Harlow –Funerary Call, Sistrenatus– has a new project: Stars Without Light. “Beneath And Before” is announced for 15 December and will be available on cd in an edition of 300 copies. The album is announced as “dark ambient”, but as usually with this artist, the genre is stretched into more industrial and noisy directions as well.
Most of the tracks are indeed dark ambient, but more in the soundscapish end of the genre. At other times the ‘scapes’ are more noisy and here and there SWL goes into more rhythmic and ritual directions. The atmosphere is dark and threatening (‘of course’ I would almost say).
Not the dark ambient of stretched sounds, but more that of the industrial ambient sound collage type.
The Coffinshakers keep reaching me by surprising ways. Halfway the 1990’ies I found a flyer of their “Vampiric country music undead” among more usual metal (and related) flyers. Country music in the dark metal scene. Odd, yet amusing.
Many years later I was working through the psychobilly (and “gothabilly”) scene and I learned that The Coffinshakers were still undead and kicking. It seemed that the band did play live, but not outside Scandinavia, so I started to suggest them for the Wave Gotik Treffen every year, especially when that festival started to incorporate psychobilly, The Coffinshakers would fit wonderfully. No succes so far.
Then earlier this year The Coffinshakers were announced to play at the Helldorado festival in my home town! I immediately bought tickets. Helldorado is the follow up of Speedfest. Speedfest towards the end was no longer a strictly speedrock/psychobilly festival as other kinds of rock and metal started to be booked as well. Helldorado was last weekend. There was a stage with mainly metal, a stage with different kinds of rock and a small stage for a variety of bands, including a psychobilly band and… The Coffinshakers.
The band gave a wonderful show. Rob Coffinshaker mentioned that there was a new album after 16 years of silence. Fortunately they played many up-tempo old songs, some dating back almost three decades.
The new album is (on the Coffinshakers scale) down- to midtempo, fairly melancholic, at times very accessible, but still with the Vampire-theme lyrics. An odd mix with songs that would fit well on Americana-type radio shows, yet with lyrics that require a certain kind of humor. The album is nice. The band has good musicians and Rob still has his Johnny Cash-type voice. So when you are looking for something out of the ordinary, The Coffinshakers still are.
Released exactly a year after “Gladio“, “Angor” is the new vinyl of the “Krankpop” duo Thorofon. Also released today is a cd with both “Gladio” and “Angor” on it.
After a noisy opening comes the nice ‘industrial disco’ (as I call it) track “Perfection”. What follows is different kinds of industrial, from more EBM type danceable tracks to more sound collage noisy tracks. Of course there is also the dirty, rhythmic Thorofon sound. There is also a track recorded together with Te/DIS.
“Angor” is rougher than the somewhat more EBM oriented predecessor, so when you listen to the cd, the music gets rougher and rougher. Not a bad approach!
Kadaitcha is a (post) industrial project duo, half of which also has a solo project in more of an angstpop vein called Kojoohar. Kadaitcha has been around since at least 2016.
“Fracture” sounds more industrial than what I have heard of Kadaitcha before.
Thus I earlier wrote about Kadaitcha. The second remark I can repeat. “Tramontane” is a pretty industrial album, a bit of the ‘industrial rock’ type perhaps. Just as on “Fracture” there are the guitars, but not as noisy this time. “Tramontane” also contains some less industrial tracks, such as the somewhat “angstpoppy” “Knife”. Most of the other tracks are quite chaotic, sound-/noisescapes with guitars, beats and vocals.
I think this album may mostly appear to people who like the old style guitar based industrial.
In 1987 Dave Kirby started Satori after having been active in the noise duo Psychopath for a few years. In 1994 Justin Mitchel of the Cold Spring label joined and after a pause in 2007 Satori became a three piece project. By 2012 Satori was a solo project again, but the new album is announced to be released on Cold Spring within a month.
“The Woods” is another massive wall of noise with highly distorted vocals. The sound reminds quite a bit of Control at times. Some tracks start a bit ambient to give the listener some rest, but pretty soon the dentist drill sound and other noises that make a wall of noise set in. As before the tracks also have a bit of an industrial side with heavy blasts, but it are the chainsaws and the screeching that are mostly noticeable. Somehow the sonic mayhem works quite well for me, but even on my scale “The Woods” makes a pretty tough listen, so it will probably not be an album that I will play a lot.
Petra Flurr is an interesting artist, but by the time I discovered the wonderful albums “Puffmutter” (2009) and “Download Selbstmord” (2012) they were ‘too old to review’. Obviously I do not follow him close enough, as there have been several releases since.
Flurr usually works with other artists. Modernista, 89st or Unhuman. “Mala Vida” is not the first cooperation with Unhuman. The sound of Petra Flurr holds the middle between old school EBM and electropunk. Discogs describes him as: “Italian/German queer punk electro EBM singer and performer” which I suppose fits the bill. Unhuman is originally a Greek who also moved to Berlin.
Flurr’s voice reminds of old school EBM’ers and also the sound leans towards things such as DAF every now and then. Some tracks have a typical ‘disco speed’ which goes for the whole of “Mala Vida”. On other releases the speed can be a little higher.
“Mala Vida” is (in my opinion) not the best album of Flurr, but it is still good and easy listening and like with a project such as Infecticide or Parzival on the more cheerful end of my musical spectrum.
The long running Canadian Funerary Call teamed up with the relatively new American band Sutekh Hexen. In three decades, Funerary Call went from “ritual music” to dark / ritual ambient to more noisy material and soundscapes. Sutekh Hexen goes from experimental doom to blasting black metal and also an occasional soundscape. What would the combination bring?
The opening track is a soundscape with a noisy start. Other tracks can also be described as “soundscapes” or sometimes perhaps “noisescapes”. Some tracks are dark and tranquil. At other times the tracks are more noisy. Mostly, there are stretched sounds and vocals giving the material a bit of a ‘ritual feel’. Here and there there is a blast. There are not many metal elements. In the opening track there is some guitar and in “Towards The Eastern Gate” screeching guitars set in about half way, but I would not have mind if that happened more often.
The album is descent, but not the best material of either project in my opinion.
“P:R:I:S:M” has eight tracks and almost 54 minutes running time. The album comes on cd, double lp (red or black vinyl) and through digital means.
In the Ant-Zen series of luxury 7″s comes the first Pasquier in several years. Two new tracks, both uptempo and both again somewhat different from what Geneviève did before.
“Cannibal Night” is a nice track with a bit of a punky feel. “Berühren” is more of a romantic electroclash song that opens softly, but is sped up by a beat after a little.
Both tracks are Pasquier’s take on old tracks, both originals I did not yet know. In the case of “Cannibal Night” by Nox the new version is not that far from the original, but now there is an uptempo beat. Profil’s original is already a punky synthpop track, which -as mentioned- sounds more romantic in the Pasquier’s version.
Tanz Ohne Musik found their way to Ant-Zen who present a 7″ and (of course) a digital version.
Side A has the title track, a melancholic minimal wave track. “Cold” is more in the angstpop style that TOM sometimes produces. With some distance, this is the most interesting track to me. In the last track, TOM tried something new. “Mescaline Swimming” is a somewhat uptempo track, a bit in an electropunk direction. Amusing.
14 July Cold Spring will present another label compilation. Two cds, 33 tracks, 2,5 hours of music. Most tracks are from earlier releases (unfortunately), a few are from forthcoming releases.
Since Cold Spring releases different kinds of music, “Arise” goes from the heavy industrial of Kollaps and Khost to the dark ambient sounds of Jagath and Sleep Research Facility, noise by the likes of of Himukalt and Satori to more folky sounds such as those of Coil and FM Einheit. There are scene classics. Coil as we already saw, but there are also Merzbow, SPK and Genesis P-Orridge. Also projects that were new to me.
A large part of “Arise” is dark ambient and soundscape, not entirely my cup of tea. The good tracks I already knew. I guess this compilation is mostly meant as an introduction to Cold Spring.
