We have finally cleared out the backlog of great music and present some new episodes.
Episode 711 features music from The Jesus and Mary Chain, Zola Jesus, Duster, Sangre Nueva, Dialect, The Bug, Cleared, Mount Eerie, Mulatu Astatke & Hoodna Orchestra, Hayden Pedigo, Bistro Boy, and Ibukun Sunday.
Episode 712 has tunes by Mazza Vision, Waveskania, Black Pus, Sam Gendel, Benny Bock, and Hans Kjorstad, Katharina Grosse, Carina Khorkhordina, Tintin Patrone, Billy Roisz, and Stefan Schneider, His Name Is Alive, artificial memory trace, mclusky, Justin Walter, mastroKristo, Başak Günak, and William Basinski.
Episode 713 brings you sounds from Mouse On Mars, Leavs, Lawrence English, Mo Dotti, Wendy Eisenberg, Envy, Ben Lukas Boysen, Cindytalk, Mercury Rev, White Poppy, Anadol & Marie Klock, and Galaxie 500.
Skolavordustigur Street in Reykjavík photo by Jon (your Podcast DJ).
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All India Radio are not Indian and they are not to be confused with the Indian radio station. In fact they are an Australian electronic band, but its always great to hear that South Asian music and culture is inspiring music artists everywhere. Permanent Evolutions is in many ways a reflection of a new Global South Asian sound that captures an essence that is quite different from South Asian music that was being produced a few decades ago.
This album has the All India Radio ambient signature—it's totally chilled and with a subtle yet distinct Indian sound in most but not all tracks.The sounds are blended perfectly. The album goes back and forth from lighter easy on the ear tracks to some darker sounds.Most tracks are a rising a falling mixture of tablas, sitars, bass guitar, drums working seamlessly on a base of what sounds like an electronic keyboard.
"For Angel" is the only track with vocals and lyrics, its beautiful, romantic and sad.The female vocal is a mesmerizing and captivating and plays well with the lovely and subtle sitar."Pray to the TV Funk" picks up the album towards the end.It’s a culmination of sounds that could almost be danced to, but the best thing is the (Spanish I think) guitar rhythm and violin base that keeps this track going right to the end."Delhi Dub" is like Clint Eastwood and Talvin Singh vying over who’s going to get the rickshaw driver first.At under two minutes, this track is a masterpiece starting off in the sinister Wild West but is soon joined by quick drum beats and that distinct head-bopping dub beat. I would have liked to have heard where this track might have lead to but it's cut too short.  
Permanent Evolutions is a deep and intelligent compilation, bringing together many experimental sounds and influences that let the mind wonder beyond borders.It is total relaxation and a billion thoughts all at the same time.
Theseare the first steps of a band with a definite goal in mind and thoughsome of those steps are awkward, Capillary Action harnesses the abilityto fuse the wide, wide world of music into something new and exciting.Just so long as they don't screw up and write more tunes like"Scattered Remnants."
For an album titled Fragments a whole lot of attention has been focused on how varied every song is. It's funny because I thought nothing of it the first time I listened to the record. The scope and ambition of the project is immediately evident as Jonathan Pfeffer and company move from metal to indie instrumentalism to jazz in five songs or less.
Before the third track had finished I still wasn't hip to exactly what Pfeffer was trying to do with Fragments. I had assumed that most independent musicians went through a stage where any and all styles of music were fair game; who says samba and metal shouldn't make an appearance on the same tune? As the record continued, however, clarity struck and Pfeffer's strengths and weaknesses were simultaneously exposed. Pfeffer and the musicians who contributed to the record are all talented, capable of playing a wide range of styles, switching between them flawlessly, and blending them together to form whole songs. On the other hand, they sometimes sound a little stiff, the songs coming across awkwardly as if the band only had experience with playing songs of this type, not necessarily writing them. This awkwardness wouldn't have been half as obvious if it weren't for the fact that Capillary Action sound most natural when metal is the name of the game. Want harmonized riffs, double bass drum action, and 80's flair? Capillary Action know how to play that game and they play it as well as any of the long-haired stars of the genre. Want the chugging riffs of dark, epic metal? Capillary Action can do that, too, and they add a believable and sophisticated dimension to it simultaneously.
So when "Scattered Remnants" starts and Pfeffer tries toying with pseudo-lounge arrangements there's just a hint of unease in the recordings. At times Pfeffer tries to introduce some classic instrumental tricks to cover that shakiness: drums chugging away like trains beneath repeated lines of melody, arrangements involving multiple layers of guitars all playing different rhythms in a sort of multi-instrumental loop, sudden stops in favor of radically different sections of music... all of them are employed at some point on the record and they sound out of place when played next to songs like "A Hundred Pages of Cannot Be Named" or "Architecture Would Fail." Pfeffer knows he wants to explore, but he doesn't always seem to be on sure ground when he does it.
Once "Scattered Remnants" exhausts its eight minute duration, Fragments loosens back up into a Latin dance that doesn't seem so forced. From there the album goes through shades of fun, excellent, good, and wanton exploration. Without ever settling on a signature sound, Capillary Action manage to carve out a mission statement: we're going to go where we want, even if that means doing something out of the ordinary and completely uncomfortable. It's a daring statement because the band would do well to calm down and try finding some coherent sound to work through on one album instead of writing ten different records and condensing them into one package.
Fragments has me thinking and I like that. If aband's goal is to experiment and play around with styles, then the bandshould go for broke. That's exactly what Capillary Action does. Screwall theattempts at meshing genres together, Pfeffer is going to force theminto the same space and if he doesn't succeed entirely, then he's happythat he at least gave it a shot. It's hard to fault a band that isn'tafraid to chase their vision into unusual realms. They aren't evenafraid to screw up, which they do here and there. More focus, lesswank, and a bit of experience is going to do a lot for CapillaryAction. Whether or not they'll learn to harness all their influenceswill decide whether or not they make a name for themselves.
Dropping the second release from his Rotten LP series Giffoni brings a chaotic bag of smash and grab noise with a suite of dented robotic sex music and detached damage. The odd choice of title manages to claim individualism and defiance while skirting the inherent hip-hop parody and is represented in the cross section of styles that he turns his bank of electronics to mauling with precision.
This is a enjoyably harsh but not a wholly enjoyable listen that’s nowhere near as satisfying as his recent Welcome Home and Giffoni seems to have picked most of these chunks of bitter digital blasts purposefully as part of an attention grabbing barrage as opposed to fitting a running theme.
Moving almost too fast for the mind to catch a hold of is the burbling, twisting loop of “Period.” It makes up 90% of its structure as it sits on huffs of steel grey static which seem to boil on contact with air. The loop soon becomes a digital deluge of squelching water forced down a fibre optic drainpipe and its brevity is welcome as it appears to bubble on the spot as opposed to the movement with which he normally endows his music.
The nearest this LP gets to a perceivable structure and progress is the industrial-lite techno stomp of “Addiction,” which soon breaks up and then rights itself (or writes itself) as a whole new jarring pattern of swamped levels of buzz. This is the sole piece which shows off Giffoni’s infamously minute manipulations (which are too broad to be subatomic) and his ease at shifting new sounds and new emphasis into a song’s mix. There are clear digital tones which beautifully spin and alter over and over depending on his focus as he tweaks volume and the mix spotlighting different parts. Its evil twin “Addiction #2” only manages to perform as a piece of straightforward fucked bleepery which has been chipped and sped up into something resembling cold pure digital vomit.
He manages to produce some warmth with the sharp two sided sliced heat whine of “Why,” which is then cuffed and smothered and again on the fierce distance of droning “No.” The song’s circular heated hum and ebbing warmer waves within gives a further glimpse of a Carlos Giffoni on the mark on this LP that should’ve been an EP.
This re-release from Andrew Chalk's newly formed Faraway Press imprintwas written for the soul. Its mental and spiritual power can only befelt by the patient, however. Each of them waiting for that moment ofbliss to sink into their bones and erase their minds of the world ofsame-old-shit errands and tasks. That moment of bliss is, of course,defined by the instant that the music puts a blanket over the rest ofthe universe and convinces the listener that it simply doesn't existanymore.
Drone is escapism. There's nothing for it to rebel against, it has noinherent message, and it speaks of no material or political concern.Drone is like moving straight from politician to Buddhist, unconcernedwith the body, money, power, sex, drugs, or control. All thefree-association that has been used to write about drone music hasfinally found its reason: drone only wants to let the mind go on avacation. If all the stereotypes about college students, politics, andradio are true, then this sentiment won't sit well with mostlisteners, but those same listeners would do well for themselves ifthey just shut their mouths and listened close. Andrew Chalk's Shadows from the Album Skiesmakes clear drone's statement. It is the manifesto for all music ofthis kind as applied to the modern individual and it says somethingmuch like this: quick, run away.
What makes this record's intent so clear and what also happens tomake the rest of the drone world come solidly into non-focus is howunapologetic it is. Two tracks, one nearly half an hour in length andthe other over forty-five minutes in length, are all that compose it.One is higher in pitch, consisting of wind-washed whistles and subtlewave contortions. The other is lower, fuller, somehow more tangible inthat it echoes like a voice does off of marble walls. The variationpresented on either track is minimal or, at the most, hard to recognizebecause change happens so silently throughout. In any case, it isevident that this record is less about entertainment and more aboutquiet escape: abscond into the night and don't come back unless it'snecessary. For everyone that is sick of the telephone ringing, for allthe people so exhausted after work that they can't bring themselves topursue their own hobbies, for all the headaches induced by customers,bosses, clients, and co-workers, for all that pent up frustration thatmight explode if its kept in any longer, there's this record. Switch iton, do not think of anything else, let its amorphous sound turn out thelights, shut down the sun, and pull the curtains tight. It can donothing more, it offers little outside of a quiet place where all thatfrustration can be let go uselessly, without harm, without depression,without hate. It makes concentration possible again because there'snothing else around to break it as long as the disc keeps spinning.
And there will be no apologies for this escape. So often I am forcedto confront things I have absolutely no chance of changing, forced tocorrect other's mistakes, forced to yell angrily at a television thatisn't listening, bled to death by a nation that disagrees with mewhole-heartedly, and left wondering what the hell more I could've done.Many people feel this, always confronting, always fighting, but nevergetting anywhere. Andrew Chalk is well aware of this, his music is thechance to rejuvenate, after all. Escapism isn't the product of deadmind, it's the product of a mind that's been working so hard it is nowon the edge of breaking down and washing away with the next powerfulwind that catches it the wrong way. What good is it to fight if thenext movement will kill the fighter? At least there is somewhere to gowhen the brain becomes desperate.
But desperate people aren't the only ones listening to drone; theymight not be desperate at all. Drone is relaxing on the whole, perfect inits contemplative air and un-aggressive with its whispered delivery. Soif drone is escapism, and the listener isn't always on the verge ofhomicidal self-destruction, that means it must be escaping to something or away from something else. And if Shadows from the Album Skiestells us anything about what drone might escape to or from, the onlyreference it has is the listener. In absence of the need to escape fromthe material world, perhaps drone lets us escape from ourselves or backto ourselves. Even if the world doesn't have us locked down in itsmachinations, all that paranoid, schizophrenic second-guessing anddoubting we submit ourselves to still exists. Perhaps, then, dronegives us a way to leave ourselves behind and reconstitute ourselvesinto something new, reform ourselves, experience that reformation as adeath and a birth, or just plain leave ourselves behind with no plansof coming back. I'm not quite sure what comes after that, I'm not sureany drone album has gone there, yet. Shadows from the Album Skies,however, is a revelation of an album. It's a key to understanding andappreciating some of the deeper strangeness experienced while listeningto drone records and perhaps a door for everyone who hasn't yet beenseduced by the extended tone of Andrew Chalk's exemplary work.
The very mention of a collaboration between Cold Meat Industry heavyweights Raison D'etre and Deutsch Nepal should garner the attention of "death industrial" fanatics, and all but the uninitiated should anticipate hearing essentially what they expected from the duo's sophomore release.
A recording from a 2002 concert in New York City, The Sound of Black Cloggs offers little in the way of surprises. It's a slight disappointment considering the unrealized potential of this meeting of the two Peter Anderssons (no relation), although I imagine neither the audience nor the later CD listeners could feel let down by the Swedish display of doom and gloom.
The album opens with "Interbreeding Politics at Boxholm Bruk," a slab of gnarled ambience reliant on ominous atmospheres, snarling synths, and distant mechanical clangs. "The Horror of Kisa," originally presented on the debut Excursions by the Bank of the Black River thrusts rhythm into the forefront with an undanceable throbbing loop only briefly subdued by the cold breathing soundscapes that support it. The noise drops out dramatically at the onset of "Kommisarie Olofsson," with shimmering drones and chimes merging with the now familiar musical themes of this performance. A voice emerges, almost certainly that of Lina Baby Doll (Deutsch Nepal), infrequently murmuring and muttering in German over this mix of light and dark sounds. Distorted assembly line percussion ushers in "Stenbock and His Disciples," recalling visions of an abandoned or haunted factory from some otherwise forgotten horror movie.
Something resembling a siren sweeps into the mix periodically, adding to the filmic dramatics in the build-up to the thrilling finale, "Bi-Rath, The Beast of the Forge." The monolithic closer's minimalist beat monotonously bludgeons with stereophonic echoes as piercing pads evoke something otherworldly or unholy, standing in stark contrast to the bleak industrial purity of the preceeding tracks. A studio version of this would be more than desirable.
While this live document wont revolutionize any related subgenres, such a conclusion does not diminish the release's overall value. Rather, compared to the numerous self-indulgent musical pairings I've been subjected to in 2005, Bocksholm's sound sustainably entices, occasionally flickering with the innovative sparks of its masterminds.
As David Thrussell's Snog project continues to drift further andfurther away from EBM, somewhat recently veering into politicallycharged country/folk music, the abstract technoid funk and industrialinformed experimentation of Black Lung serves more and more as his solelifeline to an otherwise alienated audience.
Roughly ten years removed literally and stylistically from now sought after rarities like The Disinformation Plague and Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars,Thrussell aspires to assemble a diversity of sounds in the service of asingular thematic vision, specifically that of our world's perilousdependence on petroleum and the bleak future that awaits us all.Whether or not such an accomplishment is actually achieved here,however, is questionable.
One of the highlights is "Karmageddon," previously released by AntZen on vinyl some months back. Undeniably dancefloor friendly, itdazzles with dripping acidic basslines and vicious electro grooves moreappropriate for a label like Bunker, Clone, or even Rephlex than on thesame imprint as Converter and Monokrom. Referencing the science fictionnovel that also reveals the album title's origins, "Leibowitz'sCanticle" employs a sample of a masculine choir chant, evocative of theCatholic Church at the center of the story, without seeming toorepetitive amidst the dribbling squiggles. Midway, it abruptly shiftsinto another gear with a rhythmic onslaught more likely found on arelease from one of Thrussel's labelmates. Sadly, much of the albumfails to match the consistency of these choice cuts.
"The Great Automobile Hunt" and "Concrete Octopus," while finerelectro-rock-n-rollers than anything found on T. Raumschmiere's recentalbum-length turd, trudge along like remastered relics from the '80s,coming across more hokey than edgey. The quasi-tribal rhythms of"Armies of Oil" are rigorously twisted and mangled through a variety offilters and software effects, resulting in fleeting, unstable,frustrating moments ranging from fluidity to distorted rigidity withinmere bars of eachother.
Clocking in at just under an hour, The Coming Dark Age makesfor an unbalanced listening experience, as it lacks a desirablecohesion or at least a perceptible musical linkage between its thirteentracks. Despite its commendable subject matter, the frequent temptationto skip over some of the album's more meandering pieces cannot beoverlooked despite noted standouts in the bunch.
Lets just ignore the hype surrounding doom/black/dark/atmospheric/etc. metal for a second and pretend that this approach to making music is a powerful musical tool. A tool akin to an epic-maker in a can.
There are plenty of copycats using that tool, a few innovative performers, some entertainers, and then there are those writers on the fringe that seem to be a part of the scene but ultimately don't fit satisfyingly into its machinations. Aidan Baker's affair with abstract music places him somewhere in that final group, a group far more interesting than the often proclaimed masters of the genre.
It wouldn't make any sense to place all the slow, dark music of the world into the same category that Sunn0))) or Khanate reign over. In fact, I think the two bands are dissimilar enough to warrant questions about why they are even considered part of the same musical sensation (despite sharing members). In wouldn't make any sense and it wouldn't be fair. Despite the imitators and all the sensational hyperbole chucked at certain groups within the doom world, there are some genuinely fantastic albums being made full of visceral and mental appeal. Nadja's contribution to this style of music isn't, fortunately, just another slab of tombstone metal fixated on sounding evil. Their fifth effort since 2005 has plenty to offer to would-be listeners and manages to sound fresh despite the veritable avalanche on doomish metal released this year.
Yes, Truth Becomes Death is only three tracks long and yes all three are over ten minutes in duration. One is actually closer to half an hour long. So maybe Baker and Leah Buckareff are using that can-o-epic to their advantage; each track sprawls out like a metropolis ready and waiting for victims and appreciators alike, each is about as heavy as it gets, and each prominently features guitar hum, feedback, or distortion in large doses. It works fantastically, though, because Baker and Buckareff combine all that noise with the attitude appropriate to most drone architects. Less focused on the black heart of the human soul, Nadja's sound is refined and careful, treading carefully where most other bands would simply let short circuits or unpredictability take over and do the work for them. Less noise, more melody, and slowly evolving themes carry Truth Becomes Death from beginning to end. That's actually enough to make it stand out among its peers in most respects, but the album also boasts a mostly non-repetitive structure; it is organic, combining the buzz of sheet metal vibrating in the wind with seemingly random guitar strokes layered over one another. Baker and Buckareff have a script and, instead of wondering aimlessly without reason, they exact their plan relentlessly, making each second of the album seem necessary and firm.
This is a dusty record, grainy to the touch and modeled after the shifting of deserts. As it slowly blows itself apart, Baker unleashes his monstrous, deep vocals and leaves them to find a home among all wavering melodies and blasted percussion. Baker and Buckareff work with their music like it is a narrative, in accordance with the stories that inspired the lyrics. Letting the music move in the same way the stories must've for them, these songs move step by step, logically, without any attempt at abridging the ideas the stories inspired. If one of the tracks is 23 minutes long then it is that way because it had to be. Without the time afforded these song, the duo couldn't have executed them with that sense of loneliness and intrigue.
Truth Becomes Death is perhaps more relaxing to me more than anything else. While I wouldn't want to listen to most doom metal while laying down, Nadja's slowly chugging music is more appropriate for quiet times and sounds more like a meditation than a screaming, helpless twitch. Not only that, but the complete lack of image, the complete separation from metal that Baker's past musical accomplishments makes possible helps Nadja seem less silly, less trifle, and somehow less laughable. I was once playing a doom metal record for a friend and he kept telling me that it sounded like cartoon Halloween music, but when I played Nadja for that same friend, his first reaction was, "I feel like this is going to swallow me up." Without all the posturing, those more infamous musical genres that Nadja draw from turn out to be affecting, which is a lot more interesting than all that faux-horror shit that seems to come with the metal label.
Effacement is quite a divergence,and I think an improvement, on the work I’ve heard from Korber. Like so many Swiss and Viennese before him,Korber is most easily lumped in the microsound category: digital music rifewith microscopically-distanced sound fragments and closed silences, though lesspulverized towards a glitchist all-over-ness than instead dissected andlaboriously sutured into a celebration of nuance, the notes of the noise ratherthan the noise between the notes.
Past Korber releases, like his last Cut title, Momentan Def. or the MassProduction CD-R from last year, tend toward denser soundfields: up-frontfeedbacking, clustered guitar wranglings, or machine drones and rhythm trackscreating relatively lush environments that, despite their abstract tensions,always struck me as kind of soothing.
This new composition, one of the young artist’s few solo releases, isproduced with a depth of field as great as anything of Korber’s I’ve heard, butwith compositional structures reduced to contrastively minimal degrees wheremore often one formal constraint alone guides each of the six tracks, ordivisions, for its full length. Thepalette is a familiar lattice of motorik clicks and whirrs, banks of surfacenoise, and pristine guitar playing, but these come now to a point of refinementwhere easy blending makes a never-gratuitous display of extremes possible. Korber’s guitar sounds more like a guitarthan on any of my other listenings, shaken into amp-quaking, almost earthyovertones, but with a brilliant restraint that somehow keeps the moody distanceof the mix’s softer parts intact. The interplaybetween soft and penetratingly loud, organic and synthetic, up-front orimmersed, creates quite an addictive drama within such a sparse andunidirectional composition.
The process of Effacement calls tomind the consciousness of a surface left behind, an essence whose importance isderived by its own lacking. And whilethis is a concept that surrounds all artistsdealing this heavily in silence and super-small sound bits, I find in Korber’splay of extremes a method of engagement potent both in its theory and itsaesthetic The end result I think ismusic that sounds more in place,certainly more tangible than most else in its immediate genre. It is not at all improv, but shares theaccess and the excitement of that kind of setting.
The first time I popped this in I thought to myself, "Oh great, the Japanese have their own version of Bjork." After another ten minutes I was convinced this duo was constructing more than just pseudo-adolescent hysteria for fans of electronic pop.
Tujiko Noriko's voice might be reminiscent of Bjork's flighty presenceat time, but after just a couple of tracks it is clear her silkydelivery has more nuance and sensuality to it than Bjork could everhope for. The music she has released on Mego, Sub Rosa, and Tomlabmight be familiar to some. Her partner, Aoki Takamasa, might befamiliar to others as he has released music through the ProgressiveForm label. Their combined history with glitchy music shows on thealbum, but isn't overwhelmingly experimental or particularly shocking.In fact, the melodies on the album take precedence over any studiotrickery. The skipping, warped beats, and heavily processed soundeffects simply add a dimension that does more to develop a mood than todraw attention itself. And while 28 is an electronic album, it bares more of a relationship to rock or pop music than anything else, albeit a slow, slowly boiling version of pop.
The album contains two "Fly" songs, one, I assume, is a variation of the original song of the same name that the duo produced upon their first meeting, and the other must be a kind of sequel to that track. As the inaugural song, "Fly 2" seems a little out of place. It's focus is less on Noriko's voice and more on the production and mood the rest of the album carries with it. It's a drifting, dreamy piece of pulsing keyboards and looped vocal effects, but on the whole it doesn't seem to represent the relaxing element of songs like "Vinyl Words" or "Alien." Once Noriko's voice strikes on "Vinyl Words," however, all bets are off and a sweet, sometimes clumsy lilt takes over. Noriko engages in call and response lyrical games and the duo's shared musical duties demonstrate a knack for constantly shifting melodies and toy-like percussion.
I could go on at length about how well each of these songs meld, howevery track seems to blend seemlessly into a melodic dream, but theeasy going mood that reigns over the record is the most attractiveelement of each song. The never-ending flux of the album never allowsfor a moment of boredom. Closing my eyes and listening to the album isenough inspiration to paint a series of highly ambiguous Rorschachstudies, each one a constantly evolving blob of phosphorescence bent ontaking shape but never quite getting there. Transparent shapes andamorphous, not quite developed creatures stalk the landscape, itself amulti-dimensional plain that's never quite bent into a definite geographicplan. After awhile the whole associative sound game becomes addictiveand replay becomes necessary. Without the interaction 28still stands on its own two feet quite well. Earlier I said that thewhole thing sounds like a slowly boiling pop record, but in actuality Ithink the music is far more than that, less reliant on catchy hooks andmore dedicated to a process of seduction.
Unfortunately there don't seem to be any plans for Takamasa andNoriko to tour outside of Europe or, more to the point, in the UnitedStates. Perhaps that will change when their own particular electroniclusciousness catches on and gains enough momentum to warrant a trip tothis side of the ocean.
Ever since the recent, baffling critical legitimization of metal, agaggle of new black/death/doom metal bands, or bands coyly playing withthe same techniques and aesthetic concerns at several removes of irony,have been ushered into existence.
Every independent label in the USA and Europe suddenly finds itselfscrambling to sign and distribute bands and that only a few years agowould have been cruelly mocked and ridiculed for their self-consciously"dark" posturing and indulgently formulaic music. But everything old iskitsch again, no matter how boring and insulting the whole contemporaryscene of detuned, slow-motion stoner metal bands duplicating the Earthand Sunn O))) sound has been.
These groups are capable of capitalizing on the metal trend notbecause of their talent or originality, but because they draw lazily ona familiar archive of lyrical imagery and sludgy, oppressiveatmospherics, and this shared metal past does all the work for them.They have apparently become involved with the metal scene merelybecause of its sudden trendiness, and as soon as the current indiemetal mania dies down, no doubt they'll be gone with the wind to fairershores. Retrospectively, bands like these can claim to have beeninfluenced by classic black metal acts such as Bathory, Mayhem andBurzum, but this is more indicative of the new culture of quick andeasy file-sharing downloads than evidence of core allegiance.
Like many in this new wave of metal, Ocean do not seem to come armedwith any special history of involvement in, or knowledge of the metalscene. Like so many of their contemporaries, they enter the world ofmetal as outsiders, and take a cautious step onto metal shores. Part ofthis "outsider" stance usually involves a certain amount of ironicdistance and disengagement with some of the more embarrassing stylisticconceits of traditional metal - the long hair, corpse paint, Klingonwardrobe, etc. Also, there is generally a calculated step back fromsome of the more extremist tendencies of the music itself. Many ofthese bands attempt to marry some of the more obsessive aestheticconcerns to slightly less genre-specific styles, often theslow-building instrumental grandeur of bands like Mogwai or GodspeedYou Black Emperor.
No exceptions here: three lengthy, slowly churning dirges packedwith relentlessly crushing riffs, battering ram drums, loads of basssludge and guttural screaming. Though he attempts valiantly to sound likehis black metal heroes like Malefic or Count Grishnackh, Ocean'svocalist tragically suffers from the all-too-common metal malady ofCookie Monster vocals (which you can read all about by clicking here).Another problem is the band's willful meandering and lack of structure,not necessarily a bad thing, but when you're swimming around in themidst of a 25-minute trudge, it's nice to be able to find yourbearings. Ocean offer no buoys or milestones, no hooks or melodies, andthey lack even the slow, dramatic builds and climactic centerpieces ofGYBE. The songs just begin, they overstay their welcome, and then theyleave.
Ocean are competent as a group, are proficient players,and the album is well produced, but there is nothing to set their particular brand of homogenizedpseudo-metal above that of their contemporaries. Also, theirnondescript choice of name is forever destined to get them confusedwith another very similar outfit from Germany named The Ocean, whoserecent album Fluxion has been compared to the very same musicaltouchstones—Isis, Pelican, Corrupted. Here Where Nothing Grows is the band's debut album, but it contains very little that will serve to distinguish it in an already overpopulated genre.
I can't think of any experience in the world more emotionally painfulthan a parent losing a child. No matter the circumstances (accident,disease, etc,... ), one experience is common to all survivors: the need to seek somekind of closure, which nothing can bring. A gaping emotional voidremains. Fans and friends looking for closure with the final studioalbum from Coil are not going to find it here. Threshold House
Only recently have I realized how appropriate the name John Balancereally was. Geff/John undeniably brought an equal (and extreme) amountof joy and pain all those he touched. He was extreme, and although hisdeath was blamed on his alcoholism, if it wasn't that it would havebeen the drugs, and if it wasn't that it would have been something else: he wasan extreme person who with manifested extremes of personality.
The Ape of Naples is a very painful album: it was conceivedin pain, it was recorded in pain, it was completed in pain. Many of its songsdate back over a decade to when the working title was Backwards.Peter Christopherson—along with the supporting cast of Thighpaulsandra,Ossian Brown, Cliff Stapleton, Mike Yorke, and others—has pulledtogether songs from different sessions, recorded at different times anddifferent parts of the world to piece this together. The packaging islavish but delicate. A glued insert folds out into a poster, containinglyrics and images by Ian Johnstone, but the card stock in which it isconatined is not something to be left in places where it can be damagedeasily.
One of the intentions seems to have been not to make something like anUnnatural History (Coil's compilation series of previously issued singles and othernon-LP tracks), so everything here is previously unreleased, more or less. The songschosen, or the versions presented have never been issued. Fans willappreciate finally having the music recorded in that infamous NewOrleans session and earmarked for that Trent Reznor-curated imprint ofInterscope Records long ago. Six of the 11 songs come from there.
"Fire of the Mind," which was also a working title of this album atone point, opens the record with the rich choral and organ based beautyreminiscent of the Musick to Play in the Dark series. It'saccented with the hurdy gurdy playing of Cliff Stapleton, who was arelatively new addition to Coil. (The other new additions to theensemble are the marimba and vibraphone playing of Tom Edwards and thepipe and duduk playing from Mike York, both of which featureprominently on other tracks.)
The first line is striking for coming from a recently departed man'smouth: "Does Death come alone or with eager reinforcements?" Along withother lines like "I don't expect I'll understand how life just trickledthrough my hand" on the equally touching "Amber Rain" hint that Balance could have known theend was near for him, however, I think he has always toyed with deathand the concept of the end. (See: Horse Rotorvator, whose working title was Funeral Music for Princess Diana,lines like "Most accidents occur at home" in "Sex with Sun Ra," and "theworld is in pain, we all must be shown, we must realise that everyonechanges and everything dies" on "Blood from the Air").
Balance's most political statement, "A Cold Cell" first appeared on a compilation from The Wiremagazine. "I Don't Get It" was a Song of the Week given away on theBrainwashed Coil website, however it was originally named "Spastiche."Both of these songs have been reworked into completely new versions.While the sound on "I Don't Get It" has been expanded with vocals andmore sound effects, "A Cold Cell" is more stripped and abbreviated.
"It's In My Blood" was also the title of a song dating back to theinfamous Backwards demos, but that song surfaced as "AYOR" on thosecompilations which first appeared in Russia before being issued throughThreshold House. On this album it is an entirely new song, yet Balance'spainful wailing remains. Similarly, "Heaven's Blade" here is acompletely different song than the song of the same title whichappeared on the unfinished demos.
Some might not appreciate how much material has been recycled,despite the fact that everything contained are indeed radically new versions. Songs like "The LastAmethyst Deceiver" and "Teenage Lightning 2005" stick out in particularas they have been issued so much.
"Tattooed Man," "Triple Sun," and "Going Up" are the newest songs,revealed only through live performances over the last few years. Theversions here might have been assembled through both archives of liveshows and in-studio recordings of the group. The first two being muchshorter than the noisier, elongated versions the band did live, whilethe last is based on the theme for the BBC's Are You Being Served? and features the wonderful soprano falsetto of Francois Testory.
The brevity of the majority of these songs actually do an effectivejob of conveying the notion of unfinished business, leaving everybodywithout that sense of closure they seek, but, as Balance says in thevery last line, "it just is."