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Three years is a long time in music and three years for Arcturus seems to have been long enough for some pretty fundamental changes to occur. Most notably being the departure of star man Kris "Garm" Rygg and the re-emergence of the band in the live arena. Here they present their long awaited new album with the question being which direction will they turn without the G. man at the helm.
Murcof’s Remembranza shudders through out with cinematic beat scapes. Which are both lush and hypnotic. It’s a wonderful and continually reward album, which will certainly make my best of the year list.
Last years Avalon Sutra was he said to be Harold Budds last studio album, whether he holds to his word or not only time will tell but in the meantime we have the release of a live recording of a concert he performed in Italy in 2003 with Eraldo Bernocchi. I haven’t heard anything by Bernocchi before but he seems to dabble in vaguely ambient electronica and soundscapes. Over the course of seven untitled pieces the two men meander through a delicate rose garden of piano improvisation and electronic texturing.
German Patrick Zimmer is Finn all by himself. He does some kind of spacey pop music that I think I’ve heard before.
The Church of Grob wishes to invite you to a mass for mad people as performed by Steamboat Switzerland. Please do not keep quiet.
Khanate return with what is publicised as a mini album but with two tracks clocking in at forty-five minutes it’s hardly a short sharp shock of a release. The album continues pretty much where Things Viral left off. Minimal, tortured and bizarre arrangements of deathly doom metal and subtle electronic manipulations. In fact the two tracks, which seem to follow the story of a serial killers capture, killing and "release" of a victim, seem even slower and more tortured than on the last album (if you can imagine that).
When presented with the equation strings + feedback + staubgold, one might think of some of Ekkehard Ehlers’ works. Not this time though: Strings + Feedback is the work of Andrew Pekler.
Two years ago, Taylor Deupree and Kenneth Kirschner released an album called Post_Piano, a superb encounter between piano and minimal electronic music. This summer, they released the follow-up, and it’s equally nice.
An earlier incarnation of Electric Wizard rose to fame on the crest created by their stoner rock masterpiece Dopethrone. The band could not be contained, however, and guitarist/vocalist Jus Osborn was forced to reform the band after its premature demise. Osborn recruited Justin Greaves on drums, Rob Al-Issa on bass, and New York's quite lovely Liz Buckingham on guitar, and added the article "The" to the band name in order to make a distinction with the previous line-up. The reinvigorated Wizard gathered in July 2003 to record We Live, which may be considered the debut album of an altogether new outfit.
Sphere was a very pleasant surprise (not sure if Pleasant is the right word). I’d always been curious about Merzbow’s work, but firstly I didn’t know where to start. He must be one of the most prolific artist’s around seemly popping out a new album every few months.
This is not the kind of music you might have come to expect from the Norwegian Jester label. First of all it’s not a Norwegian artist and secondly the music does not contain any electronics. Anthony Curtis is improvised and organic, music played by acknowledged virtuoso’s at their instruments like Tony Levin (King Crimson, Peter Gabriel and Mike Keneally (ex-Frank Zappa, Beer For Dolphins).
Last time we heard from Opeth was with their Damnation album, the second part of a two album set which saw them divide the two main aspects of their sound. The acoustic prog folk of Damnation next to the heavier and rawer Deliverance. Since then they have changed labels, released a well received DVD, and toured the US.
During 2004 Virgin records began a project re-releasing some of the most important records in modern music. Virgin records was in it’s hey-day (probably the late 70s) a label and chain of record shops that was very much at the forefront of cutting edge sounds and new music. Nurse with wound even had most of the pressing of their first five albums bought up and sold by Virgin along side the more obvious punk protagonists of the time. Along with all this was Brian Eno and his series of minimalist electronic records. Perhaps the attention he received from Virgin was more down to his reputation in Roxy Music (that’s the Glam rock outfit) than any light bulb above the head moments from Richard Branson, but never the less it gave him the opportunity to expose the world to a sound and genre that has become one of the most familiar in popular music.
VVM test records, a label that requires a certain sense of humour and of course at least a passing interest in the genre of dark ambient/noise. This debut release by the Caretaker is a quite unique blend of the said style and old 1920s/30s ballroom music. VVM pride themselves on rehashing old music into a new and grotesque form, but for much of this overdriven, reverb soaked oddity they have in fact created a rather fascinating and highly enjoyable record.
The three piece combo erm... Three Piece Combo are hailing from Oakland, California and make a form of instrumental rock with influences ranging from prog to jazz. They make instrumental music because, without a singer, soundchecks are much easier.
Babyflesh are a Norwegian power electronics / death industrial act who have previously only released one Cdr via Slaughter productions, although they say they have been in existence since 1996. Their debut is a typically harsh mix of repetitive rhythms and distorted electronics combined with some guitar work and nihilistic vocals.
At its heart One Way, It's Every Way is a glorious sunshiny pop/folk album. That brings back fond memories of The Birds and their Ilk. But with an electronic backbone, that’s rich in invention and replay-ability.
Picture the scene if you can, something has gone very wrong. The world as we know it has been sucked into a hellish apocalypse.
France is the biggest market for hiphop and R’n’B in continental Europe. Yet most of their local bands inspire laughter rather than awe.
A fair quantity of African artists caught the public eye over the years. However it seems like it’s only now in 2005 that some genuinely African music is breaking through the alternative music scenes, getting rave reviews from people who only were into laptopism, hiphopism or nouveau shoegazing guitarheroism no later than yesterday.
Rituals is a long form composition following on from other Zorn chamber works like Aporias and Chimerers. Here he employs a wide range of instrumentation and objects into what he describes as an Opera for exploring the drama of rituals. These include wind machines, grave digging and an owl!!
It's been very quiet for quite some time around the Norwegian atmospheric rockers The Third And The Mortal. A collection of EP's and rarities was released (the rarity being the Japanese bonustrack to In This Room called Elephantine Waltz, so I skipped that since I have all the EP's) and earlier this year Project Bluebook, which is more interesting for collectors.
Firstly let me say that I used to be a huge FLA fan. Hard wired and Implode are still pleasurable to listen to, and Tactical Neural Implant is quite possibly the finest record the EBM genre has, or ever will produce. However since said Implode album Front Line Assembly main man Bill Leeb has focused his attentions on the far more lucrative and derivative Delerium project. (Yes that’s the one that birthed the Silence single and it’s never ending deluge of remixes) As a result FLA has become more of a occasional side project, no longer drawing the bests efforts of Leeb and for this album his old partner in crime Rhys Fulber. Their last effort Epitaph was a decent if lightweight effort that had little in the way of punch or new ideas. On Civilization however FLA have change their sound dramatically but sadly the result is less than inspiring.
Angelo Badalamenti, Astor Piazzolla, Goblin, Art Bears, Burzum, Tom Waits, Antioch Arrow, King Crimson, Bach and Univers Zero are among their influences, claim Miasma & The Carousel Headless Horses from the UK. Their Myspace page lists even more bands they like.