It has been way too long since the last real album of The Prodigy (“Always Outnumbered” 2004), but finally a new album is announced. “Invaders Must Die” should be available by 2 March. As a teaser, tonight (that is 26 november) at 19.30 (that is 7.30 PM London time) the new single with the same title as the album will be available online for a week from theprodigy.com.
So yesterday in Rotterdam we went to see three bands. The opening act was unknown to me: Oorchach. The music went from dark (industrial) ambient to industrial. The music was not really bad, not really good, but the ‘vocals’ were quite awfull. Next up was a completely boring show by Die Weisse Rose. A couple of people on stage wearing uniforms, much drumming and spoken and screamed texts. On the background was minimalistic music (inspired by Les Joyaux De La Princesse, just as the bandname?). Six or seven years ago when so-called “martial music” was still upcoming, this might have been nice, but today it’s just a big cliche and not well done either. Fortunately Foresta Di Ferro was a lot better, even though the entire previous band was on stage. FdF went from harsch industrial to weird folky music, neofolk and soundscapes. Not bad at all, but a big tumbs down for the guys of the PA: the whole night the music was so extremely load that it distorted and not only the DJ had an awfull sound (even killing Blood Axis), but the bands suffered the same. Extreme volume levels are not a good thing, for anything.
(And yes, the photos are so small so that you don’t see how bad they are!)
I don’t remember what I was looking for, but last week I was on Last.fm, not a website where I can be found very often. I stumbled upon Herz Jühning, a name that didn’t ring a bell. The man appeared to be on Galakthorrö, so I decided to see if I could listen to some music (Last.fm doesn’t offer any.) Since everybody seems to have a Myspace, also does Jühning. Very nice industrial disco. Perhaps a bit too much reminding of Haus Arafna, but very, very nice. Jühning only has a sold out 7″. Too bad!
This running into Galakthorrö made me decide to have a better look at the label. Their “Galakthorrö – Kosmoloko” compilation has some nice tracks on it from Haus Arafna and November Növelet (of course), but also Karl Runau and Maska Genetik. The last project Subliminal has better tracks on her Myspace than on the compilation. So, I got in contact with Galakthorrö and ordered some albums that I should have bought before. Too bad that there is nothing available from Maska Genetik anymore.
In any case, I had heard the term “angstpop” before, but I didn’t know what people mean with it. It appears to refer to music in ‘the Galakthorrö vein’, the not (too) industrial or noise tracks of Haus Arafna or November Növelet, Karl Runau, etc. The label itself uses the term too. So I guess I missed something. In any case, the term now seems to be (ab)used in many ways. It is an album by SPK, there is a website angstpop.com which is about a much larger scope of music, new bands having nothing to do with Galakthorrö claim to play “angstpop” (and indeed a band such as the Dutch Distel has a ‘Galakthorric sound’). I guess after 10 years of existence, mr. and mrs. Arafna have made way to a new trend. I’ll just look around a little to see if it’s all good enough to listen to.
This morning I had to quickly get something to feed my cd-player. On opening my cd case and looking through it, my eye fell on a digipack that I didn’t immediately recognise. I turned out to be Werkraum. Hearing that album again, I remember why I seldom listen to or buy neofolk, even though I seem to have 133 neofolk reviews. Still later today I played Cawatana. The review that I link to is over five years old and still my opinion about the genre is about the same. Actually I wonder if anything happened at all? New Eislicht bands, Berkana, Nebelung, it still sounds all the same to me.
Fortunately ‘the scene’ as a whole slowly develops more interesting sounds every now and then, so I can just leave all the cheesy neofolk and buy something else.
On 1 November 2008 Foresta Di Ferro will play in Rotterdam (Baroeg) together with Die Weisse Rose and Oorchach. For more information see myspace.com/dwaalspoor.
Yesterday we were at the Luchtbal were a couple of Cyclic Law bands performed. I mostly came to see Karjalan Sissit. First up was Northaunt, who gave away a nice soundscapes show with some very dark moments; next was Svartsinn (the brother of Northaunt?), again fairly dark soundscapes and again not too bad. Mr. Cyclic Law makes music under the monicker Visions and even though he has a more noisy sound, I liked him least of the festival yesterday. Karjalan gave a troubled show. Actually it was hardly a show, only the intro and one track worked out alright. Then came some fuss over incorrect order of tracks and in the end the DVD player “died on us” which apparently stopped the whole show (not just the visuals). By the time an alternative had come up with the band no longer felt like playing so we all went home after 45 minutes of verbal aggression from the stage and the audience. I hope for the band that the show this afternoon in Alkmaar (Netherlands) goes better.
Yesterday I was looking for something to play while reading. Usually that means tranquil and with no vocals. My eye fell on When, does anybody remember When? I own the “Death In The Blue Lake” cd (1988), “Black White And Grey” cd (1991) (which I played partially) and the “Svartedauen/Black Death” cd (1992) (which I played). Looking at the Discogs page of this project, there seem to be releases until this very day! I did not know that. I am actually curious what Lars Pedersen makes these days.
When also made me want to play Ginger Leigh, not that this American project has the same sound, but it does have that weird originality too; so I played Ginger Leigh when I came home from work today. Actually Ginger Leigh is (also) a project with not enough recognition in my eyes.
So, what has been in my players recently?
Yesterday I put Incendium II in my player and then I had to think about this compilation that starts with Turnbund Sturmwerk. I couldn’t remember which compilation it was, but after scanning my collection for a while, I remember the red cover and then I knew it: Juche! Juche is a nice noise compilation, only the Con-Dom track is one that I skip. When it was finished, I put in Incendium II again, starting with the Vestigial track and ending with Ex.Order, two magnificent tracks.
Previous days I have been playing Thorofon (the older material), the Vestigial album, but also Geneviève Pasquier (the female half of Thorofon with a great industrial electropop sound) and Audio Output 3, a great “tekno” compilation. It has been a while since I got new music, so I will look around a little to see if anything interesting was released.
I noticed that Gangleri recently receives hits with searches for Lore Of Asmoday. I found that strange, since the band quit almost 10 years ago. I don’t remember exactly when and how I got to know the band, but I do know that in that time, I loved them and bought several of their demos and wrote reviews in the media that I wrote for in the time. One review (I guess the last one) ended up on Sententia or Monas (the previous names of my website) or so and can now be found on Gangleri. That is were people run into when looking for the band. Read the review for a story of the band.
Since there seem to be quite a few people looking for Lore Of Asmoday, I did a little searching myself. The band has a Myspace and a website, so I guessed the band has come back from the dead. Indeed, the Myspace blog suggests that this may happen and there actually is new material. Some of the old material can be downloaded as mp3. The weird ways of the scene.
The sound seems to have shifted a little to a more goth-oriented one and in the past 10 years my musical taste didn’t stay exactly the same, but perhaps I will listen to some old and new material when I find the time.
My eye just fell on an item in the Going Underground rarities list. This is actually the Der Blutharsch 5 x 7″ box for sale, for the absurd cost of 350 euros (if I’d make that to dollars, I’d some to something like $ 540 with the current rate).
Long ago, I was in Gent (Belgium) to see The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath A Cloud (not for the first time btw.). They were still together and Herr Julius had made a solo release under the name Der Blutharsch. I bought that LP at the concert. There was a little card in it with which owners of the LP could order a 7″ and that again for a few times. Then there was a card for a 5 x 7″ box. Not cheap, but I figured that these very limited releases of a sideproject of the cultband TMLHBAC would be worth having, so I sent my cash to Austria, like I did a couple of times before. (This was all before the internet, euros, etc.) On inquiring where my box was, I got a letter from Julius that he never got my cash and he had similar complaints from other people. Apparently his mailman found out that all those letters he received contained dollars… Since I thought that Der Blutharsch was nothing compared to TMLHBAC, I didn’t try again to get the box, hell, I didn’t even buy the first cd that contains the music from the 7″s! When the style got better and TMLHBAC was debunked, I started buying and loving Der Blutharsch, but my collection always remained incomplete, since I hadn’t been able to lay my hands on the 7″ box. When Julius started to release more very limited vinyls, but now only sold at Ebay or only at concerts, I missed several releases. Too bad, I still have most, but I have no intention to pay a crazy sum of 350 euros just to get that 7″ box afterall. Would anybody?