- Duncan Edwards
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Jakob Olausson follows up his acclaimed album Moonlight Farm with another entrancing record. Its hypnotic quality comes partly from song structures which seem looser than they actually are, and from the stark contrast between emotionally raw lyrics, some sparkling guitar notes, and his doubled or heavily echoed voice.
Morning & Sunrise doesn’t appear to start at the beginning as much as drop into something that is already in motion. I like the strange sense, as "Don’t Drown In Sorrows" bursts in, almost of leaping onto a slow-moving boxcar in the middle of a long train journey. Much of Moonlight Farm lived up to its title by appearing to transmit cosmic vibrations from a field of beet in the middle of a cold night. This new release has a hazy warmer feel to it and, perhaps since Olausson has toured the US, to some extent it’s as if he is flirting with influences on this side of the Atlantic. "Ride On The Wind" for example has a trace of the ghost of Montezuma about it (echoing a little of Neil Young’s "Cortez The Killer"). Other sections of these eight songs could be snapshots from rides through the Delta or approaches to the outskirts of a folk-psychedelic version of Northern California, except that Olausson is not like a tourist trying on silly hats and references are never that blatant. Instead, all is subsumed beneath his almost gamelan-like mode of expression.
In that expression, his voice is echoing, swaying, resting, and playing catch-up, his guitar notes are aching with loneliness, and the bleak percussion is either ticking like a clock of mortality or disappearing completely. If that sounds heavy or messy and dense, well, there are moments of anguish but many of ecstatic howling coalescence. And there is also plenty of open space. It’s as if a train goes through a tunnel causing the music to sound darker and more intense, but it comes out the other side and in sweeps air and light.
Olausson's lyrical concerns are to do with surviving emotional fevers and freezes, getting through to the other side of the inevitable winters of life. He literally howled like a choir of wolves on one track from Moonlight Farm and his superb whistling here on "When Your Bridges Burned" adds another simple yet very effective flourish. Just as the late Joe Meek struggled and fumbled his sonic visions into being, so Jakob Olausson wrestles to create with whatever is to hand. Oddly, though, as much as I will be pleased to hear his next record I would be fascinated to hear his songs performed by other artists.
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This live recording from 2009 sees Steven Stapleton and Colin Potter team up with Fabrizio Palumbo, Paul Beauchamp and Julia Kent to perform one of, if not, the classic Nurse With Wound album Soliloquy for Lilith. I cannot pretend that they have succeeded in recreating that amazing work but they have made something equally engaging if aesthetically different to the original. Stapleton is still acting as an aerial or a receiver for the basic sound but the other players build on it to form an entirely novel and separate entity.
 
The original recordings of Soliloquy for Lilith involved Stapleton playing the electromagnetic fields of various guitar effects pedals like a Theremin. The end result was something akin to a transmission from space, indecipherable but strangely calming. The album has always been a favorite of Stapleton due to the fact that it seemed less like a composition of his own and more of a recording of something else, something beyond the creative process (very much from the same space as Coil’s Worship the Glitch album).
With all this in mind, I was surprised when a few years ago he started performing Soliloquy for Lilith live. I could not envisage how these otherworldly sounds would translate to a concert hall, especially as Nurse With Wound were performing it with Blind Cave Salamander. Listening to Cabbalism now, the answer is that it is little like Soliloquy for Lilith but a whole new work stemming from the same basic premise. The ghostly murmurs from the guitar effects pedals are still there but are pushed back in the mix with the other musicians complementing Stapleton with regular instrumentation and electronics. Barely-there guitar, sweeps of abstracted sound and distant hums of bass tones create a distinct and unexpected world.
However, it is Kent’s cello that brings this piece from being just another Space Music-esque work (though there is nothing wrong with that). Her rich, poignant notes push through the acoustic ephemera. A small amount of echo gives her playing a detached quality, almost as if she is jamming with the reverberations of the cosmos. On the second side of the LP, her playing takes on a Middle Eastern lilt; an odd but effective fit. When high-pitched whines (from Potter’s box of tricks? from Beauchamp’s musical saw? from the Horsehead Nebula?) join her playing near the end, it is a glorious and transcendental moment.
Yet, this is just one of many such moments dotted throughout Cabbalism. Some feel more minor than others but they add up, cumulatively reinforcing the effect of each tiny particle of sound. I seem to say this about most Nurse With Wound-related releases these days but this is one of Stapleton’s best. I honestly think he is on a roll these last few years and obviously constantly changing up his collaborators is a solid move on his part.
 
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Despite a career spanning decades as both a performer and music theorist, Ustad Abdul Karim Khan rarely played in front of a microphone. This album is just an instance in his artistic life, recorded in Bombay only a handful of years before his death but it shows a singer in his prime. His command of his voice and reverence for his art comes through the fog of the 78 recordings with a vigor undiminished by time or culture.
I was surprised by Important Records’ move to release a compilation of Indian classical music recorded in the ‘30s. While the influence of such music on 20th century composition is considerable, particularly on such touchstones of minimalism such as La Monte Young and Terry Riley, it still seems like a leftfield release for Important. My knowledge of Indian classical music is limited but Ustad Abdul Karim Khan’s style sounds quite different to the few Indian artists I would be familiar with. The earthy vocals of Pandit Pran Nath or Amir Khan are a far cry from Kamir Khan’s almost androgynous voice. His voice lifts the words up on a cloud to the heavens whereas the Ragas that usually get played in my house tend to swallow up the ground.
Unfortunately, due to recording limitations at the time, the pieces clock in at around four minutes each; there are no lengthy explorations of the various pieces. Yet, in such short bursts, Kamir Khan demonstrates his vast skill with an almost superhuman capacity to dance across the complex scales like ordinary singers do with a simple "do re mi." Performing the Jhinjhoti raga "Piya bin nahin avata chain," Kamir Khan sounds like a celestial being. His voice, radiant and light, twists impossibly through the quick delivery of the words. It is utterly intoxicating. Elsewhere, his haunting performance on "Jamuna ke tira kanha" shows his deep control of his singing and demonstrates the powerful emotional content of this music.
In addition to Kamir Khan’s inimitable voice, he is joined by a group of equally talented musicians. Two tampuras and a tabla form the base of many of the works; the drone of the tampuras insistent and steady, filling in the gaps where Kamir Khan’s voice cannot reach. Yet it is Shankarrao Kapileshwari’s harmonium that stands out throughout 1934-1935; his playing closely follows Kamir Khan’s vocal acrobatics, at times slow and monolithic but Kapileshwari can really move when he needs to. The album finishes with "Nach sundari karun kopa," a Sindhi Kafi raga that stands out stylistically from the others in this collection. The recording documents an ecstatic symbiosis of men and music; all performers coming together and rendering the notes and rhythms into something godly.
While these recordings have been made commercially available in India, this is the first time they have been widely available in the west. Despite the age of the recordings and the fact that many original recordings from the same time were destroyed during World War II (they were made by a German recording company, Odeon), these have survived and have been restored to a point where they sound as good as they possibly can get. Bundled with the CD is a booklet containing a detailed essay on Karim Khan and the recording industry in 1930s India, altogether it is a fantastic release and I can only hope that this is the first of many similar albums from Important.
samples:
- Gujri Todi: "Beguna gunga ga" (drut)
- Gujri Todi tartan: "Dim Dara Dir Dir"
- Sindhi Kafi: "Nach sundari karun kopa" (ektal)
 
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For the third installment of what has become a yearly tradition, three of contemporary music's foremost free improv players joined forces for a three-hour live show in Melbourne, Australia. The four tracks on Imikuzushi are excerpts culled from that blistering performance.
Part of what makes Imikuzushi such a fascinating listen is the players' choice of instruments and styles, in contrast with their previous collaborations. The first, 2010's Tima Formosa, was a relatively quiet affair, which I found a bit of a shock given Keiji Haino's involvement. Haino stuck to manipulating electronics, while Oren Ambarchi provided textured guitar and Jim O'Rourke sat in on piano. For the following year's concert, Ambarchi switched to drums and O'Rourke to bass, while Haino jumped between guitar, electronics and lap steel; the resulting album was In a Flash Everything Comes Together as One There Is No Need for a Subject (try saying that five times fast!), a vinyl-only release on Ambarchi's Black Truffle label. I haven't had the pleasure of hearing that one, but if it's anything like Imikuzushi, I'll need to seek it out immediately.
For the performance that spawned Imikuzushi, O'Rourke and Ambarchi remained on bass and drums, respectively, while Haino stripped back his multi-instrumental tendencies to focus on what he actually does best: shredding. The Haino/O'Rourke/Ambarchi power trio played three hours that night, and the album trims their performance to just over 70 minutes of music. As fair warning, fans of O'Rourke's gentle, ornate performances on his Drag City albums and Wilco collaborations (gag me) will likely shit themselves upon hearing Imikuzushi, where O'Rourke's fuzzed-out bass and Ambarchi's deft drumming both play a supporting role to Haino's white-hot guitar maelstrom. The first track makes this quite obvious, kicking off in the midst of Haino shredding and wailing on his instrument, sounding as if he's covering a Merzbow song. (Track titles are also a clue this is Haino's show: "Still Unable to Throw Off that Teaching a Heart Left Abandoned Unable to Get Inside that Empty Space Nerves Freezing that Unconcealed Sadness" is nothing if not Haino-esque.)
At his most tempered, Haino's playing is usually on par with Sonic Youth (R.I.P.) at their most violent. When he decides to throw down the hammer, he's in a league all his own. Most of the time on Imikuzushi, Haino remains in fifth gear, conjuring up molten blasts of guitar noise, squall, feedback, and rapid-fire, frenzied shredding like a man possessed. When he comes up for air, it's usually to let out an inhuman, tortured wail or two before diving back in, coaxing progressively more violent sounds out of his instrument. Haino shifts between styles with ease, conjuring up visions of blues, metal, and psychedelia when he's not in overdrive. I can only imagine the religious intensity of seeing this stuff played live; I'm sure the attendees left happy as a clam, as well as partially deaf for a week.
Ambarchi's playing on drums is commendable, since keeping up with Haino for a marathon improv session is likely among the more difficult assignments he's shouldered lately. Ambarchi switches between nimble free-jazz playing, Kraut-centric rhythms, and straightforward playing with ease, depending on Haino's mood. O'Rourke follows suit, his bass providing enough color and shading for Haino to get away with splattering paint all over the canvas. Ambarchi and O'Rourke shine brightest when Haino's tone downshifts from ALL SYSTEMS GO to less aggressive playing. Track two builds from Ambarchi's barely-there cymbals and O'Rourke's bass rumbles, with Haino adding shards of minimal psychedelic guitar and building to a crescendo 10 minutes later. Likewise, track three starts with pulsing electronics before Ambarchi shifts into a motorik rhythm and, later, O'Rourke grinds away on bass as if playing with a Kyuss cover band.
Imikuzushi makes one thing immediately clear: Keiji Haino remains one of the most exciting, vital electric guitarists working today. His career is full of rich collaborations, from free improv giants Derek Bailey, Peter Brötzmann and Tony Conrad, to avant-blues legend Loren Connors, to modern experimental artists like Boris, Pan Sonic, and Ruins' Tatsuya Yoshida. On the strength of Imikuzushi and its two predecessors, Haino's trio with Oren Ambarchi and Jim O'Rourke ought to be canonized alongside his best collaborative work. While much of Haino's work remains abstract, difficult to grasp by design, Imikuzushi has a ritualistic energy and immediacy to it that reminds me of his days in Fushitsusha. If that's not a high enough recommendation to convert O'Rourke fans, then stick to your damn Wilco records and I'll keep dreaming I was at this jaw-dropping show.
Samples:
- Still Unable to Throw Off that Teaching a Heart Left Abandoned Unable to Get Inside that Empty Space Nerves Freezing that Unconcealed Sadness...
- Ready and Waiting Ready and Tired of Waiting This Happiness Hovers for a While Opaque...
- Invited In Practically Drawn In by Something Facing the Exit of This Hiding Place Who Is It? That Went In...
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As much as I enjoy all of the musicians involved, the recently reincarnated Fenn O'Berg has thus far failed to recapture the deranged magic of their early years for me.  They can still be quite good though (and occasionally surprising).  These recordings from their 2010 Japanese tour share some of the muted, brooding tone of 2010's In Stereo, but also demonstrate that this laptop trio has not entirely abandoned their more wild, spontaneous, and absurdist tendencies.  I'm not sure if that necessarily makes In Hell stronger than its predecessor, but it at least seems a bit more striking and memorable.
In Hell reminds me of the folksy, hackneyed joke "if you don't like the weather in _____, wait five minutes!" due to its unstable, constantly shifting nature.  Despite that endless flux, however, these five pieces evoke an omnipresent mood of uneasiness, coldness, and dislocation that make the album title seem like an extraordinarily apt one.  In fact, one the closest stylistic reference points for Fenn O'Berg at this point seems to be the 20th century classical music avant-garde, as several passages sound queasily and dissonantly Morton Feldman-esque and disruptions by musique concrète-style found sounds are rampant.  Or maybe it just sounds like The Caretaker fed into a malfunctioning blender that turns itself off and on at its own whim.  There are certainly some flashes of humor hidden amidst all the alienation, like the funky and cartoonish vamp at the end of "Vampires of Hondori," but the gravity and dark tone of the surrounding material imbues them with perverse seriousness.
In any case, this album is essentially a simmering stew of minimal and disquieting musical passages constantly being augmented, consumed, or derailed by a host of buzzes, squelches, whines, crackles, bleeps, bloops, crunches, hums, and violent processing changes.  The two shorter pieces ("Omuta Elegy" and "Concrete Onions") seem to somehow maintain a linear arc of sorts, but the lengthier ones tend to end up in a very different place than they started.  The aforementioned "Vampires," for example, veers into space-y synthesizer ambiance, goofy funk, something that sounds like being enveloped by a swarm of digitized birds, an approximation of a lonely violist playing an out-of-tune instrument in hell, and something that sounds like the very fabric of the universe being ripped apart over the course of its 18-minute duration.  There's even some classic rock buried in there too.
For me, Fenn O'Berg's zenith will always be 1999's "Fenn O'Berg Theme," which perfectly blended a smokey, noirish motif with digitized, laptop chaos.  My main issue with the recently reanimated Fenn O'Berg is the absence of any similarly strong themes.  They seem to be "composing" by bouncing ideas off of each other until something coheres rather than gleefully mangling a strong, pre-existing motif.  As a result, their recent work seems to be more sophisticated, uncompromising, and daringly improvised, but the trade-off is that the relative hooklessness and amorphousness make it a less accessible and increasingly self-indulgent affair.  In fact, it's kind of analogous to shifting from bebop to free jazz: there is no decline in inspiration or vision, but it is quite a bit harder on the ears.  Consequently, their appeal for me these days is largely a cerebral one–I am fascinated by how these three unpredictable artists interact with one another and deal with amusing curveballs (like the abrupt appearance of Boston's "More Than a Feeling" in "Christian Rocks"), but I definitely wish there was sturdier structure and melodic content holding it all together.
Samples:
 
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Between this and the recently released Imikuzushi live collaboration with Keiji Haino and Jim O’Rourke, Ambarchi's work is drifting more and more into the realm of "music" rather than his more abstract tendencies. While the collaboration is a full on psychedelic rock blast, Audience of One is a more restrained, structured affair that features, among other things, an Ace Frehely cover.
Ambarchi has never been one to overly engage in dissonant noise, but his work usually is tinged with an abstract quality.On opener "Salt," the musical bent on here becomes obvious.Ambarchi's guitar work is restrained, tightly clipped notes that are paired with Paul Duncan's heavily multitracked vocals.The piece goes from subtle restraint to more grandiose, sweeping strings that have bombast, but still a delicate sound to it.
"Passage" is cut from a similar cloth, with piano and ringing wine glasses filling wide open spaces.The delicate, beautiful strings (courtesy of Eyvind Kang) give the whole piece a distinct lightness, and more than a hint of the minimalist compositions of Terry Reily or Philip Glass.
The massive "Knots" makes up more than half of the album, clocking in over 33 minutes and it's also a dramatic, sweeping piece.It opens with subtle percussion and reigned in droning instruments, both of which flow together into a tense mixture that continues to build and build in volume and intensity.Horns and dissonant tones swell up to the forefront and then pull back, leaving the sparser moments to return.
As "Knots" goes on, French horns mimic battle cries before, about half-way through, the track just opens up into balls out noise rock, emphasizing Ambarchi's electric guitar and Joe Talia’s driving rhythms.Afterward, the piece falls apart into a fragmented, abstract soundscape that differs greatly from the disciplined, structured opening.
Finally, Audience of One ends on a cover of Ace Frehely's "Fractured Mirror," which is mostly a combination of intertwined acoustic and electric guitars atop a rudimentary vintage drum machine.While the credits state that Ambarchi provided vocals on the track, they're too buried and processed to be recognizable.It’s a surprising cover choice, but a majestic one that is both respectful to its source, while also taking the track in a unique direction.
Ambarchi's Audience of One manages to transform from sparse minimalism to a full on embrace of classic rock, which is a tall order in the span of less than an hour.Even though there seems to be dramatic shifts in style, the pieces all hang together very well, and the change in dynamics works nicely.The greater emphasis on conventional sound was surprising, but as good as it is, I can't complain.
samples:
 
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As one of many of Dominick Fernow's many aliases, the debut of Vatican Shadow in 2010 could have ended up another one-off project to never be heard from again. However, going in a rhythmic direction rather than just harsh noise made for a project that stood out among its peers. Here, the second release and first full length is re-released on vinyl with a significant leap in sound quality.
The rhythmic direction that Prurient went in on Bermuda Drain and Time's Arrow was attributed by a lot of people to Fernow's membership in Cold Cave, but those seeds were sown back on the first VS release, Byzantine Private CIA (which is also slated for a vinyl reissue in the near future).Kneel Before Religious Icons is the first actual album, and like many Hospital releases, it was released in confounding format (four C10 tapes) and in an absurdly limited 33 copies, keeping out of reach of everyone except label obsessives and those who troll less than legitimate blog sites.
With a greater recognition from the less limited VS releases from late last year, as well as the parallels with recent Prurient, the project has received greater attention, and deservedly so.Here on vinyl for the first time, the sound is great, a lot more so than the original tapes, and also the music simply benefits from the warm, crackling ambience of vinyl.
From the Middle Eastern imagery and looped, rhythmic structures, Vatican Shadow has been frequently criticized as ripping off Muslimgauze, and while there are definitely similarities, the two projects are rather different from each other.VS has far more in common with the second generation of electronic industrial music (when it became danceable) than Bryn Jones' lo-fi endeavors.
"Chopper Crash Marines' Names Released" and "God's Representative on Earth" are both based on repetitive, metallic drum loops and pensive synth strings buried in the mix, balancing the melody with the clanking percussion and crunchy distortion.It's on tracks like "Harbingers of Things to Come" that the actual parallels to Muslimgauze appear, with Middle Eastern tinged FM synths and crackling rhythms.
On "Shooter in the Same Uniform as the Soldiers" and "Church of All Images," the beats are much more danceable, exemplified by the booming bass on the former and more diverse loop juggling on the latter, keeping both fresh and compelling.The more sparse and erratic structure and loping beats on "Final Victory:Christ Became a Man and had Truly Assumed Human Nature" hint at the direction the project has gone in more recently, focusing less on repetition and more on structural variation.
Being that they're all made up of repeating loops, the eight tracks that album are pretty repetitive, with most songs abruptly starting and stopping seemingly at random.It definitely conveys a specific mood, one of tension and conspiracy that would work well as film or TV backing tracks, but strong enough to stand on their own.With its similarity between tracks and repetitive nature, this is just the right length work to keep things fresh, and the mastering for vinyl is a dramatic step up from the original tapes.Of all of Fernow's projects, this one has been the most captivating since I first heard it, so I’m eager to hear what new work this wider exposure may lead to.
samples:
 
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Start to finish, Mirrorring's debut is submerged in a hazy, blurred production aesthetic. This is not only unsurprising, it's exactly what I would have predicted from this collaboration between Liz Harris (of Grouper) and Jesy Fortino (of Tiny Vipers) before hearing a single reverbed note. Fortunately, Liz Harris' age-old trick is a good one, and Fortino's contributions are key, making Foreign Body more than the sum of its contributors' parts.
Opening track "Fell Sound" takes an immediate swan-dive into murky, immersive drone textures that are recognizable as Liz Harris' work to anyone lucky enough to snag vinyl-only pressings of last year's mighty A I A: Dream Loss and Alien Observer records. As on each of Grouper's records, the reverbed-to-high-heavens production is as much an intended focal point as Harris' cloudy vocals and muffled guitar strumming. What keeps "Fell Sound" (and the whole album, really) from seeming like A I A leftovers is the collaborative element shining through: Jesy Fortino's guitar counterpoint cuts through the fog like the distant headlights of an oncoming car. The song is quite evocative and pretty, if a predictable way to kick things off.
As the album progresses, Fortino's contributions come to light in her singing, which is warmer and more welcoming (and intelligible) than Harris' ghostly shards of voice. "Cliff" and "Mine" both layer Fortino's voice on top of a thick blanket of sound, with Harris' guitar playing smeared and blurred unto infinity, as if beamed in from oceanic depths under cover of night. As an aesthetic foil, Fortino solemnly finger-picks her acoustic guitar, letting small clusters of notes waft from the immersive drone. It's gorgeous stuff, to be sure, and sounds best played at high volume or on headphones, when the sounds are able to wash over my ears like a rising tide. As background music, it warms up a room admirably, with nothing abrasive or unexpected cutting through and spoiling the mood.
Room for improvement lies in the fact that both of these ladies know how to write a killer tune, and Foreign Body could use a couple more songs as opposed to sounds. Fortino's made a career out of melancholy vocal-and-guitar solo work on her two Sub Pop albums, and Harris' lovely song-cycle on Dragging a Dead Deer up a Hill shows that she can write memorable songs when she puts her mind to it ("Heavy Water/I'd Rather Be Sleeping"), as opposed to focusing strictly on atmosphere. Bits of Fortino's songwriting prowess sneak into Mirrorring tracks like "Silent from Above," which pairs the album's most evocative melody with Harris' soft backing vocals and a barely-there drone that evokes Grouper's most restrained work. "Silent from Above" stands as Foreign Body's best song, and the one melody I can clearly recall (i.e., hum to myself) after spending a couple weeks with the album.
Foreign Body was put to tape during a recording session in Portland, Oregon. It sounds cozy and personal, and it's obvious Fortino and Harris were in the same room together, feeding off each other's energy (and/or melancholy) in real time, as opposed to swapping MP3 files. Much of the album also sounds improvised, like Harris kicked off each piece by building guitar loops into a layered drone (as anyone who has seen her play live can attest) and providing space for Fortino to weave in acoustic guitar lines accordingly. In a brief interview last month, Fortino talked about her experience making the album: "We recorded most of the songs together live. [...] Most records I've done on my own are very straightforward, just a room mic and me singing and playing acoustic. So it was fun trying to go with Liz in an abstract direction."
In that same interview, Harris added color on the creative process and the pair's aesthetic differences: "We end up balancing each other out because of the way we're bringing this resonance out in our tones or sounds. She has a stronger voice than I do, and plays a brighter acoustic guitar, and picks out points rather than making washes of sounds. I tend to stay quieter and make these more blanket-y, low-end things." She's right, and as a midway point between Harris and Fortino's distinct, previously defined sounds, Foreign Body is a success. Most of what it leaves to be desired as a song cycle, it makes up on the strength of its immersive palette of sounds, as well as its merging of two visions into a cohesive whole.
Samples:
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Artist: Sleep Research Facility
Title: Stealth
Catalogue No: CSR159CD
Barcode: 8 2356650762 8
Format: 2 x CD in jewelcase
Genre: Drone / Dark Ambient
Shipping: 9th April
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Sublime new album from the drone / dark ambient legend.
As a project commissioned for Cold Spring, "Stealth" presents itself as an exploration of sounds neither here nor there, textures camouflaged against their own background noise, and the distant crackling telemetric code-speak of a vague humanity hidden behind a cloak of deadly high-technology. Comprising of five deeply-layered extended tracks, mixed and edited from re-sampled location recordings originally captured inside the hanger environs of a Northrop-Grumman B-2 Stealth Bomber, during a period of downtime maintenance at a U.S. Air Force base in Cambridgeshire, England. Original field recordings and texture preparations by FOURM/Si_Comm.
First edition pressing of 1000 copies includes bonus disc comprised of this *pre-mix* material in its original, un-edited form, as a representation of the source audio from which "Stealth" was reconstituted.
Deep listening inspired by one of the most mysterious aircraft of the twentieth-century. Headphones recommended.
Tracks:
Disc 1: 1. Stealth1 | 2. Stealth2 | 3. Stealth3 | 4. Stealth4 | 5. Stealth5
Disc 2: Source
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Artist: Burial Hex
Title: Book Of Delusions
Catalogue No: CSR166CD
Barcode: 8 23566507529
Format: CD in jewelcase
Genre: Horror Electronics / Ritual / Post-Industrial
Shipping: 9th April
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During the period in which Clay Ruby first began working on this piece of art, he had become so completely surrounded by evil and deception that he was forced to begin summoning a particularly extreme and ancient force of protection and vitality just to make it alive through the end of 2008. Aside from spiritually fortifying Ruby's life, the complexities of these new elemental entities brought with them circumstances causing a much more rich and intense recording experience than he could have ever composed on his own. Classic horror electronics and post-industrial apocalyptic soundscapes with unsettling notes, anguished cries and voices of the dead. His most ritualistic album yet.
Reissue of the extremely limited LP with bonus tracks taken from the split LPs with Kinit Her and Zola Jesus, all available on CD for the first time! All tracks have been carefully remastered.
Tracks: 1. Final Litany | 2. Urlicht | 3. Crowned & Conquering Child | 4. The Book Of Delusions | 5. God Of War And Battle | 6. Storm Clouds | 7. Go Crystal Tears | 8. Temple Of The Flood
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I am not at all surprised that Jim Jarmusch has finally made an album, but given his past links to folks like RZA,  Mulatu Astatke, and Tom Waits, I did not exactly expect his musical debut to be a duet with a Dutch lutenist.  As it turns out, however, Jozef van Wissem turns out to be a very comfortable and effective foil for Jarmusch's rather abstract guitar work.  While this isn't a deep or substantial album by any means (despite the grandiose implications of the Swedenborgian title), it is nevertheless quite a warm and likable one and it never sounds at all tossed-off or overwrought.
This is not the first time that Jarmusch and van Wissem have worked together, as Jarmusch contributed guitar to last year's The Joy That Never Ends.  That, of course, goes a long way towards explaining why this duo seem so at ease interacting with each other musically.  That also goes a long way towards explaining the basic stylistic thrust of this effort: it basically sounds like a Jozef van Wissem album, but slower and more spacious.  Josef's simple, ringing melodies are generally what hold the songs together and give them direction, but he leaves lots of room for Jarmusch to provide depth and color.  There are some exceptions, however.  The big one is the 9-minute "The Sun of the Natural World is Pure Fire," as van Wissem keeps his contribution fairly minimal to allow Jim's roiling, snarling howls of feedback and dissonant bent notes to take center stage.  To his credit, Jarmusch has no trouble making that work, unleashing a controlled cacophony that would not sound at all out of place at a Spiritualized concert.  Jim returns the favor for "He is Hanging by his Shiny Arms," allowing van Wissem to unfold a very pleasant and trill-heavy melody on his own, stepping in only near the end to cryptically recite several lines from a poem by St. John of the Cross.
As skilled as Jarmusch is at harnessing and sculpting distortion and feedback, the success is still largely dependent on the strength of van Wissem's framework.  Aside from the aforementioned "Shiny Arms," the best piece is probably the title one, as Jozef does a beautiful job dynamically switching back and forth between simplicity and rich harmony throughout.  There aren't any particularly weak compositions among these five pieces though, as even the more dirge-like ones ultimately catch fire or offer some sort of subtle delight.  The album's sole flaw seems to be that some of the songs tend to explore just one motif for a while, then just kind of abruptly end.  That certainly betrays vamp/improvisational origins, but the  pieces rarely overstay their welcome and the spontaneous/organic feel of the interactions make that seem like a pretty favorable trade-off.  I'm not even tempted to balk at the numerous allusions to Christian mysticism that would normally seem hugely out of place for such an intimate, loose, and unpretentious affair.  Perhaps I am just predisposed to like these two, but the themed and evocative titles seem to actually elevate this pleasant song suite into something that feels more meaningful and enticingly mysterious than it otherwise would have.
Samples:
- Concerning the Entrance into Eternity
- The Sun of the Natural World is Pure Fire
- He is Hanging by His Shiny Arms, His Heart an Open Wound with Love
 
 
 
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