02 November 2013

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Albums and Singles

The first official account of the iconic record label.

This Mortal Coil, Birthday Party, Bauhaus, Cocteau Twins, Pixies, Throwing Muses, Breeders, Dead Can Dance, Lisa Germano, Kristin Hersh, Belly, Red House Painters.

Just a handful of the bands and artists who started out recording for 4AD, a record label founded by Ivo Watts-Russell and Peter Kent in 1979, a label which went on to be one of the most influential of the modern era.

Combining the unique tastes of Watts-Russell and the striking design aesthetic of Vaughan Oliver, 4AD records were recognizable by their look as much their sound. In this comprehensive account concentrating on the label's first two decades (up to the point that Watts-Russell left), music journalist Martin Aston explores the fascinating story with unique access to all the key players and pretty much every artist who released a record on 4AD during that time, and to its notoriously reclusive founder.

With a cover designed by Vaughan Oliver this is an essential book for all 4AD fans and anyone who loved the music of that time.

"4AD get the lavish label history they deserve" – MOJO

"Aston has impressive access to some of rock’s most reclusive figures" – Q

"Facing The Other Way represents one of the greatest stories to emerge from rock and roll's modern history" – DROWNED IN SOUND

"The conviction of Aston's storytelling blows dust off the needle so that those records and their often magical beauties are dragged out to be admired once again… Compelling stuff" -MOUTH MAGAZINE

"Martin Aston's 600-page chronicle is a suitable extravagant enterprise" -Guardian

More information here.

28 October 2013

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Albums and Singles

How Dominick Fernow made the transition from home taping noise artist to celebrated techno musician still baffles me. I do not think it was a trajectory anyone could have imagined or expected, but that is exactly what happened. To that fact, Remember Your Black Day makes for his first LP proper amidst confusing limited tape formats and vinyl collections of out of print material. To that end, it does sound like a fully realized album, but is still distinctly Vatican Shadow, for better or worse.

Hospital Productions

For me, my exposure to the project was an mp3 download of questionable legality of one of the first releases, and I was rather surprised at what I had heard.While Prurient releases up until that point had occasionally flirted with melody or rhythm, it was always hidden amongst layer after layer of noise and feedback.Here it was up front, with just the right amount of raw, low fidelity production to keep it in line with Fernow's other work.

I did not, however, find it to be some revolutionary discovery, or a project I thought would have the impact that it has.It was moody, interlocking loops, appropriately spiky FM synths and sparse drum machines.If it had been a major hit within the noise scene Fernow started from, I would assume it had something to do with the novelty and unexpectedness.But its acceptance into the wider world of electronic music caught me completely by surprise.

To be fair, there is definite development and expansion of the sound here."Enter Paradise," released as a teaser before the album came out is perhaps the most striking song here, and shows Fernow's development in instrumentation and approach since those earliest releases.The slow, but unrelenting digital snare punch and what is either sampled guitar or a very guitar-like synth line is simple and repetitive, but triumphs in that structural simplicity.Album closer "Jet Fumes Above the Reflecting Pool" borrows a similar overall sound to "Enter Paradise," but with a slower, more introspective pacing and significantly more variation throughout.

"Not the Son of Desert Storm, But the Child of Chechnya" also works its repetition well, with a rapid fire beat that mixes things up (drum and bass snares, electro handclaps) amidst distortion and dirty, grimy layers of synthesizer."Tonight Saddam Walks Amidst Ruins" has a nice surge in synthesizer towards its latter third that layers on tension beautifully.Throughout the album there is a greater sense of feel and structure, and not just seemingly haphazard starting/stopping of loops that plagued some of the earlier works.

"Remember Your Black Day," however, is where things begin to fall a bit short.A rapid, galloping rhythm that exhibits little change for its eight minute duration obscures some nicely understated rising/falling synth pads, but stretched over that length, the novelty gets lost in a sea of repetition that does not manage to be nearly as gripping as "Enter Paradise".Cut back a few minutes, it could be great, but here it just seems to go on for far too long.

Remember Your Black Day is the most realized Vatican Shadow release to date, and definitely feels the most consistent.It is not, however, a revolutionary piece of art that is going to change the face of electronic music as we know it, regardless of what the hype around it (and Vatican Shadow in general) might seem to indicate.It is a good disc of 1980s industrial influenced music that is not always quite danceable.With that in mind though, I enjoyed this disc quite a bit, and definitely as a whole more than I have the other releases thus far, which I have found could be patchy at times.

• Muscle Hijacker Tribal Affiliations
• Contractor Corpses Hung Over the Euphrates River
• Not the Son of Desert Storm, But the Child of Chechnya

28 October 2013

Albums and Singles

How Dominick Fernow made the transition from home taping noise artist to celebrated techno musician still baffles me. I do not think it was a trajectory anyone could have imagined or expected, but that is exactly what happened. To that fact, Remember Your Black Day makes for his first LP proper amidst confusing limited tape formats and vinyl collections of out of print material. To that end, it does sound like a fully realized album, but is still distinctly Vatican Shadow, for better or worse.

Read more …

27 October 2013

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Albums and Singles

I suspect Not Not Fun deliberately release one album every year that I would absolutely love, hoping that I will miss it in order to punish me for not paying more attention to them.  I have no idea what 2012's masterpiece was (there almost definitely was one), but Gagged in Boonesville has now joined Peaking Lights' 936 (2011) in instantly flooring me upon first listen.  Stylistically, it most closely resembles what I would expect if Jandek and Dirty Beaches teamed up to make an indie pop album, yet it is somehow far weirder and more disturbed than even that highly improbably event could be.

Not Not Fun

Providence, RI's Carlos Gonzalez has been recording as Russian Tsarlag since 2007, but his output has been entirely restricted to a slew of limited cassette-only releases until fairly recently.  Despite that, he has still amassed quite a devoted following due to the fact that there is literally no one else on earth making music like this: nearly every description that I have seen includes some type of newly coined hyphenated genre involving the words "sewage," "slime," or "mold-covered."

The reason for that is quite simple, as literally everything about Boonesville sounds broken, murky, haunted, and out-of-tune.  Yet despite all that, Carlos genuinely seems to trying to make melodic, hook-filled, and emotionally resonant music.  That fundamental perversity is what makes Carlos' work so wonderful: it is like someone in the most nightmarish, rat-infested dystopia imaginable set out to write a smash pop album using a broken guitar and a water-damaged tape machine before they succumbed to leprosy (or their roof collapsed...or both happened simultaneously).

Appropriately, there is some kind of over-arching theme to the album that involves a tenement building being "mentally poisoned by an ancient poster of Medusa haunting the basement," but that would not have been at all apparent to me if I had not read it (though it does partially explain the terrible, terrible cover art).  As gloomy as that sounds, only "Island of Lost Souls" truly feels like a dirge, as it consists mostly of a simple, minor key piano melody and mumbled, downcast vocals.  While it is definitely the album's weakest piece, it avoids "mere filler" status by opening with a dreamlike loop of Johnny Cash singing the line "I'll see you in my dreams," which illustrates another great thing about Gagged In Boonesville: there are a number of moments of genuine warmth and Romanticism lurking amidst all of the shadows, rot, and uneasiness.

The instrumental "Become Solid," for example, is genuinely beautiful and weirdly hopeful (despite its mutilated-answering-machine-message accompaniment), while the twangy and wistful "One Way Out" sounds like a classic Roy Orbison love song distantly emanating from a heating vent.  Such touches make it seem like album's characters are totally unaware that they are essentially living in a horror film, tenderly (naively?) clinging to their hopes and dreams despite their fundamentally doomed situation, which is kind of beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time.

Boonesville's stand-out songs are a bit more rocking though.  My favorite of the batch is easily the perverse would-be anthem "Feels So Good," which could not possibly sound more blown-out and somnambulant.  On most other albums, its tempo would be rightly described as "plodding," but in this context, its leaden pace is a pulse-quickening sign that something is actually alive amidst the ruins and is possibly having a very depressing party.  Both the title piece and "Green Woman" are great as well, approximating a hallucinatory, slowed-down, and pitch-shifted New Order.  Most of the remaining songs stick to that territory too, filtering wobbly synths, a steady drum machine beat, clean guitars, echo-y vocals, and catchy hooks through a distinctly "cough medicine overdose" aesthetic that works remarkably well.

That said, the most stunning aspect of Gagged In Boonesville (for me, anyway) is how natural it all sounds.  Aside from perhaps the stuttering, backwards weirdness that opens the closing "Plastic Door," I never get the impression that Carlos is willfully trying to make his music seem otherworldly and warped through some kind of artifice or theater: this is probably just what comes out when he attempts to write a song.  It almost feels like the work of somehow who has spent their entire life at the bottom of a well and has only encountered other humans through faintly overheard snatches of the radio, except there is somehow an infectious sense of macabre fun amidst all the filth and longing.  Obviously, something so ruined, forlorn, and grimy is unlikely to attract much attention outside of serious subterranean music obsessives, but Gonzalez is an absolute genius at whatever the hell it is that he is doing.  It is truly rare to find an artist as creepily, hermetically distinctive as he is and practically unheard of for something so ugly and so wrong to be so subversively entertaining and infectious at the same time.

• Gagged in Boonesville
• Feels So Good
• Become Solid

 

27 October 2013

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Albums and Singles

A collection of various compilation pieces recorded between 1999 and 2002, Syzygie shows just how diverse and eclectic this duo (two thirds formerly of Maeror Tri) were, and still are. With an approach in league with their previous project, warm analog electronics and dark, menacing sounds mix with stylistic trappings diverging wildly from piece to piece, but all coming together into a consistent and cohesive whole.

Cold Spring

Troum's strengths shine through on songs like "Makaria," which builds a slow, warm drifting feel over what sounds like a carefully repeated guitar motif.The result is a beautiful inviting sound from a style that is often too focused on creating dank and oppressive environments.The same holds for the rich analog electronics and slow, but rich changes of "Ater," which conjures the same sense of warmth and dream-like imagery.

It is not all warm sun and comfortable electronics though, such as on the more boisterous "Fantauma," which aims for high drama and room shaking low end.With its distorted, almost power electronics like underlying rhythm, "Uegh[Cunabula]" also makes for a significant departure with the addition of its noisier electronics, but never loses the lush, rich sound of the other, more delicate pieces.

Another notable feature of this collection is how many changes and variations in style the duo go through on these different compositions."S'engourdir" and "Khan-Arachnid" both introduce the use of vocal samples, heavily cut up and processed, but a distinctly different element than what preceded it.The latter especially stands out with its overall collage sound and heavier low end, even mixing in some nicely varied loops of tactile noise.

In a few cases, however, the pieces do not stand out quite as distinctly.For example, "Ganymed" falls more into that conventional dark ambient sound with its low frequencies, hushed rumbling, and far off mechanical din.The same holds true for the aforementioned "S'engourdir," which, even with its use of voice snippets, just sounds too similar to a multitude of other artists.Both represent very well done takes on the genre, but ones that just are not quite as distinct stylistically.

The most striking aspect of Syzygie is how organic and natural it all sounds.So many artists who work with similar sparse and droning approaches bathe everything in digital reverb or robotic effects that leaves the sound dull, lifeless, and indistinct from one another.It cannot even be due to the time (the era in which these songs were created was perhaps the peak of when these problems were the most egregious), so it simply is a testament to the duo's abilities as both composers and performers that have few actual peers working in similar fields.

samples:

• Ater
• Fantauma
• Ganymed

 

23 October 2013

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Albums and Singles

I have become quite a devoted Vatican Shadow fan (with some reservations) over the last year or so, as Dominick Fernow's voluminous and oft-excellent string of limited cassettes has gradually become widely available through digital release and a couple of major compilations.  Somehow, though, he never got around to releasing an actual "official" full-length album until now (though I find this debatable).  Given that extremely long and slow build up, I fully expected Remember Your Black Day to be some sort of grand artistic statement or major creative evolution, which it mostly is not.  In some very minor ways, I suppose it might be, but it is essentially just another batch of new songs: some very good, some kind of forgettable.

Hospital Productions

As much as I enjoy this project, there are a number of aspects to it that I find baffling, exasperating, or unintentionally amusing.  Normally, that would pose a serious problem for me, but I generally like Vatican Shadow's music enough to shrug off things like Fernow performing in military fatigues; releasing a triple-album on red, white, and blue vinyl; releasing that same album in an edition of 911 copies; and then following that with an album that is explicitly 9/11-themed (this one).  I suspect that the reason I am so successful at disregarding Dominick's blunt, on-the-nose gestures and imagery is because they are usually in such sharp contrast to Vatican Shadow's actual music, which is frequently quite minimal, understated, ghostly, and ambiguously evocative.  In general, Vatican Shadow's sole real shortcoming is that Fernow's release schedule is more restless and prolific than is ideal, resulting in a whole slew of cassettes that have a few great songs each rather than any single release that is uniformly excellent.

I get the feeling that Dominick made a concerted effort to remedy that with Remember Your Black Day though, so I guess it is actually a landmark release in that sense: Fernow clearly put a lot of work into songcraft, sequencing, and production this time around.  He also broke some new ground stylistically, which is noteworthy as well, though Vatican Shadow has always been quite fluid stylistically.  Some of that new ground leaves me a bit cold, such as the incorporation of trebly black metal-influenced guitars in the heavy-handed "Enter Paradise" and the somewhat better "Jet Fumes Above the Reflecting Pool," but two of the album's clear highlights unexpectedly make magic out of thumping dancefloor beats (an innovation that did not work nearly as well with Prurient).

The first of those pieces is the title track, which unleashes a slowly evolving and punishingly insistent beat beneath an single endlessly repeating melodic fragment to somewhat mesmerizing effect.  Immediately afterward, however, is the album's absolute zenith: "Not the Son of Desert Storm, but the Child of Chechnya," which replicates its predecessor in far more viscerally crunching fashion.  I especially loved how it sounds like there is a live high-hat amidst the overwhelming and relentless percussive onslaught.  That was an inspired textural touch.

Aside from the brief album introduction, that leaves only three other songs, all of which stick to Vatican Shadow's historic comfort zone and most distinctive aesthetic: simple, eerie synth loops drifting above a cool beat.  All of them are fine examples of why I got into Vatican Shadow in the first place, but the most successful of the bunch is "Contractor Corpses Hung Over the Euphrates River," as  it escalates its brooding tension by deftly adding new elements to its beat.  "Tonight Saddam Walks Amidst Ruins" ultimately misses the mark slightly by incorporating a very straightforward minor key motif for its crescendo, but "Muscle Hijacker Tribal Affiliation" is another excellent piece once it progresses beyond its slow-burning build-up.

I initially thought this album was a bit of a disappointment, as I was truly expecting it to be a tour de force or spectacular culmination of some kind, but ultimately decided that that was my problem, not Vatican Shadow's.  More objectively, Remember Your Black Day is a slightly-more-ambitious-than-usual mixed success, boasting sharp production, a distinct arc, and one of Vatican Shadow's finest songs to date.  Also, it reaffirms my belief that Fernow is a very distinctive, nuanced, and thoughtful composer of haunting beatscapes, a talent that I never would have anticipated at all from his sprawling and generally very harsh pre-Vatican discography.  That said, this album does not feel any better or worse than most of Vatican Shadow's other releases: it is certainly likable and a bit longer than usual, but curious newcomers would be better served by checking out a multi-release compilation (Ornamented Walls or It Stands to Conceal) instead, as more is almost always better with Vatican Shadow.

• Muscle Hijacker Tribal Affiliations
• Contractor Corpses Hung Over the Euphrates River
• Not the Son of Desert Storm, But the Child of Chechnya

 

22 October 2013

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Albums and Singles

Artist: Tunnels Of Ah
Title: Lost Corridors
Catalogue No: CSR184CD
Barcode: 55060174955440
Format: CD in jewelcase
Genre: Industrial / Esoteric
Shipping: 18th November

Pre-order CD

Tunnels Of Ah is the new project of former HEAD OF DAVID vocalist Stephen Ah Burroughs. “Lost Corridors” is the first Tunnels Of Ah release and features Burroughs’ “industrial esoterica”, evoking the spirit of the pioneering underground experimental scene in the new dark age. This is psychick war.

A mandatory release for those who worship at the altars of Coil, Psychic TV, Arktau Eos, Z’EV…

Listen on Soundcloud

Tracks: 1. From A Cracked Hive (Black Insect Laughter) | 2. The Nightjar Sang A Kalpa Blaze | 3. A Net Of Woven Starlight | 4. Nightfall At The Mount Of Husks | 5. Harvest Flame The Christ Force | 6. Shattering The Black Crone | 7. Crush The Heads Of Scorpions

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | www.coldspring.co.uk | www.store.coldspring.co.uk | facebook.com/coldspringhq | twitter.com/coldspringhq

22 October 2013

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Albums and Singles

Artist: Z'EV
Title: A Handful Of Elements
Catalogue No: CSR182CD
Barcode: 5060174955457
Format: CD in jewelcase
Genre: Industrial / Ritual / Ambient
Shipping: 18th November

Pre-order CD

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With “A Handful Of Elements” Z’EV returns to the “dense, carefully laid and deep drone works” [adnoiseam.net] of “Sum Things” (CSR101CD). However, for this release he has drawn deep from his 40 year old sonic archive (from live performances both instrumental and vocal  to a range of soundscapes from around the world), producing soundtracks to accompany you to the other side of ambient, through the door between your eyes.

Listen on Soundcloud

Tracks: 1. Terra | 2. Aqua | 3. Aer | 4. Ignis | 5. Spiritus

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | www.coldspring.co.uk | www.store.coldspring.co.uk | facebook.com/coldspringhq | twitter.com/coldspringhq

21 October 2013

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Albums and Singles

There are precious few bands out there that can create the same manic sense of terror and legitimate fear that The Body does. The duo of Chip King and Lee Buford push the sounds of doom past just slow, de-tuned guitars and apocalyptic lyrics into something much more tangible and real. With a diverse gathering of collaborators, Christs, Redeemers just furthers this into their most intense and varied work to date.

Thrill Jockey

King's vocals are perhaps the most consistent and identifiable feature of the duo's material, and they appear frequently throughout this album.His exasperated, hysterical delivery is idiosyncratic to say the least, but conveys a convincing sense of panic and fear that gives a terrifying weight to each and every word he delivers.The quick pacing of "Failure to Desire to Communicate" has this in spades:shrill vocal histrionics that give the otherwise bass lead song an even greater intensity, exacerbated by some rapid fire breakdowns that push the song into something more akin to harsh noise.

The frenetic, pounding drums and quaking bass of "Prayers Unanswered" also make a strong compliment to King's rantings, as does a distinctly old school use of dialog samples throughout.On "Shrouded", effects leave his voice without any humanity at all:obscured by a surging blast of white noise, they just sound like any other instrument as the overdriven thuds in the background arrange into some ersatz rhythm before the song fully kicks in, and later ends in a blackened wall of distortion.

An entire album of this alone might eventually wear a bit thin, and this is where the collaborators come in.The Assembly of Light Choir give a certain lightness when they appear, but it is a purity that is quickly perverted by the sludge and aggression that dominates otherwise.The dramatic, but obscured female voices on "To Attempt Openness" are quite a bit lighter than the gravely, grinding guitars and pounding rhythms that accompany, but are soon blown apart into redlining noise and digital clipping.King's vocals juxtaposed with theirs on "An Altar or a Grave" is brilliant combination, and are met with a similar pairing of trudging doom guitars with warmer, cinematic strings.

On a few of the songs, the female vocals are the only ones that appear, and make for a strong counter-balance with the otherwise dissonant noise.The opening "I, The Mourner of Perished Days" is a perfect example of this, with the bent choir bits and beautiful solo vocals that eventually devolve into windy rattling and indistinct harsh noise."Night of Blood in a World Without End" does similar, but leads off with strings and delicate vocals before eventually beginning a slow, violent roll down a hill into dissonance and ugly aggression.

As evident by the song titles, lyrics, and overall mood, Christs, Redeemers could too easily fall into a world of faux evil cheesiness.However, the variation and willingness to use non-traditionally heavy instrumentation is what keeps this from happening.Coupled with Chip King's singular, manic vocal style, the result becomes a convincingly terrifying record that conjures fear though mood and sound, rather than just stylistic trappings.

samples:

• I, The Mourner of Perished Days
• An Altar or a Grave
• Shrouded

 

21 October 2013

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Affiliated with the Schimpfluch-Gruppe collective, Marc Zeier has managed to be one of the lower profile members of the loosely-knit group, and also one who’s work is perhaps the most understated. Without the visceral, nauseating organic sounds of Rudolf Eb.er or the occasionally jolly, punk-tinged absurdism of Joke Lanz, Zeier’s work has been one that emphasizes the sound more than the presentation. Not an overly prolific composer, Sub makes for a major release in its two-disc duration and use of recognizable, but still heavily treated everyday sounds to create a work that captivates as well as terrifies.

23Five

For a large portion of Sub, the concept is relatively simple:Zeier uses mundane sound sources as a basis for the compositions, often identified clearly in the title."Ice" obviously uses the sounds of cracking and breaking ice blocks amidst running water at various points throughout.However, the surrounding near-silence and unidentifiable, heavily processed inorganic outbursts make for a different sound entirely, and are were the true strength lies.

On "Swine," this use of overt recordings is perhaps the most clear: the first recorded moments that appear are the grunting and snorting of pigs.The heavy processing that fall into almost rhythmic passages and restrained segments serve to intensify the tension that is violently relieved when heavily amplified snarls and growls appear.Recordings of pigs at slaughterhouses were used to excellent effect in The Exorcist, and Zeier does similar, chilling things with them here.

Even though "Wasp" would indicate the sound of another relatively unpleasant organism, he instead chooses to obscure the source material heavily here, save for the occasional menacing buzz that appears and then floats away.The processed bits end up as a series of hollow, out of focus noises and textures that might not be as disturbing, but instead works greatly as a cautious study of sonic texture and timbre.

The 22-plus minute "Pulse" is another major piece in which the source material is clearly identified, but like "Wasp," it uses the pure recordings sparingly throughout its lengthy duration.What I assume to be heartbeats are deconstructed into wet, massive thumps and sickly creaks.Going through a cycle of lighter and darker passages, the natural rhythms are molded into heavy thuds and grotesque, sputtering outbursts of noise.It manages to stay still long enough for each element to be appreciated before rearranging into something else entirely, making for a dynamic, fascinating, if at times unpleasant recording.

Throughout the entire album, Zeier also makes liberal use of jarring, high volume outbursts that only slightly relieve the tension leading up to them:indistinct bursts of noise on "Stack," and the jackhammer like blasts of "Glow," are perfect examples of this.In the few cases where he does not employ this technique, such as on the more static "Purge," their absence is somewhat obvious and makes the piece stand out less than others.

As an intentionally obscure album (the track listing does not appear anywhere on the disc or packaging, only on the label's website), Sub uses this obscurity to its best advantage.Even though those titles give away some of the source material utilized, I caught myself wondering throughout if that was the only object used on each one, and if not, what else was there?The more obtuse titles…what were they comprised of?Of course I do not need to know the answer to these questions to enjoy Zeier’s work, and I think it truly works best if he retains that "man behind the curtain" obscurity.This questioning and dissection, however, is one of the things that brought me back to this album many times for a closer examination.

samples:

• Swine
• Wasp
• Pulse