Cyclotimia – The Invisible Hand Of Market Label: Shadowplay Release – SPR 148, Zhelezobeton – ZHB-XXXVIII, Monopoly Records – none Format: CD, Album, Limited Edition Country: Russia Released: Apr 22, 2014 Style: Ambient, Dark Ambient, Downtempo, Experimental, Minimal
The Moscow-based project Cyclotimia, well-known for its long-standing interest for the world of global finance, stockmarket speculators and multinational corporations, presents its new work «The Invisible Hand of Market». According to the musicians, this is not a conceptual album dedicated to the economic term of Adam Smith. In this case it’s rather a metaphor “invisibly” linking together various compositions created during 2010-2013.
The album’s program consists of ten polystylistical tracks combining such genres as «post-industrial», «minimal(ism)», «dark ambient», «experimental» and «downtempo». The main line is a connection between the “sacral” and the “futuristic”, a combination of a liturgical atmosphere and electronic music based on the above-mentioned styles.
A separate part of the disc belongs to a 20 min. long electro-acoustic suite “Oil & Gas Colony” in five acts. Parts of vocal, classical string, wind and percussion instruments were recorded inside a dome of an abandoned radar station – a carbon fiber sphere 20 meters in diameter with a unique acoustic environment. This monumental work tells about the malignant nature of the resource-based economic model in modern Russia.
“Nzinga Mbande” is the new album by the African Imperial Wizard collective. It is the soundtrack of the armed liberation from the imperialistic oppression that our continent has endured for far too long.
The “Nzinga Mbande” manifesto consists of eight martial symphonies. They all been have composed enduring pain and suffering and serve the purpose of giving our countries, which have been lacerated and battered by centuries of colonialism, the epic military ceremonies they deserve.
Our main goal with this new musical opus is to hand out orders to our troops and to maintain our military cohesion, the culmination of which will translate to Pan-Africanism and the profound intimidation of our enemies. If you do not sense any danger coming, this could be the first sign of you losing your mind and if you listen carefully, you may already be able to hear the wailing of your dead haunting the battlefields devastated by our armed forces.
Because today more than ever, enough is enough. We won’t stop arming our warlords and their rebel battalions. We won’t stop arming our bloodthirsty mercenaries. We will continue to rely on our proud women warriors, who will follow in the footsteps of our ancestral queens Nzinga Mbande and Sarraounia and will reduce to ashes all those who dare show them and their devastating bastions any resistance. Make no mistake, we will not hesitate to resort to rearming our children. Our child soldiers helped us before, and they will do so again without a moment’s hesitation in the face of what we have had to put up with. We would rather see them die by our side in excruciating pain than letting them fall to your Machiavellian enslaving doctrines.
Nothing has been forgotten of the painful wounds that colonisation inflicted upon Africa. We counted every hand you cut off, every rape, every slave raid, every looting, every torture session, every poisoned watering hole, every crime, every assassination, every mass murder, every massacre, every genocide, every mass grave and every hour of forced labour which you imposed on us. Mark our words: our dead have slowly but surely been counted.
The toll is outrageous, and the abominable numbers speak for themselves and the horror we have been through. But believe us, we are more determined than ever and, may our gods be our witnesses, our vengeance will be all the bloodier. Barbaric invaders, look around you, we are already here, ready to draw our old Kalashnikovs and don’t worry, they do still work, and we can assure you they won’t jam.
Finally, African Imperial Wizard will come to play their most glorious laments in your cemeteries. Our sorcerers will make sacrifices on your graves to the memory of Soundiata. We will glorify the spirits of our great forefathers who fell in battle. The same fate awaits you.
Apoptose – Die Zukunft Label: Tesco Organisation – TESCO 128, Tesco Organisation – 128 Format: CD, Album Country: Germany Released:2018 Style: Dark Ambient, Ambient, Downtempo, Synthwave, Modern Classical
In the four years of production Apoptose selected a wide range of different singers for this album. Most outstanding is classical trained tenor Daniel Sans. He sings «What Power Art Thou» – a song that was composed by Henry Purcell in the late 17th century. Apoptose and Sans preserve the complex harmonic structure of the original translating it into a breathtaking five minute ride in apoptotic soundspheres. They succeed in conjuring up Purcell’s «cold genius» that had already fascinated legendary countertenor Klaus Nomi in the 1980s. Other voices on «Die Zukunft» include the gloomy spoken words of the advance single «Time-lapse City», the lost girl’s voice on the title track and two female singers on «Dornen». Consistent with the album title Apoptose does not look back, but is heading for novel territories within the dark ambient music genre
