 |
|
Look up Music for gazing upwards brought to you by Meat Beat Manifesto & scott crow, +/-, Aurora Borealis, The Veldt, Not Waving & Romance, W.A.T., The Handover, Abul Mogard & Rafael Anton Irisarri, Mulatu Astatke, Paul St. Hilaire & René Löwe, Songs: Ohia, and Shellac. Aurora Borealis image from California by Steve. Get involved: subscribe, review, rate, share with your friends, send images!
|
The second full length from these American black metallers lives up to their feral and deadly-sounding name; each of the four songs on this disc stalk like the canine predator of the band's name. The group refine the techniques they developed on their first album; the mixture of classic black metal with other, gentler influences comes together wonderfully this time.
Canadian electronic musician Hugo Girard has taken an interest in the subject of hypnosis and created an album based around the idea of simulating or accompanying a session through the employment of analogue electronic drones, sequences, and rhythms.
B.Baphomet's rough hand-cranked dark ambient is nowhere near the detached (I think they call it 'glacial') end of that market, its measured input of black/doom influences giving it a living cruder feel. The solid elements like bass notes on Einslpundahgn's "Dronedisciple" and "Rites Ov Catharsis" aid in preventing it from becoming a straight mood exercise or too dredging or sludgy. As enjoyable as this inward disdain is, it is only when B.Baphomet steps away from the darker moods that the music connects for me.
On Stare of Dawn the Chris Hladowski (Scatter and The One Ensemble) helmed The Family Elan is intuitively shaping new music from traditional ethnic folk forms. With melodic phrases and sounds from (what sounds like it could be) the Baltic States, Turkey or the Middle East, Hladowski even summons up medieval folk to contribute to the mix of flavours. Playing instruments like bouzouki and long-necked lute (I think) he creates a drive and draw as the music falls in and out of stable forms, reluctant to come back to earth to settle as a model melody.
The improvisational, instrumental noise/rock trio known as Grey Daturas, hailing from Melbourne, Australia, have been kicking around making as much noise as is humanly possible since 2001, starting out by improvising live soundtracks to 16mm film projections and then over the years notching up many live shows, supporting such acts as Sunn O))), d. Yellow Swans, Dismember, and Isis. Dead in the Woods is actually a re-release of their second album, originally appearing on the Crashing Jets label in 2004.
Titled after a Greek ritual that forms a conceptual background for the disc, this duo leads an ethnographic journey that is every bit as disturbing and frightening as expected, given that the title translates to "exchange of eyes." Marchetti's compulsive attention to detail couples with Murayama's creepy vocalisms to make for a compelling, dramatic work.
The sparse credits that accompany this disc do not make clear if this is an actual collaboration or a split release, though it is obvious that Swedish electronics wizard Nilsen leads the way on the first piece, while everyone's favorite industrial percussionist is the focus of the second. Regardless, the cryptic liner notes and black-on-black artwork are completely appropriate visual representations of the dark expanse that constitutes this album.
