Pronoise – Low Light Vision Label: Horizonte Espectral Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition, 140 gram Country: Spain Released: 30 Nov 2013 Style: Industrial, EBM, Darkwave, Goth Rock, Post-Punk
Limited Edition LP pressed in 140gram vinyl of 320 hand numered copies. Includes foldout insert 24″x12″ and inner picture sleeve, Astro-Postal with serial number, and download coupon. This album was recorded between 1996 and 1997 in Valencia by Nacho Artax and Javi Andreu. Produced by Pronoise. Post-Produced by Pronoise and Horizonte Espectral.
Der Blutharsch And The Infinite Church Of The Leading Hand – Rejoice (Vinyl, LP) Label: WKN – 59 Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition, Stereo, White Vinyl Country: Austria Released: 22 Feb 2021 Style: Krautrock, Psychedelic Rock
Der Blutharsch is the main project of Austrian musician Albin Julius. Following in the footsteps of Autopsia and Laibach, Julius creates a marching music of bombastic rhythms and folkish melodies, often infused with historical military speeches and orchestral samples. The earlier works tended towards a minimalistic sample-based instrumental style in an industrial/ambient vein, while more recent material has headed into a folk/acoustic sound, often accompanied with live vocals and instruments.
Der Blutharsch’s first release was a self-titled picture LP released in late 1996 on the Arthur’s Round Table label, but the project didn’t became Julius’ main musical outlet until 1998 after the break-up of his previous band The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath A Cloud. The first CD album «Der Sieg des Lichtes Ist des Lebens Heil» was released that year, followed by a series of limited EP’s, before the release of the masterpiece «The Pleasures Received In Pain» in 1999.
Almost all of the bands releases are through Julius’ personal austrian-based label «WKN» («Wir Kapitulieren Niemals»), which was distributed by World Serpent UK until 2000, when it switched to Tesco Distribution in Germany. Since 2001 various musicians have acted as part of the band, but Albin Julius currently claims Der Blutharsch to have four permanent members: Marthynna, Jörg B. (of Graumadh), Bain Wolfkind (of Novo Homo) and himself.
The band officially disbanded in 2010, but was newly founded as Der Blutharsch And The Infinite Church Of The Leading Hand in the same year.
Empyrium – Über Den Sternen (2 × Vinyl) Label: PRO304 LP Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP, Album, 180g Etching Country: Germany Released: 26 Feb 2021 Style: Symphonic Metal, Neofolk, Black Metal
With their sixth full-length, «Über den Sternen», an allegorical German rendering of their band name meaning «Above the Stars», EMPYRIUM still draw from the magic and spirits of wild places, nature’s beauty, and human relics of ages long past. «Über den Sternen» echoes this reconciliation of the old with the new on a musical level as well. The Franconian duo is putting more emphasis on the electric guitars and harsh vocals again, which marked their first two albums and stood strong upon the band’s melodic black metal foundations. Yet EMPYRIUM also revisit the dark folk style, which the Germans had progressively embraced on their third and fourth albums.
What used to appear to be a crossroad in their musical development has now merged into one breath-taking sound. The combined force of mastermind, multi-instrumentalist, clean and extreme vocalist as well as producer Markus «Schwadorf» Stock and classical singer Thomas Helm, who lends his amazing voice also to the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, is painting a radiant sonic picture. It comes with the melancholic grounding of the sophomore album «Songs of Moors & Misty Fields” (1997), adds brushstrokes of the fairy-tale tempera colours of «Where at Night the Wood Grouse Plays» (1999), and also makes use of a few hues from the palette that DEAD CAN DANCE have infused with world music, which EMPYRIUM have already employed on «The Turn of the Tides» (2014). The crowning varnish is diligently crafted from rougher elements that reach all the way back to the Germans’ legendary debut » A Wintersunset…» (1996). EMPYRIUM have reconciled their early vintage sound with the acoustic expression of later recordings.» Staying true to the Romantic tradition, EMPYRIUM continue to take inspiration for their lyrical flights of fantasy from the local myths, ancient places, and natural wonders of the Rhön Mountains and their Lower Franconian homeland in the West of Germany. A circle is closing, and with EMPYRIUM’s label Prophecy Productions, which were originally founded with the mission to release the band’s debut album, celebrating their 25th anniversary in 2021, it happens in more than one way.
