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A collection of various compilation pieces recorded between 1999 and 2002, Syzygie shows just how diverse and eclectic this duo (two thirds formerly of Maeror Tri) were, and still are. With an approach in league with their previous project, warm analog electronics and dark, menacing sounds mix with stylistic trappings diverging wildly from piece to piece, but all coming together into a consistent and cohesive whole.
Troum's strengths shine through on songs like "Makaria," which builds a slow, warm drifting feel over what sounds like a carefully repeated guitar motif.The result is a beautiful inviting sound from a style that is often too focused on creating dank and oppressive environments.The same holds for the rich analog electronics and slow, but rich changes of "Ater," which conjures the same sense of warmth and dream-like imagery.
It is not all warm sun and comfortable electronics though, such as on the more boisterous "Fantauma," which aims for high drama and room shaking low end.With its distorted, almost power electronics like underlying rhythm, "Uegh[Cunabula]" also makes for a significant departure with the addition of its noisier electronics, but never loses the lush, rich sound of the other, more delicate pieces.
Another notable feature of this collection is how many changes and variations in style the duo go through on these different compositions."S'engourdir" and "Khan-Arachnid" both introduce the use of vocal samples, heavily cut up and processed, but a distinctly different element than what preceded it.The latter especially stands out with its overall collage sound and heavier low end, even mixing in some nicely varied loops of tactile noise.
In a few cases, however, the pieces do not stand out quite as distinctly.For example, "Ganymed" falls more into that conventional dark ambient sound with its low frequencies, hushed rumbling, and far off mechanical din.The same holds true for the aforementioned "S'engourdir," which, even with its use of voice snippets, just sounds too similar to a multitude of other artists.Both represent very well done takes on the genre, but ones that just are not quite as distinct stylistically.
The most striking aspect of Syzygie is how organic and natural it all sounds.So many artists who work with similar sparse and droning approaches bathe everything in digital reverb or robotic effects that leaves the sound dull, lifeless, and indistinct from one another.It cannot even be due to the time (the era in which these songs were created was perhaps the peak of when these problems were the most egregious), so it simply is a testament to the duo's abilities as both composers and performers that have few actual peers working in similar fields.
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I have become quite a devoted Vatican Shadow fan (with some reservations) over the last year or so, as Dominick Fernow's voluminous and oft-excellent string of limited cassettes has gradually become widely available through digital release and a couple of major compilations.  Somehow, though, he never got around to releasing an actual "official" full-length album until now (though I find this debatable).  Given that extremely long and slow build up, I fully expected Remember Your Black Day to be some sort of grand artistic statement or major creative evolution, which it mostly is not.  In some very minor ways, I suppose it might be, but it is essentially just another batch of new songs: some very good, some kind of forgettable.
As much as I enjoy this project, there are a number of aspects to it that I find baffling, exasperating, or unintentionally amusing.  Normally, that would pose a serious problem for me, but I generally like Vatican Shadow's music enough to shrug off things like Fernow performing in military fatigues; releasing a triple-album on red, white, and blue vinyl; releasing that same album in an edition of 911 copies; and then following that with an album that is explicitly 9/11-themed (this one).  I suspect that the reason I am so successful at disregarding Dominick's blunt, on-the-nose gestures and imagery is because they are usually in such sharp contrast to Vatican Shadow's actual music, which is frequently quite minimal, understated, ghostly, and ambiguously evocative.  In general, Vatican Shadow's sole real shortcoming is that Fernow's release schedule is more restless and prolific than is ideal, resulting in a whole slew of cassettes that have a few great songs each rather than any single release that is uniformly excellent.
I get the feeling that Dominick made a concerted effort to remedy that with Remember Your Black Day though, so I guess it is actually a landmark release in that sense: Fernow clearly put a lot of work into songcraft, sequencing, and production this time around.  He also broke some new ground stylistically, which is noteworthy as well, though Vatican Shadow has always been quite fluid stylistically.  Some of that new ground leaves me a bit cold, such as the incorporation of trebly black metal-influenced guitars in the heavy-handed "Enter Paradise" and the somewhat better "Jet Fumes Above the Reflecting Pool," but two of the album's clear highlights unexpectedly make magic out of thumping dancefloor beats (an innovation that did not work nearly as well with Prurient).
The first of those pieces is the title track, which unleashes a slowly evolving and punishingly insistent beat beneath an single endlessly repeating melodic fragment to somewhat mesmerizing effect.  Immediately afterward, however, is the album's absolute zenith: "Not the Son of Desert Storm, but the Child of Chechnya," which replicates its predecessor in far more viscerally crunching fashion.  I especially loved how it sounds like there is a live high-hat amidst the overwhelming and relentless percussive onslaught.  That was an inspired textural touch.
Aside from the brief album introduction, that leaves only three other songs, all of which stick to Vatican Shadow's historic comfort zone and most distinctive aesthetic: simple, eerie synth loops drifting above a cool beat.  All of them are fine examples of why I got into Vatican Shadow in the first place, but the most successful of the bunch is "Contractor Corpses Hung Over the Euphrates River," as  it escalates its brooding tension by deftly adding new elements to its beat.  "Tonight Saddam Walks Amidst Ruins" ultimately misses the mark slightly by incorporating a very straightforward minor key motif for its crescendo, but "Muscle Hijacker Tribal Affiliation" is another excellent piece once it progresses beyond its slow-burning build-up.
I initially thought this album was a bit of a disappointment, as I was truly expecting it to be a tour de force or spectacular culmination of some kind, but ultimately decided that that was my problem, not Vatican Shadow's.  More objectively, Remember Your Black Day is a slightly-more-ambitious-than-usual mixed success, boasting sharp production, a distinct arc, and one of Vatican Shadow's finest songs to date.  Also, it reaffirms my belief that Fernow is a very distinctive, nuanced, and thoughtful composer of haunting beatscapes, a talent that I never would have anticipated at all from his sprawling and generally very harsh pre-Vatican discography.  That said, this album does not feel any better or worse than most of Vatican Shadow's other releases: it is certainly likable and a bit longer than usual, but curious newcomers would be better served by checking out a multi-release compilation (Ornamented Walls or It Stands to Conceal) instead, as more is almost always better with Vatican Shadow.
- Muscle Hijacker Tribal Affiliations
- Contractor Corpses Hung Over the Euphrates River
- Not the Son of Desert Storm, But the Child of Chechnya
 
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Artist: Tunnels Of Ah
Title: Lost Corridors
Catalogue No: CSR184CD
Barcode: 55060174955440
Format: CD in jewelcase
Genre: Industrial / Esoteric
Shipping: 18th November
Tunnels Of Ah is the new project of former HEAD OF DAVID vocalist Stephen Ah Burroughs. “Lost Corridors” is the first Tunnels Of Ah release and features Burroughs’ “industrial esoterica”, evoking the spirit of the pioneering underground experimental scene in the new dark age. This is psychick war.
A mandatory release for those who worship at the altars of Coil, Psychic TV, Arktau Eos, Z’EV…
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Tracks: 1. From A Cracked Hive (Black Insect Laughter) | 2. The Nightjar Sang A Kalpa Blaze | 3. A Net Of Woven Starlight | 4. Nightfall At The Mount Of Husks | 5. Harvest Flame The Christ Force | 6. Shattering The Black Crone | 7. Crush The Heads Of Scorpions
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Artist: Z'EV
Title: A Handful Of Elements
Catalogue No: CSR182CD
Barcode: 5060174955457
Format: CD in jewelcase
Genre: Industrial / Ritual / Ambient
Shipping: 18th November
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With “A Handful Of Elements” Z’EV returns to the “dense, carefully laid and deep drone works” [adnoiseam.net] of “Sum Things” (CSR101CD). However, for this release he has drawn deep from his 40 year old sonic archive (from live performances both instrumental and vocal to a range of soundscapes from around the world), producing soundtracks to accompany you to the other side of ambient, through the door between your eyes.
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Tracks: 1. Terra | 2. Aqua | 3. Aer | 4. Ignis | 5. Spiritus
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There are precious few bands out there that can create the same manic sense of terror and legitimate fear that The Body does. The duo of Chip King and Lee Buford push the sounds of doom past just slow, de-tuned guitars and apocalyptic lyrics into something much more tangible and real. With a diverse gathering of collaborators, Christs, Redeemers just furthers this into their most intense and varied work to date.
King's vocals are perhaps the most consistent and identifiable feature of the duo's material, and they appear frequently throughout this album.His exasperated, hysterical delivery is idiosyncratic to say the least, but conveys a convincing sense of panic and fear that gives a terrifying weight to each and every word he delivers.The quick pacing of "Failure to Desire to Communicate" has this in spades:shrill vocal histrionics that give the otherwise bass lead song an even greater intensity, exacerbated by some rapid fire breakdowns that push the song into something more akin to harsh noise.
The frenetic, pounding drums and quaking bass of "Prayers Unanswered" also make a strong compliment to King's rantings, as does a distinctly old school use of dialog samples throughout.On "Shrouded", effects leave his voice without any humanity at all:obscured by a surging blast of white noise, they just sound like any other instrument as the overdriven thuds in the background arrange into some ersatz rhythm before the song fully kicks in, and later ends in a blackened wall of distortion.
An entire album of this alone might eventually wear a bit thin, and this is where the collaborators come in.The Assembly of Light Choir give a certain lightness when they appear, but it is a purity that is quickly perverted by the sludge and aggression that dominates otherwise.The dramatic, but obscured female voices on "To Attempt Openness" are quite a bit lighter than the gravely, grinding guitars and pounding rhythms that accompany, but are soon blown apart into redlining noise and digital clipping.King's vocals juxtaposed with theirs on "An Altar or a Grave" is brilliant combination, and are met with a similar pairing of trudging doom guitars with warmer, cinematic strings.
On a few of the songs, the female vocals are the only ones that appear, and make for a strong counter-balance with the otherwise dissonant noise.The opening "I, The Mourner of Perished Days" is a perfect example of this, with the bent choir bits and beautiful solo vocals that eventually devolve into windy rattling and indistinct harsh noise."Night of Blood in a World Without End" does similar, but leads off with strings and delicate vocals before eventually beginning a slow, violent roll down a hill into dissonance and ugly aggression.
As evident by the song titles, lyrics, and overall mood, Christs, Redeemers could too easily fall into a world of faux evil cheesiness.However, the variation and willingness to use non-traditionally heavy instrumentation is what keeps this from happening.Coupled with Chip King's singular, manic vocal style, the result becomes a convincingly terrifying record that conjures fear though mood and sound, rather than just stylistic trappings.
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Affiliated with the Schimpfluch-Gruppe collective, Marc Zeier has managed to be one of the lower profile members of the loosely-knit group, and also one who’s work is perhaps the most understated. Without the visceral, nauseating organic sounds of Rudolf Eb.er or the occasionally jolly, punk-tinged absurdism of Joke Lanz, Zeier’s work has been one that emphasizes the sound more than the presentation. Not an overly prolific composer, Sub makes for a major release in its two-disc duration and use of recognizable, but still heavily treated everyday sounds to create a work that captivates as well as terrifies.
For a large portion of Sub, the concept is relatively simple:Zeier uses mundane sound sources as a basis for the compositions, often identified clearly in the title."Ice" obviously uses the sounds of cracking and breaking ice blocks amidst running water at various points throughout.However, the surrounding near-silence and unidentifiable, heavily processed inorganic outbursts make for a different sound entirely, and are were the true strength lies.
On "Swine," this use of overt recordings is perhaps the most clear: the first recorded moments that appear are the grunting and snorting of pigs.The heavy processing that fall into almost rhythmic passages and restrained segments serve to intensify the tension that is violently relieved when heavily amplified snarls and growls appear.Recordings of pigs at slaughterhouses were used to excellent effect in The Exorcist, and Zeier does similar, chilling things with them here.
Even though "Wasp" would indicate the sound of another relatively unpleasant organism, he instead chooses to obscure the source material heavily here, save for the occasional menacing buzz that appears and then floats away.The processed bits end up as a series of hollow, out of focus noises and textures that might not be as disturbing, but instead works greatly as a cautious study of sonic texture and timbre.
The 22-plus minute "Pulse" is another major piece in which the source material is clearly identified, but like "Wasp," it uses the pure recordings sparingly throughout its lengthy duration.What I assume to be heartbeats are deconstructed into wet, massive thumps and sickly creaks.Going through a cycle of lighter and darker passages, the natural rhythms are molded into heavy thuds and grotesque, sputtering outbursts of noise.It manages to stay still long enough for each element to be appreciated before rearranging into something else entirely, making for a dynamic, fascinating, if at times unpleasant recording.
Throughout the entire album, Zeier also makes liberal use of jarring, high volume outbursts that only slightly relieve the tension leading up to them:indistinct bursts of noise on "Stack," and the jackhammer like blasts of "Glow," are perfect examples of this.In the few cases where he does not employ this technique, such as on the more static "Purge," their absence is somewhat obvious and makes the piece stand out less than others.
As an intentionally obscure album (the track listing does not appear anywhere on the disc or packaging, only on the label's website), Sub uses this obscurity to its best advantage.Even though those titles give away some of the source material utilized, I caught myself wondering throughout if that was the only object used on each one, and if not, what else was there?The more obtuse titles…what were they comprised of?Of course I do not need to know the answer to these questions to enjoy Zeier’s work, and I think it truly works best if he retains that "man behind the curtain" obscurity.This questioning and dissection, however, is one of the things that brought me back to this album many times for a closer examination.
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For their second collaboration, Steven Stapleton and Graham Bowers take the elements that worked so well on Rupture and push them outwards into something more bewildering, but equally as compelling. Pomp, ceremony, showbiz and a cryptic approach to musical arrangements, this is a powerfully odd and oddly powerful work by the duo. As much as I enjoyed Rupture, its heavy subject matter prevents it from being a regular addition to my listening schedule but Parade fills that gap perfectly.
Given the name of the album, it is perhaps no surprise that the music largely has a touch of fanfare and a strong beat to it. Synthesised brass and strings bring to mind The Residents circa Freak Show (their last great one in my opinion) but sound far less rigid. Divided into eight movements, Parade does truly sound like I am surrounded by marching bands. Granted these marching bands are a far cry from the usual mobile orchestras seen at the St. Patrick’s Day parade or at a New Orleans Mardi Gras but the different segments fade in and out like the sound is being made by musicians in transit. The fact that the different segments also tend to be jarringly different is also reminiscent of the parades I would go to as a child; an American high school band followed by traditional Irish musicians followed by dancers dancing to pop music would not have been out of the ordinary. A psychotic brass band followed by frenetic electronic beats followed by eerie noises from the outer dark would not have been normal for sure.
Such otherworldly sounds permeate the album with pieces such as "Apes and Peacocks" and "The Bells of Hell Go Ting A'Ling A'Ling" sounding like they are celebration music from another dimension and one that might or might not be friendly. On "The Bells of Hell…" first appears one of the album’s leading motifs: amidst the clanking industrial rhythms is a scratchy recording of "Thanks for the Memory." The song appears in various stages of decay throughout the rest of the album, its presence mysterious and made all the more strange considering it keeps popping up among a slew of other oldies and showtunes. Only a sizeable chunk of Gilbert and Sullivan’s "I Am the Very Model of Modern Major General" on "Beyond the Palisade" rivals it for playtime.
Yet, Stapleton and Bowers do not rely on the music of others to propel Parade forward. Each section is a dense and intricate layering of different rhythms, melodies (some tonal, some atonal) and typically Nurse-y scrapes and clangs. "A Tissue of Deceit" stands out as being particularly good, combining hammy horror soundtrack with actually unnerving mood all on top of an upbeat but wobbly beat. It manages to be funny, terrifying and catchy all at the same time. It reaches its peak when, about three minutes in, insistent rhythms and a cacophonous range of sounds come together in a trippy climax.
The bonus disc, Diploid, is listed as an epilogue to the main event and with good reason. The single 20 minute piece feels like Parade in redux as the different themes and sounds explored during the album are regurgitated, re-assimilated and reformed into something new. Additions of creepy acoustic guitar and discordant piano add further drama to the sounds, whatever feelings of excitement present in Parade become soured and unwelcoming as if the parade has turned back on itself and was marching into the underworld. It seems almost a crime that this is not part of the standard Parade album because it is a solid way to finish off such a head-scratcher of a release.
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Following a visit to the Tate Gallery and seeing JMW Turner’s paintings, Burkhard Stangl began working on a way to represent these painted landscapes as musical soundscapes. Focusing on Turner’s unfinished works, Stengl never truly gets into the same sphere as Turner. The resulting album is a collection of superficially nice music that has little below the surface, in opposition to the elegance and depth of Turner’s masterful compositions.
Every New Year in the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin, a room is set aside to show a selection of Turner’s watercolors. Left by Henry Vaughan, he requested that they only be shown in January when the light was softest to do as little damage as possible to the delicate paintings. To this day, despite advances in artificial lighting, the gallery continues this tradition. This creates a sense of occasion and ceremony to the annual exhibition, the room feeling like a chapel dedicated to Turner where the works are viewed in a hushed atmosphere.
Stangl approaches Turner with a similar reverence and the music seems to be a soundtrack for such rapt and inward-facing contemplation. Using his guitar to create spacious and slowly evolving pieces, the music here is not unlike the approach that Dylan Carlson is employing in his drcarlsonalbion project. However, as with Carlson’s most recent work, Stangl’s playing does not really connect with me in any deep way. It sounds pretty but for the most part, the pieces (long pauses interspersed with small melodic units) feel contrived and lacking in emotion, as if the idea for the composition trumps the listening of the piece. Based on Stangl’s comments about the album, I am certain he is sincere in this tribute to Turner but his words seem at odds with the final form of the album.
During the first movement of "#1 Unfinished - Mellow; Waiting; Longing," the lightly strummed guitar is joined by a recording of what seems to be children playing in the rain. Deliberately obscured, the field recording fades into the murk much like the landscape fades into the canvas in Turner’s work and is a nice nod to the painter’s style. However, by leaving the opening movement unresolved like the unfinished paintings that Stangl became enamoured with, it instead makes the music feel throwaway and unwanted. An unfinished painting has a mystery and a longing to it that is completely absent in "Mellow." Especially given that it runs for about 15 minutes, about 12 minutes longer than it really should have.
Luckily, there is more to say about the second movement, "Waiting," which also goes nowhere but in a beautiful, hazy way. The guitar sounds terrific, a pulsing tremolo and slight reverb bringing to mind Stangl’s work on Fennesz’s Venice combined with what sounds like an electric organ being played ever so softly. Here Stangl’s music comes closest to achieving the goal of approaching Turner’s style from a musical perspective. The final movement, "Longing," follows the lead of "Waiting" yet never fully engages in the same way. Equally, "#2 Unfinished – Sailing" begins with a nice bit of playing but ends up going in circles for about quarter of an hour, leaving the air heavy with tedium. There is the momentary instance of a nice lick or resonance here and there though that is the best that can be said of the piece.
As if to highlight how unnecessarily long these pieces are, "#3 Unfinished – Ending" clocks in at just under three minutes and does everything that Stangl set out to do. Granted it is a lot busier than the previous pieces which might be contradictory to some notions of Turner’s work but here the guitar has both a soft, foggy presence with elements of sharp detail sticking out like gondolas on a misty Venetian canal. If Stangl had explored more in this direction, Unfinished. For William Turner, Painter would have been a much different, more effective album.
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For some reason, my favorite albums always seem to be those that come from unexpected places, a trend that delightfully continues with this third effort by Belgium's Bram Bosteels.  I was vaguely familiar with Bosteels already, but only because I had previously heard 2011's Barra Barra and casually dismissed it as "a bunch of murky soundscapes for obscure theater productions."  After hearing this latest effort, however, I found myself desperately rummaging around my house in vain hope of finding and revisiting my long-forgotten copy of its predecessor.  Hokus Fokus is absolutely deranged in the best possible way, resembling nothing less than an extremely disturbing carnival-themed nightmare.  This is easily one of the strangest albums in recent memory.
This is one of those rare albums that inadvertently opened up exciting new vistas of weirdness and lunacy for me, as I was completely unfamiliar with most of the artists that I have seen referenced as Bram's current kindred spirits (Gultskra Artikler and Anworth Kirk, for example).  Calling anyone a kindred spirit to Bosteels at this point is a bit of a stretch though, as Hokus Fokus finds him (mostly) abandoning his gloom-shrouded ambient past to plunge gleefully into sounding like a clown's bad acid trip.  Or a zombie Django Reinhardt performing at the cantina on Tatooine.  Or singing puppet show in hell.  Or something else equally playfully perverse that no one else has ever considered pursuing.
Despite all that, Hokus Fokus is a surprisingly musical effort, in its own gloriously wrong way.  The best pieces, such as "The A Theme," combine jaunty, jazzy guitar hooks with oddly lurching or clunky rhythms and a wonderfully wrong-footing periphery of inhuman gibbering and ghostly dissonance.  That winning formula repeats itself again somewhat with "KipKap," which sounds a boatful of demonic Oompa-Loompas singing a work song as they drift along an underground river.  The rest of the album does not quite replicate those levels of bizarrism (how could it?), but the "haunted carnival" feel of Hokus Fokus continually finds new and unexpected ways to surface as the album unfolds (noir-ish sax motifs, chattering incomprehensible voices, random honking, comically lumbering kitchen-sink percussion, etc.).
The final twist is that some parts of the album sound far more like dissonant modern classical than maniacal outsider art.  This tendency is most prominent (and effective) in the opening "Kolik," as Bram creates a wonderfully nuanced and disquieting bed of string swells and woodwinds beneath a  creepily squealing, exhaling, and echoing haze of non-musical sounds.  Remarkably, Bram handled the bulk or the instrumentation himself this time around (Barra Barra was more of a collective effort), though  a guest trumpet player turns up for one song. The fact that there is a crazy Belgian out there who can play just about anything, compose in wide-ranging and disparate styles, blend them all together into a unique and hallucinatory whole, and then happily sabotage it all with funny voices, kazoos, and an anarchic sense of humor makes me very, very happy.
My sole (minor) grievance with Hokus Fokus is that Bosteels' former dark ambient tendencies still sometimes tend to get the better of him, causing occasional lulls in the action.  Those same tendencies also make even the most cheery passages sound delightfully warped, but the balance could be a bit more optimal.  It seems silly to complain that such a massive, unexpected leap into bold new musical terrain falls short of being perfect though: I am now very much an enthusiastic fan of Bosteels and his deeply unsettling vision.
 
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Ba Da Bing have officially blown my mind yet again, following their 4LP reissues of the epic Night Coercion Into the Company of Witches and The Snowbringer Cult trilogy with an even more ambitious project: reissuing 2009's incredibly rare and overwhelming Daughter of Darkness cassette series as a massive 8LP box set with hand-painted album art (which took months to complete).  While it is not the best Natural Snow Buildings album by any means (no band can make a uniformly great 8-hour album), it is still quite a good one and it is unquestionably their longest, which offers a unique appeal all its own.  There are probably are not too many people who find the prospect of plunging into a seemingly endless rabbit hole of roiling, hallucinatory, quasi-ritualistic drone very appealing, but those who do have probably just found their Holy Grail.
Daughter of Darkness is a curious anomaly within the Natural Snow Buildings catalog for many reasons, its staggering scope being just one piece of the puzzle.  For example, many of its longer pieces seem quite primitive and monolithic by the duo's standards, sounding like rather lo-fi and improvisatory experiments in oceanic, multi-layered guitar noise allowed to unfold until the tape ran out.  While that is not a bad thing at all, it feels like the formative work of a band who had not yet reined in their more indulgent impulses or turned their attentions towards structure and songcraft.
It is not, however, as Solange and Mehdi had already recorded and released at least two of their most beloved and fully realized albums by that point (the aforementioned Snowbringer and 2006's The Dance of the Moon and Sun).  Also, Daughter of Darkness was recorded in 2008, a year of utterly stupefying activity, yielding two separate triple-albums, 6 CD-Rs, and two cassettes.  Given that the duo were already near the top of their game and immersed in a bewildering melange of other projects, Darkness is not a noisy, chaotic, and sprawling monster by accident, inexperience, or youthful over-exuberance.
Consequently, the best way to view Daughter of Darkness is as a conscious attempt to push drone to its furthest possible extreme: this album is far more of an immersive, trance-inducing experience than a mere collection of songs.  In fact, there is nothing resembling a "song" at all, though some of the shorter pieces (particularly the rippling, eerie "The Source") sound very meticulously composed.  Actually, I suspect the entire album was meticulously composed on a grand scale, but that is not readily apparent when I am enveloped in the midst of it, as there are long stretches where it feels like the duo are basically treading water for ten or twenty minutes.
In reality, however, they are just working on a very different time scale than I am used to, as such stretches almost invariably give way to something wonderful that makes the whole journey seem both worthwhile and necessary (like the heartbreakingly lyrical feedback interlude lurking within the often harsh, 45-minute "Devil's Fork").  Also, Mehdi and Solange were just as ambitious with their textures, layering, and detail as they were with Daughter's duration, as they regularly make such an unearthly and apocalyptic racket that it is almost impossible to believe that it is coming from two people rather than some of sort of occultist, extra-dimensional army on the march or a horde of demons clawing their way out of the underworld through an incompetently drawn pentagram.
As awesome as that sounds, Daughter actually evokes quite a few other moods as well, which was a very good move listenability-wise.  In fact, a few interludes can reasonably be described as warm or beautiful, like the gently quavering outro of "Black Pastures" (intrusions of strangled-sounding guitar noise aside) or the lush swells of the surprisingly innocent-sounding "Will You Die For Me?"
In another context, some parts of the album ("Body Double," for example) could probably even be seen as "pretty," but not in this one: Daughter's rare oases of calm are made deliciously tense and uneasy by the fact that they are surrounded by gnarled plunges into the void with names like "A Thousand Demons Invocation" or ancient-sounding funeral processions like "Her Face Is Not Her Real Face."  While many aberrations occur all over the album's brain-frying duration, the balance of the material definitely veers between roiling, wall-of-guitars drone; quasi-occult death marches; and buzzing Eastern strings and discordant flutes.  All of those threads appear on other Natural Snow Buildings albums (and are often better executed there), but the cumulative effect is quite a staggering one nonetheless.
As with most of Natural Snow Buildings' oeuvre, Daughter of Darkness successfully maintains an unbroken and otherworldly illusion of being field recordings of some arcane ritual by a forgotten and vaguely sinister culture in the very distant past. While it is not nearly as clear, sophisticated, and nuanced as their best albums (possibly because the nuance and sophistication is obscured by the smeary, distorted production), it succeeds despite that, as the sheer scope, immensity, and extremity easily eclipse all details of the execution.  The best analogy that I can come up with is this: Daughter of Darkness is less like great, brilliantly realized art than it is like being trapped in a museum that is on fire (while an earthquake simultaneously rages).  There would certainly be beauty, vision, and genius all around me, but that definitely would not be what I remembered about the experience, which would be a lot more lasting, deep, and unique than simply seeing a lot of nice things.
(Note: the CD version of this set includes two very long bonus tracks from the Daughter of Darkness V cassette (2009, Recollections of Knulp), which are very much in the vein of the main album.  I do not think that their inclusion particularly enhances or detracts from the album in any way, but I will say that it is much more convenient to listen to an 8-hour album when you do not need to keep flipping records over. The vinyl set includes only the songs from the original Daughter of Darkness (2009, Blackest Rainbow), so that might be a better bet for feeble types who can only handle 7 hours of heavy drone in one sitting).
 
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- Albums and Singles
For the longest time, I could not understand why people were so excited about this act, but last year's Carter Tutti Void album re-ignited my curiosity enough for me to give it another chance.  While it still remains a mystery to me how Factory Floor became so quickly revered, their first real full-length is intermittently wonderful and dramatically better than much of their earlier work.  Obvious Chris & Cosey comparisons aside, this trio is definitely onto something uniquely their own, stripping their thumping, retro-dance formula down to little more than a beat, a simple modular synth pattern, and Nikki Colk Void's appealingly languorous sexy-android-on-heroin vocals.  As it turns out, that is all they need.
The power of minimalism is a remarkable thing, as the only substantial difference between earlier, somewhat generic-sounding Factory Floor songs and their more recent (and superior) work is that the trio have purged themselves of all unnecessary drama, density, manic energy, and ornamentation to leave behind only sharply realized, precision-executed doses of the things that are absolutely indispensable: an insistent, unrelenting groove and (occasionally) some kind of vocal presence.  In this sense, they actually share a lot more common ground with a band like ESG than they do with Chris & Cosey.  While Void certainly sounds a bit like Cosey sometimes (and tends to also play a guitar unconventionally), Factory Floor's so-basic-it-almost-seems-naive palette of a simple beat and a few synth bleeps and blurts bears only passing resemblance to anything Chris Carter-esque (aside from perhaps sounding like it involves cutting-edge dance technology from 25 years ago).
When the formula works, it works beautifully, as Factory Floor's endless repetition and robotic blankness make for hypnotic listening (and a perversely distinct sound as well).  The most extreme example is the opening "Turn It Up," which features almost nothing but Gabriel Gurnsey's muscular, constantly shifting beat and a few creepy, heavily processed mutterings from Void.  The rest of the album is a bit more ambitious musically, but not too much: the band's resident knob-twiddler (Dominic Butler) walks a tight rope, offering up just enough of a bloopy synth hook to give each of the songs some semblance of structure, character, and catchiness, but never enough to grab the spotlight (and never anything that consists of multiple parts).  In fact, most of Butler's "riffs" have so few notes that they can be counted on my fingers and the idea of throwing in a chord change for a chorus or something seems to be utterly unthinkable (or possibly just impossible, given the gear used).
Butler's finest moment comes with the rapidly stuttering chord that makes up the entirely of the music for "How You Say" (the album's clear highlight for me), but he almost always manages to leave enough space for Void's breathy vocals, echo-ey guitar noises, and subtle samples to make their full impact.  Few bands are as adept at staying out of each other's way as Factory Floor.  As deceptively simple and regressive as some of this music might seem at first listen, it is hard to imagine many other artists handling similar territory this effectively.  It would only take the slightest misstep or bit of clutter to wreck or hopelessly blunt the impact of these songs.  It may have taken them several years to reach this degree of craftsmanship (Factory Floor have been around in some form or other since 2005), but it is not a plateau where they have much company.
The few critiques that I can make are basically ones that can be made for almost all dance albums: there are only a handful of strong "singles" amidst these ten songs and listening to a full album of such similar-sounding material tends to be become increasingly draining as it unfolds–there is a very good reason why 12" singles are the preferred format in underground dance.  Also, three pieces are basically just brief interludes rather than songs and some of the actual songs are a bit too self-consciously, kitschily "retro" for my taste ("Work Out" sounds like a mid-'80s break-dancing jam, for example).  That said, almost all of the other potential singles are stellar (a category that also includes "Here Again" and the previously released "Fall Back" and "Two Different Ways") and it is very convenient to have them all in one place, as endlessly buying singles is annoying.  In fact, Factory Floor comes damn close to being a debut album that doubles as a greatest hits album–there are certainly a few other wonderful Factory Floor songs out there (Optimo's remix of "R E A L L O V E" springs to mind), but not many are quite as good as these.
 
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