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Tuesday 20 August 2019

ANTIchildLEAGUE,Sandblasting - The Grey Lady.


Antichildleague, SANDBLASTING – The Grey Lady. Not on Label. CD – 2019 – Limited to 30 copies.


The Grey Lady.
Easy Lady.
Lost on the Motorway.
Excite Me.



This is a new, very limited (30) release CDR with Sandblasting providing the sounds and Antichildleague providing the vocals.

The Grey Lady was very different from what I was expecting, it starts off with warped vocals, but once the noises lick in, it is very rhythmic with massive beats and synthesizer drones very prevalent. The vocal is very ACL – warped and inhuman. The electronics and effects are strong, I feel I received this at the right time as I am listening to a lot of Beat driven noise such as Salford Electronics, Occulting Light, Soft Kill and Tetsuo at present.

All tracks are heavy on deep atmospherics, with the vocals whispered, screamed and shouted. At times I am reminded of the broodier, later work of Pain Teens. It seems to build images of cityscapes and their activities – there is an urban feel to the work. Quirky beats and rhythms have long been an occasional guest on ANTIchildLEAGUE albums, and this seems to pull the project well into it.

After my Birmingham gig escapades from a few weeks ago, Lost on the Motorway’s intense, lively rhythms and beats take me back to the journey home from the said event. These malfunctions and slowly rebuilds to an impressive dance and dance. The electronics seem to drag and shoot off at high speeds. The final track Excite Me seems to be the fastest track, reminds me of the film Trainspotting and its observations of the darker sides of life, this falls into some warped form of Techno that drops and rises in sound; the beats seem to get faster until it ends.

I like this, as a collaboration it brings out an area of ACL that’s kind of lurked in the background for years only surfacing in the odd warped form again, I feel Gaya’s voice works well with beats. The music is good, using minimal elements to create big sounds that are rich and evocative. The work of both artists gels together well, making for a solid, atmospheric release. It isn’t listed on eithers Bandcamp, but the CD is available on Discogs, no downloads, just a very limited CD - Good work.

Choppy Noodles 2019.

Hiemal - Shoreline Inertia.


Album: Shoreline Inertia
Artist: Hiemal
Label: Self-released
Catalogue no: N/A

Tracklist:
     1.      Shoreline Inertia


I have always been fascinated by edgelands and margins, those liminal transition zones and dimensions which are neither one nor the other, yet simultaneously both. As an example I can cite the very outer margins of a town or city, where built-up areas give way to the rural. Where is the exact point at which one becomes the other? Is there a thin sliver where it’s neither, or a combination of both? Seen in the abstract, even the present moment we live in is a kind of liminality, as it exists briefly between the past and the future. Hiemal’s latest release is focused on another such zone, the thin stretch that divides the land from the sea. It has its parallel perhaps in the diffuse zone between atmosphere and the vacuum of outer space, at least in one obvious respect; one side is essential to our well-being, the other side completely inimical to it without artificial aids. However in both instances there’s an indefinable transition zone where it could be argued that the qualities of both sides are intermixed, a rarefied belt of some intangible existence where the normal rules don’t apply.

Where does Hiemal fit into all this, you may wonder? Shoreline Inertia focuses on that very liminal space betwixt land and sea, that tiny sliver of geology that is both real and imaginary. The single album-length composition, lasting a little over an hour, is essentially an experimental ambient piece, consisting of ever-evolving drones set against a backdrop of waves lapping a shoreline. The waves do duty in anchoring us to reality while defining the zone’s limits and the exact point where the transition between one state and the other is at its most intertwined: the soaring orchestral vibes connect us with the latent possibilities suggested by the existence of the marginal space. When you really think about it, this is the very point at which land-based life came to be, where the first sea-creatures evolved into air-breathing animals. If for no other reason than that, the notion that it isn’t a magical place can be dismissed.

The soaring drones are like a billowing curtain of glimmering auroral light, a barrier hanging at the exact intersection between here and there. It’s a demarcation, a wall of flimsy, fluttering gauze that nevertheless sends a strong message declaring that ‘beyond this point everything is different’. It is at once a physical and spiritual boundary, a signal saying, yes you can pass through, but its deeper mysteries and secrets will be forever beyond your reach. It is vital and alive, animated by processes and biological systems alien to anything we would be familiar with. The waters on its other side contain a dimension of myth and fantasy embedded within it (‘Here be monsters’), a globe-spanning liquid inner space as unknown to us as the furthest galaxy, and yet the extent of its virility and potency is prodigious.

This is the species of music for those times when you catch yourself between moments, when you’re on the verge of some revelation, or more prosaically when you seek some lilting sounds to accompany your meditations/guided visions/occult practises. It’s soothing, of course, plunging you into the womblike waters of Mother Earth, or perhaps lofting you into the rarefied region of the exosphere, but that I think is its ultimate purpose. It’s warm here, nurturing, and comforting, invoking ancestral memories perhaps of our prehistoric point of origin in the long ago aeons of the past. I suggest that you let yourself float along with whatever currents it sends you along, embrace the power inherent in those streams, and let its deep wisdom wash over you. There’s plenty to discover here, on both the inner and outer levels.

Available as a digital download at the link below:

Psymon Marshall 2019. 

Depletion - Final Exit.


Depletion – Final ExitInvisible City Records – 2018 – Cassette/Download.

Final Exit.
Intravenous.
Broken Doll.
Brain Scan.
Suspended by Black Shadows.


Depletion is the project of Martyn James Reid, who is also one half of Vampyres with Lee Stokoe. Depletion have actively been releasing since around 2013, there have been around 14 releases in this time.

The album begins with dark droning atmospheres, that have a stark and deceptively repetitive nature, there are shifts in tone that are subtle. This has a psychedelic effect that resonates through the work; as if from an old TV programme. This can have a more abrasive effect in parts to add more aggression to the work. There are some bleeping noises that add rhythmic noise to the main warbling sounds. I find the album does differ in each track, becoming aggressive through there being less shift in the repetitive sounds with more harsher tones added too.

Later tracks like Broken Doll use a more fractured atmosphere with background drones doing the work of the warbling noises in the first two tracks. The noises here are random and function like sound collages, there is some melody added further on, this is psychedelic in how effects are used. Brain Scan is livelier, the use of sound is noisier and more aggressive, it’s still a soundscape, rather than just an assault – there is space in the work, it isn’t dense or claustrophobic at first. It really arcs and drones a lot more, as this develops periods of density come into the sound. Suspended by Black Shadows returns to the more ambient textures and has more of a nightmarish feel to it than before, bringing a bleak end to the album.

As an album I like this a lot, it demonstrates the pulsating psychedelics of Martyn James Reid and how he builds intensity to his work, I feel elements of this are brought into Vampyres. Final Exit is a strong album, each track is different yet ties together well.  

Choppy Noodles 2019.