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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.
Mørketid is a Norwegian term that indicates a certain period of year when Arctic winter encases everything and the sun doesn’t rise above the horizon, Neat title and concept which doesn’t really seem to continue on to the ambient unwinding enclosed.
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.