LEZET - Tunnelled

Album: Tunnelled

Artist:  Lezet

Label: Kalamine Records

Catalogue no: N/A

https://kalaminerecords.bandcamp.com/album/tunnelled

Tracklist:

     1.      Tunnel 1

     2.      Tunnel 2

     3.      Tunnel 3

     4.      Tunnel 4

     5.      Tunnel 5

Many years ago, nearly thirty in fact, I ran a ‘zine called FRÄCTűred, one of the first such publications devoted entirely to what was then a burgeoning and thoroughly thriving underground industrial music scene and, after advertising in mainstream magazines, I used to get a constant stream of vinyl, CDs, CDrs, tapes, and other wonderful items coming through my letterbox to write about. Those were the heady pre-internet days, when communication was through letter and occasionally the telephone. In the 21^st century, things are a lot easier: the music I write about is online and available 24/7, news gets to me within moments, and my reviews are uploaded within days. In spite of the very real downside to the internet, there is a much bigger upside: a global-scale community of musicians, artists, and writers constantly exchanging ideas, music, collaborating, and creating.

The above reminiscence serves as background to how I discovered Lezet (and French label Kalamine Records, based in my favourite wine-producing region, Bordeaux [Irrelevant Factoid #1]) through the wonders of email. No more than fifteen minutes after putting out a social media request, I received an email in short order and after quickly clicking on the link contained therein, I find myself already reviewing one of their offerings. It seriously makes me wonder how I managed back then.

Lezet have created five tracks of living, breathing bliss, gently wafting delightful breezes of ringing drones through the ears and helping to clear the mind of unnecessary distractions. There’s nothing complicated going on here: just a gradual and subtle evolution between each of the five pieces, in fact changing so slowly that initially the shifts in tone and composition might not be fully appreciated. This is how evolution works, by enacting changes at a barely perceptible level, and so it goes here. It’s almost microtonal in execution, but there is a definite start and an equally definite conclusion bridging Parts 1 – 5. And by the time one reaches Part 5 one has noticed the change: although sounding somewhat similar in structure the constituents have mutated into something else.

This is definitely one for the quieter moments; it’s like a gleaming city seen from a distance, shimmering, slippery, elusive, and somehow immaterial. It isn’t a long album (a sliver over 25 minutes), but even so it says all that needs to be said.

Delightful. 

Psymon Marshall 2019.

[ówt krì] - Primal

Album: Primal 

Artist: [ówt krì]

Label: Sombre Soniks

Catalogue no: SomSon135

https://sombresoniks.bandcamp.com/album/primal

Tracklist: 

1. Ceremony Pt. 1

2. Serenity

3. Obey the Healer

4. Past vs. Future

5. We, the Forthcoming

6. The Stream

7. Primal Rage

8. Ceremony Pt. 2

There’s obviously a certain something, a je ne sais quoi, about Scandinavian countries that inspires certain types of musicians to produce deeply felt ambient creations that reach beyond the merely emotional and into a region that’s almost occult in its effect. I suspect it has a lot to do with a combination of landscape, climate, and isolation, especially since the further north one ventures the less hospitable the land becomes (although it’s acknowledged that people have carved out good lives even in such adversarial circumstances). Much of what I term Scandinavian dark ambient tends to veer towards the lean and spare, often run through with a vein of chilling darkness that elicits shivers that make the hairs to stand up on the back of one’s neck.

So too does this quiet, contemplative work: [ówt krì] is Finnish musician Kenneth Kovasin, and this is the sixth full-length album to be released by the project. Unlike most dark ambient from his region of the world, the pieces here speak of both the light and the dark, existing within a liminal zone where it’s forever dusk. The overall sense is one of encroaching dark, but nevertheless there’s a hint that not all has been totally subsumed by night, and that light is still illuminating parts of the physical and mental landscape. This is a transitional point that occurs every day – the time when the diurnal gives way to the nocturnal, when the living prepare to sleep and the dead sally forth to wander abroad, and the time when the mundane becomes magical. These two worlds overlap for the briefest of moments and, within that temporal slice and if one has the sensitivity, a frisson of tension is sparked off. The world goes quiet, anticipating, expecting: reality is pregnant with all kinds of possibilities, from the ordinary to the extraordinary. On one side is the world of mundanity, our world: on the other is the world of our forebears, where magic and mystery lived side by side with the everyday.

We are treated to sonorous whisperings of winds and mournful washes of sound, swelling and tumbling, sometimes beginning in the subterranean belly of the earth and then escaping gravity and soaring, reaching to the heavens in quest of something intangible and indefinable. The music possesses that sparseness so characteristic of Scandinavian dark ambient, yet it still comes across as lush and detailed: it swirls and spirals endlessly, ranges high and low, and loops through both the bright and unilluminated spheres of heaven and earth. It speaks of possibilities that, in the twilit world, exist in recognisable potential but fail to manifest completely by the time darkness descends. They still exist in potentia, but need the nourishment of light to be fully realised. 

This is both angelic and demonic, a meeting place of the two natures of Malkuth and Keter, of the primal existences intertwining and communing with the purely sublime. For one side it’s a promise and an enticement, and for the other it’s a lesson and a reminder. It’s the past, present, and future all colliding and converging in a singular moment in time. It’s filled with ghosts and the souls of the living, of idea and manifestation, of intention and accident, and of the mundane and supramundane. It is all and nothing, of existence and non-existence, of what is and what is not. 

Perhaps it is asking us to step into that liminal zone ourselves, to observe and feel the stillness and quietude, to imbibe the mood of dusk and all the hidden potential that contains. This is, once again, a deeply spiritual work that from Sombre Soniks that implores us to set the ordinary aside and partake of something deeper and more real. Embrace it. 

Psymon Marshall 2019

Goreshit/niku daruma split cassette.

goreshit / niku daruma – split cassette/download – Dough Girl – 2019.

https://doughgirltapes.bandcamp.com/album/goreshit-niku-daruma

https://goreshit.bandcamp.com/music

https://nikudaruma.bandcamp.com/

Track list.

     1.    goreshit – ruminate, relapse, regret, regress.

     2.    niku daruma – her blade.

     3.    niku daruma – our throat(s)

I’m very aware of Dough Girl Tapes, I have reviewed Ritual Chair who have recorded on the Dough Girl and they have become another odd American Noise label whom I find myself frequently eyeing up. When I say odd, I mean it in the sense they cater to the challenging end of all forms of noise with a very forward-thinking mindset. There is a lot of impressive queer identity work on the label, which from my Closer Bones review I’ve become a lot more aware of – Niku Daruma was one of the recommendations of artists to check out from Closer Bones. I’m not familiar with either of these artists, I might be friends with one on my Facebook, but I’m going in Blind.

Goreshit has been releasing since 2005, originally conceived as a Black Metal project, then it became something else. Guitar Riff type noise appears, beats really kick in which as it intensifies becomes noise, as the sound gains momentum it becomes more of a fuller noise. This is an example of really good use of beats that works well, to see this done on the scummier, rawer end of the spectrum is something else. ‘Breakcore’ is used in the tags, but the combinations of genres are exciting – the ambient meltdowns are also great. How he makes four tracks into different passages of one piece is excellent too. I’m into Goreshit now.

Active since around 2018, niku daruma have released on Fusty Cunt, Black Ring Rituals and Mutual Aid Records, members are linked to the burnt-feathers and SHAME HOLE projects. Live performances are violent and direct between the three members. Her Blade has narratives about knife wounding through attack, ominous Power Electronic drones hummin the background before a violent noise assault kicks off. I like this, the performative aspect of the live show is replaced by some bold, raw use of harsh noise. The vocal screams are disturbing and effective.

I hear the “Power Electronics is Dead” spiel, quite frequently, “it repeats itself” etc. I say “but people, you’re not listening to any newer artists, there’s so many new approaches and directions” Niku Daruma is a shining example of fresh approach, that makes me happy and excited about Noise/PE today. I don’t feel the project has reached its full potential yet, but it’s heading there, so far, the results are impressive and this project is yet another ace discovery of 2019.

Both artists have made for an ace split, fresh results in different ways, buy it.

Choppy Noodles 2019.