My late top ten

Here's my Top 10 records of the year:


1.Spaceghostpurrp: Mysterious Phonk/BMW
2.Rome: Die Aesthetik der Herrschaftsfreiheit (all three?)
3.Robert Hood: Motor (Nighttime World 3)
4.Young Smoke: Space Zone
5.Virtual Information Desk: Contemporary Sappho
6.Raime: Quarter Turns Over a Living Line
7.Ariel Pink: Mature Themes
8.Vessel: Order of Noise
9.Guided by Voices: Let's Go Eat the Factory
10.Hype Williams: Black is Beautiful

Rome's 3 part Die Aesthetik der Herrschaftsfreiheit, an evocative folk-noir sequence that mixed industrial textures, musique concrete and Nick Cave-style balladry with a concept involving 19th century European freedom fighters; the whole thing was ambitious, deeply romantic and highly moving but, sadly, spread across 3 separate albums (not discs, albums) which diluted the impact somewhat as no one release summed the whole thing up. Nonetheless, taken as a whole, it's a powerful body of work and one of the most richly enjoyable audio experiences I've had all year: thanks to Totem Records in Wien, Austria for giving me the heavy tip on this one, it paid off!

Shout-outs to MJ Linckoln, Vatican Shadow, :Wumpscut: and Royal-T, all of whom have been firm fixtures of my listening this year but who, for various reasons, don't cut into the top 10. MJ Linckoln is probably because I've digested so many EPs and albums at once and all the 'best bits' don't occur on one release; not to mention that one of my hands-down faves this year has been Malibu Locals Only Matterhorn pt2 but, for some reason, I found it difficult to squeeze it into the top 10.

SGP has taken up most of my listening this year; Rvidxr Klvn's Greatest Hits (nearly my #1) and BLXCK SMVRF's Mortal Kombat III were key texts while Mysterious Phonk was a great, gloomy rap record that, although totally lacking in fun and not quite heavy, kept going around my head and tempting me back. Furthermore, just when I began to question SGP's bars (you know, when you listen to a rapper so much you begin to pick holes in their flow), the fucker drops Black Man's Wealth for free, like the other day! A brilliant half-way house between Phonk's clean(er), considered tracks and God of Black's scuzzy fizzle (which, in spite of their brilliance, were annoyingly under-mastered).


New Dreams Ltd was a surprise entry for me as it was an album I found myself revisiting more and more. It pretty much kick started my fascination with vaporwave (despite already making Replicas and Far Side Virtual my no. 1s from previous years). I didn't realise how important it had been this year when I checked popped it on the other day and discovered I knew the thing really well (as in, 'this next track is that one with the weird sax, I love that!' or when I knew when a sample would stutter/chop).

How to choose which of the three GBV albums to 'top 10'. Class Clown Spots a UFO is possibly the better record, but Let's Go Eat the Factory was the one I obsessed over and listened to the most (because it was the first, maybe). One of my favourite lyrics of the year has to be from The Head:

"We have found/what appears to be the head/of the operation...but we've not yet found the body"

Slightly annoyed that there's not been any grime albums worth cherishing this year. Royal-T's came close, a brilliant package of grime and bass styles which featured my favourite track of the year: Cruel to be kind feat P Money. An intense, punkish grime-house monster that caused me to dance stupider than ever before in a variety of places: a) on the way to work b) Motion c) my front room d) my classroom e) The Exchange and f) Blue Mountain. Very difficult not to rave to the drop, wherever you are. Only problem with it was that much of it appeared to be genre-experiments or dull features -I didn't see Royal-T indulging in his strengths, y'know, like if they'd collected up his 12"s to date and then put the best tracks from Rinse Presents... in as the filler...that's be a fucking sick grime album, without any girly features.

Wiley did release Evolve or be Extinct, a fine album that sadly overstretched itself with sketches and a few quality, but ultimately toothless and indulgent, concept-songs e.g. Skankin'. Kylea's excellent Step Freestyles is around #12 on my list (I may have to extend it to Top 20 now...), chiefly down to his freestyle over Preditah's Circles. God almighty: choon, etc.

No black metal caught my ear, sadly, as Burzum's two efforts, Umskipitar and From the Depths o of Darkness were confusingly obtuse and a misguided re-recording of older standards respectively. The overall effect was a little unsatisfying because I really liked Umpskipitar but didn't find myself going back to it to explore further; no moments of revelation or ecstasy. Similarly, there was nothing new about the re-recordings of the earlier pre-incarceration material. It felt like a cash in, event though I suspect it was a genuine gesture. I doubt he cares anyway. I did get a few LPs in the genre but, meh, maybe it wasn't my year for such styles.

Tri-Angle label were, this year, fantastic in every way. All releases were intriguing, beautiful and challenging. Holy Other's dense and seductively mournful album Held was a highlight (probably my #15), as was the so-early-in-the-year-he-spoilt-his-chances disc from Balam Acab. However, Bristol boy Vessel takes the Tri-Angle prize for me. Order of Noise is airily spacious, grimly human and imbued with such a deftness of hand with regards to style (something not shared by the other Tri-Anglers) and technique as to allow the record to appeal to listeners on the level of a bass-y ghost-rave classic and skeletal Surgeon-esque dub-techno LP (similar-ish to his terrific Breaking the Frame LP). Slippery and elusive, this was one of the year's best UK records for me.

Malibu Locals Only

Matterhorn pt 2

Malibu Locals Only isn't a new moniker from Sean M. Petell, just a reactivation of the guise he used to release a collection of New Age tracks earlier this year on the lovely Politesse split We Rusticated Earth. Others tracks from this period, best found here and on the 2012 Living Room Visions compilation which also features MJ Linckoln's Doug Prishpreed (titled after a sports reporter), weren't tied to a dedicated MLO album or EP but seemed to trickle out over a 4 month period.

Only one track has reappeared on MLO's debut-proper on Sunup Recordings, the sublime and dreamy Sunday Drive into Sunset, opening with clip-clop horse hooves and fireside guitar that degenerates into serene drones which chime and unfold gradually, more like descending bliss than the forward motion of motor travel, when sleeps begins to drip-drip itself over your eyes and the flames settle to dozy embers.  

The tape opens with a masterful 11-minute suite, Nayru; Farore, Din a dusky, crackling keyboard drift set across gently rattling tins or pans that calmly circle the implied campfire. This arrangement, keyboards over found or concrete layers (usually water trickling/running, the shuffling of people, crackles), forms the backbone of the album with the playing endearingly patchy -the enjoyment of the player and the value of the task is evident, even if their hands pause or miss the odd note.

This is the key element that I spoke of/looked forward to in my earlier post about vaporwave artists developing: actual playing. Who'd have though it? Real instruments and musicianship isn't really my thing (I sympathise with OF's Jasper when he says "...rapping's stupid and it's hard"), I can live without them and am rarely impressed by virtuosity -give me a well-programmed piece of electronic music any day; skill's overrated.
However, here, the conceptual message (implied my Petell and inferred, correctly or otherwise, by me) is that the found-sound/ready-made collage/cut-up/loop of eccojams, vaporwave compositions has run its course. Aesthetic lessons have been learned, audiences garnered and collectives formed, but now this progress needs to be harnessed and deployed rather than allowed to drift endlessly (and fruitlessly) on like, well, an eccojam. 

Matterhorn pt 2 has something playfully real about it, whether it's the choo-choo and clatter of a train that opens and trundles throughout Albert Rosenfield or the aforementioned environmental elemental soundscapes, this recording appears to reject the Second Life, pre-rendered Internet artificiality that was/is so fetishised in vaporwave. Refreshingly so, too, as real flesh and blood playing has never felt so welcome to me; this is the webwave equivalent of going acoustic, of switching off the wi-fi for the night.

I'm persevering with my webwave tag, by the way, because it allows me to keep track of a bundle of developments that shared some origins or overlaps at one point, be it Seapunk, Eccojam, vaporwave, distroid (arf!) or the Hypnogogic Pop and New Age revivals of last year.

Overall, Matterhorn pt 2 isn't the most exciting release from Petell but is an important palette cleanser, a vital road sign forward for an artist whose grip of musical concepts isn't bound by style, genre or even tools used. Whereas we've become insulated and acclimatised to the schmaltzy-cheese that's gleefully (even perversely) referenced/deployed by many webwave artists (New Dreams Ltd, Uncle Dan Lopatin and Mr Ferraro chiefly responsible), this release is easier on the noise-fan's ear on account of the concrete backdrop, fewer excuses needed for passers-by or family members ("...why're you listening to this? I thought you were into weird music..."), while retaining more authentic versions of the emotions and atmospheres these New Age and Muzaks of old were only able to artificially imply.

A very successful release and worth your time (and $! Get the tape!).  

MJ Linckoln and the webwavers (# optional)

MJ Linckoln

Wading through and chewing over the below webwave compilation (the snappily titled 

:​:​:​:​:​蒸気​:​:​:​:​:) yielded much treasure but, as with compilations as expansive and bewildering in diversity as this (RVIDXR KLVN's Greatest Hits comes to mind), the iPod star rating comes into its own as a sorting tool: 'avoids' are given 1, excellence recognised with a 5 and songs of note, intrigue or requiring further research get a 4; 2 and 3 aren't used.

One of my webwave 5 star champions, MJ Linckoln, has a decent and recommended discography available for free through bandcamp on Sunup Recordings. My personal favourite is the Matterhorn pt 1 EP, containing some fine, suffocatingly slurred eccojams named after American celebrities, their names oblique and mysterious to me.

Elsewhere, with the Now that's what I call Music! vol 2 EP (credited to マイケル·ジョーダンLINCKOLN, Japanese for Michael Jordon or 'MJ'), we're treated to a earnest chopped n' ecco'd showcase, smearing and mystifying classics from Enya and Berlin -the Enya track in question (from 'Memory of Trees') was one of my first CD purchases as a young boy, so hearing it again for the first time in about a decade was neatly nostalgic and the first personal fluttering connection I've made with a track from this genre, what with other chopped/screwed/slowed/throwed/eccojammed/skrewed songs being relatively easy to identify by sound or by tag.
A certain admirable balance is achieved between a pop-musik black mass and dadaist joke, deadly serious exploration and tongue-in-cheek irony; the revealing chorus for many songs acting as punchline. Just when you're noddingly up to your ears in reverb, appreciating the disorientating slab of sound that churns, heaves and seems to struggle to breath out its own colossally wheezing chords, drums falling in a heavy stumble, the whole avant-garde noisescape is revealed to be Take My Breath Away by Berlin (if you don't catch the telltale bass melody, that is, which my wife didn't: when the chorus came, so did the guffaws).

The effect is one of deconstruction, conceptually as well as sonically. Like a dadaist ready-made, Daniel Lopatin's genre-defining Nobody's Here (as Chuck Person) took a terminally uncool music faux pas and turned it into a cutting edge, highly influential webwave 'masterpiece'. Playing with the giants of pop, simply slowing them, altering their tone and introducing some choice cutting and a dose of sub-aqueous reverb, is close to the 21st Century Internet equivalent of scrawling R. Mutt across them.

Yet, despite this gnawing feeling of 'am I listening to great/nearly great art or am I the butt of someone dicking about on Audacity's joke?' (which does fade), I'm utterly in thrall of MJ's work and that of his contemporaries and peers (Internet Club, $PL$H ¢LUB 7, Mediafired and just about anyone on the :​:​:​:​:​蒸気​:​:​:​:​: compilation ['vapour', in Japanese, badaway]) because, on one level, they appear to have quickly exhausted the possibilities of this technique and so, being evidently creative and productive minds, I want to know what they'll turn to next.

Already, since I began typing this, Matternhorn pt 2 has appeared on the Sunup Recordings bandcamp (although credited to 'Malibu Locals Only', an alias of Sean Petell of MJ, named after a small, violent gang from Malibu, the MLO) which is a more expansive creature, more indebted to sun-kissed drone, psychedelia and has more composed, cleaner feel. A wonderful tape, I'm thrilled to hear this maturation of style and purpose occur so quickly.

Although a fan of chopped and screwed, I'd never immersed myself in the blurry, aqueous, sensory-deprivation to any great extent, merely listening and enjoying albums as sonic curiosities rather than distinct pieces of work, such as the 'purple' versions of my favourite hip-hop artists. My first exposure to the style came through Hype Williams, of Hippos in Tanks association, with their drained, dreamy slo-mo bass music that held me in thrall for most of last year. Since then, I've casually sought out examples where the technique is applied, strategically and alongside other tricks n' tools, rather than expressed in pure form. Apart from Salem, who I feel sort of cheated despite being ahead of the (wider) game, I wasn't wholly satisfied.

MJ Linckoln, despite facing the initial blurry danger of blurring into the previous blurry-eccojam, has managed to keep my attention with his overall thematic content: the naming conventions of releases after famous American cars -from where the name derives, albeit with a kinky additional K -the curious reference to Michael Jordon and aforementioned American B-listers used as track titles (Art Garfunkel being the A-grade exception, maybe) tie the whole thing up into a neat, not too flashy, not too ironic, not too drained of substance package.

I'm still devouring the releases, trying to make time to consolidate them in my mind alongside other releases in the wider-genre, but hope to revisit MJ with a solid release review and verdict/discussion.

Webwave labels

Webwave labels

Let's not get too grubby too soon, shall we? I don't want to wade, without due caution, into the muddy mire of the genre game (otherwise known as 'What do you call it?') with this lot just yet. Just now, I'm referring to it as Webwave (other tags include the ubiquitous hypnagogic, the unsuccessful vaporwave and the frequently inaccurate Eccojam) because that was my favourite tag for recently downloaded, and startlingly high quality, compilation ":::::蒸気:::::" ("JOUKI"["VAPOR"])

This is just my first post on these wonderful artists. Download this (a mere 50 JPY!) as your gateway drug. From this shit I've become hooked on MJ Linkcoln, artist wise, among others.

Labels to spooge all over are: 

http://ailanthusrecordings.bandcamp.com/

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/sunup-recordings

and http://beerontherug.com/

Doitnowgo.

Ekoplekz: Intrusive Incidentalz Vol. 1

Ekoplekz: Intrusive Incidentalz Vol. 1

Nick Edwards has long been on my radar, first as a local proponent of the tape loop and analogue electronics scene name-dropped and referenced by the ageing (no offence meant) 'head' crowd who  made a fetish out of 90s Warp and 70s Industrial abstraction and technique -a group I'm guilty of being a young adherent to; my late teens were spent deliriously vacuuming up old Warp albums while they still retained their playful mystery and searching desperately for concrete links between them and the steadily growing stack of early Industrial (SPK, CV, TG, Clock DVA, Severed Heads et al) I was amassing.

 Abstraction, complexity, non-conformism and a spiteful (if occasionally unintentionally ironic) rejection of pop music and its perceived norms (coherant lyrics, if any, digestible melody, verse-chorus-blah, 'normal' drum/guitar sounds) were my touchstones and criteria for buying or even acknowledging the existence of any music. Therefore, Cabaret Voltaire's Methodology: The Attic Tapes was my bible, an encapsulation of a passion and ideology in uncooked form; no studio-sheen (I still rejected clean music, in spite of Warp's sharp-focus, polygon aesthetic) or pretense, just 3 dudes in someone's loft, a bunch of homemade/scavenged electronic equipment and a feeling. This was my punk rock, my reductionist ideal and idea of purity...you only need an oscillator and, if you were a maximalist, a drum machine of some kind (having a commercial synth was like having a string section by my reckoning).

By this logic, I should love Nick Edwards aka Ekoplekz. Nick is of the generation, with all due respect, for whom the Warp set were present day and the Industrial lads mere recent history. For me, the former was a recently missed boat and the latter ancient history. However, Nick has the advantage of also being well schooled and a firm part of the latest UK Bass Music phase (actually a distant lineage, including Warp et al) which includes Dubstep culture and its offspring/descendants. He's made it plain that his music is intended to marry the UK industrial heritage (70s style) with Bass Culture developments, a worthy and enviable field of research (something I've fewer achievements in), and in terms of presentation -released on Punch Drunk, Bristol's top boy dubstep label, Edwards depicted as mixer-abusing DJ on the cover (albeit with evil fish head) -it's on the mark but, when the needle drops, the marriage seems merely political; strictly separate bedrooms.  

The trouble is, this is a fantastic 70s Industrial record. Really good. Tape loops of astounding quality, virtuoso even, drum sounds that inspire swoons and flashbacks to my pubescent, lights-off bedroom TG revelations, smattered liberally and, dammit, seemingly so effortlessly about these pop-song length incursions. Edwards' synth swoops, oscillations that hang in the air like ectoplasmic vapour trails, have an authenticity that Demdike Stare are both wanting and cripplingly unable to produce. Droney synth stabs, redolent of The Voice of America by CV, give a mean-faced throb to proceedings but, overall, the functionality of the Bass Culture that Edwards has been so embraced by is lacking. I'm not asking for dancefloor material, far from it, but I don't see how these excellent and passionate recordings transcend or depart from the aforementioned Methodology or Rough Trade era CV stuff at all. 

This isn't a criticism, as Edwards and I obviously share an admiration for the Sheffield Sonic cowboys, and I love hearing CV-soundalikes, really. My problem is that I feel that Edwards is abusing a fortunate position. Had I the skill to reproduce, with such loving care, the experiments of the Cabs and do so with the keen ear of the (post)dubstep community at my disposal, I'd feel compelled to draw a strong, black line between the two eras and show how music that sounded and obviously reference CV, was also able to be reconstituted into a modern, even forward looking, piece of UK electronic music. Could I get dubsteppers and grime fiends nodding, skanking, pointing and bobbing to a CV-style track? I'd love to try and, gosh, how wonderful would it be to succeed. 

I admit, this is my personal agenda. I constantly attempt to repay the decade of joy, influence and revelation that Richard H Kirk and Stephen Mallinder have given me with nods, salutes, references and attempts to keep their (obvious to me) relevance and influence alive by recognising and indicating their greasy prints wherever I see them. I don't expect Edwards to do the same and, unfairly, I expected that a fellow CV-head might feel that compulsion. I see now that Ekoplekz is a man revelling in sound, welded to a thrilling aesthetic about which he and I obviously feel very passionate about and, in reality, I should be grateful that he's bringing that sound back to life by releasing period-sounding pieces on a modern, dynamic label and not seeking to compromise the initial qualities with potentially flash-in-the-pan developments.

I'll wearily check out the rest of Nick's stuff, to see how he develops, but otherwise I've heard it all before...thankfully, everyone else hasn't and for them this'll be a great, potentially gateway, experience.

Hirsute Pursuit: Tighten That Muscle Ring

Hirsute Pursuit: Tighten That Muscle Ring

Finally, a bit of extremity. Hirsute Pursuit have made me squirm and wince like no other music has since I was a 17 y/o sitting, jaw-dropped, before TG's Very Friendly or perhaps listening to SPK's Leichenscrei for the first time in University.

Industrial music should make you uncomfortable, it should provoke and challenge you. It is, perhaps, the Burroughsian legacy that compels so much Industrial to be uncompromising and stark in its subject matter and its delivery; the cut-up novels (especially Junky) are not only disorientating and impenetrable but, when you do attempt to navigate the jungle of words, it's pretty gross and disquieting (if realistic).

Such things are, no pun intended, hardening. Little offends me or revolts me now. Tighten... doesn't offend though, it just forces me to engage with music in a different way, one my mind isn't used to. We've all heard weird sex stuff in music, or even downright disturbing rape/abuse claims/allusions for shock value (and not just lyrically a la Tyler and Earl), but the slurping, plopping, groaning and grunting of Hirsute's sophomore disc are a new level for me. 

I'm heterosexual but won't shirk or besmirch gay content in culture; it's all culture. However, HP's use of such graphic and immersible bodily and contextual asides (such as a breathless response of "Yessir" make for a compelling atmosphere of sexual intensity)  really bring you in close to gay sex, audibly so. It's not that I'm repulsed by gay sex at all, but that such proximity to a sexual act makes me uncomfortable, shy even, and forces me into a momentary moral dilemma: how should I be feeling? Should I feel bad that I said 'eeew' aloud after a few tracks of relentless, sloppy anal pummeling put to a trip-hop beat? I've not been engaged in this way since the aforementioned Leichenscrei where dead-voiced women discussed sexual abuse at the hands of their carers.

Repulsion isn't the issue. These recordings are so intimate and so unashamedly so that one feels as voyeur but, being heterosexual, a uninvited one. The atmosphere, eventually, solidifies to one of concentrated transgression; this is Industrial, this is the anything goes because there isn't anything else worth going and doing; the sound of freedom and expression. Boyd Rice (featured here on a cover of Boys Keep Swinging) does this elsewhere, he creates an atmosphere of saying what the fuck you want but, rather than obscure it, making you feel as if you've been dropped into a very intense conversation about said subject and might drown for want of context. I feel out of my depth  and yet riveted.

The beats? 90s electronica through a post-industrial lens. Trip-hop, some slimy house and guttural exotica are wrapped up in skittering textures, spittle-flecked flexes of bass and synth but, otherwise, overly percussive and reliant on the chorus of gasps and grunts. Happily, I was expecting tepid DAF-impersonations, but this is a fuck to Gabi and Rob's cheeky tease.

A challenging, deep listen. I'll happily revisit.

Rrose: Artificial Light

Rrose

I don't know a thing about Rrose and I don't want to. These shadowy, slurred, hissing and creeping Industrial-House tracks are great and, moreover, the overall presentation interests me just as much as the sounds. 

Check out that picture from the label, above -it's weird, but not quite creepy enough, a suggestion of some fun is there and although it appears to foretell abandonment and darkness it's also, well, a little cheeky perhaps? I'm reminded of the Robert Rental and Thomas Leer album The Bridge...I bought that on the strength of the grey cover, name of the artists and the title that revealed nothing about its contents. 

Artificial Light plays the same trick. The side featuring our bony friend is superb, Shepard's Brine beginning as a menacingly slow thump, the track progresses into a wall of synth-strobes, drones and nagging, crunchy percussion. As with so much, I'm reminded of the glorious Bourbonese Qualk.

The flip, Waterfall, begins as a calm, atmospheric click n' shuffle fest before a strident kick sets in and allows grizzled synths to saw up and down oblivious to the central pulse. A calmer, is no less intense composition.

I'm resisting finding anything out about Rrose -is it one dude? A girl? Two guys? I don't care. I'm determined to slowly find out, probably avoiding interviews and just picking up the "12s where I can find them.

Vessel

Vessel: Nylon Sunset

I've been really excited to hear local boy Seb Gainsborough after picking up a lot of chatter about town, in clubs, on blogs and mixes. I'd always missed the Young Echo, the collective into which Vessel recedes after each shadowy release, radio shows but they've already achieved legendary status as deep explorations of sound and bass. When Tri Angle announced they were putting out Seb's LP I ventured out to see him live (supporting Holy Other) and was impressed by the weighty, slinky structures I encountered.

Although Tri Angle press paints a dark, demonic picture (topless, half-obscured, patterned shots that remind me of a bass-bin Loki) Seb and Vessel are actually a lot more accessible in reality; playful yet paranoid and solidly, relentlessly urban and ghostly without sounding uniformly mournful, these stuttering beats are both enjoyably danceable and hold up under a closer, critical listen, especially the B-side which suggests House music as a compulsion, a spirit breaking out, while retaining a tough robo-exterior. Seb, in person, is also as  likable as his trax. 

[P.S. Seb also records under his House moniker, Panther Modern. I have one 12 and, despite still having reservations about House's worth as a 'have-a-go' genre, it's undeniably fun and heavy]

Raime - Hennail

Raime: Hennail

[Mine has no cover, just a blue photocopied insert in a black sleeve...and thus, sadly a reissue]

Supporting Hype Williams seemed, at the time, too obvious a gig for Raime when I first encountered them. I had been slotting Hype Williams into as many musical narratives as I could -dub, industrial, post-punk, grime, DIY -in an attempt to shake free of the hypnogogic tag that, frankly, didn't seem fit to last. Too dubby and ravey (in a slow motion come-down blur sort of way) to really fit in nearly with Industrial, they nonetheless shared the sonic-trickster personality of Cabaret Voltaire and to some extent groups like Bourbonese Qualk. Now I realise they're firmly part of the UK Bass set, not just because of the Hyperdub connection, but the whole attitude and reference points of two-step, East London garage/grime and the underground world of pirate radio.

Raime do not fit this tag. Raime are somehow firmly northern, their affiliation with Brummie techno bruiser Regis and the Blackest Ever Black label leads me to file them alongside SPK, Test Department and the gurning wickedness of Whitehouse. While not noisy or abrasive, there's something heavy and rusty, doom-laden yet impersonal, about these extraordinarily well made, if shy, constructions. Time is taken to paint a dense but never overpowering sonic image, one senses they've laboured over each sound's position and angle in a way that defies any boffin-like tag because, really, things unfold in such a gaseous, natural fashion that they sound positively arcane. A recommended 12 that demands repeated listens.

Still Corners - Creatures of an Hour

Dweem pawp

I'm really quite adverse to so-called dream pop, popgaze, shoepop, ethereal or whichever, but I was swayed into buying this because of its wonderful artwork and a sort of tug for some light indie in my life. I feel a bit dirty, as this is very Radio 2 (I think), very flash-in-the-pan and reminds me a little of groups such as School of Seven Bells and what I vaguely remember Tindersticks, Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil to sound like (and another band who I can't recall...). It makes me think of 4AD quite a lot, even though they're signed to Sub Pop.

I've always veered away from 4AD as a label as it appeared overly-Catholic about music that held no mystery for me at all -the whole roster (once) seemed very insubstantial, very misty and vapour-like. Dark, but not dark, murky, but not dungeon-murk. I just checked recently and they're releasing some of the best shit around and in genres/sub-genres that I like but consider otherwise unconnected: Spaceghostprrp, Zomby, Grimes, Ariel Pink and Joker (ferfuksake).

Still Corners are okay. The music is a kind of polite kosmische-rock with smoke machines, never gothic but not once silly and irreverent, Creates of an Hour has the heartbeat and heads-down jam feel of kosmische while Tessa Murray's voice, although thinly lovely, gleams like reflected light through the headfog. I'll update if I thaw to it, otherwise it's a perfectly inoffensive way to start the day, as I have done twice this week.

Front Line Assembly - Plasticity EP

This is part 29 (!) in your alltime classix collection!

Infacted Recordings are great. They've been reissuing all sorts of EBM/dark Techno dregs and tidbits for the last couple of years in a series that's as patchy as it is revelatory and wonderful. I picked up about half-a-dozen of these compilations in Stuttgart over Christmas as they're both cheap and temptingly limited (1000 copies of each).

Bill Leeb's FLA are by far the most high profile act to be receive the 'classix' treatment and these tracks were some of the first I ever heard from the group on their Hardwired album. I remember being a NIN fanatic and being in correspondence with some guy on the internet who agreed to sell me a CDr of the notorious Broken video (directed by sadly-missed Chris Christopherson of Coil and TG). He'd asked if I wanted anything else on the CDr as the video hardly took up much space. I remember asking him if he knew any other Industrial bands because, living in Tewkesbury, I didn't. He asked if I knew FLA and I drew a blank so he stuck Hardwired and some Skinny Puppy tracks (including most of The Process...yeuch) on there.

In Tewkesbury we had a small independent record store...I think it was called Hedgehog Records, or something equally glib and indie, and was run by a great guy called Adam whose Dad was a Drama teacher at my school. Anyway, Adam was an oracle of alternative music, selling me my 4th ever CD which was Ministry's Land of Rape and Honey not to mention hunting down loads of NIN odds n' sods for me. He was my Allmusic back then and I remember asking him what Front Line Assembly sounded like and he said "Well, the name sums it up pretty well" and then some comment about Skynet versus Robocop.

When Hardwired on CDr arrived (and after I'd barfed/laughed my way through Broken) I took the digestion of my 8th ever album very seriously: lights were off, PC speakers cranked up, door shut, Windows Media Player visuals primed. I remember sitting (not lying) on my bed, really trying to absorb this futuristic, densely layered and cinematic music. I loved the riffage -I was a Ministry/NIN head around this time, remember -dug the electronic noises, lapped up the samples (even the bleepy 'using a computer' ones from Sci-fi films) and was entirely converted to EBM there and then.

I wanted cyber-techno-robo-gothic-datawar-space-combat-body music with fat metal riffs, computer-voices, big dirty beats and sounds I couldn't place (Is that a keyboard? Computer? Sample? Voice? What?). FLA is the place.

This EP doesn't really offer anything new, although it is wonderful to hear (for me) fresh mixes of these great tracks, as well as some UK hardcore inspired versions of the title tracks that reflect Bill's immersion in the dance music coming out of England around the time.

Overall, I'll probably pop it on from time to time when I want 75 minutes of Hardwired style-dance remixes.

:Wumpscut: Women and Satan First

Extra points for being repulsive!

Yeeeeah, Rudy! Thanks for that one. Artwork so repulsive it outdoes the legions of Death/Gore Metal bands strenuously attempting to produce the ultimate 'most offensive artwork ever' and missing the point with their hand-drawn pictures of babies eating their own intestines (bored of that; more naked skanks needed).

I tried to buy this in Austria with my wife but attempted to do so on the sly, so that the Mother-in-law and, well, most of the Austrian family, didn't ask "What have you bought? Let's have a look at your CD" and then think I was some kind of pervert behind my back (my German is shaky at best).

No luck. In fact, my Uncle-in-law (in his 60s) is a fan of Amazon download store and, when it was revealed that I wanted to buy a CD but couldn't find it, bought a couple of MP3s to cheer me up. So, we sat round in Graz eating our breakfast with the Mother-in-law, the Auntie, wife and Bavarian visitors (also in their 60s, heavily conservative) listening to :Wumpscut:. Not an eyelid was batted -someone enquired as to why this man was saying 'Blutsturtz Baby' so much as it was odd, but that was it.

So we tried to get it at Saturn: fail. Tried Media Markt: fail. Eventually tried Amazon.au/.de and failed because of the hideous price. Eventually my wife ordered it so it arrived in England for when we got back: fail, back-ordered. I got it from Music Non Stop in the end and realised it was roughly 10 year since my first order there! (See previous post about FLA).

First Impression

Evil, mostly, in the vein of Fuckit (which I ended up loving despite heavily dissing it online...check the Amazon reviews) which is to say we're in Dark-Electro territory, not so much industrial or noise, but that's acceptable as I think Rudy's contemporary style of Gothic-techno, divorced of industrial, is fine. His lyrics are typically awkward but sincere with some vague WWII references ("Hitler would have melted you for soap" being my favourite lyric so far) as with Schrekk und Grauss. In my opinion the interesting, complex textures and one-off sounds/movements aren't as noticeable here as with S&G but, as it says above, this is only a first impression.

I'll listen to it on the way to work tomorrow and report back. Have been greedily eyeing up the Body Census, Bone Peeler and Siamese boxes on Discogs...thought of having complete :W: collection very exciting. Listened to Cannibal Anthem (an unloved part of Ratzinger's catalogue) on the way to gym earlier and decided it is great but understated; dramatic, brooding and introverted with a touch of the mystical as with Evoke but denser, less airy mixes and high-end synths. It is as if Cannibal Anthem is grislier, filmed on 8mm and grounded in reality where Evoke is pure fantasy, prone (and able) to take flights of whimsy and imagination. I like it because it has great instrumentals.

Second Impression

24/04/2012

Listened to this on the way to work and just now for a third time. Most of these tracks I like, none repulse me at all, but none stand out yet. I like Burial on Demand though, it has some very cool percussive thumps here and there and a sort of lo-fi, crunchy looped burp noise which is ok.

What I think I really like about :Wumpscut: and that makes Rudy a fucking G is that he manages to make music that is essentially pop music, i.e. catchy and with recognisable song structures but dark as fuck.

Interesting: Grobian includes a quotation from Hitler "Here I stand with my bayonets, there you stand with your Law. We'll see which prevails." and another from a Nazi who observed the behaviour of Jews in Babi Yar who co-operated with the Nazis and eventually sped up their own annihilation, remarking "The bastards are sub-human[my emphasis]."
    The song's lyric text recalls a confrontation with a person wearing "schwarze Stiefel" (black boots), being tall and a bully or slovenly person ('Grobian' is a coarse person, a rogue). It's ambiguous stuff, more typical of the neofolk provacateurs, that lends :Wumpscut: his edge and raises this above mere dancefloor fodder.  

Mastamind: The Mastapiece

Mastamind - The Mastapiece

One third of the legendary NATAS (Nation/Niggers Ahead in Time And Space -NOT Satan backwards...not Satan...y'hear?), Detroit's premier, original underground rap group, Mastamind has had a late start in the solo game but now, in his maturity, has burnished his skills, image and releases into a great, clear, dynamic update of the Acid Rap/Wickedshit template.

Acid Rap, so called because of both its corrosive and hallucinogenic content, was begun in the late 80s by Esham (East Side Hoes And Money) who, while still in High School, was recording and releasing a brutally graphic, scuzzy, pioneering form of lo-fi rap that melded the extreme, dark no-holds-barred unpleasant topics of other sick-genres like Black Metal and, to a less cartoonish extent, Industrial to the funk-boom-bap of early Hip-Hop.

It's full of illicit, nocturnal, morally defunct goings-on and OTT Satanic content (until Esham renounced that particular unholy subject, possibly from community pressure as well as personal reasons) set to distorted, trippy and harsh beats and, to be honest, it's all fantastic listening. Mastamind joined Esham and another rapper TNT to form the aforementioned NATAS, whose Doyoubelieveingod? LP is a great place to start with the genre, a group whose existence is in question now but produced some of the best heavy, fucked-up alternative rap of the 1990s. Mastamind has been absent from NATAS since he began striking out on his own and his own troubled relationship with Acid Rap brother/former mentor Esham.

I'll do a longer post on Mastamind (centre, front, Esham right and TNT back) later, because he's sickasfuck, but for now I'll stick to Mastapiece because, frankly, it lives up to its title.

So, Mastamind is hanging out with the Slaughtercore label crew recently (including the prolifically vile SCUM, who is determined to graphically out-revolt everyone else in the world) and their alumni feature heavily here. Whereas Acid Rap originally created an atmosphere of horror and evil through detailed, vivid report of the (hopefully) fictional activities of the group, Mastamind has slowly managed a careful move from this into a form of Horror-tinged, futuristic, death-obsessed, cinematic style whereby his beats (which have been of stupendous quality lately) reference horror's sonic cliches of Theremin sounds, doomy, rumbling bass synths and zombie-lurch rhythms without falling into anything as insipid or empty as, say, late period Universal Horror (Abbott and Costello vs Dracula vs Hitler vs the Werewolf, or something).
So, we're treated to tight, tidy Gothic hip-hop that of late has had a sort of cyberpunk leaning -see the cover art from last few releases below -which helps Mastamind carve his own niche and not be Esham II. The self-proclaimed Hellrazer has a distinct and purposeful style that's nothing but his own.

His bars are death and suicide focused here, with much talk of welcoming death and basically adopting the persona of the Pinhead of Hip-Hop (the cinematic incarnation of Barker's creation is heavily sampled throughout the album too). Mastamind doesn't have much of an audible sense of humour, nor is he able to tie his lyrics into the same metaphorical knots of meaning that Esham manages, BUT his dedication, consistency and personality more than make up for this. Look at the last few Esham albums which were sprawling and massive but varied and diluted to a fault -Mastamind knows what he's great at and works at making it better and better, constantly adding new tricks and bettering his old ones.

He's such a great presence on the beats, solid and practised with great imagery and sense of purpose that stands up beside the livelier performances of the other MCs. The aforementioned SCUM is a strange one as I find his flow brutish and unsophisticated but cannot deny that the way he bolts his lyrics together, i.e. the effortless (and endless) description of seriously unpleasant and violent images, is succinct, rapid and compact enough to make for enjoyable verses but exhausting at track and album length. The best contribution comes from Daniel Jordan, a young face in the scene, whose verse on Lay Handz (a standout track) plays with Mastamind's own history by referencing one of his older verses on an earlier album (I think it was Themindzi LP), giving Mastapiece the overall feeling of being a celebration of the history of the Acid Rap genre while simultaneously being packed with proteges, modernised beats and in cahoots with new labels that marks out fresh territory and a sense that this crew are onto something exciting and fresh, not just retrospective tribute.

An overall solid release, confident, polished and full of enthusiasm -my only complaint? Why make yer artwork so damn murky? Lighten up! We can't see the cool picture!

Although, it's good to see a right-on-time break from the (very cool) pattern of skulls/facemasks that was defining of Mastamind's new, freshly independent phase but had served its purpose by now.

I'm hoping that the Acid Rap template, far from falling into the depths of Gore-Hop (which is SCUM's grisly little niche), can actually emerge as a kind of mix of cinematic, Cyperpunk/horror aesthetics and use the breakthroughs made by recent underground rappers to newly stakeout previously lost territory, rather than pretend they're exploring it for the first time.

Record Store Day

Good times at Rise Bristol

Guided by Voices: Jon the Croc 7"

Geoff Barrow/Ben Salisbury: DROKK CD

Mark Stewart: Experiments Ltd 12"

I showed what, I think, was admirable restraint at Rise Bristol today for National Record Store Day. A superb idea that gets us all slavering over vinyl, writing wish lists and (most importantly) spending our money in real record shops.

My main target was the Babe, Terror 12" Knights but, alas, Rise didn't receive a copy (I doubt they're likely to, actually) and nor did the shabby Head Entertainment. It was only 200 copies nationwide so, hey hum, never mind.

The above, though, seem great. Although not really a Record Store Day exclusive, DROKK is amazing. A John Carpenter/Judge Dredd inspired work of future-sci-fi genius, referencing Tangerine Dream and sounding like an annoyed Zombie Zombie (slightly funkier variant on this style) on a bristling rampage.

Disgruntled sequencer pulses, chrome slabs synth and swinging mechanic-percussion make up most tracks, the emphasis being on Sci-fi dark rather than anything else. A solidly good release that has excellent packaging that really fits the music it encases.

Demdike Stare epiphany, or the first symptoms of.

Prejudice wearing off

I've explained below how I can't quite accept Demdike Stare and, after researching and adding some context and history to the duo, I still found myself feeling very neutral and unimpressed by them. There was something unconvincing about a minimal techno DJ and an indiscriminate crate digger joining forces and with Andy Votel hanging around too -I don't dislike any of this gang but I instantly imagined the zany, guffawing stickers that adorned most Finders Keepers' releases "20 hot slices of raw Romanian Horror Soundtrack Funk" being bandied around during the recording of these Demdike tracks. The music was dark as fuck, no problems there, but I had no feeling for the dude being the noise. Not like Cabaret Voltaire who, despite being wholly affable and reasonable chaps, seemed to be exorcising their sinister dark side on record or P-Orridge who is disarmingly charming and thus makes his recorded presence all the more uncomfortable and shirk-worthy.

No, these guys seemed like a pair of vinyl heads digging putting their zany discoveries together under a concept which, perhaps, seemed almost too cinematic. I've listened mostly to the first two parts of their Triptych the most and was left unphased (not to mention deflated after "Caged in Stanheim") and dissatisfied. So, I persevered and have been listening heavily.

Part 3 (2?) of the Triptych, Voices of Dust, is on the money. It's a great, dense, unfurling leakage of loop abuse and slow-motion disintegration. You know that scene at the beginning of Terminator 2 with Sarah Connor experiencing the playground apocalypse? Parts of this recall my imagined DJ Skrew remix of that scene.

It isn't noisy -as in flinchingly so- just a slow grinding morass of explosions happening in carefully plotted sequence and overlapping here and there.

So, Voices of Dust I like. My wife asked me to turn it off for being 'too challenging' (a good sign) and I also find this to be the release where the personalities of the DJs recede a bit, feeling less like two mates having a chummy muck about, more like an earnest bit of malevolent art.

I'll give Eternal a spin later in the hope it's in the same vein.

Wax pt 1

Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland: Black is Beautiful

The artists formerly known as Hype Williams have released another album of murky, contradictory bass music -though I'm loathe to call it 'bass' music as, despite being unerringly bassy, is doesn't fit in with that tag/sub-genre's dancefloor functionality so neatly.

*sigh* I could discuss Blunt and Copeland for hours, but I'll resist as you can ably visit Pitchfork, DiS or some other gatekeeper/tastemaker/mediator/validator and get the same intellectualised discussion of this fascinating band's music.

I like it because they sound like late 70s-early 80s Industrial without the grisly bits -just as Throbbing Gristle sounded like a poisonous cloud, all amorphous, billowing noise spores, Blunt&Copeland sound they're music has been infected or damaged by said emissions. You know how those early Industrial/electro records (like SPK and some Cabaret Voltaire) had a nasty, DIY hum (This Heat had it too...not distant from Hype) to everything that made it sound somewhere between brilliantly spontaneous and in-the-moment but was complex and pointed enough to reveal a degree of intention and preparation. Cabaret Voltaire's Red Mecca had a similar quality -I like Blunt&Copeland because they sound like a full on dub-hip-hop remix of Red Mecca...which is cool.

Can't help feeling that this record is a bit tidier, though fair play to them for pushing tentatively forward and not compromising on what they do. Despite the (slightly) trimmed edges, it is still a great unconventional record. People just doing what the fuck they want. In the zone and using it.

April Payday splurge

Went to town (metaphorically)...I'll divide the formats up:

CDs

Holy Other - Want U (Tri Angle)



I've been a touch suspicious of Tri Angle as I haven't quite sussed them out and they seem to be doing a lot in little squirty amounts, this is a 22 minute EP and the other recent CD I have of theirs (OoOoo) is a 25 minute EP.

Though, I've over looked the high quality of their albums: How to Dress Well are, in spite of the shit name, magnificent and I encourage you all to check out his album on Tri Angle as it is gorgeous...millions of blog-words have been written about it so shan't go on but, outside of the gruelling hype machine, it was actually dead good.

Oh, and that Balam Acab album isn't bad either...(the 2nd one, not the above) just imagine yourself crouching in a cave looking out into a forest that shares a colour-scene with Acab's first single and that, apart from it being wet, this is a lonely place and you're sad. To put it simply, this sums the record up. It is, lest we forget, also achingly beautiful in places and has some nice spooky atmospherics (but was a bit heavy on the whole pitch-shifted vocals...went a bit there a some points).

So, wait, Holy Other. Very similar to BC and OoOoo, really, sluggish house, disembodied, sexless samples loop, swoop and lament over the fuzzily chugging percussion and synths swell and disappear. Very good but in danger of being lost forever if it doesn't shape up and get an identify that would last 5 minutes outside of Tri Angle's cosy aegis.

(Really, go and buy that HTDW CD, it's wicked).

Demdike Stare - Elemental (Modern Love)


Not sure about Demdike...not sure yet at all. Haven't actually listened to this guy yet but have been preparing myself all day. I splurged on the Triptych set in December and was a bit put off...the opening track "Caged in Stammheim" contained a sample of some early electronics that had been compiled on the mega-cool OHM: Early gurus of electronic music (Elipsis Arts) boxset that I received for a B-day present when I was 20. It was a 3 CD +DVD +book thing of beauty and because I was in my early electronics/noise stage (Subotnick, Derbyshire, Oram, Oliveros, Cage etc) it was a massive joy.

I can't recall the actual track that Demdike sample but, sadly, it smacked me initially as "Cool sound -but you didn't make that, you sampled it", which I'm no stickler for -I love sampling, passionately, but because this sound has a direct connection to my youth AND self-education in electronic music, I felt like I was instantly in the presence of hangers-on, coat-tail riders or something.

I love Demdike's music, their aesthetic is great, their sense of bleak fun, haunted-carnival mirth and general narrative edge makes their tracks really intricate and enjoyable but, dammit, I can't shake that this is made up of beardy LP finds, magpie finds and doesn't seem to offer ANYTHING original. NWW, Nordvagr, even Der Blutharsch, Coil and PTV
have all done the dark ambient thing much better...although their humour was cruel and aloof, to be fair, while Demdike sound like they've had a couple of pints and are dicking about with a Oujia Board or something.

I'm working on it...I think there's a lot to enjoy and I've already invested in Elemental (and, guiltily, a live album) so I'm saturating myself with their music at the moment. My wife likes it instantly, so that's OK.

Vienna pt2

Das Ich!

They're so silly and serious.

Albums: Satanische Verse; Egodram and Antichrist




Das Ich are blessed with a great visual identity -Stephan, the numerically adorned pale gentleman in the middle, looks really weird. His bone structure, rubber face and lithe frame makes him look like a genuine demonic imp and, when in full crimson body-paint, is a real sight to behold. A band of personal lore who always used to show up on my Amazon recommends but I could never find any...basically, some top notch ebm-industrial clanking going on, great Operatic level orchestral samples and Stephan's barking, growled vocals -not Skinny Puppy gurgles, oh no -Stephan Ackermann has a strained, bloodied voice that's shrill, painful and oozing with charm when it needs to be. Perhaps best compared to a Blixa Bargeld if he'd smoked less.

The three albums haven't sunk in yet: they all contain high quality industrial programming from Bruno Kramm that's only fault is that it may be let down the CD mastering, and exhaustingly verbose German lyrics from Stephan -he's a real wordsmith, I think, as his words spills out with rhythm, feeling and are delivered with a good deal of emotion. My limited understanding of German puts them firmly in the creepy-black-metal-theatrical-Neubauten-existential business category.

Worth checking out at some point because their albums are usually quite cheap, I suspect they were deeply in vogue at some point and then a generation of part-time hip-goths turned their collections over to Second-hand places as I found their entire discography in a box for 7 EURO apiece and was only stopped from getting the lot because I'd already splurged about 150EURO that day on CDs.

Gulp.

Vienna

Elsewhere in Vienna I visited Rave up! records, near one of the train stations. Really good selection of out-there music with good taste and a great knowledge.

I picked up:

Muslimgauze: Untitled

Love a bit of Muslimgauze. My first actual CD of his as I was so terribly unable to get any, from anywhere a few years ago and couldn't face downloading commercially available titles (even if he is dead and it is guilt free) so I found out which albums were hopelessly out of print or impossibly expensive and downloaded those. I remember swamping myself in Muslimgauze at one point, to saturation maybe, but this was a welcome find.

The usual: rhythmic ethnic samples, low bassy drones, middle-eastern percussion and news samples...oh, and a good gurn-inducing noise spazz out that almost outstays its welcome.

Super chunk of noise, this.

Totem records, Vienna

Other purchases in Vienna include:

Nocturnal Emissions : Duty Experiment


I've only ever heard of Nocturnal Emissions on the liner notes to Front Line Assembly's Millennium album, where it is nestled inside a mini-NWW list of bands FLA liked. This list has, for many years, served as a shopping list wherever possible (best finds were Bourbonese Qualk and Cabaret Voltaire, though).

Picked up this disc of studio offcuts and rejects, really enjoyed it because it's truly corrosive -all acid synths, petulant drums, squalling effects and that great, disorientating feeling that these post-punk, early industrials albums have of genuinely throwing you off-balance because they shock and jolt the listener with their sonic leaps; drum patterns and structure one minute, blurts of electro-snot coughs the next, then a sample, then some funk, then some noise and so on.

What else?

Der Blutharsch - Der Sieg Des Lichtes Ist Des Lebens Heil!

Fucking cool. The 1st Der Blutharsch album (untitled) was great, a seamy mix of taboo-tottering German War anthems, skewed sampledelica and nasty noise with bombastic orchestral samples...really weird. This is no different, just better organised. Heavy on the sinister orchestral business, a Swiss-version of the WWII German song and some proper post-industrial neo-folky chanting such as "You are Odin's son" and "Be careful with your blood" (or something to this effect).

I also picked up the weirder:

Der Blutharsh: Everything is alright!

A bit of a change in tone, this is a collection of inaccessible one-offs, rarities and great lost tracks. The 'Everything is alright' no doubt refers to the relief of completists who're unable to hear any of these tracks because the 200 ltd 12" sold out or, more likely, because Der Blutharsch is proper fucker and leaves all of his songs 'untitled' so, when you hop on Discogs, you don't know if that £180 split 12" rarity you've never heard of is a track you have or not.

This rectifies that, though I only wanted it because it nearly sits between his brutally martial period and his new, psychedelic 60s freak-out phase of late. So, this is still focused on sample-manipulation and neo-folky themes, but with a lighter tone and the inclusion of some warped, skrewed rock/folk/soul-sounding samples (though, Jungle this ain't). There's more emphasis on vocals from Albin Julius (DB himself) and friends who're droning, chanting, repetitive lines in a spooky apocalyptic manner but with a bit of wry humour. Sort of if Crazy World of Arthur Brown hooked up with NON for a play fight.

Enjoyable and varied, if sometimes a bit too bonkers.

Rome - Die aesthetik der herrschaftsfreiheit

Recent holiday to Austria with my wife and we visited Vienna. Now, I was keen to get some Viennese CD shopping done and discovered a fantastic little shop called Totem, just off Mariahilferstrasse. A true dungeon of dark music, specializing in extreme/underground metal (predominantly black and death) and with a healthy drone/noise/industrial section (in which I was interested).

German speaking countries are the natural hinterlands for this genre, not just because many fine bands gestated and were born there, but because the reception and worship of English-speaking bands has been so thorough. Also, German and Austria CD shops (high street ones, no less) usually stock a fine selection of alternative electronic and metal music such as Suicide Commando, :Wumpscut:, Das Ich (of course) and whole litany of others who've likely never been stocked in a UK HMV ever.

The artwork for Rome's new triptych really caught my eye:

With parts II and III in really beautiful light brown and red, classy digipacks. So, with the name and intriguing artwork I had a brief listen and heard some doomy, Bowie/Bauhaus inspired folk with some apocalyptic drumming, dramatic incantations and fireworks of industrial noise...could only be one thing: neo-folk.

Happily, I was in a neo-folk mood (it is never stocked anywhere in the UK) and happily snapped up all three CDs eventually.

They're superb: Jerome Reuter has a great, deep voice that is firm and evocative while the music -acoustic guitars, light-martial percussion and very evocative effects -has depth, accessibility and a real breadth of meaning. You can tell the record has been laboured over while retaining a breeziness that the best folk requires. Lyrics are deep, intellectual yet accessible when they need to be (i.e. the historical weight of the subject matter, European traditions of revolutions and resistance, never gets in the way of a good tune).

All three albums are a mix of instrumentals, spoken word and vocal songs, split about 20:30:50 ratio respectively (I know that's not a real ratio).

A recommended band to investigate.

Rationale

Short reviews of my music purchases, a record for me really but you're welcome to comment.