Wolves' third album is a solid monolith of blistering brutality that will likely make black metal fans very happy. Unfortunately, the more melodically adventurous Malevolent Grain EP hinted they were capable of being much more than merely brutal. Black Cascade is not the album that I was eagerly hoping for at all, but I suppose Nathan Weaver must follow his dark muse to whatever sinister place it takes him. Maybe next time.
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!
|
Alex Neilson's name shouldn't be unfamiliar around here (drummer for Baby Dee, Current 93, The One Ensemble, and Jandek). The debut of Trembling Bells brilliantly blends ancient themes with individual concerns and traditional song structures with more modern twists. It has as a euphoric balance of dissonance and melody, fine musicianship, emotional conviction, and a sense of humor.
A new approach (or at least moniker) for orchestramaxfieldparrish's Mike Fazio, this album presents two separate discs, each individually named, for a double dose of dark and moody ambience as rendered by Fazio's nearly neo-classical approach. Long though it may be, there is enough depth to the material here that suggests numerous listens, yet it is also bare enough that it is just as suitable as background accompaniment, albeit to a consistently grim undertaking.
Christofer Lambgren's premire full length release under the guise of the Nana April Jun persona "researches the dark associations of post-black metal," and references the Burzum album Filosofem, which revolutionized the genre by including an extended inwardly reflective keyboard piece. Using purely digital means Nana April Jun has created a sound world that gives a sense of having succumb to the numb isolation of a person who has long been institutionalized, not unlike the patron saint of black metal himself, Varg Vikernes.
Sometimes one disc isn't enough. Following up his stunning cassette debut last year, Russian cosmo-wizard Sergey Kozlov returns with a double disc's worth of rock demolition. Whereas the cassette fidelity of the first kept things murky and mysterious though, the two CDs here find Kozlov presenting a far clearer and more expansive concoction that unfurls the vision of a new and potent psychedelic voice.
Pekka Airaksinen has never been particularly well known outside of his native Finland, but he has the unique distinction of appearing not once, but twice on the legendary list that accompanied Nurse With Wound's debut album (once as himself, once as The Sperm). In the ensuing four decades since his heyday as an underground rock luminary, he has quietly released an avalanche of material on his own label (not mere hyperbole: he is attempting to release an album dedicated to each of the one thousand Buddhas), while toiling in relative obscurity. While I have no intention of plunging into the time- (and finance-) engulfing black hole of his back catalog just yet, I can happily report that Mahagood shows that the old fellow is still as vital and playfully skewed as ever.
In 2006, Steven Stapleton and his crew played their first official live concerts in over 20 years (the previous performances were not billed under the Nurse With Wound name). These performances in San Francisco saw the group focus mainly on the musique concrête- and krautrock-inspired elements of Nurse With Wound, eschewing recognisable tracks for live jamming with (what was then) new sounds and samples. The end result is a remarkably good album whose almost incidental ambience is as unsettling as it is compelling.
The unobscured natural photography on the cover of this disc sets up what is contained within. While the label is usually focused on the dark, opaque droning sounds, Gargaud’s contribution to Utech is much clearer and lighter, at least in relative terms. Mixing abstract electronics with some occasionally plaintive guitar playing, it stays relatively warm and organic throughout, with a few intentional, but compelling bumps along the way. At its core, it feels like a more stripped down version of Fennesz.
Consider this in the running for the "minimalist/maximalist" release of the year. While releasing an album on a USB flash drive is not a new thing, few of the ones thus far have had the same quality of presentation. Packaged in a small bamboo box, just slightly bigger than a matchbox, is an engraved bamboo drive which contains a total of ten unreleased albums, recorded between 1999 and 2008. Ten hours of music in a small box, which costs barely more than a single CD. However, with that much material, there is going to be a bit of overload.
At Brainwaves last year, Peter Christopherson claimed that this album was the best thing he had ever done. Such a lofty claim raised eyebrows and now it is time to see if this is the truth. While I cannot agree with Christopherson, he and Ivan Pavlov have certainly made a fantastic album. It is of a far different character to their previous transmission under the SoiSong name; xAj3z is warm and vibrant compared to the fragility of their debut.
