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The first release by this duo from Norway struck me like lightning. List Of Lights And Buoys was a fascinating play between a distant coolness and an intimate warmth, as vague as that may sound. It’s still an amazing record that continues to move me and fascinate me.
Altar is the first eagerly anticipated sour black fruits of the Southern Lord'ss tow big doom drone hitters Sunn 0))) & Boris. Sitting very much in the feeling of small town American dread, Like a middle ground between Lovecaft and lynch. Both surreal and potent in its execution. It also brings into focus a more emotional quality, not really seen much in either artist's work.
Woven hand comes off with an interesting mix of influence and sounds. Part Goth, part earthy American folk and to a lesser extent rock touches. Also there feels quite a retro feel in the way the songs are interposed and sung, almost an 80’s darker pop vibe I guess. Almost at bizarrely at times like a Goth Sprinteen, which is somewhat freaky.
LushRush is full of wide eye emotional wonder, made by a mix of piano, cello, violin, environmental sounds and beats- meet in a heart felt and often awkward union. Having a child like charm though out- that sometimes works other times comes off a little wonky and out of focus.
After the surprising move of releasing jazzrock in the form of the Anthony Curtis album, this all acoustic endeavor is a new turn to prove that the Jester label will not let itself be pushed in a corner of a specific genre. Jørgensen presents on On The Great Alkali Plains friendly and dreamy guitarmusic, with a generous amount of atmosphere.
Herr’s second album Vondel’s Lucifer has a wonderful audio story book feel, much like the old prog concept albums, but the musically pallet here is Neo Folk & neoclassical. All dramatic string work, forceful drumming, plucked acoustics harps and guitars etc. Really giving the material such a grand, powerful enchanted feel- much like adult story time really.
Letter of sounds is a mellow colour wash of sound.Mixing soothed glicthy electronics, micro beat complexities, restful electronic pulse, and organic instrumental hues. Really giving the whole album such a dreamy yet focused feel. Been gentle and restful, yet very disciplined and thought out in its execution.
Sick animal Eyes is a world of a sickly gloom ridden drone and sinister harmonics, mixed with slight noise shudders. Often coming off like a grimy and distributed version of Nurse With Wounds Soliloquy for Lilth. Really you feel like you’ve dropped into some pitch black subterranean world, stumbling the way along try to feel and sense where you are.
If you take sinister and doomy classical string work, lichen-covered guitar loops ,glichty electronics with a clearly organic feel, creepy siren and darkly operatic females vocals, plus big potions of dread and more dread - put it in a big black cauldron covered with demon effigy’s and bubble up for a bit- you’ll come up with the shudder inducing , creaking gate haunted house, and misty wood soundtrack that is Knive.
Globe Clone finds for the most part finds The Yellow swans more drony, aggravated grimy ambient sate, than their usual denser and more noisy tactics, striped nearly of all the electronic beat work and noisy walls of sound- this is a more ominous, sinister meditative, creepy and clearly unpleasant proposition.
Get A Room is much like settling into a nice comfy bed, or submerging oneself in warm bubbling water and just letting everything easy away. This is a mix of a DJ record & environmental soundscapes. All focused of chilling you out, hell you be so relaxed by the end of this- you’ll almost slip off your chair!.
Year of the rabbit is real ear wax dislodging, filling juddering harsh noise; even at low volumes I’m sure it’s dangerous to not just your ears but your whole body. Though this is not just a wall of noise, there are defined changes in tone and structure bubbling and rip and tear apart bellow the searing noise cocktail.
Forest Jackson is Hanno Leichtmann’s new project. Leichtmann released Nuit Du Plomb, A rather nice retro- beat ambient album recently under his own name. Cymbalism is a much darker, denser & urbanised beast, than Nuit Du Plomb. Rippled with dark alleyway muscular beats and tigth edgey snthy scapes. Leichtmann proves he has the ability to shapeshift with the best of them.
You cant always judge a album by it’s cover or title- case in point the new Grails album- from the cover you’d be mistaken for this been very much in doom type territory and while some of this does wonder that way- it’s only a small brush stroke in the bigger, genre shifting picture on offer here. We dip down in post rock, folk, country, metal riffing, blues laid back vista, jazzy flourishes, dubby bass lines, smoky dark lounge vibe. This seems to go all over the place.
Requiems Der Natur is thick with smoke like psychedelic air, both drifting and heady with night spent waiting for the sunset to come up and bonfires in the woods and waking up on a beech unsure how you got there. This feels like a denser, less hectic Animal collective or maybe a more polished late night session Oliva tremor control.
Only a year since Sigur Ros released the massively successful Takk comes this little Gem of a release. A double disk set with only disk containing a four track EP, the other a DVD with three promotional videos.
Club Kama Aina breaths a wonderfully quirky, cutesy-electronic come organic air. Full to the brim with playful and tuneful tracks, that utilise strummed guitar work, keyboards, all manner of cheeky and clever rhythmic matter. All Making this one of this years sweet musically treats.
There is a lot of this stuff about at the moment, make no mistake about it. Whether you want to call it drone, ambient, minimalism, or whatever, there is a lot of it about. Kranky have made a big deal of Herbert’s non musician status, the music being constructed through layers of field recordings and processed on a desktop PC. All this is fine but what is the end product like?
Elephant calls has more than a slight eastern feeling about it. With it’s mixture of tabla textures and percussion by Ravi Padmanabha, joined by spidery, sawing and plucking acoustic guitar curtsey of New York noise maker and improviser Ed Chang. Though this does have noise element’s, it feels more focused on improvisation- more than anything. Leaving the listener with a collection of chaotic, but somehow spiritual charged tracks.
This is the American bands first release, though I’m sure the members names will be recognisable to many: Jason Crumer on electronics (FACEDOWNINSHIT, Amazing Grace), Matt Franco (Air Conditioning) on guitar, vocals & electronics and Lee Counts on metal. Not surprisingly with these names involved, this does raise one hell of a racket. Much like pouring battery acid in ones ears or falling down a staircase, though they managed to vary the pace from all out attacks- to bringing in more rhythmic and drone elements, moving towards tense ambient states.
I was excited for two reason about this. Firstly it was going to be released by Uk based label Very Friendly, who’s only other Merzbow release had been excellent Cycle from 2003.secondly the Packaging, I have to admit and say I’m somewhat of a geeky collector, when it comes to odd and different Packaging, and this sure is that. The cd comes in screen printed Hessian bag, which comes inside a nicely heavy cd sized marble box with a fossilised Ammonite engrave on the front, really impressive stuff.
Rafael Toral’s Space is mixture sci-fi sound effects, ala the first Star trek, electronic tones that rarely pick up much of a pace, and Journeys into an odd circuit board take on jazz and well space its self- literal lots of silence and slow build ups. Sound elements are allowed to hover and grow, or disappear off down a black hole, leaving the listener stranded for a few moments, until the next space cruiser comes along.
For the first half a minute of Devils cone and palm you feel like you could have dropped into the wrong record, as you greeted by strange spidery and wrong sounding funky guitar work. But this illusion doesn’t last for long ,as you first one side of your head is slammed against a wall of blazing noise and then the sound jump cuts and the other side of your head in throw against the wall. Welcome to the new sissy spacek torture work, were guitar music and structure are ripped apart and thrown back at you in an assault on all the sensors.
Driftwood weaves together tuneful electroinca with violin and cello music to a haunting, memorable and beautiful effect. Making enchanted and edgy beat-works to disappear off into. It never tries to be musically difficult, it just slides along smooth as silk, making wonderful chill out music, that will sooth away the days stressers and strains.