Thursday 30 June 2011

VIDEO: Light Asylum - A Certain Person



Official new video for A Certain Person by New York's Light Asylum directed by Eden Batki collages their recent tour round the US with on and offstage footage. Such a powerful emotive song, and it's not even the best on the ep, which has now been made available on a full release. Mexican Summer re-released the duo's awesome debut and only recorded output, In Tension, earlier this month.  Get it get it get it.

DOWNLOAD: Oneida: June 17, 2011 Secret Project Robot (Rated O Set)


Oneida: June 17, 2011 Secret Project Robot (Rated O Set)

Repost from NYC Taper.  Jump to his site for the download link HERE

"The second piece of Oneida’s Thank Your Parents trilogy is itself a three-pronged release. Rated O is the most ambitious album of the three and last Friday at Secret Project Robot, the band undertook the huge task of playing the 3-album set straight through. And even then, Oneida took liberties with the music and stretched the two-hour album to nearly two and half. The songs themselves resembled their recorded counterparts but in the live setting, Oneida stretched and mutated the pieces into vehicles for all kinds of improvisation. The very stylistic elements that encompass the varied genres of Oneida music were all featured during the lengthy set — from noise (”End of Time”) to ambient (”O”) to krautrock (”Ghost in the Room” streaming below) to punk (”It Was a Wall”). Rated O has it all, and Oneida did it all."


He also taped their Preteen Weaponry set too - the first part of the trilogy - which you can download HERE


Wednesday 29 June 2011

REVIEW: Hotel Wrecking City Traders & Gary Arce - LP



Hotel Wrecking City Traders & Gary Arce
Bro Fidelity

Melbourne based instrumental brother-duo Hotel Wrecking City Traders team up with Gary Arce of Yawning Man on this huge monolithic two-track slab of improv noise rock. Yawning Man were one of the bands first making forays deep into the Desert Rock scene along with Kyuss, Brant Bjork, Karma To Burn and then some; a wealth of gnarly experience from which Arce draws on, setting his guitars down over the top of the tapes sent to him with a cool and studied sense of purpose as the two HWCT brothers (Ben Matthews on drums, Toby on guitar) work off each other building up the tracks. Toby also laid down bass parts to further define the flow of the tracks, but the initial darker guitar and drum are taped live together. The pair have a subtle and powerful way of playing off each other, locking into dense grooves and allowing each other space - a great canvas for Arce to add his extra detail on to.

The first track slowly builds up from feathery psychedelic skeins of loose interplay that solidifies into into howling motorik juggernaut. There's a big dose of Pelican and Isis buried into this, a patient focus on developing textural elements within the improvised frameworks slowly ratcheting up the tension and pressure letting it steam out again fiercely but not quite through the kinds of huge riffs HWCT have played with before. The two tracks don't quite cut as loose and free or offer up as devastatingly hedonistic grooves of molten rock as tracks off the Black Yolk ep from 2008 did - Go check out Lakeshore Strangler and Pagoda immediately after this and buy that album up too - but it's an almost incomparable form of rock music they are playing here.  Mastered by James Plotkin, the master of conjuring a sharper resolution of depth and space out of dark music, this is a record of intricate feeling, teasing out themes as the tracks progress, a Mogwai  influenced sense of using repetition to create scale.  The lighter guitar of Acre is contrasted by the dirty crunch and aggressive sawing of Toby but the restraint with which Toby plays is what makes the combination a success.

The record is limited to 300 copies on a lush deep blue wax 12" including a t-shirt with tidy teardrop logo.  Order your copy HERE


Tuesday 28 June 2011

DOWNLOAD: Shaidar Logoth - Chapter I: The Peddler



Shaidar Logoth
Chapter I: The Peddler

DOWNLOAD

Here is a very nice free-download black metal album for you, released in February by Minneapolis based duo Shaidar Logoth.  The band is, ostensibly, a side-project for Steven Henningsgard and Adam Clemens to experiment with black metal forms, droning and atonal repetition of the kinds they don't get to use in their main death metal band Iron Thrones. The album is based on the character of Padan Fain in Robert Jordan’s ‘Wheel of Time‘ book series - this info and more interesting stuff about the recording process and inspiration of the release can be found on Henningsgard's blog HERE.

Experimental dabble or ongoing concern, either way this is a very solid post-metal / Cascadian / depressive / atmospheric / take your pick form of black metal - with a hell of a fierce set of vocal chords on it. The vocals in this are great, guttural screeches and shrieks bottoming out to bass background rumbles; the whole production clearly defined and nicely layered, propulsive drums still carry weight even when they are so fast they are fluttering between the walls of white guitar tone; Henningsgard's job as a sound engineer is clearly the right vocation for him if he can create this on a whim.  There's little trace of death metal in this record, the click-snare and chugga-guitar of Death elegantly eschewed in favour of a fizzing, hissing cathartic torrent of sinuous Black noise.

Monday 27 June 2011

last.fm (^2)

this week's DiS Vs. L.Fm Vs NFR listening stats analysis:  >>>

Glastonbury go home!


01. Robel Synthesia - 44
02. Zomby - 32
03. Washed Out - 29
04. Ghibli - 26
05. Shabazz Palaces - 25
06. Bon Iver - 23
07. The Caretaker – 21
07. Ducktails - 21
07. Gkfoes vjgoaf - 21
07. Blanck Mass – 21


1 – Crazy psychedelic stuff: Animal Collective / Peaking Lights = some kind of new wyrd electronica  – free bandcamp d/l: www.robelsynthesia.bandcamp.com

2 – This is a good summer evening album, is it not?

3 – Life of Leisure a lot in anticipation of the new album. I suspect that by doing this I am setting myself up for more disappointment than if I went in unrefreshed.

4 – more wyrd electronic. I am inventing a genre. WATCH IT BLOOM!  www.ghibli.bandcamp.com

5 – Let this be the thread to establish Shabazz’ supreme awesomeness.

6 – This is a very good album. Holocene, Calgary, Beth/Rest. Amazing songs.

7a – another amazing summer evening album, that I appreciate even more because it slips a certain, almost unseen, amount of darkness into proceedings until you listen attentively. 

7b – ditto summer evening album ditto

7c – these are all plays of his new 3 track ep Glacial Melt – recorded in New Zealand. There are few  artists around who are as profoundly influenced by their surroundings as  Sean Conrad

7d – last, but by no means least in the lucky number 7’s this week – Ben John Power’s off of |Fuck Button’s new twinkly dark drone project Blanck Mass. It’s a good one. Not quite Emeralds or Kevin Drumm but it’s very potent.



TOTW:

DOWNLOAD: ʄ≜uxmuℭica - Live At Club ℭilencio


ʄ≜uxmuℭica
Live At Club ℭilencio

DOWNLOAD

New album and the last release from a productive year from Yorba Zergot, aka ʄ≜uxmuℭica who I turned a whole week of blog over to a little while ago. The nine-track album is split into two halves, the first five tracks concering an elemental spirit each - yes, there's a obviously occuring fifth in Yorba's world - Air, Earth, Water, Fire and Aether (Luminous) and they contain some of his strongest tracks so far and as a whole it is one of his most coherent works, sounding like a Fritz Lang / Russ Meyer / David Lynch pile up; film noir grinding into brown acid dark psychedelia with hints of sexualisation. It's got one of the most uplifting straight out 4/4 moments of impassioned clubiness in Fire (Hades) set amongst a host of screaming pitch-shifted demons harrying the tone-bent synths that are Zergot's signature.  Like previous releases this is not for the faint hearted and rewards repeated listens with a slow release of it's charms - a certain amount of acclimatisation is required before you can fully appreciate what you are hearing and that is an incredibly rare, if not previously extinct, quality in music.

The four tracks that follow the elemental suite are older tracks that have been collated at the end for good measure - bonuses if you will; as if you'd need further enticement.

Stalk the cat on Soundcloud, Twitter, stream the full album and slide the man a few clams over on Bandcamp:

Friday 24 June 2011

DOWNLOAD: Haruki Tamesue - Midas Reversed (Golden Arms Versions) & Copy-Paste Cliche Death Rave

Here's a couple of recent releases from the scarily hi-octane output of US producer Haruki Tamesue. The guy never seems to sit still and his Bandcamp site is the busiest I have ever seen - enjoy working through all his releases by most appealing title vs. artwork and see what treats you turn up.  He also has a page to follow on Soundcloud.

Here's some free beats to kick your Friday into gear.


Midas Reversed (Golden Arms Versions)
DOWNLOAD


As much of an official single as Haruki has ever released - still free - features the Original mix, a live version, and a ridiculous ghetto juke remix that bounces beats of four walls, ceiling and floor in a disorienting spatial movement, dragging male and female vocals (or heavily warped either way one or t'other), across the mix in equally incoherent patterns - synched to the beat of course but the voices make vapour trails over the heaving basslines that hang in the wake, bobbing and sinking disconcertingly; at first.



Copy-Paste Cliche Death Rave
DOWNLOAD

First track of this is Slow Burn - honey-vocalled club smash, that pumps itself against a durrty interlocked throb of bass and mid-range, a lithe and syrupy de-bass-ed euphoric house number, sequins and mdma crystals sparkling off its gold boob tube.  Following on the heels of that is a murkier number with the name D3d R4v3r. So you can guess how that goes but you might not have anticipated the screams after the drop..... <- spoiler.   Two more tracks tease out these themes - there's a helluva lot of dark drone across these tracks for a rave record, but this guy is all about the subversive, chopping up vocals into corrupt interstitial overlaps of their former selves, flickering between the audible rhythmic and disintegrated textural. An interesting listen, but it's the first track you'll want to come back to again and again for the fun of it - So good someone made a video for it:  William Sarradet who has also directed clips for SleepOver and †‡†....

DOWNLOAD: Asian Women on the Telephone - ICanT



Asian Women on the Telephone
ICanTRAIG Records

DOWNLOAD

Russian Dadaist industrial drone rock outfit Asian Women on the Telephone have released a new full length that utterly surpasses their previous work and many other records released this year. Similar street level clang and clatter to the likes of Religious Knives, Skull Defects, Mi Ami, Black Dice and original non-conformist dissenting confrontationalists like Einstürzende Neubauten, Faust, Throbbing Gristle and Suicide, ICanT has reconceived and energised their vision into producing the band’s most idiosyncratic and physically exciteable album to date.

As those preceeding references would suggest, theirs is a contorted melding of kraut, psych, industrial, and avant-garde elements all interlocked and playing off each other at any one time, certain aspects arcing out of each of the eight track with varying degrees of intensity.  Highlights are inevitably the parts where propulsive beats comes to the fore and suck the rest of the noise along in its slipstream, the grandest most sweat-inducing wide-eyed piece of them all literally having their thrall to the hypnotic embedded in its title: Vip-Maria-Viva-Trance.


 


The physical release is limited to 100 CD-Rs bound in hand-made silkscreen pentagon folders available through RAIG Records and Shiny Beast.

Thursday 23 June 2011

SONIC ROUTER: Interview & Mix - Dalglish [Highpoint Lowlife]

"...People who might as well not exist because it looks like bad copies of the ones somewhere else or even next to them..."












My most recent piece for Sonic Router went up yesterday - an interview with Scottish born, Berlin based techno pioneer Dalglish to complement his new album of granite toned electronic soundscaping Benacah Drann Deachd It's quite a heavy one, as is the mix he sent in to go with it - a tracklist that includes Synken, Michael Rother, Sun Ra, Coil, Cluster and Leyland Kirby.

Here's the intro: full interview, album stream and mix inside the LINK



"There’s a lot currently going on in the life of Dalglish, aka Chris Douglas, in and outside of the fact that he’s a man who has been producing confrontational exploratory noises since the techno-advent time of the late 80′s, with his first official release appearing in 1992. His back catalogue of work since then has informed swathes of genres, let alone the artists operating inside them, over two decades and he is still producing music that is capable of stopping a listener dead in their tracks. After pursuing this interview for some time, chatting sporadically to Chris as we contended with both the complications and darkness that hindered the flow of conversation; the same ominous cloud that indirectly helped inform both of us of a mutual appreciation for the psychological position from which Dalglish’s music approaches the listener."

DOWNLOAD: Mother Network - χτέναφέρω



Mother Network
χτέναφέρω
DOWNLOAD

Another new album for you from Texan one-man ambient psychedelic maestro Mother Network. This one is, in his own words, built of "moogy and depressing/regressing/encouraging seascapes", sounding quite succesfully like it a a bonus. The Soviet styled heiroglyph χτέναφέρω reads teno-fora, though that doesn't clue me in any more as to what it might mean - whether meaning is important with music that is all about feling is a moot point.  Mother Network is becoming increasingly adept at conveying the transcendent through his minimal synth evocations and this album adds an even greater depth and extra layers to his previous releases.

The download comes with a video for Colloblasts created by Alex Mitchell of Heavy Brainfall.

Wednesday 22 June 2011

DOWNLOAD: Beko / Skrot Up Split Compilation


Beko / Skrot Up Records
Split Compilation

DOWNLOAD

Here's another excellent split comp from beautifully rendered French digital label Beko, this time carving it up with Swedish carnage curators Skrot Up - A record and cassette label dedicated to "slowed down dirges, strange sounds, punchy beats, 8-bit manifestos, prolonged explorations of lateral thinking, synth creepers, warped pop, syrupy industrial and weird metallic clatter."

As extensive as that it it barely even coves half the stacked-up smoke damaged tracks that rattle and hum across this mix.  It starts off with a band I've waxed on before - Endless Endless Endless; a free-floating improv psych duo from the States that slowly ratchet up the cosmic tension that is dissapated over the following tracks.  There's some crudity that doesn't quite come off in Public Pubes' track but everything else finds it's place and hits its own zone hard. There's a crepuscular, sepulchural take on I Wanna Be Your Dog by The Portable Morla, a grimy slab of hairy drone appropriately titled Loopgoat but Venganza de Cochino's Vengeance of the Scum is the highlight for me; a borderline ridiculous mix of black metal shrieking, death growls set to an industrial-electro thob and buzz-saw guitars that develops into a a sleek and deadly dropped shoulder groove that pummels and hisses to a close.

The download comes packed full of links to all bands and extra links to labels, so feel free to follow up at your leisure peril leisure.  Beko are very thorough in their releases, and to the anally retentive like me, that makes them all the more appealing.


Tracklist:

a_side
a1_ endless endless endless - we go on
a2_ braindamage - you want
a3_ public pubes - cum gonga din
a4_ heroin in tahiti - ex-giants on dope
a5_ fwy! - the 57
a6_ syentology - leash

b_side
b1_ the secret society of the sonic six - blame & blood
b2_ coverup peel - loopgoat
b3_ venganza de cochino - vengeance of the scum
b4_ high marks - aggressive tropical depression
b5_ portable morla - i wanna be your dog (the stooges)
b6_ german army - ottoman nurse

Monday 20 June 2011

DOWNLOAD: Vortex Collisions - Nowhere To Turn (Too Cool To Rule)



Vortex Collisions
Nowhere To Turn

Too Cool To Rule Records

DOWNLOAD

Another band called Vortex for you, this one Vortex Collisions is a solo experimental drone outfit from Brighton by the enigmatically pseudonymed Gravity B.  Nowhere To Turn is his first cohesive full album proper after a string of increasingly formidible experiments that can be found hanging off his Soundcloud.  Gravity B has set up his own label to release this project, Too Cool To Rule on Bandcamp.

There is a mix of styles over the ten tracks on this album, all feedback heavy and awash with frayed noise but ranging from JAMC propulsive churn to weightless amniotic ambiance. Shoegaze influenced noise, or noise saturated drone rock, whichever way you turn it this record is a visceral affair.

Download the album for free from Bandcamp now, hard copies coming soon.


Sunday 19 June 2011

LAST.FM WITH PICTURES

Weekly listening double/cross-post stats time!



I tried to do a facetious picture of my hard drive

but I can't get it to the web. Oh well. It wouldn't have been that funny anyway,

01. The Men - 49
02. Com Truise - 43
03. Bon Iver - 42
04. Raspberry Bulbs - 31
05. How to Dress Well - 29
06. RITES WILD - 28
06. Vortex Collisions - 28
08. Twin Shadow - 22
08. Secret Cities - 22
10. Vetiver - 19


1 – Thanks to noise_annoys for playing this in last week's .fm listings. As you can see, I like it a lot. Final track has such an awesome pace – it;s my power running track.

3 – Liking this a lot, very rich and intense feeling, though not getting hit with any of the strong hooks that For Emma had.

4 – This is all strong hooks.

5 – All plays of the new 4 track ep. Incredible. I only really liked one track of Love Remains, the whole album was a little dull but this orchestral ep is soul stirring.

6a – Sounds so much like Religious Knives I have checked more than once whether I was playing them instead. Dirgey, claustrophobic Australian drone.

6b – Brighton based shoegazenoisedronerock solo artist. Free download album from his Bandcamp: http://toocooltorulerecords.bandcamp.com/

8a – Still deeply in love with this record

8a – Still unsure about this, it's not making me tingle.

10 – Getting in to this now, a lot. The Errant Charm indeed – has moments of Grateful Dead, Velvet Underground and The Searchers (it might not be The Searchers I'm thinking of, but something like that)


TOTW:

Well, more birdsong I think. Since everything I listened to between 9am and 6pm all week was accompanied by one little bird on some stuck note it's only fitting I give the little fella more attention. I recorded a couple of minutes of him, but it literally did not stop all day so imagine this N E V E R E N D I N G …..... When it rained hard he fell silent, then as soon as it lightened up he was back. Merciless

  The really annoying constant bird call at Palmeria Mansions by Meatbreak

Friday 17 June 2011

DOWNLOAD: Gimu - The Sacred


Gimu
The Sacred
DOWNLOAD

A fantastically bleak two-track release from the solo Brazillian soundscapist Gimu.  An immersive experience into a heavily tone-flooded space of dark ambient drone. There is very little information regarding this artist, the intent behing the sounds and the mechanics of their creation a mystery that add to the details. The central tones sounds like immensely processed guitars, there's a low end rumble, a roaring mid range and top end frequencies buffeting around the twenty minute running time. Delicately searching needles of white hot feedback ring into the swirling darkness of the Part 1. The torrent of noise that forms Part 2 track throws up a scarily intimidating rush of black waters churning through the night; slick black over hot air, frictionless yet violent, smooth and ragged.

There are two more free download releases from May and April this year on his Bandcamp page: A Piano Piece and E.K.

Wednesday 15 June 2011

DOWNLOAD: White Rainbow - From Now On Let's: the Mixtape


White Rainbow
From Now On Let's: the Mixtape

DOWNLOAD

If you thought Lays the Boogie Down was heavy sink your frontal lobe into the thirteen slices of deep trance funk Adam Forkner has just served up and see how it grabs you.  A couple of lengthy deep trance numbers rub up against a lot of shawter grindier jams.  This one brings the glitch from the off on the title track; after that Dr Pizza gets into his Purple&Green mode with some sexually driven smoothed down, screwed down grooves on Stark Naked Bluster and Hermeto Swang.  The record starts popping it's body all over the shop switching between liquid funk of Stop It Boogie to the hard beats & bass, sometimes folding them in together like on the highlight Thug Dubs Mo Poppin.

You just need to hear this one, there's only so much words can do.  All those track titles should seduce you strong enough. 


DOWNLOAD: Vortex Rikers - One Of Us / A New Dawn



Two new tracks from German witch house ambient duo Vortex Rikers prior to a full album due around Autumn time. Until then One Of Us and A New Dawn exist as ephemeral tracks floating out on their own, two doomy tracts of dark drone rich with a sense of uneasy dangerous fragility about them, a character borne from eerie modulation and half light figures that swish through the mist, the tolling bell melodies and the haunting slash and slap of beats and hi hats. Vortex Rikers are one of the most consistent and prolific acts around with a sizeable collection of releases available from their Bandcamp and Soundcloud.  These two new pieces meld into their catalogue like appartitions drifting through fog, cutting new shapes in the gloomy fabric of the bands aesthetic. Two more excellent additions to their canon.



Tuesday 14 June 2011

STREAM: Ghosting Season - Far End Of The Graveyard EP




Gavin Miller and Tom Ragsdale have unveiled their first EP as Ghosting Season on their Soundcloud.

After several atmospheric and tantalising teaser videos they have popped open the sonic airlock to reveal the four track Far End Of The Graveyard and it is more than worth the wait. The opening track is a slowly spiralling space walk of a stunner, similar in ambiance to Holy Other, if not pace; Ghosting Season build up to a headier, all consuming rush, equal in textural and sophisticated detail but less sensual, bringing the cosmic techno over from their Worriedaboutsatan days (especially the teutonic pulses of Pissing About and All Things But You Are Silent), remoulding it into a version significantly different enough for them to decide it needed a new name - whether that is discernible to us mere mortals is irrelevant, Satan decreed it so, and thus Season is born.

Exercise has a tangible Demdike Stare influence in the pan-enthno-tribalism of the beats, an unchartable but distinct primitivism contrasting with the ominous waves of electronic humming that loom up over them, not as claustrophobically dark and oppressive as the depths of the Demdike Tryptich albums dredged but an equal in form and slow burning intensity.

The third track is a reflexive cooling off session of liquid tones, gases turning to vapour turning to water, crystallizing, solidifying and crashing as solid mineral into the atmopshere of the finale Far End Of The Graveyard.  The impact on the surface of the track causing seismic beats and bass drops to rupture the senses in an airless slow-motion sequence of events that will have you rapt to the climax.

Stream the full ep from their Soundcloud before the EP is released on 4-track CD and 5-track digital on June 20th.  The digital version's extra track will be an exclusive remix of Far End Of The Graveyard by Sam Willis of Walls and Snoretex.

There will be a convening of occult and cosmic oriented electronica and ephemera later this week as Ghosting Season play with Demdike Stare in London at the Lexington on 17th June: Facebook event HERE


And finally, there is a great enlightening interview with the duo over on Sonic Router: HERE

Sunday 12 June 2011

LAST.FM 12/6/11

This week in numbers and related words, via DiS:

He Who Crushes last.fm


01. Mist - 41
02. The Rosebuds - 40
03. The Caretaker - 30
04. Com Truise - 25
04. Mother Network - 25
06. Cygnet Wings - 24
07. Bhang Khang - 21
08. Fucked Up - 19
08. Raspberry Bulbs - 19
10. White Rainbow - 18
10. Gonjasufi - 18
10. Holy Other - 18


1 – John Elliot & Sam Goldberg project. Astral oscillations on a higher plane. Love it.

2 – Playing Woods to death, really like the rest of the album. Boy/girl two piece - Ivan and Kelly - with a lot of orchestra in the back, so obviously more people involved somewhere. And it's out on Merge, so it's not minimal. Ivan vocals and the storytelling style is quite similar to Adam Green. Didn't imagine he'd have a legacy, but then again surely he would. Kelly vocals are really soulful and rich. Great stuff.

3 – Just me & M in the office this week, so I've had the laptop out. Doesn't scrobble though . Shame. Anyway, disintegrating hauntological tea-dance is surprisingly a massive hit.

4a – Galactic Melt is so good! Worth the punctuation. Synth tones are gorgeous, the beats are totally involved, track progression so subtle but dramatic it can whip smoothly from a pulse to glitch storm just of the back of a seconds bass hum.

4b – New Mother Network free download called χτέναφέρω. Yup. Kid just keeps 'em coming. This one is 'Moogy and depressing/regressing/encouraging seascapes' http://themothernetwork.bandcamp.com/

6a – Brilliant free ep from one man band. Wrote a load of love on the blog. http://dlvr.it/VNXRK

7 – LOVE gnarly-crust-spite-punk-black metal. This one is out of Baton Rouge, Louisianna. Add Swamp to that meta-genre. Free download here: http://bhangkhang.bandcamp.com/

8a – Haven't listened to this properly, but a couple of tracks really did bite my attention hard.

8b – More of that crusty BM. Other project from He Who Crushes Teeth of Bone Awl – kings/dark princes of spiteful 2 minute blasts of life-enriching HATE!!! All their tapes are sold out, so how you get this into your blood stream is up to you, but if you like fast visceral distortion then you need this band.

10b – having said my In-Office plays don't scrobble I swear I only played this the once at work, so how is it here? Maybe they are. Apparently this album has a horrible bit in the middle. I must be totally numb, I have no idea were.

10c – With U is such a great record. Pity that is has an old track on it, but that's no complaint because Yr Love is one of the greatest witch house/cosmic drag whatevs related pieces of music – if not The Greatest. TriAngle on a roll with this, Clams Casino, and new Balam Acab.


Friday 10 June 2011

VIDEO: Date Rape - Cold Remains



Here's two new things from the Australian electro-noir outfit Date Rape.  The first, a video produced by Christopher Kemp for the excellent Cold Remains - lead track from their recent free eps from March earlier this year. The video was edited and adjusted in After Effects, processed through an X-box into a VCR then into an old TV and filmed on the screen through a Canon 7D, then brought in After Effects yet again and further adjusted. Multiple layers of analogy, digital and interactive feedback loop distortion of footage from classic Hammer Horror films and other occult material such as The Wicker Man, The Devil's Own, Cry of The Banshee, Horror Express, mixed into 16mm home movie clips taken from around archive.org

Second up is a brand new track titled Repeat which they threw up on their Soundcloud yesterday.  An ambient, spoken word sample piece unlike anything they have produced before. A teaser track to something more substantial coming soon.  Called Repeat, because it does work better over a longer cycle.





The Cold Remains and Machaevol eps are still up for free on the Bandcamp.

REVIEW: Everyone To The Anderson - The Man Born From Inside of a Horse (Unlabel)




The Man Born From Inside of a Horse is the debut full length album from Brighton's Everyone To The Anderson. It will be released through Unlabel on Monday in a limited edition run of hand-made die-cut screen printed sleeve CDs.  It will be a work of art-rock record worth cherishing. For years I have been saying this is the best band in Brighton and for years I have no real idea if anyone has been listening to me or not, yet for years I have repeated it as one of the truths that I know. Their Doodlebug EP is a flawless rush of brawny adrenalised frayed-nerved noise rock, as numbingly acerbic as it is cerebrallly exciting and vice versa. If you can verse that vica.  The tracks on that were long and drawn out weighing in their peaks with a measureed build. At under half an hour the 11 tracks that form '...a Horse don't so much as blast past, they burn right through you leaving their figures imprinted deep into your synapses, so after even brief exposure the glottal breaks in the opening riff will stalk your walk. This is the kind of music you play on headphones at other pedestrian's peril as you involuntarily contort in thrall to the direction of the music, the momentum of each track will keep your feet moving as your mind and shoulders meet in unified spasm.  There's a dryness to the vocal deliveries that recalls Steve Albini - there's a lot of Fugazi to the guitars.  Even inside the heart-burstingly lush melody of So You're Saying There's A Chance there lies a kernel of grit that keeps it mean to the core, but the chorus keeps unfolding out in even more attractive layers like the petals of a rose attached to the idly savage thorns of its' stem, and it's an analogy that you can pull through plenty of the tracks on the album; one of the keys to its' potency a passive aggression - distortion and harshness, angularity, edge all co-existing and harmonising with unexpected softnesses, a gnarliness overlaid with prettiness; veils of shimmering delay, the pregnant hum of warm feedback, patiently held guitar tones, Ben Gregory's voice. Then the beasts attack all barking, snarling and frothing at the mouth.  The build of Pocklemouse could end you up anywhere but it chooses to whip itself into an almost uncontrolled frenzy.

And therein lies the second key to the effectiveness of this album: Restraint. Another Albini reference, and another lesson transcended by this band.  Illustrated in the track title Let's Take This To Smithereens; you know what that censored word should be and it makes you rage at the replacement of it. Hold on to that thought, because it will be released through the course of the track, all in distinguished, unhurried time.  There's an elegant poise to the execution of every aspect of this album, a sharpness the eludes description (how very convenient for me) and can only be felt while listening. There's a sense of dark humour and a sad sense of nostalgia to some of the lyrics like "We're carving our names into the spine of a tree, hello we were here in August 1990",  a sense of self-deprecation "we need a space six feet high and just enough wide, we'll only be passing through", and some kind of sensuality "It's skin on skin", breathed heavily, the exact nature of the breath's intent ambiguous. Which leads to the final keystone holding the album together, the most addictive quality it has to offer is something it doesn't actually offer directly but keeps elided from the listener.  You will not be able to turn up this loud enough to ever overwhelm you as much as you want it to, there's something so tantalisingly distant about the way it will never submit to you but strides on and off indifferent, in its' own little world.

In 2011, rock music doesn't get much better than this.



Thursday 9 June 2011

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: Vagina Vangi - Locked Forever



Vagina Vangi
Locked Forever
DOWNLOAD



New four track EP from this Russian witch house oriented outfit following their Benighted United ep from December that develops their genrefied themes and expands their sound onto a wider plane. The track titles elude to an end times of occult darkness, Biblical prophecies, of damnation fire and brimstone, the wastelands and castigations of Milton's Lost Paradise, Satanic themes wrought in cold electronics.

The four tracks of Vagina Vangi's new release almost run straight into each other, barely missing a beat before seguing your attention through smoky fade onto the next budding tendrils of euphoria. That is certainly what the music in the EP hopes to achieve, through a mix of chest bursting throat choking euphoric trance and a dissonant yet equally complementary and enhancing use of noise, distortion and disintegrative effects. The sounds draw comparisons to, if not direct influence from, the feral trance of Salem and White Ring and the more studied bleakness of Vortex Rikers and Porn Antler. There is a fullness to the construction of these tracks which enhances their designs to lift the listener up on to a higher plane.

The first track Black Coils sets this landscape out in as epic proportions as an opening gambit will allow; charred beats imposing themselves across a smoothly twisting rhythm, a disembodied vocal slowly coalescing into a liltingly delicate refrain suddenly solidifies into full throated flight along with a soaring megaton blast of fiery synths. Europop and dirty noise drone balled up into an explosive comet of momentum.

Second track Goatghosts brings a haunted male vocal straight in over a thick cable of electro throb, the melody line sputtering and shorting like the most delirious Justice tracks. A distinctly European sound of French filter house and chart trance. Behind the fizzing live electrical lightshow are layers of rising key major chord synth stabs that get overloaded even more on the title track Locked Forever which almost roars out of the speakers where it not for that drive-time smoothness it's been finished with – it works, it sucks you in then hits you with a slamming beat straight in the solar plexus doubling the density of the track instantly with the kind of shocking elation that a good drop should feed you, and the effect keeps running through the rest of its' five minutes.

Final track, of Chaos and Hell is a slow burner, holding down an overarching atmosphere of doomy intensity, employing oppressive minor chord progressions that move with studied intent, building itself up over the spine of a martial tattoo slowly reappearing from some dirty and distant skirmish accompanied by clouds of ominous synth tone. As this seething mass of darkness draws nearer the cavorting shadows of the the former tracks can be made out, yet in its' final moments this release never quite opens out into a fully unleashed four to the floor onslaught that it might have set you up for leaving you on the edge of a climax that is yours to interpret as satisfying or otherwise. For me, it's all the better for the restraint.

Download from Bandcamp, stream and follow on Soundcloud.

If you like the sound of this keep your eyes on the blog, later today I've got an
interview with band leader Ilya Arhipov for you.

Wednesday 8 June 2011

Download: Blissed Out - Drones


Get in on this quick, becasue there's only a 100 download limit on it and it should max out ...any minute now.   This is a new track from Blissed Out, fresher than the aborted AMDISCS release that ended up being free (and awesome).

There is a slot of darkness swirling around amongst the sweaty rainforest rhythms. Shadowy paranoia stalking through the verdent overgrowth. Claustrophobia on a humid, airless search for just a crack of starlit sky thorugh the canopy.

VIDEO: The Caretaker - Bedded Deep In Long Term Memory



The stillness, diginity and elegant poise of the owl, aligned in decaying digital layered unity by Charles Griffin Gibson, with the deeply emotive crackle and otherwoldy hiss of The Caretaker's dusty 78 looped reminiscences of Bedded Deep In Long Term Memory. The track is taken from The Caretaker's phenomenal new album An Empty Bliss Beyond This World is out now on his own label History Always Favours The Winners. It's a record that is transportive, disorienting and transformative, making infinite visions stream from just a few bars of borrowed, found, lost musics.

VIDEO: Blackbird Blackbird - Euphoria



Official video for Blackbird Blackbird's utterly lush and appropriately titled track Euphoria. Mikey BB has been keeping the slowly shimmering beach front flame of chillwave alive while people like Memory Tapes and Washed Out have been off and out the limelight working on new material, consistently putting out tracks that evoke the feeling of running through endless fields of distant summer.

This video has been produced by an equally consistent charachter on the hypnagogic-esque scense of electronica and pop, Synaesthesiae Films.  I don't regularly post their clips for nothing.

DOWNLOAD: Bernholz - Consequences 1 (Variations on a Theme)



Bernholz
Consequences 1 (Variations on a Theme)Anti-Ghost Moon Ray Records
DOWNLOAD



Berholz is the name of the solo out-wardly experimental explorations of one member of Brighton's Duke RaoulMost of the tracks in this release are very brief, only a couple stretch over two minutes creating a flickering tapestry of an album that offers up a lot of very neatly realised ideas in its brief twenty minutes.

Starting off with a minute of loose jazz-based bass & voice freestyle that segues through fifty seconds of prettily delayed white tone, then real beats kick in; for ninety seconds a clicking see-saw of minimalism is seduced by luscious grey hum that all simmers away to starkness.

The fourth track builds on the third, the minimal clean lines to all sounds are there, an organ playing a short chiming refrain that rolls around in small cycles, disappearing under a rumbling bass mid-section, then reappearing on the other side loaded up on effects. The piece is fleshed out of the longest running time of 4:26, giving the listener their first and only chance to really immerse and breathe in the ambience and feel the languid pace of the rhythm.

On the fifth, Beach Boys harmonies back a fatter dirtier bass-drum beat, the skin reverberating with the solid thumps propelling the track along, the vocals floating lazily over the top like they were basking under Californian sun – a fantasy which the atonal grinding tone between them attempts to aggravate as best it can.

The ninth track breaks up the smoothness by chopping into the rhythm with an almost glitch-like disrespect for form, but the trajectory isn't separated by too much to actually vibrate your teeth out with dissonance, the track progressing with a linearity to lock on to. The final piece is three minutes of vocal harmony, voices layered upon on another, firm toned, heavy breath and sighing.

The ten tracks are each titled with a simple number from one to ten 1,2,3 – but not in sequence. Reordering the album into track title sees it play with equal, if not more success, so it's worth giving both orders a listen. Minimalist abstract art jokes. The music is no joke. Excellent stuff.





Tuesday 7 June 2011

DOWNLOAD: Cygnet Wings - Cygnet Wings EP (Self-Released)


Cygnet Wings

Cygnet Wings EP
DOWNLOAD

Eastern influenced modes abound on this beautiful, haunting, piece of work from one American, 23 year old Gainsville/Brooklyn migrator Dan Hall.  Completed with the help of a few friends, but ostensibly Cygnet Wings is all his own work it involves layers of violin and guitar with sparse ethereal vocals lullabyed over the top. Reminds me of Loscil as much as anything more orchestral, the feeling evokes is that similar desire to be hemetically sealed in, of emotional isolation, of rain on the window panes and internal greyness reflecting the overcast skies outside. The see-sawwing repeting motif of the first track glides deep into the centre of this musical headspace while the additional elements get to illustrate further details in the narrative.

The second piece, Thunder Peals is a barer and rawer acoustic guitar lament with both strings and vocals suitably muffled into a cosy warmth under flashes of lightning strike strokes of violin.  The third track and centre-piece is the Oriental figured Lark with trilling flourishes from the violen eliciting scenes of birdsong soundtracked tranquility. At over five minutes it is the longest track and is the most patient in revealing all its' charm and character; the violins not always hitting the perfect note producing a dissonance that serves a deliberate presence in defining the flow of the track. When the layered vocals and acoustic guitars come in the whole thing swells to impossibly enchanting proportions.  The two following tracks can;t hope to compete in terms of grandeur but they offer the same beguiling and affecting forms as the preceeding tracks.

An excellent, elegent, refined and accomplished EP that deserves an audience.







VIDEO: High Wolf - Étoile Star



Here's a recently produced video clip for Étoile Star,  poured forth from the third eye of wandering voodoo tribal drone priest High Wolf, set to meditative visions conjured by Lautreamont RA studios. The track is taken from this year's Not Not Fun released cassette Étoile 3030.

The recently released Guide To Healing 7" on Bathetic and the split 12" on Group Tightener with his own side-project Annapurna Illusion are getting heavy plays in my place. Quietly, but insistently one of the most involving and engrossing artists around at the moment

Check out more stuff on Bandcamp and his own label Winged Sun

Monday 6 June 2011

VIDEO: Velvet Davenport - Weather



Video for a new track from one of my favourite psychedelic-recylcing nostalgia-rock combos, Velvet Davenport, Clip directed by band leader Parker Sprout. Last years' Warmy Girls lp is out new, new material out imminently on Moon Glyph

Sunday 5 June 2011

last.fm action hero

This week's listening pleasure for you via DiS/Last.fm/blogggggggggg

See inside link for Arnie reference:

White / Dark / White




This is the best Arnie clip on the web. This is one of the best clips on the web, ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlicWUDf5MM


Don't understand why my ipod stopped scrobbling. Only worked for one week only it seems. Itunes doesn't even recognise that it has played anything, but it recognises the pod. If it all worked I wouldn't have to get so obsessed over it. Don't know why. I don't know...i JUST DON'T KNOW ANYMORE!!!!

Also, I listen to the laptop a lot at work but it's not connected to the web so there's no scrobbles from there. I never bother saying that, but I will today.

Names & numbers:

01. Forma - 53
02. White Rainbow - 39
03. The Caretaker - 30
04. Dark Castle - 24
05. Cults - 22
06. White Medal - 20
07. Den - 17
08. Thee Oh Sees - 16
08. Asian Women On The Telephone - 16
10. Haruki Tamesue - 15


1 – Multicoloured lush and expansive kosmiche drone on John Elliot's Spectrum Spools. So many elements to it, freestyling narratives of tone moving round the pulses of locked grooves, melodies and rhythms coalesce and melt through the mix, simultaneously loose and rigid. Epic astral trance.

2 – Plenty plays of the new album. If you thought Lays the Boogie Down was heavy, sink your frontal lobe into the thirteen slices of deep-space alien trance funk Adam Forkner has just served up and see how it grabs you. Free download here
http://whiterainbowpizza.bandcamp.com/album/from-now-on-lets-the-mixtape

3 – These plays should be in the hundreds. Amazing music to work to, to sleep to, to do pretty much anything to. Incredible what effects just the slightest amounts of distorting can achieve.

4 – New album exceeds expectations and Spirited Migration was in my top 20 when it came out, but this is something else. Got range, dynamics, a whole load of different sounds and a lot of guest spots, so much more than the minimal boy/girl Doom duo they were previously. Album on Profound Lore, what d'you expect?

5 – Don't really like this. Put this on when having dinner if the family get sick of eating to astral-funk and hauntological drone

6 – Follow up to Agbrigg Beast, even lower-fi, murkier. More upwardly aimed melodic hooks, more of that Yorkshire burl. Excellent UKBM.

7 – Chicago based noise rock outfit. Tape out now on Retrograde, destroys seven shades of speakers.

8 – Castlemania is ace. How would it not be?

9 – Absurdly good Dadaist avant-garde-psych-motoric-noise-rock from Russia. They just chuck it all together and it comes out in transcendent form. Free download:

10 – More free stuff, this one from US techno/acid-house producer and abstract occult associate by way of fauxmusica. Check out this page and pass out. New ones are the four along the bottom:

Friday 3 June 2011

PREVIEW: Ultimate Eye Pain + Pseudo Nippon present - Double Speed Cooked Pork Tai Chi



Hello.  Pseudo Nippon collaborated with Ultimate Eye Pain to make a half hour film that will beef your mind to hyper blap.  Don't come looking for sense here, you'll find nothing of the sort.  From the musical genius that spawned Fish Lady and the culinary genius that called a chocolate banana recipe "john cage - 4'33" (the unrecorded version)"

DVD is out now.  Pseudo is slowly getting the hang of Twitter




Thursday 2 June 2011

VIDEO: Meth Drinker - Broken Down and Used Up



New Zealand sludgy doom from Meth Drinker's self-titled album available on Always Never Fun Records on CD anbd 100 limited edition screenprinted 12".

This is the video for the lead track Broken Down and Used Up, footage is from 1967 documentary film called "Titicut Follies" directed by Frederick Wiseman