Sunday 29 November 2009

Gravsahl - ... A Part of Nothing




Gravsahl, a German one man black metal band releases his first demo '...A Part of Nothing' as a free download. This really is worth you picking it up. It's not that it's groundbreaking - there's whole essays to be written about the oversaturation of one man BM bands (OMBMB!) - and you never know, we might be just the people to espouse on the why, when, who and where's of it all one day. No, it sounds like you'd expect - drum machine keeping intense tempos, buzzsaw guitar throb up in the foreground - but what it does it excels at and all you need to know is that the black flame burns bright with this one, the long shadow of Burzum hangs over the ragged mantra icy trance - its captures the regal, arrogant poise and majestic elegance of the founding sounds of the genre (just look at that logo), adds enough influence from the intevening history and produces an absorbing energising record as a result.

So, here you go: DOWNLOAD


Lynx:

www.myspace.com/gravsahl

NFR End of Year Mayhem - Thursday 3rd December!!!

This is it. 2009 is nearly over, end of year polls are coming, we all have our opinions. I haven't seen one I like yet.....there's still time.

Come to the Penthouse on Thursday to hear NFR's End of Year Spectacular!

Me and Fokka Wolfe will be playing our highlights from our year of underground, independant, DIY labels, demos, and more from across all your favourite NFR genres >>>

avant pop / bliss drone / concrete bass / cosmic psych / feral noize / ghetto electro / glitter wave / gutter punk / kvlt bvzz / mutant indie / neon diskko / outsider grimness / primitive euphoria / skronk rock / wyrd folk.....and more...

My current favourite being New York Loft Core. I will buy two, yes TWO drinks for the person who can guess which band or artist insipred that phrase (Here's a clue: they're not actually from NY).

See you Thursday.


MxBx

Friday 27 November 2009

DOWNLOAD: The Black Neck Band of the Common Loon


The Black Neck Band of the Common Loon rehearsal tapes from Warner studios

You may have read the review of this band in this month's Wire magazine. A glowing assessment of the duo of Andy Pyne and Blue Pin's crazy world of percussive battery and vocal illusions. It makes sense the deeper you go into it, like Captain Beefheart being given the keys to Alice's Wonderland. Think what the Don would do with that and you're half way there....whilst also being stranded in the middle of nowhere.....with no one to help you.

They just put up a pair of rehearsal jams for the world to plug it's ears in to and here they are for you. Free and wild with the wind in their hair.

Live at Warner Studios 19 9 09
Live at Warner Studios 26 9 09


Myspace: www.myspace.com/blackneckband

Monday 23 November 2009

A day in the listening life

For one day only NFR was alone in the office so the whole day was spent listening and tweeting every albumas we went. Here's there whole day corralled into one bite sized blog post:

09:30 - So far:Slagmaur, Bong, Quttinirpaaq, and now Ous Mal - Finnish weirdity....
10:30...Gkfoes Vjgoaf - no spelling mistake. crazy weird dissonant folk..? LA loner is waaay out there lost in the woods:
11:30 - #musicmonday continues with Worriedaboutsatan - Arrivals. one of my albums of the year for sure..top10? 20?
12:30 - now we're on The Fresh & Onlys - super garagey modern throwback rock from John Dwyer's Castlefacelabel. (i should @ these, right?)
13:00 - now it's Wooden Veil - German avant-industrial-folk band signed to Dekorder records. video on our blog!
13:30 - Pissed Jeans - King of Jeans. if you don't already know this album or this band...well....shame on you...hang your head.
14:00 - out of the scuzzy filth into the slinky sex beat of Joy Orbison. Wet Look is one of the tracks of the year, dubstep/wonk or whatnot, right?
14:30 - Settling into Campfire's self titles two track cassette. Lush humming liquid reverie.
15:00 - Brighton's own cross-genre Baikonour - heavy on the kraut-drone and electronic atmospheres, totally kicking it in the groove stakes.
16:00 - Book of Shadows - Secret Garden. immersive tru-nu-psychedelia. Enjoy their white-on-white myspace page!
16:40 - #musicmonday is nearly over - here comes Om. Simple, effective, luminous, hypnotic, cosmic..... Thebes is building.....
17:30 - finishing the day - the working day - with The XX. It's a nice light bouncy end - that'll all change once I step outside into the darkness
18:00 - Teitanblood. None more dark, filthy, nasty, gory and satanic. E-fucking-vil. Morbid Devil of Pestilence is DISGUSTING!

Let's leave you with some of that shall we?

VIDEO: Wooden Veil - Red Sky

Here's the new video from Dekorder Records signees Wooden Veil. It's pretty trippy. The new album is all kinds if intense awesomeness - this track opens it, followed by some crazy clanging industrial kraut-rock of Shiverings then it all clams down....but carries on and then some. Wait til you get to the mind blowing Wooden People before you let your jaw drop too far. Go find it, you will like it.

For now, let this overwhelm your senses:

Thursday 19 November 2009

Ash Borer show you Black Metallers how it's done

Visually, if all you grim hordes want to keep it Trad but kick it up a bit, you've got Ash Borer to contend with:





We're willing to bet that musically they can show you a few new tricks too.

They just closed down their MySpace to move to Blogspot with this, there first post:

"We will begin recording by this month's end. 3 songs at roughly 40 minutes total. Tape on Dead Earth, CD on Flenser, possibly vinyl down the road sometime...."


If you know their last demo, you'll be finding this news as exciting as us.

Wednesday 18 November 2009

REVIEW: Island of Raiell - Ab Initio

We’ve been tipped off about this band by good friend of NFR, Nick Keech from kraut - gaze - noise - drone outfit One Unique Signal - His sister Louise is half of the enigmatically named duo Island Of Raiell along with Angie Cheung. The pair have been in a multitude of London based post-punk, indie rock outfits (and Angie even helped pen a Brand New Heavies chart topper!) With indie credentials and bonus real life Success established, the duo are heading out into less predictable waters with their new audio-visual experimental project Island of Raiell. They have just released Ab Initio; their debut album through indie label/distributors Genepool Records as a 42 minute long single track available through iTunes for the bargain sum of £3.49.

The band insist that the album should be heard comfortably reclined, immersed in low mood lighting - but that's implicit from the opening hum; the eerie atmosphere this album exudes makes it sound like it was recorded in halflight and shadow. Anyone familiar with the kinds of resonance heavy ambient soundscapes that Deleted Scenes, Forgotten Dreams regularly throw out will find a lot to engage with during this album. Although it certainly begins with them, across it's nine individually titled movements the album quickly progresses beyond the murky abstract aquatics suggested by the cover into movements similar to the rhythmic chanting of Pocahaunted; spectral churn of Religious Knives and forlorn anthems of Kate Bush. Distant drums echo, voices surface and fade like the suggestions of ripples over heavy water. There's a dread sentiment to this story of a drowned sailor and it's sung by two sirens beckoning a wider audience toward their aquatic embrace.

We have the third section, Rock & Wave for you to download as a teaser. It features an unsettlingly slow and doomy piano lead that literally does come back later to haunt you.

DOWNLOAD: Rock & Wave

The most strikingly dramatic section to the piece arrives with Black Wave in the form of a blast of Middle Eastern horns, a crashing torrent of noise and a harsh shriek - it's a peak in violence that represents the last gasp of the central character before he slips under the waves; an event that leads towards the next highlight of the album - a choral passage titled Lie Beneath that rises from whispering ambience at around 30 minutes, then that slow, heavy-lidded grim-robed piano refrain comes back in accompanied by a backwards sounding buzzing and faint traces of reappearing choir.

It's a record designed to disturb and enchant all at once, and it succeeds with absorbingly fine attention to detail and involving yet unforced narrative structure.





Lynx:

DOWNLOAD: Ab Initio Part III: Rock & Wave

www.myspace.com/islandofraiell
www.last.fm/music/Island+of+Raiell
www.islandofraiell.co.uk

www.thegenepool.co.uk/genepoolrecords/

Projections Play Live!

The poster says it all. You've been waiting a long time to get to see Projections again, even if you didn't realise it. A much more exciting band that BRS....in our webworthless opinion.

Tuesday 10 November 2009

PREVIEW: Aaron Dilloway, Smack Music 7, Slow Listener, Hobo Sonn



Aaron Dilloway, Smack Music 7, Slow Listener, Hobo Sonn
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Upstairs @ the Caroline of Brunswick

Dilloway, former member of noise-titans Wolf Eyes and Hanson Records labelman has recently been releasing solo work that explores much more abstract and thoughtful terrain than his previous group's headbanging onslaughts. His last gig in Brighton at the Freebutt was an arresting slow motion earthquake of a show that built in watery vortexes of sound that sucked light, air and tiem from the room. His recent "Chain Shot" is more a sound collage than anything, and while it is a heaping glob of muddled debris, it is also a highly controlled one. Looping samples on top of samples, Dilloway builds a slowly encroaching beast before slowly disintegrating it, bone by bone. This is some highly textural and immediately emotive soundscape work that demands to be experienced in the flesh.

here's a very short sharp shock of him at Colour Out Of Space last year:




Three solo supports from Brighton's own gunge tank of feral atmospherics:

Smack Music 7's self-described 'Glamtronics'is the elegant and refined solo outfit of Polly Shang/Blood Stereo lady Karen Constance. Reigning in the tape terror and replacing it with a lost in the jungle lushness. Still creepy.

Slow Listener is a blurry, zoned out vista of of degraded beauty, crumbling ivy torn walls of organ drones, gently shifting fuzz, crackle and hiss. Sink into this and come out feelign vital.

Hobo Sonn is Ian FK Murphy. A meaty broth of bedroom concrete, electronic blurb and lo-fi tape mangled sine wave drone. Suck it up.


Lynx:

www.last.fm/music/Aaron+Dilloway
www.myspace.com/smackmusic7
www.myspace.com/slowlistener
www.myspace.com/h0b0s0nn

Sunday 8 November 2009

NFR Setlist 5th November, 2009

Bit quiet this month. So you did all go see the fireworks then. Thanks to Tom for admirably manning the bar and Addem for the enthusiasm. Here's what you heard.

I feel weak. Must be all the sulphur, ozone, nitrogen and glitter. I might write some descriptions later. For now, know that the song of the night was probably this.

See you on December 3rd for our full scale widrescreen 2009 year end round up.

'Til then - Our night in lists:


Fokka Wolfe:

Bear In Heaven – Wholehearted Mess
The Big Pink – Crystal Visions
Pearl Harbour – Sunburn
Vivian Girls – When I'm Gone
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Home
Alec Empire – 1000 Eyes
Obsidian Pond – Sundog Sinners
George Lenton - Troll
Fuck Buttons – Surf Solar
Captain Ahab – Party Baby (Sickboy Remix)
Bosco Delrey – Round N Round (Feat. 77klash)
Turbowolf - Ancient Snake
Bat For Lashes – Pearls Dream - Skreams Pour Another Glass Of Champers Remix
The Big Pink – At War With The Sun
Turzi – Bogota


Meatbreak:

Instruments – We Didn’t Think It Through, We Just Did It (Dead Pilot Records Sampler)
Gnod – Thunderbolt Loop (Wuste Zeremonie, Reverb Worship)
Neon Indian – Should Have Taken Acid With You (Psychic Chasms, Lcfse)
Moon Duo – Love On The Sea (7", Sick Thirst)
Hotel Wrecking City Traders – The Lakeshore Strangler (Black Yolk, Bro Fidelity)
Worriedaboutsatan – All Things But You Are Silent (Arrivals, Gizeh)
Demdike Stare – Jannisary (Symbiosis, Modern Love)
Climax Golden Twins – Chinese (Eerie Fragrance Or Eyeless Fabrication Or Exclude Frank Or Eat Fuck Or Etc (Forever), Etude)
Eternal Tapestry – Temporal Starshine Voyage (The Invisible Landscape, Not Not Fun)
A Place To Bury Strangers – Smile When You Smile (Exploding Head, Mute)
Ecka Liena - Fire Emerging From Mist (Dead Pilot Records Sampler)
Gold Panda – I Suppose I Should Say Thanks Or Some Shit (Before, Self-Released)
Nadja & Black Boned Angel – ‘Untitled 1’ (Nadja & Black Boned Angel, 20 Buck Spin)
Dragonssnogard – Test Track 01 (Demo)

Wednesday 4 November 2009

Edward Sharpe & TheMagnetic Zeros album news!


Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros are a wonderful band out of time. Timeless rather than retro, modern hippies in the great hopefilled sence of the word, that created amazing events and communities in the late 60s and early 70s.
They take you to the dessert and start a new life, a world of poetry and waking at dawn to see the new world, a new way of living away from the indignities of modern life.

Remember the commune they visit in the dessert in Easy Rider, filled with performers and musicians that Peter Fonda says 'will make it'? Well they did and here are their children!

Their self titled album released in july this year is being featured on Amazon mp3 download as one of the 50 albums for $5! Thats 13 utterly brilliant songs for.. whats that in pounds, 3 quid? Amazing! The link to it is here.

Here also is the video for their single 'Home'



EDWARD SHARPE & THE MAGNETIC ZEROS | MySpace Video