Fjordne’s fourth album is a warm and evocative plunge into glitchy, immersive ambiance that is (very) loosely inspired by Dazai Osamu’s novel of the same name. While certainly reminiscent of artists like Chihei Hatakeyama in tone, the density, invention, and experimentation on display here make The Setting Sun rather a unique and beguiling entity.
We made it to 700 episodes. While it's not a special episode per se—commemorating this milestone—you can pretty much assume that every episode is special. This one features Mark Spybey & Graham Lewis, Brian Gibson, Sote, Scanner and Neil Leonard, Susumu Yokota, Eleven Pond, Frédéric D. Oberland / Grégory Dargent / Tony Elieh / Wassim Halal, Yellow Swans, Dental waste in Saigon photo by Krisztian. Get involved: subscribe, review, rate, share with your friends, send images!
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It is difficult to avoid being moved by the four years of hard work, love, and tireless enthusiasm that Stéphane Grégoire has poured into assembling this globe-spanning homage to the music of Coil, but I have to admit that it completely subverted my expectations in many ways. The Dark Age of Love is a deeply curious and oft-excellent album, but it is also a surprisingly tame one (given its inherently aberrant inspiration).
Pure wildness is a difficult aesthetic to grasp. In rock, attempts to evoke it often devolve into tribal kitsch. On their sixth album, OOIOO negotiates that subtle distinction with skill and integrity. Despite some lapses into tedium, the band remains impressive, both in natural musicianship and in the complete absurdity of their art. Armonico Hewa satisfies and frustrates in equal measure and ends up succeeding by blurring the difference.
Flingco's tombstone shaped speaker might be the perfect gadget for scaring children during Halloween celebrations this year. Actually, among its nine loops I've found a couple capable of unnerving unsuspecting adults. Put it in the right environment and chances are someone will find one of its various outputs less than comfortable. Part toy, part loop machine, and part gimmick, the Black Box is an entertaining gizmo with contributions from Cristal, Haptic, Wrnlrd, and Annie Feldmeier Adams.
Borrowing their name from the famously disturbed German surrealist/girlfriend and inspiration to Hans Bellmer, Stephen Thrower's first collaboration with experimental guitarist Daniel Knight (Arkkon/Shock Headed Peters) is a challenging and hallucinatory plunge into claustrophobic dread that shares stylistic territory with Thrower's own Cyclobe and (to a lesser extent) his former Coil band mates' late-period ambient work.
Supergroups rarely turn out to be all that super but when The Hidden Hand/Saint Vitus’ Wino, Om’s Al Cisneros, Neurosis’ Scott Kelly and Dale Crover of the Melvins announce that they are making an album together, it is hard not to be expectant of an earth-shattering collection of songs. While they are not earth-shattering, the pieces on this album certainly shake the patch of ground around my stereo. Shrinebuilder’s debut is by no means the best thing any of them have put their names to but the promise of something bigger lurks behind each of the songs featured here.
As the fourth in their long standing domestic activity collaboration series, Marhaug’s harsh noise penchant meets Ratkje’s nuanced and bizarre collaborative techniques to create an album of random cutup sounds, occasional harsh noise blasts, and everything plus the kitchen sink instrumentation that rivals the absurdity of the Schimpfluch Gruppe crew in the best possible way.
Some nine years into this millennium, this former Wire member has released his first album's worth of new material (Ordier was technically an archival release from 1996) just as the decade winds down and another begins anew. Here the sound harkens back more towards his earlier work for dance and installations rather than the full force electronic noise of In Esse or the more electronica based sounds of Ab Ovo.
The idea of a journalist throwing a hat into the music creation and distribution business makes peers and fans alike cringe concerning the possibilities. Often the results are disastrous and quickly forgotten, yet here we stand face-to-face with Steve Lowenthal’s attempt at curating a series of acoustic guitar-based albums. Cleveland’s own Mark McGuire, renowned the synth world over for his work in Emeralds, is given a new and unique platform through VDSQ to show a different side of his creativity, and Solo Guitar Volume Two accomplishes just that.
For almost a quarter-century, Boredoms defined eclectic. Little said about them would hold up a few albums later. The band dashed expectations in a way that made even failed experiments seem exciting. Whatever they did, they did it weird; their genuine oddness was the thread that ran through their entire carrier. With their new EP, Super Roots 10, Boredoms break that tradition by relying on remixes to elevate weaker source material.
