NEW TRACK: Light Asylum - Shallow Tears

Finally, a new release!  Shallow Tears is the lead 12" single from Light Asylum's long-awaited, highly anticipated self-titled debut album, due out in May on Mexican Summer.  The two-track single comes on suitably fetishistic limited edition white vinyl.

Dancing over the grave of the not-even-dead-yet Grace Jones, with a vocal comparisons all too apparent to avoid a reference, Shannon Funchess and Bruno Coviello return with another visceral tear-streaked symphony to emotion-haunted back alleys and dry-ice cloaked dancefloors. It starts with a peal of thunder,as dramatic an entrance as they could make, then the drums start pounding. This music is something else out there on its own. Even without Funchess' remarkable intonations there's enough resonant affect being squeezed out of the synths that each time she really opens up her lungs it reaches right into your chest and crushes your heart.  A less coked-up Cold Cave in introspective sensitive mode, Shallow Tears rolls forward in stately fashion, blowing up into alternating surges of drum crescendos and vocal multitracking that freezes time and blows out way before your ready for the affair to be over.

The B-side, Genesis, is far more restrained, with a creeping paranoid melody line picking its way over a jittery drum track that slowly slides into a silvery vocodered vocal climax. A little bit HTRK, but again, an entity all of itself.  It's the perfect foil to the grander A-side, a flawless 12" dropping a twin assault deep into your sensual perception, and the ultimate teaser to the10 track album, due out soon.

Order now from Mexican Summer.

<iframe width="100%" height="450" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Fplaylists%2F1619447&show_artwork=true">iframe>

INTERVIEW: Vagina Vangi

After being suitably wowed by their second EP, Locked Forever, I followed it up with a some questions to band leader Ilya Arhipov about their brief but striking history, his take on the witch house scene and about that name.

Not For Resale: Are you a band?

Ilya Arhipov: Not completely. I made all production and half of vocals from the very beginning of this project. But since I moved to Moscow (2 months ago) I took female vocalist and a drummer for live support and they both took some part in a new EP (though I made a major part of all work as well). So it's about to become a real band soon, I hope.

NFR: How many of you are there? What do you all play, who sings?

IA: Three persons - me, a drummer Grigory Dobrynin and a vocalist Yana Blinder. Male vocals are mine. I also did all the arrangements, mixing, beats, grooves, etc. At live shows me and Yana also will be involved in electronics beside our vocal parts. I never use guitars with Vagina Vangi and I will not use them in live shows. Meanwhile.

NFR: Is this your first band or have you had other projects?

IA: I had many bands and projects before. I tried everything from electropop to grindcore there. But none of that bands had any feedback like from this one. Recently we buried my electropop band Hint Machine. Yana sings in 3 Colours of White. Grigory's main band is On-The-Go (and to my taste, this band is probably one of the best indie bands from Russia).

NFR: Where in Russia are you from?

IA: Actually we are based in Moscow. I moved here 2 months ago. Before that I lived in Severomorsk and Murmansk - a very cold and dark place, I'd say. Not far from Norway and Finland (and I was hugely inspired by Norwegian scene). Vagina Vangi started there. Other guys also were born not in Moscow. Grigory came from Toliatti, Yana came from Rostov.

NFR: Do  you have friends making anything similar who you hang out with?

IA: It's hard to say so. Maybe only by web. I have such a kind of friendship with Unison from France, for example but we never met each other. I also keep in touch with Nattymari, The Church Of Synth, Funerals, Meszahline and many other mutual friends. But we are hardly familiar.  In Russia there are also two projects who came from drag music: Stoned Boys and ~▲l▲~. They make cool stuff and I respect these guys as well. I hope this respect is mutual. We live in one city now, but unfortunately didn't meet each other yet. With my new EP I can't say I still belong to "witch-house" scene (if you heard or read about my first EP, you know what I mean). I'm trying to make something own by blending my favourite ingredients. But tastes differ, you know.

My "real" friends used to make some other stuff.

NFR: What is it about the witch house sound that drew you to it; Or where you already making these kinds of sounds before the term witch house started appearing?

IA: I used to make some dark music for about 10 years. Things I did before could be compared only by atmosphere and melodies, but not by sound. I knew about witch-house from the very beginning of Salem and Gatekeeper, but that time I thought I'd never make such music. Reasons why I tried it are simple - just for my curiosity and for having fun. Only in progress I understood that that sound fits well to my earlier unreleased ideas. But speaking frankly, these bounds are too tight for me as well. Moreover, I'm tired of that huge amount of bands playing witch-house. Bad and inelegant.

NFR: What about the name Vagina Vangi? Where does it come from? What is one of those?

IA: It's a Russian combination of  words. It means something like "Baba Vanga's Vagina". Many meanings can be taken from it, but what is the most precious is a phonetic harmony ("gi" in both words originally pronounced like in "give"). I don't remember how I got it. But when I started, I didn't doubt about the title.

NFR: I considered Witch House a very loose term for a lot of people making darkened, graven occult influenced, electronic heavy music – Mishka Blog's term GraveWave is also very appropriate.

IA: It is. First bands were not so similar as they are now.

NFR: When it first started appearing what did you interpret Witch House as?

IA: Firstly I didn't notice any principal difference between Salem, Gatekeeper (from one side) and some tracks of Crystal Castles, Zola Jesus an WU LYF (from the other). I started my own stuff when genre became more formulaic and caricature. I liked that atmosphere, but I knew I could make some things in my own way.

NFR: What is the difference between Vagina Vangi and the music Hint Machine played?

IA: Hint Machine had more friendly, properly processed ideas in all. I had to think a thousand times before I could offer any idea there. We tried to make the best music for ourselves. Vagina Vangi is entirely produced by me and I try to release the primal idea of any track as soon as it possible - I know exactly my disadvantages, but I do not solve them immediately - music itself and ideas are more important here.

And the other criteria - VV is dark music, it's totally inspired by dark moods and emotions, at the same time - HM had light and positive context - just a friendly pop music. Too proper, though a little bit outrageous

NFR: Why do you think people have taken more notice of your new project? Just the Witch House angle, or do you feel you have developed your sound?

IA: It's still a secret for me. Maybe we tried too hard with HM and "better" became an enemy of "good". Maybe my voice didn't fit that music. I don't know. HM is still unfinished (though broken-up already) and it's not correct to compare. As for my own sound - I think I've got a feeling of having something like that. And It's very exciting to catch my "typical" features and to throw them in to something unexpected.

NFR: What is it you want to create with V.V. that couldn't happen with your previous band?

IA: I'd like to move forward and to see where all this leads. I'd like to have a band, to tour, regulary to release some albums. That's what I always wanted to have deal with, first of all.

NFR: From my own, UK perspective, there are a lot of quite chart-friendly sounds in Locked Forever – Euphoric Trance and House kind of synths and progressions. Is being Pop important

IA: Thank you! Even in my first EP I tried to add hook into every song, some brightly emphasized melodies. Then I just tried to make voice more important because, at least that could be good for live shows.

Important is not to be pop - important is that I'll like my own tracks when I listen to them after some years. I always tried to evolve all of my music to something touching, catchy and emotional, even if I played grindcore. That's a question of taste - obviously I like pop music.

NFR: What are your main inspirations for this project?

IA: I think, my own experience inspires me the most. It's hard to say more exactly - the list would be too huge.

NFR: The final track on the EP never quite peaks the same as the other tracks, there is a constant unreleased tension. Why did you choose to keep that one more restrained?

IA: Never thought about it. If you want some things to some things to sound louder, then you should make other things hush. Maybe that?

NFR: What else is coming from Vagina Vangi? Is there a full album you are working on?

IA: Soon we are going to release one more new single or EP with a couple of new tracks. And to play live as much as it possible. Something about full-length album will be clear when we'll find a label. Though we will not stop composing our new stuff.

DOWNLOAD: Vortex Rikers - Nullpunkt

Vortex Rikers
Nullpunkt ep
DOWNLOAD


Germany's dankest witch house producers Vortex Rikers release another free ep of blood-blackening ambient crawl. Throbbing with trance inducing cosmic energies, this new release floats more beats into the mix than previously, snatches of melodies drifting between the echoing thuds and flickers that punctuate the coalescent hum. The title translates as Zero Point, and though this isn't quite a ground zero re-approach to their sound, it's definitely an incremental shift towards ever more salient ground.  The conviction of the sounds and atmospheres, the patience with which they are played out is an ambience recalling Boards of Canada's most shadowy dreamscapes - an influence that should play a larger part in the more ambient oriented witch house artists with their own interpretations of occult and controversial themes subtly enshrounded within their oblique music.

Nearly all Vortex Rikers albums are available as free downloads from their Bandcamp, and they're very good at posting stuff on their Soundcloud, so get yr claws into them there too.

DOWNLOAD: Beko / Clandestine Records Compilation

Beko DSL/Clandestine Records
DOWNLOAD

Another awesome team-up with BekoDSL, the French free netlabel, after their split with La Station Radar at the end of last year, here comes another, even more intimidating set of tracks. This is Beko / Clan Destine Records collaboration of dark and sinister tracks from both label's eeriest artists. If you're not already familiar with most of these artists then there's every chance there's something in here for you; these labels overlap in the shadowy recesses of dark ambient, drone and witch house; Beko providing the whiter light to Clandestine's pulsing black strobe tracks.

When the clap beats really connect and twist with the trance you get GuMMy†Be▲R!; when the vocals come in all mournful and windswept against a craggy grey backdrop you get GHXST; then the camera pulls out and you get the widescreen panoramic treatments of Among the Bones and Malibu Wands; dark ugliness erupts from the bowels of the earth under the influence of Mater Suspiria Vision and all hell blows out through the amps of Sealings, garbled up into the last-signal-on-Earth radio transmissions of Fostercare and Modern Witch. Pop music as you knew it, once – in a memory or a dream, buried, rotten, exhumed, reanimated.

Lots of ground covered in a parallel to the Mishka Grave Wave Comp, lots of new uncovered little nooks and crannies of this nebulous and loosely knit genre uncovered here.

In their own words, this compilation is:

“†HE SOUNDTRACK †O ¥R ORGASMIC DEMISE, NO†HING IS †RUE, EVER¥†HING IS PERMI††ED.”
Links to all the artists sites are included in the download

Tracklist

a1-Petra Schelm - Channel The Body
a2-oFF/Gr†LL Gr†LL - Crackedemo
a3-Among The Bone - Tunguska
a4-Gray Things - Fortune Teller
a5-Ela Orleans - Light At Dawn
a6-Skylines - @ Dawn
a7-oFF - Makeupworz
a8-Drugs For Drunks - DZLIGHT (intstrumental)
a9-GHXST - IXNYC
a10-Sealings - Two Cups
a11-King Dude - Never Let You Go

b1-Central Asian Nervous Systems - Almost Dead
b2-GuMMy†Be∆R! - False Prophets
b3-F8STERCARE - Snowdragon
b4-Mater Suspiria Vision - The Trip Graden Of El Diablo
b5-Gr†LL Gr†LL - Organ Sunday
b6-Meddicine - Some Thing You Knew Before
b7-Modern Witch - Running
b8-I†† - Chambre Ardente Affair†
b9-Party Trash - Alone
b10-Nattymari - K1LL K1LL
b11-Malibu Wands - Sleep With Demons

DOWNLOAD: Мишка Presents The Guide to Grave Wave

You've probably already seen this as it's flown round the internet in viral pandemic proportions, but in case not here's the link to Mishka Bloglin's expansive, extremely thorough, beautifully presented ESSENTIAL, three disc and full colour magazine layout pdf of a disparate scene which they've encapsulated within the phrase Grave Wave


CLICK TO JUMP



Way more than a witch house sampler this includes the obvious names like Salem, White Ring, oOoOO then goes much deeper spreading the remit across the entire world of current darkness and occult experimentalists, pulling together such disparate strands of sound in a roll-call of bands including Nuit Noir, Oneohtrix Point Never, Diamond Vampires, Soft Metals and Xiu Xiu. 

It's a persuasive footnote to a year of compelling music which has been met with an equal amount of aggressive criticism, neatly and clearly underlining the qualities of the many bands and how they all fit together into a year that has unarguably drawn much of it's potency from a richly detailed world of darkness.