Label: The Epicurean – cure.18, La Esencia – LER019/2017 Format: CD, Album Country: Europe Released: 23 Oct 2017 Style: Dark Ambient, Industrial, Experimental
Far reaching pleasures will be at hand – Anemone Tube reveals a series of three CDs entitled “The Three Worlds: Allegory of Vanity / Forget Heaven / Vanity of Allegory”, referencing a cosmological treatise on the universe from the Theravada Buddhism of the 14th century, the subject matter of which is the description of three levels of existence of all beings and mythical creatures.
This extensive retrospective release contains selected tracks from various tapes released between 1997 and 1999 – mostly rare and unavailable today – as well as yet unreleased tracks recorded between 1997 and 2013, a.o. outtakes from the “Death Over China” recordings, handpicked and recontextualized by Anemone Tube, representing the project’s roughest and most atmospheric material up to date, ranging from depressive ritual experimental ambient over dark rhythmic industrial soundscapes to whirlwind noise. Sharply mastered by Hunter Barr for a powerful, contemporary sound, each CD comes in a 6-panel digifile featuring beautiful photography by Dario Lehner.
“The Three Worlds” is a work about transience on many levels, perfectly elucidated in the Buddhist Sutra “Far Reaching Pleasures”, “The three worlds are transient like clouds in autumn / Birth and death of all beings unfold like a dance / Their lives rush away… more credits
Music composed, mixed & edited by Anemone Tube. 1–6 recorded September 1996 – February 1997, previously released as Forget Heaven cassette (Bawler Productions, 1997). 7 + 8 recorded September 1997, sounds: Thomas Gith, 7 previously released on Forget Heaven/Angel Falls CDr (Solipsism, 2000). 8 voice: Sven Birker, previously released on Basisgleiche Verschiedenheiten comp. cassette (Bawler Productions, 1997). 9 recorded September 1997, loop: Origami Galaktika, previously released on Ambient Intimacy 3 comp. CDr (EE Tapes, 1999). 10 recorded 2000, previously unreleased. 11 recorded December 1998 – August 1999, previously released on Split CDr with Tarkatak (Trümmer Kassetten / Transfixional Entertainment, 1999).
Concept, art and design by Anemone Tube 2015/17. Photography by Dario Lehner 2015, set design, photo editing by Anemone Tube 2015/17. Mastering by Hunter Barr 2017.
The Epicurean . cure.18 La Esencia . NER019/2017 Format: CD & download Playtime: 68:14 min
Metal extremo 2 Crónicas del abismo (2011-2016) Autor: Rubio Gómez, Salva ISBN: 978-84-9743-753-0 454 páginas Tapa rústica con solapas 150 x 210 mm Colección: Música Nº 69 Fecha de publicación: Noviembre 2016
Metal Extremo 2: crónicas del abismo (2011-2016) es la continuación de una serie que quiere reseñar para la historia un momento irrepetible que tenemos el privilegio de experimentar en primera persona: el desarrollo de una música nueva, que explora sonidos, técnicas, texturas y maneras inéditas en la historia de la música popular. En Metal Extremo 2 el lector encontrará dos partes: la primera es una recopilación de los artículos y conferencias impartidos por Salva Rubio en los últimos cinco años, nunca hasta ahora disponibles de forma recopilada. La segunda parte (las crónicas) en la tradición del primer volumen, hace un resumen del desarrollo de cada estilo y subestilo incluyendo por primera vez un repaso del Metal Extremo realizado en España.
Label: The Epicurean – cure.15, La Esencia – LER017/2017 Format: CD, Album, Limited Edition Country: Europe Released: 23 Oct 2017 Style: Industrial, Experimental
Last Dominion Lost has existed since 1992, formed out of the ashes of Merge (a project created by Dominik Guerin, founding member of SPK, and Jon Evans). With the inclusion of John Murphy (ex-SPK, Whitehouse, Current 93, Death in June), the transition was complete. In April of 1992 the recording sessions for what was to become „The Tyranny of Distance“ began (released on Germany’s Tesco Records). 16 years later, the opportunity arose to reform the slumbering project. With the welcome addition of Ash Wednesday (Crashlands, Einstürzende Neubauten) and Julian Percy (Ratbag) initial recordings and rehearsals began in May of 2008. In November of 2015 Till Brüggemann (Gerechtigkeits Liga, Krank) joined LDL.
Desolation: total, utter, without remit. Departure, loss, absence, yawning valleys of noise. The overture moans from the terminal ward. The humiliation of the cadaver, the scouring of abandoned houses and rubbish heaps, a planet blasted by the fruits of hubris. The last sigh of bathos: “It is finished“.
Such is the subject matter and sentiment of this follow-up to the much acclaimed albums “Snowdrops From A Curate’s Garden“ and „Towers of Silence“ which put Last Dominion Lost firmly on the throne of post-industrial music. “Abomination of Desolation” is consistent with their development into a dark and profound direction, and yet saturated with the noise and feedback that taps deep into the genre’s conscience: Metallic percussion and the screams of terror, ritual chants and anxious atmospheres, all used and abused in order to create the most accurate soundtrack of desolation.
By the fans, “Abomination of Desolation” will be met with mixed feelings – as recordings began with John Murphy in 2015 and through his untimely death that year had to be finished without him, the acknowledged grandsigneur of post-industrial music. The album’s theme and musical approach were originally intended by John for a KRANK release: An electronic album, reflecting on John’s experiences when he was first hospitalized, comatose, and hooked to a breathing machine which was constantly creating bizarre sounds.
The result stands as a brief and concise display of the group’s ability to create an unmistakable old school sound with contemporary production value. The album runs for ten tracks clocking in less than 40 minutes total and features new member Till Brüggemann (Gerechtigkeits Liga), as well as guests Nikolas Schreck, Lori Goldston and John Murphy’s beloved wife Annie Stubbs among others. With a firm electronic/analogue backbone, a delicate contrast of percussions of various origins and uncanny vocals, this is a truly dark affair, and while towards the end of the journey some more aggravating feedback loops crawl in, it never gets upfront aggressive.
With the crisp mastering job of Hunter Barr it is safe to say that “Abomination of Desolation” will not lag behind its predecessors at all, but forge their deserved status as genre icons.
Lawrence English + Stephen Vitiello – Acute Inbetweens
Label: Crónica Format: CD, Album Country: Portugal Released: 15 Mar 2011 Style: Abstract, Drone, Experimental, Minimal
Since their initial meeting in Australia during 2006, Stephen Vitiello (USA) and Lawrence English (AU) have enjoyed a long distance collaboration orbiting around the joint passion for field recordings and modular synthesis.
Exploring the points of convergence and divergence between electricity and environment, the duet’s “Acute Inbetweens” is a collection of works derived from hazy environmental memory, imagined landscape and field recorded actualities. It’s a blurring mist of encountered spaces, recreated by means voltage controlled. Like the spatial inspiration that guides the record, “Acute Inbetweens” pace is tempered and during certain pieces borders on a sense of timelessness.
Pieces such as “La Voix est absente” unfold with a pacing of the lauded opening Lotus flowers at Sinobazu-no-ike pond, individual elements revealing themselves in subtle arcs of sound, swelling into a rich harmonic whole. By contrast “Exposure in Relief” is a more robust and pulsing work in which micro melodies spiral into one another. “Acute Inbetweens”, sharp moments diffused in time.
Label: Lynx Music Format: CD, Digipack Country: Poland Released: 2007 Style:Goth Rock, Dark Wave, Neoclassic
Is music the atmosphere of Darkwave, 4AD, Gothic, Neoclassical or treat for fans of such bands as This Mortal Coil or Arcana Curious vocal resemblance to the creativity of Nick Cave and not banal lyrics is one of the stronger sides this album. Metus “vale of tears” is the first album by the planned trilogy inspired by the story of a man in biblical terms.
Label: WKN – WKN08 Format: CD, Album, 2nd Edition Country: Austria Released: 2000 Style: Industrial, Ambient
Second edition from 2000, distributed by Tesco Distribution (Germany).
Packaged in a textured cardboard wallet/sleeve with “Der Blutharsch” bronze foil embossed on the front, backside denotation of Tesco and “made in EU” printed, and “The pleasures received in pain” bronze foil embossed over the interior photo of Albin Julius. The CD itself is a dark brown color with raised lettered of the catalog number.
Wind Atlas – An Edible Body Label: Gradual Hate Records – GH 137 CD Format: CD, Album, Digipak Country: Spain Released: 26 Jan 2018 Style: Dark wave, Cold Wave, Post-Punk,Experimental
An Edible Body, Wind Atlas’ new album, marks a turning point in the band’s trajectory. Their third record builds a new space for the band to experiment and play with new sounds and electronic rhythms. Strangely, An Edible Body is the band’s most experimental album and at the same time the most accessible.
After a change in the band’s formation at the end of the Lingua Ignota (BFE, 2015) tour, Wind Atlas take a break from performing as to discover new sounds and work on a new album. Without a bass player, the band turns to electronic music as an answer for mixing their ritual ways with new intensities and rhythms never explored by them before. If their first albums, the EP Fen Fire (BPR, 2012) and The Not Found (BPR, 2013), were essentially influenced by 4AD’s eighties bands like Cocteau Twins or Dead Can Dance, with Lingua Ignota, Wind Atlas discover an array of possibilities beyond the bands initial reverb-pumped folk songs. Opening up to post-punk, primitive sounds and spiritual chants, they begin to include post-industrial hints that would later crystallize in the form of this new album, An Edible Body.
In search of this new sound, the band decide to record the album in New York with Sean Ragon, main figure of the current post-industrial scene, leader of the band Cult of Youth -whom they meet after performing together in Barcelona- and occasional guitarist of Psychic TV, seminal band of the industrial music scene: the chemistry in the studio was immediate. An Edible Body was recorded in just two weeks, one freezing month of February in 2017, at Sean Ragon’s basement studio in Maspeth, Queens, New York.
The album experiments not only with new sounds but also with new forms of speech. That’s why “Desertor»opens the album, a crude and simple song, in which the voice finds itself almost alone, in the aridity of a desert, threatened by a noise in the background. Interferences interrupt the words and the voice goes out of tune due to tape manipulation.
That interference foretells what is to come, the anticipation of a new affirmation called «Shedding Light”. The drum machine blends with the acoustic drums and metal plates, the synthesizers stand out and the voice sings ironically to a new reality, built in a more assertive and cruder way than in previous albums.
Despite the apparent distance between songs, An Edible Body sounds oddly solid. The dark ambient sound of “Camino de la cruz” is far from “How to Liquify” or “Ruins”, the most unabashed pop song the band has composed to date. In a way, Sean Ragons production gives unity to an eminently heterogenous album. The eastern influences of Lingua Ignota reappear in “Herencia de Jade”, with a danceable industrial beat that takes on more significance when performed live.
“En la cruz” is a techno tribute to San Juan de la Cruz and probably, one of the central tracks on the album. The new version of some of the verses from his Cántico espiritual combined with a dense rhythm that culminates in a polifony of voices affirming the existence of the force of the invisible, product of Sean Ragon’s magic in the studio thanks to the sound processors used on bands like Coil or Chris and Cosey.
On the other extreme we find “Under these Waters”, a sound poem that sings to a theme present in the band’s imaginary from the start: the uncanniness of water. “Under these Waters” is a song with a strong sexual component built through hipnotic cadences and suggestive synthesizers.
“To Clarice” is a post-industrial ballad, fundamental to understand Wind Atlas’ new vibe. Again, the influence of poet Leopoldo María Panero is reflected in the lyrics, which speak of a cathartic encounter. “To Clarice” is also an offering to writer Clarice Lispector, as well as a recognition of one’s body and the foreign body, its senses and its meanings.
The album is out on January 26 through labels BFE Records and Hidden Track on vinyl, and GH Records on CD
An Edible Body, el nuevo trabajo de Wind Atlas, marca un punto de inflexión en la trayectoria de la banda.
Tras un cambio de formación al final de la gira de Lingua Ignota (BFE, 2015), la banda decide dejar de tocar durante un tiempo para reflexionar, buscar nuevos sonidos y preparar un nuevo disco. Ya sin bajista, la banda desvía su mirada hacia la electrónica,buscando la manera de mezclar su ritual con una intensidad y unos ritmos nuevos no explorados hasta el momento. Si en sus primeros trabajos, el EP Fen Fire (BPR, 2012) y The Not Found (BPR, 2013), las influencias de las bandas de los ochenta del sello 4AD como Cocteau Twins o Dead Can Dance eran fundamentales, con Lingua Ignota, Wind Atlas encontraba una nueva grieta que abría un abanico de posibilidades más allá de las canciones folk inundadas de reverb de sus inicios. Se abrían al post-punk, a los sonidos primitivos y los cantos espirituales y empezaban a mostrar ciertos tintes post-industriales que se han cristalizado en su nuevo trabajo, An Edible Body.
Con el objetivo de buscar ese nuevo sonido, deciden ir a grabar su disco a Nueva York con Sean Ragon, figura esencial de la escena post-industrial actual, líder de la banda Cult Of Youth –que conocen al compartir escenario en Barcelona- y guitarra ocasional en Psychic TV, banda seminal de la música industrial: la química en el estudio fue instantánea. El disco experimenta no solo con nuevos sonidos sino también con nuevas maneras de comunicarse. Su tercer disco construye un nuevo espacio que ha permitido al grupo experimentar con los sonidos y jugar con los ritmos electrónicos. Extrañamente,An Edible Body es el disco más accesible y, al mismo tiempo, más experimental de la banda. creditsreleases January 26, 2018
·Grabado y mezcldo por Sean Ragon (Cult of Youth, Psychic TV) en Queens,Nueva York. · Masterizado por Stephen Quinn en Analogue Heart · Diseño y arte del de Verushka Sirit (www.verushka.cat) Andrea Pérez: Voz Sergi Alejandre: Guitarra Raúl Q. de Orte: Sintes
Day Before Us is an ethereal, neoclassical and dark ambient music project formed (in 2010) by the anthropologist and sound producer Philippe Blache, joined in 2015 by the Russian based singer, lyricist and poetical writer Natalya Romashina. Physical albums are signed and distributed by Rage in Eden, Twilight Records, OPN records, GH Records…The project occasionally gives live performances, writes scores to international art events and participates to intermedia collaborations. In itself the music presents dense, solemn, melancholic and profundly emotional soundscapes in touch with the mysterious ineffable beauty of the nature, depicting with nuances the vastitude of the inner worlds. Main sources of inspiration come from the antique and the romantical poetry, symbolical seneries, mystical love, spiritual journey…
Label: Cyclic Law – 98th Cycle Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition Country: Germany Released: 31 Oct 2017 Style: Dark Ambient
Now 8 years since the last full length for Cyclic Law, Norway’s SVARTSINN returns with a new opus, reaffirming his place as one of the world’s premiere Dark Ambient acts. For this album Jan Roger Pettersen is accompanied on some tracks by fellow Norwegian Amund Ulvestad on Cello, providing new elements to Svartsinn’s distinct ominous drones. Mørkets Variabler translates to “Variables Of Darkness” and it is a certain combination of such variables that fuels the urges and need to create the atmospheres translating as Svartsinn. Darkness comes in various shapes and forms and through these new pieces we are plunged into this vast and singular subject, left to our senses to explore it’s subtle meanings and impressions left within ourselves. Presented in a unique Limited Edition Hardcover Digibook as well as a Limited Gatefold Double vinyl. The vinyl version includes an exclusive remix of the track “Echoes Of Silent Cries” by Sweden’s KAMMARHEIT. Artwork by Dehn Sora.
Double Vinyl Edition of 300 Copies. Gatefold Sleeve with printed Inner Sleeves on Black Vinyl. 8 Tracks. Running Time 72:00
