the focus is more of on atmospherics and not all out attacks.
As the title suggest this is a tribute to Modern Greek classical & electro-acoustic pioneer Iannis Xenakis, with berlin based composer and pianist Reinhold Friedl joined by the avant/noise chamber orchestra zeitkratzer.
From atop of this hill is an enduringly quirky, cosmic and original mix of prog, electronica and pop - offering up an eight track album that nears the hour mark that always remains fresh and varied through out.
Fish out of Water is a welcome reissue of one of the more effective Yes Solo albums from the mid seventies, this from the groups bass player and longest standing member. Here it’s given a deluxe expanded edition spread across two disks with the first disk featuring the orignal album and the secound disks a dvd.
You suffer finds Scottish Noise supre-mo Kylie Minoise doing their tribute/rethinking of the classic Napalm Death track, to celebrate 20 years anniversary of their debut album Scum.
This is Bonesfield's second release of harsh laser cutting electro noise meets elementally noise. Feeling something akin to if aliens attacked our planet and the environment chaos it would bring, i.e. hurricanes, land slides and burning /melting summers.
Asbestos Death were a late eighties pre-doom metal band, who sound a lot like they must've listened to a hell of a lot of Melvins and Sabbath records. They maybe have been exposed to Corrosion of Conformity, Saint Vitus or other punk/metal bands as well. Three quarters of this band would go on to form the ground breaking sludge-doom act Sleep.
Eugenio Maggio, a.k.a. Cría Cuervos, has gotten around quite a bit in the past few years, coordinating with artists such as Paul Bradley and Maurizio Bianchi, yet has remained under the radar. Vor Feuerschlünden (German for "Before Throats of Fire") consists of two long pieces over roughly 48 minutes. The label is calling this electro-acoustic and experimental music sourced from field recordings, self programmed theta waves, shortwave and software. In case you're wondering what the hell that sounds like, here we go;
The Latin of the title of Deathspell Omega's highly anticipated new release is taken from the Bible, Matthew 25:41, which says, "Go, you accursed ones, into the eternal fire". The turmoil that commences has indeed become an all-consuming vortex of progressive and technical black metal performed with an energy bordering on hysteria.
This has to be one of the strangest, bizarre, puzzling and often alarming records I’ve ever come across, really it’s a “trip” in true sense of the word, not really making any logical or musically sense for much of its playing time- a head melting experience of the highest order.
Stars on the Wall is the second release by the Go Find, a side project launched by Dieter Sermeus of the Belgian band Orange-Black. Admittedly, I haven't heard the first album, Miami, which was released in 2004, but I understand it was mostly a one-man project. The Go Find are represented on this album as a traditional drums, guitar, piano/synthesizer and vocal outfit.
We are commandments literal crushers you with it’s four weighty lo-fi doom punk, noise tracks- this is doom at it’s most painful blunt and nihilistic.
Ayres finds the lush, beautiful and tuneful electronica meets organic instrumental world of Keith Kenniff Helios joined by Kenniff own often emotional vocals that fall somewhere between Moby, Billy Corgan & Trent Reznor in there quieter moments and the hurt wonder of Neil Young.
Something rather weird and feral this way comes in the form Waldteufel debut album, bringing together Germanic folk and traditional music, sampled brass and classical music, ritualistic/ bizarre percussive matter and often long draw investigation in avant gard sound scaping- all with a with a hunting /werewolf theme tied into it.
This vinyl Lp brings together the two out of print Eternal ep’s from New zelands dark lord of streached out guitar scapes, doom and horror Black Boned Angel in edition of 500 copies.
We Are Him finds Michael Gira’s project really coming of age, offering his most rewarding, constent and varied work since the days of the Swans. The album shows all side of his musically output from pop bleakness, folky and country flow to more metallic and authoritarian aired, theres also along the way he throws in some new and interesting touches we’ve not heard from him before.
From the first growl on, the name "Henrik Nordvargr Björkk" seems a proper indication for the grimness that In Oceans Abandoned… has in store. Nordvargr's resume shows many guises, from Toroidh to Goatvargr, but seemingly without exception these call invoke darkness and grimness.
If you've ever been to Pissed Jeans' home town of Allentown, Pennsylvania, then you're aware of the fact that there's not too much to do there. Allentown prospered as a working class community bolstered by the local steel industry until the 1970's when the plants closed down. Although the town has rebounded a bit since then, it's for the most part still economically depressed. The other aspect to Allentown is that it's surrounded by sprawling suburbs lined with shopping malls and housing subdivisions. All of that seems to figure into Hope For Men. The lyrics reflect the boredom and the weirdness of small town America.
As the black & white grainy cut-up artwork of panic suggest this is circle take on anarchic punk, but as with everything within circles world it’s not as clear cut as that, there’s also epic soundtrack elements, bobbing and looping 80’s synth scapes, building drone sound atmospherics and prog like touches.
El Camino Real presents another long form tape reel composition from one of the masters of stuck and slowly morphing sonic beauty William Basinski, in an edition of 300.
This is the first solo effort by one half of Italian improvised and otherworldly project My cat is an alien. Taking quite a different tack from his main project, it presents three tracks of hypnotically strum and hover acoustic guitar patterns. I guess its best described as walls of haunted dark guitar folk, which cascades down into slower picked guitar moments.
This new five track ep from the fabulous Efterklang finds them making their sound more lush and epic, but at the same time more intimate and sad. I guess the best way to try and describe their distinctive sound is a meeting glitchy electronics, classical textures, show tunes & pop- all with an epic and almost prog feel to it, but that doesn’t really cover it.
The Eat were a southern Florida band who’s lifespan was from 1979 to 1985, they played short 'n' tuneful punk rock, with new wave touches and ultimate a good time rock and roll heart. This double disk set brings togeather a lot of their out print discography on disk one and the second disk offers up four live shows from over the years.