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Wednesday 31 July 2019

Babalith - Cromelech.


Album: Cromelech
Artist: Babalith
Catalogue no: SomSon126

Tracklist:

     1.      Consecration
     2.      The Black River
     3.      Shadows in the Moon
     4.      The Frost Daughter
     5.      Peacock of the Dark
     6.      Jewel of the Black Circle
     7.      The Hyena of the Sorcerer
     8.      Rattle of the Stars
     9.      The Scarlet Queen
   10.  The Veil of the Witch
   11.  Spectres in the Vines
   12.  Wolves Beyond
   13.  Dwellers under Water
   14.  The Altar and the Golden Skull
   15.  The Garden of Eons
   16.  The Idol of Time
   17.  The Valley of the Ape
   18.  Blue Serpent
   19.  Apparition of the Cross
   20.  The Spell of the Oaks
   21.  Haunted Horse
   22.  The Shadow of the Eagle 
   23.  The Shadow of the Beast
   24.  Chromelech
   25.  Outro



Let’s start this review with something not completely irrelevant, only mostly so: originating from Wales, the word cromlech is quite familiar to me – it denotes a type of megalithic tomb, consisting of one very large flat roof stone held up by smaller uprights. I am not entirely sure whether this selection of shamanic/ritualistic pieces has any connection to megalithic tombs, but in the abstract I am guessing that there is a line connecting the age of stone monuments and the 25 short pieces of music presented here. As I’ve argued elsewhere, shamanisn/animism (one of the first belief systems that evolved) was an essential ingredient in the spiritual lives of the people that lived thousands of years ago, as it was a way of keeping the lines of familial and tribal connections open and living.

And what we get is, in many respects, a collision between the ancient and modern – field recordings, tribal percussion, voices, and synthesised sounds. The artists involved, André Consciênscia and Eunice Correia, admit that these are crude recordings, but I don’t think that’s a negative in this case: the essence of shamanic ritual is to strip away the layers pertaining to this world and all its unrefined materiality until the celebrant attains access to the purer ‘otherworld’ of spiritual existence. One can easily envision the proceedings: no modern paraphernalia, just a couple of skyclad participants, accompanied by primitive instrumentation, enacting the mysteries of initiation around ancient stones put up by people whose names are unknown but whose intentions are clear nevertheless. The rhythmic drums, gyrations, chanting, and ecstatic howling are deliberately engineered to open up the pathways between those ancient lives and the ones we live today.

Electronic ambient atmospherics are often interjected around the (very) basic structures of many the songs, and for the most part the integration is highly successful, injecting layers of depth and substance which only add to the enigmatic ritualistic aspect, as well as hinting at those elements of the immaterial that cannot be seen but only felt. Like I said, this approach does reap dividends, although one or two of the pieces I felt disturbed the equilibrium somewhat through the use of synths and organs (I am thinking in particular of ‘The Frost Daughter’ and ‘The Scarlet Queen’) – they threw me out of the overall feel of this album and I felt they were a bit of an intrusion, feeling more like soundtrack compositions than stripped back shamanic conjurations. The rest of the pieces revolve around a much more tribalistic and dare I say ‘primitive’ core, the beating heart as it were of the sacrosanct nature of the ceremonies being performed.

There are moments when it’s about as sparse and threadbare of unnecessary adornments as it’s possible to be. And that, I think, is a powerful thing – in an age when music appears to be overproduced, over-layered, and overfilled, this is the species of composition which practically begs us to reconnect with and to be aware of the world around us. We’re plunged into a world where even the minutest sound contains and signifies meaning, sounds that delineate an existence that we’ve allowed ourselves to become divorced from. What’s more, these pieces also allow us to physically feel the reawakened links forged by ritual – our skin feels the winds that once blew through the hair of the tomb, mound, and sacred site builders, our bare feet the very ground upon which priests and priestesses trod when celebrating their own mysteries of life, birth, rebirth, and death. After all, a properly observed ritual should bestow insight and unalloyed clarity of vision and mind.

Allow yourself to sink into the milieu of the ancient peoples that once roamed the green land and join with the shamans of the 21st century in reinvesting and repairing our denuded landscape with the lines that infused the entire spectrum of material existence with power. Those ancient tribespeople not only knew about that power’s presence but also felt it – perhaps it’s time for us to do so again.

Psymon Marshall 2019

Inner Demons Records #2 Mai 12 - Wir Sind Die Terroristen.


Mai 12 – Wir Sind Die Terroristen, Gegen Die Touristen. 2018. 4 x 3”CDR Box set. Inner Demons Records. IND051B.


Tracklist.

     1.    19:59
     2.    19:59
     3.    19:59
     4.    20:43



Wir Sind Die Terroristen, Gegen Die Touristen , translated - We are the terrorists, against the tourists.

I’ve been listening to Mai 12 since I did a Facebook Group Assault last year. This is where I go into a Facebook Noise group and review a few chosen artists who are advertising their sounds in there. During the assault I found Mai 12 with their gorgeously presented split with La Nuit Qui Tombe, I liked both artists and particularly Mai 12’s walls of subtle crackle. When I saw this 2018 box, I had to have it, the presentation was amazing, and it was 4 mini CDRs of Mai 12. Mai 12 are based in Thessaloniki, Greece and are currently living on the volcanic island of Nisyros, Greece. Members are Karl Grümpe and Rene p.g. They release their own uniquely designed tapes and cdrs, as well as on other labels and have been active since 2017.

Inner Demons is all about the art of the 3” CDR. To look at this little box is a treat, the bold black and white artwork, the delicate inserts, and small CDRs in plastic sleeves, it’s a perfect and amazing aesthetic object. I have wanted this for months, now it’s mine ever since finding out about the label in one of Facebook’s HNW groups - I bought 2 Inner Demons boxes in this haul. Each disc is titled by its running time. However, Wall reviewing is tough, you need to go right in there, so off I go.

The first disc has the Mai 12 ever present warm crackle; I can’t help relating it to Volcanos now I have spoken about them. The distortion seems untraceable, there is a depth of bass and movement resonating within. The sound seems to roll over itself, as if it is a shifting void in continual movement. The movement of back sound happens within the work, small shifts, accelerations, scrapes and tweaks between this and the front crackle happen. Humming pulsations are faintly recognisable in the background at the later stages of the piece too.

The second 19:59 is a more intense crackle that is deeper in sound. The background hum has a higher bass frequency and seems to communicate by bobbing. Frontal crackle is wavier, choppier and more defined in its texture. This is more of a straight wall piece that doesn’t roll like the earlier track.

The third 19:59 seems more immediate in being at the full depth of the work, the crackle again is rich. The background sounds are slightly more vortex like in depth as if slightly empty. But the crackle again dances at the forefront of the work and contrasts against this greatly, the odd falter has a dramatic impact, it jolts the attention.  The backing sound shifts and morphs throughout the track to a resonating hum that moves around the crackle to vary the interplay of sounds. AS the session progresses the distortion splatters more, causing interesting jolts to affect the levels of the work.

Finally, 20:43, the faltered levels of the previous disc are continued here as humming pulsates repetitively in the background. It’s difficult to fully identify the backgrounds in most walls, which is good as it adds mystery to the work. The crackle/distortion in this work is by far the most unsettled, it dances around massively goaded on by the pulsating back noise. The forefront sounds eventually begin to drag, the background gets increasingly creaky and both become livelier as the work nears its end.

For me, it’s brilliant having so much Mai12 in one box. Whether these are from the same session or a collection of different sessions I don’t know. This is rich work, if you like it and it’s great to have such a collection of sessions together. For any lover of Mai12s work or HNW listener this is an essential addition to any collection. I thoroughly recommend it.

Choppy Noodles 2019.

Tuesday 30 July 2019

øjeRum - Without Blood the Sun Darkens.

Album: Without Blood the Sun Darkens
Artist: øjeRum
Label: Cyclic Law
Catalogue no: 135th Cycle

Tracklist:
1.      Without Blood the Sun Darkens



øjeRum is Danish musician and collage artist Paw Grabowski, and on this release we’re presented with an hour-long track of sweeping cinematic ambient that’s highly melancholic, brooding, and inward-looking. It’s a soundtrack to loss and longing, a hymn to trying to capture something, a feeling or an emotion, that was experienced but fleetingly and has now faded into memory. It almost feels like the deep regrets held by someone dying, an immense sadness about a life wasted or a momentary decision that had life-long consequences: tears run down a face, eyes lifted to the shimmering stars, and a silent plea to perhaps turn back time.

There is no other phrase for this but hauntingly beautiful: a tad trite and unsatisfactory perhaps, but there are times when words are inadequate and fall short of a mark. Despite the deep wells of sadness evident on here, it is simultaneously uplifting and soaring. Think of a stunning landscape, seen under the blue, purple, and red sky of dusk, where day hasn’t yet succumbed to the blanket of night but stars are beginning to shyly peek out of the veil of blue, streetlights and lighted windows pinprick the last remaining silhouettes of earthbound geography, and everything takes on an air of mystery. Upon a hill somewhere, a lone and unknown musician plays a lament to how time takes all away from us in the end, how it is that only the living possess memory, and also that we shape and distort our remembrances of people and events.

In the end, no matter who we are, whether we were important or otherwise, we leave all behind, and the shape of our lives dissolves – and the further away in time the finer the particles of what we were become until they too disappear. øjeRum’s musical tapestry weaves all the emotions and feelings associated with things we wish we’d done or not done, and the resulting narrative drifts into the wide open spaces of the celestial aether. Perhaps it is only there that our memories exist, forever travelling between the stars, and becoming a part of the panoply of Creation.
Simply stunning.

Psymon Marshall, 2019. 

Ghoul-Kin - Seesar


Album: Ghoul-Kin
Artist: Seesar
Catalogue no: N/A

Tracklist:

1.      The Time-Travelling Ghoul-Kin
2.      The Hanging Witch
3.      The Evil-Looking Boy
4.      The Disappearance of 1926
5.      The Eve of the Battle of Sarkomand
6.      The Negotiations with King Randolph
7.      The Coronation of the Chieftain


Seesar is an American musician and sound creator, now transplanted to Shanghai, China, after having studied music in London, UK. He’s always been interested in the Lovecraftian Mythos as inspiration for cycles of musical composition, and Ghoul-Kin, his second release on Sombre Soniks, is based entirely around a single character: Richard Upton Pickman. The name is most associated with the tale ‘Pickman’s Model’ (1927), wherein the titular character is associated with ultra-realistic painted depictions of strange creatures, which Seesar here denotes as Ghoul-Kin. Over the course of the tale, Pickman himself becomes one of the Ghoul-Kin, and disappears to parts unknown. He is encountered again in ‘The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath’ (also 1927) in which he has been transformed into a ghoul, and on this recording Seesar constructs a narrative connecting the two tales. 

Seesar categorises his compositions as Lovecraftian Futurist, embracing as it does the concepts of the Lovecraft Mythos and the ideas of the Italian Futurists. The music itself is created via the use of unfamiliar instrumentation (such as bicycle tyres and spokes, suitcases, hairbrushes and combs, and a television wall mounting bracket), which has the effect of forcing us to think of sound in new ways as well as stripping away any specific cultural associations. The overall effect is to tip us into an alien landscape, where dissonance and consonance exist in a state of nervous tension, where positive and negative are practically one and the same quality.

But, as noted by the artist, it isn’t necessary to understand the academic underpinnings of the compositions to get something from them, or to find oneself enveloped by the atmospherics delineated here. The music is slippery, in the sense that the sounds employed are organically-structured even though there is intention behind every note. And if we tap into the mindscapes of Lovecraft’s Mythos stories, these dreamlike assemblages, disjointed and freeform as they may appear to be, do in fact make complete sense – after all our ordered world is adapted to the mental and physical view we have of our reality and so it must follow that the worlds Lovecraft envisioned are themselves fully adapted to the mental and physical frameworks of the creatures inhabiting them. Outsiders will find them disorientating and perhaps sickening.

Having noted that herein lie works which very much stray outside the bounds of what most would define as music, nevertheless it isn’t cacophonous, atonal, or dissonant. In fact the squeaks, scrapings, screechings, percussive elements, crackles, and strange voices coalesce into something which is strangely beautiful and beautifully strange. The moods essayed here have the same goals as those of dark ambient, or noise – they’re meant to take us out of ourselves, to transplant us out of the familiar and comfortable, to a reality whose components and guidelines differ vastly from our own.

Being conversant with most of Lovecraft’s work, I can say that the atmospheres described in his work have been captured very closely by the seven tracks put forth here. I’ve heard other musical interpretations of Lovecraftian aesthetics, mostly dark/cinematic ambient, which paint a picture of brooding malice and poison, but for me Lovecraft depicted the utter banality of the monstrous and uncaring neutrality of the ‘gods’ inhabiting his imagined universe – these ‘creatures’ neither cared about us nor noticed our presence, and they merely acted out their natures according to their kind. Viewed in this context then, these compositions contain a kind of aesthetic whose definition is neither good nor evil - it just is as it is. For me, that is truly Lovecraftian.

Psymon Marshall 2019. 

Inner Demons Records #1 - Foot and Mouth Disease - Forever Is Composed of Nows.




Track list.

Disc 1.
     1.    Nows 2.
     2.    Nows 3.
     3.    Nows 4.
     4.    Nows 7.
     5.    Nows 5.

Disc 2.
     1.    Grand Jester 10.
     2.    The Smile 9.
     3.    The Smile 10.
     4.    Grand Jester 5.
     5.    Nows 1



This is the first of a series on Inner Demons reviews that I’m doing as they sent me an epic package of review stuff. The Florida based label specialises in experimental and noise on the 3” CDR format, sometimes in singles or doubles, sometimes in small box sets, since 2004. Inner Demons is run by Dan Fox who is behind the Loss, IF, Fail and Disconsolate projects.

Foot and Mouth Disease is a Rochester, New York project that has been releasing since around 1996. Foot and Mouth is Lawrence J. Patti, there have been a lot a lot of online and physical releases.

The first cd is made of 5 different ‘Nows’, I hadn’t done my research properly on the label and was expecting Walls of noise or similar; instead this is something entirely different. It starts as very atmospheric in haunted sense, drones and twangy electronics build Nows2. The second Now – Now 3 is more ambient with keyboard melodies floating around it, this is still haunted, but more sensual than the previous Nows. The Next Nows(4) is really fragile keyboards and pulsations, actually gorgeous relaxing synths and nice to listen to. Nows(7) is a noisier track, louder and projects a darker vibe that the previous works and this continues into the final Nows (5) with an edgier, more suspenseful ambience.

The second disc seems to dwell in the darker areas of the first one. Grand Jester 10 is similar to the suspenseful electronics of Nows 2, it has that bleak ambient background as various electronic drones take the lead, futuristically and effectively. Passages of beauty return to The Smile 9, yet the darkness of sound lurks and plays out. Choppy slight electronics play over the drones of The Smile 10, it’s done in a way that the sounds that punctuate the harmony form a fractured collage of sound. This becomes more cohesive as high frequency noise rises as the work unfolds. The darkness returns for Grand Jester 5, this is ominous and threatening, bleak drones dominate with slight teaks in tone causing menace. The resonance of strings and drones builds and ties everything together with Nows 1, leaving us with traces of the reoccurring beauty that is of Forever is Composed of Nows.

All these contrasts make for pleasing listen that was soothing and challenging at the same time. The sounds are very well varied yet tie together cohesively; nice to hear such a fresh approach. This has served as a brilliant introduction to Inner Demons and Foot and Mouth Disease.

Choppy Noodles 2019.

Winterblood - Waldeinkamseit I - III


Artist:  Winterblood
Label: Self-released
Catalogue no: N/A

Tracklist:

     1.      Waldeinkamseit I – Chapter 1
     2.      Waldeinkamseit I – Chapter 2
     3.      Waldeinkamseit II
     4.      Waldeinkamseit III


This is the album that introduced me to the Winterblood project, aka Italian musician Stefano Senesi. Although this particular release is now just over eighteen months old, its relevance here is that it is justly being re-released on vinyl – the original 2xC60 cassette in shell box has long sold out (although it is also available as a digital download). And what I can categorically say is that every damn second of this masterpiece deserves to receive the vinyl treatment.

What Winterblood gives us here is four side-long tracks of gentle, lush, slowly-evolving looping polar ambience. From the first few seconds of ‘Waldeinkamseit I – Chapter 1’ (and its continuation in ‘Chapter 2’) we know we’re in for a deeply affecting experience, the swelling drone resonances reminding me of an auroral display, the sifting curtains of light dancing sedately in time to a rhythm of its own. Melodic accents blink in and out, just like glimmering stars peering out from behind the undulating veils of greens and reds wafting across the heavens. Even now, its soothingly soft, lilting tones are helping me relax after a trying day.

This is the language of snowbound landscapes, frosted trees, frozen lakes, sharp, crisply clear air, and raging blizzards. Just like those in real life, these ambient dreamscapes portray a cleaner, purer vision, one where the only footsteps in otherwise virgin snow are one’s own, and that the only witness to the majesty surrounding you is one’s self. But make no mistake, that beauty can be deadly – the howling winds and blizzards of ‘‘Waldeinkamseit II’ are testament to how dangerous things can turn, yet even here there is promise of glittering secrets being uncovered in its aftermath. Through breaks in the obscuring sheets of snow falling we see hints of twinkling brightness, like shy eyes being seen briefly from behind the tree trunks of a wood at night. We know they’re there, but it’ll take a little patience on our part before their brilliance will be revealed.

And just as predicted, ‘Waldeinkamseit III’ heralds the new dawn: the blizzards have petered out, to be replaced by a renewed land, the snow having reshaped the topography overnight, and the light bounces off random snow crystals and icicles. A pale sun shines in a bleached blue sky and throughout the day shadows cast strange shapes, seemingly alive, and which flit from shade to shadowed depression in order to hide from the luminous orb that’s revealed their existences. There they’ll wait, brooding and cursing, until the sun disappears once more and night reigns.

For audiophiles, the vinyl iteration of this opus promises even more, with a depth of sound and layering that will be all the more apparent. Listening to this on headphones will be an experience in itself, and will surely reveal even more richness. From my perspective, you owe it to yourself to purchase this in whichever format you favour – this is a little treasure.

(Also, just take a look at that wonderful illustration on the album’s front cover. Just like the cover to Winterblood’s Finsternis which I reviewed recently, this is also by Walford Graham Robertson, and is entitled ‘The Coming of the Faerie Lady’)

Psymon Marshall 2019.


Monday 29 July 2019

Suffer In April - Pomona.


Suffer In April – Pomona – Corde Raide Productions – Cassette – 2019.



Track list.

     1.    Eau Trouble. (Water Trouble.)
     2.    Délivre nous du mal (Deliver us from harm)
     3.    Jour de pluie & Mesnie Corbac (Rainy Day and Mesnie Corbac)
     4.    La Vierge se vide (The Virgin Empties Herself)
     5.    Dormir avec la lame (Sleeping With The Blade)
     6.    Corps Calciné (Calcined Body)
     7.    Secret de femme (Woman’s Secret)
     8.    Respire. (breathe)


When I reviewed Suffer in April’s ‘Femme Fatale’ recording earlier this month, I got very excited, so as a result of that I had this release high up on my list of things to review for the following month.

Pomona immediately differs from the other Suffer in April releases; it has no traces of Harsh Noise or Power Electronics at all. All that’s left is the beauty that shimmered in the backgrounds of the Femme Fatale album. There are traces of ambient and Industrial there, but they are a faint echo of the past releases. This trades the past for lengthy atmospheric instrumental passages of sound. Keyboards and at times guitar make delicate melodies that hang within the atmospheric sounds - floating, delicate and brittle. The work often plays with silence and the builds wholes through the subtle interplay of slight sounds, drones and harmonies.

Pomona goes elsewhere and is as a result of this it is strong across the board, I put this forward as a work of immense beauty and one of my favourite albums of this year.

Choppy Noodles 2019.

Sunday 28 July 2019

Various - Modern Bön Volume II: Kumbhaka


Album: Modern Bön Volume II: Kumbhaka
Artist:  Various
Label: Modern Bön
Catalogue no: N/A


Tracklist:

     1.      Phurpa – Live at Modern Bön Tour 1 [excerpt]
     2.      Treha Sektori – Summon
     3.      Djinn – The Cycle of Death Chapter 2
     4.      A-Sun-Amissa – The Thaw
     5.      Dolpo – Sounds of Impermanence
     6.      Bedouine Drone – Bayt Lahm
     7.      Lamia Vox – Dozing Citadels of Kadath
     8.      Sa Bruxa – Il Rito del Passaggio
     9.      VoxAxoV – Et qui servant iram meam
    10.  Cristopher Sky – Now I Sleep Alone
    11.  AB uno – Tanais
    12.  Anemone Tube – Dark Accomplishment [Live]



Recently, I reviewed the first of the four volumes comprising this series for this blog and I thought it a wonderful selection of drone pieces, very much in the vein of what I conceive of what the core philosophy of the ancient Tibetan religion of Bön is all about. That first volume was subtitled Puraka [Inhalation], and this follow-on is Kumbhaka [Contemplation]. This is reflected by the fact that the overall feel of the selection here is more focused, and more inward-looking than the Puraka volume. It’s also quieter, but no less intense, and as such, is an invitation to direct ourselves to contemplate the much richer inner world.

As per my previous review, I’ll limit my observations to a few standout tracks (otherwise the review would go on too long), with the understanding that all the tracks are of equal quality and that the album as a whole is very much worth listening to. 

Of course, you can’t have an album of ritual and occult ambient without the inclusion of Phurpa, especially if it’s a volume of deeply sacred Eastern-flavoured ambiences, and whilst I am not particularly fond of live recordings this one still manages to convey a sense of the preternatural and recondite. Sparse instrumentation and the human voice are the only ingredients here but, as Mozart said “The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between”,  making the power here as much to do with what we can’t hear as it is with what we can.

A-Sun-Amissa’s ‘The Thaw’ washes in on a gentle tide, and its waters beckon us to partake of its cool, cleansing balms. We are wrapped fully in its soothing unction, and all negativity and disequilibrium wicks by osmosis out of our bodies. This is floaty music at its best, undulating and shimmering, but nevertheless layered with subtle nuances. By contrast, Dolpo’s ‘Sounds of Impermanence’, the next track after A-Sun-Amissa, is a back-to-basics piece, chanting voices against a quiet subtle resonance of singing bowls, culminating in a sustained plateau of plangence supported by slow rhythmic percussion. Superficially sounding like a primitive evocation perhaps, but losing none of its fundamental power for all that.

And then we come the deep vibrations of Lamia Vox’s ‘Dozing Citadels of Kadath’, a straight up Lovecraftian reference which nevertheless sits right at home here, those resonating notes acting like carrier waves on which the dreams of mystics ride. VovAxoV’s ‘Et qui servant iram meam’ (And to keep my anger) is the worthy inner struggle to let go of the demons of anger, imbalance, antagonism, negativity, and disapprobation, so that we may pass into the realms of tranquillity and serenity. And that’s what we find in the gracefully swelling organ chords of Cristopher Sky’s ‘Now I Sleep Alone’ – perhaps a way of saying that one has come to terms with oneself or, to put it another way, ‘I have found myself’’. This piece fades into silence, where we are left entirely with ourselves.

My particular favourite on here is the final track, Anemone Tube’s ‘Dark Accomplishment’, which brings us back into the here and now, where the forces of darkness and despair continually assail us. A cyclical bass note weaves its way around a shimmering drone and the sound of wailing, punctuated occasionally by what appear to be the high-pitched distress calls of birds. It all eventually builds into a crescendo, dissolving into grainy particulate matter, and dissipating into a questioning, breathless voice.

In sum, the selection here ranges widely, evoking the quest of finding the answer to the central mystery of one’s self and our meaning and relationship to our environment. It’s focused, and erudite in its conjuration of moods and the stages of the inner journey. I hope I don’t have to wait too long before I get to experience Volume III: Rechaka [Exhalation].

Psymon Marshall 2019