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Encomiast make very creepy and chilling effective dark electronica/dark ambience. You can hear nods towards coil, Cyclobe, darker Popol Vuh or latter-day Tangerine Dream and old industrial elements, but they really seem to have weaved their own distinctive dark Connor of sound.
Glancing at the bandpic on the right reading me claiming fago.sepia to be mathrock may raise an eyebrow or two. And yes, you should forget about the Psyopus's, Orthrelm's and The Dillinger Escape Plan's of this world.
This a great good time soundtrack for an 1974 Italian crime caper/kung Fu/ Comedy moive featuring well know USA muscle man/ actor of the time Brad Harris. The soundtracks an intoxicating and fun mix of jazz, brass, funk, blues ‘n’ roll and easy listening, never getting too serious or dark- just offering up a selection of well played easy going tunes .
Synth Destruction is just of an hour of premium noise craft from two of the most recognizable names in the genre. Recorded live in Tokyo last year is this much more consistent and rewarding than the Merzbow,Giffoni and O’Rourke collaboration that came out a few months back.
Bleeding heavens soaks the listener in suffocating and building audio tension, all of the four long tracks feel like your almost on a mental rack as Menche's stretches the grey & often painful drones and boil edges to there limit, seemlyalways on the edge of exploding and melting your mind.
Songs from the Coal Mine Canary is probably very much the album that Annie "Anxiety" Bandez wanted to make. It sounds like she had a lot of fun and it shows through. The album kicks off with Freddy and Me, which begins with a list of philosphers, drugs and society's evils, then takes off into a cabaret style upbeat tune. The rest of the lyrics seem to concern the idea of gaining inspiration from love in times of desolation. Without a shadow of a doubt, the lyrics are the high point of this work.
Gullyng Street is a nice tasteful and mournful slice of sombre and gloomy pop- coming off like a mix of the Beach Boys on a rainy day, Folk edges, electronica elements, 80’s shoe gazing pop, post-rock nods & jazzy swoons.
We all have guilty pleasures music and otherwise- One of mine is poppy over the top, big-hair glam metal, the cheesy and more anthem like the better, its nice turn off your mind to music that’s memorable & fun- hell you can’t listen to noise or on-the-edge avant music all the time, we all need light relief.
Borderlands is a pleasant if not practically original mix of upbeat ambient, modern Classical, flimatic snap-shots, with the odd dart into electronica too. The sixteen tracks wind by at a fairly varied and tuneful rate, so you certainly won’t get bored or jaded.
Pantaleimon is Andria Degens, a floating member of Current 93. As you might expect, given the afrorementioned band's sound as of late, this music is folk influenced and pensive. Degens does however, take her own path, and avoids merely aping her peers.
One phenomenom that the Nineties brought us is the producer as artist. Of course this is nothing new, as there are forebears from as far back as the 60's in the form of Van Dyke Parks and in the 70's (Jack Nitzsche, Eno). But the nineties was a turning point for producers, especially with the commercialization of hip hop, the huge popularity of techno, and the love of the remix.
This new project managers a reward balancing act between improvised and composed material, falling somewhere between psychedelic space music, bizarre world music, off kilter Country/folk & avant rock ‘n’ wail. The project brings together the impressive talents of Tom Carter(Charalambides), Robert Horton, Lisa & Ann Lee Cameron.
Impure Drought is a textured and complex sound torture cut into six screaming whirlwind, psychedelic fired sound eruptions of high level noise craft.
Pebbles is a haphazard & rough around the edges mix of punky avant guitars, droning wish washy-ness, folk with the odd hit’s at outsider pop, and interesting yet rudimentary rhythmic work–outs.
Panic paints this strong emotional sate at it’s lowest mostly hopeless ebb, you can almost taste the despair and dried sweat in the richly atmospheric audio air as Jazzkammer paint a wonderful long form piece, which mainly utilizes the guitar scapes of John Hegre with subtle and cinematic noise and sound edges added by Lasse Marhaug.
The last release that I had the pleasure of reviewing on the Utech Records label was the Vulture Club's killer manipulated distorto-guitar drone fest Live Young, Die Fast and Leave an Exquisite Corpse. This disc, like the Vulture Club disc, is sourced from guitar as well, and is droney in spots, but it's a different proposition altogether, not to infer that it's bad at all.
Pere-Lachaise is a compilation of Gothic, Martial Neo-Classical artists, based around the concept of creating pieces of music which are purported to be evocative of the world famous cemetary for which this is titled after. One of the pitfalls of this combination of genres is that they sometimes stick very close to a pre-disposed formula which has been circulated over several years now. Most of these pieces include pounding martial drums, which unavoidably limits freedom of movement within the music.
In my review of the previous (and first) Beta Cloud album, Coptic Lament, I made mention of the fact that the release was so limited (thirty copies) that I didn't know whether or not to review it. I don't want anyone to misconstrue this to mean that I somehow am opposed to limited edition releases. I personally enjoy them... My only point is that reviewing such microscopically limited releases sometimes doesn't make sense. If they're only available for the blink of an eye, nobody will actually be able to hear the music. Having said that, I decided to review Coptic Lament because the music was very good, and because I believe Carl Pace's music deserves recognition.
Teleseen is a digi-dub specialist out of Brooklyn. War is a mellow dub album with digital drum tracks, sound washes, simple keyboard melodies and deep bass. Despite the heavy title, and equally heavy song titles like Coffin Ship and This is Also a Burial, this album is a mellow way to while away the time.
Forwaard lowers the listener into a strange subterranean world that’s created by Z’ev using field recordings made by Frans de Waard, which he manipulates into ominous, strange and often alien sound environments.
Robert Vincs is an extremely creative and talented Saxphone player, With Devic Kingdom he mixes together all manner of musically colour and emotion offend stepping outside jazz for new flavours and undercurrents. Utilizing here as well as Saxophone(saxello and tenor), we have; Fairlight synthesizer, Korean Bone Flute, leather horn, electronics and self-designed SDIII Six String upright Bass. All giving the album often a very haunted feeling of misplaced realities.
Axes offers up a gateway into vast sound space ways and intergalactic slipstream. It’s a collection of Ambient guitar scapes that manage to paint the wonder, loneliness, vastness of space it self.
This is the latest shot of audio displeasure and disturbing Psychological sound discharge from Gothenburg & Stockholm finest sinister sound terrorist The Skull Defekts. Mixing together environmental recordings, throbbing and soured electronics and a tangible feeling of grim dread.
Just when you thought your heard/seen some pretty bizarre and off kilter stuff, then some one like Johanna Went comes along with her jagged musical mix of punk, no-wave, Jazz and Residents like oddness- all topped off with strange acid tinged devil speaking in tongues vocals. But the real thing that makes her stand out from the odd and bizarre ground is her performance art, which is documented here in the hour and twenty minute long collection of her Performance art from late 70’s to late 80’s.