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experimental

Temple Of Clear Light – Eosphoros (2023)

Dan Serbanescu’s best known project is probably Tanz Ohne Musik. He makes music under more monickers. On his Alone In The Hollow Garden Bandcamp, you can find (of course) A.I.T.H.G., but also MMXXIII, Amaterasu and Temple Of Clear Light. There usually are the typical and beautiful grey esoteric designs on black backgrounds. The sound is often the A.I.T.H.G. type experimental, slightly ritual industrial music which is alright, but not entirely my thing.

Also “Eosphoros” opens with a ritual industrial soundscape and an ambient track. Things get more interesting when a bit of rhythm appears in the third track. That tracks is perhaps a little (too much) “trance ambient” (to just name a phrase), but a little further, there is perhaps more IDM. The combination of esoteric, ritual, industrial ambient, could also go into the direction of an Oake type dark techno. Serbanescu could probably do that too.

In general I want to suggest you scanning the A.I.T.H.G. Bandcamp if you like ritualistic ambient and industrial music. The most interesting to me there are the T.P.C.L. releases. Perhaps not brilliant, but certainly interesting.

Link: T.O.C.L.

Slow Slow Loris – Solve Et Coagula (2023)

In spite the fact that this is not the first release of Slow Slow Loris and that earlier releases are made available by labels that I know, such as Zaetraom and (like the present title) Cloister, the odd band name did not ring a bell.

“Solve Et Coagula” is released today through Bandcamp and on tape. When I put on the album I thought ‘hm, some sort of experimental soundscape type of thing, not entirely my cup of tea’. The vocals reminded me a bit of Alzbeth of The Moon Lay Hidden and on closer listening, the project brings memories of the pre-TMLHBAC project L.A.A.

The music consists of sound experiments which go from soundscapes to more industrial and noise(y) parts. There seems to be guitars and then there are the almost constant vocals of Angela Nina Yeowell. The result is certainly uncommon compared to what I listen to more often, but the more I hear of the album, the more it grows on me. This is actually pretty interesting music. I will have to listen to the previous releases of this project.

You can listen to (and buy) this new album here.

Links: Slow Slow Loris, Cloister Recordings

Post Scriptvm ‎– Variola Vera (2019)

Discogs.com

In the early 2000’s I bought cds from the American Somanbulant Corpse (later: Somnambulant) label. Usually in the DVD A5 type package. The had some projects that became legendary, such as Murderous Vision (also still alive) and Post Scriptvm.

Post Scriptvm later released an excellent album on Propergol’s Hermetique label (“Marginal Existence” 2005). This was a weird, dark, noisy ambient kind of thing. The sound shifted more towards soundscapes which appeal to me less.

Putting on “Variola Vera” I thought that this would be another such soundscape-album, but I am happy to say that the second track (“Born Into Trauma”) is an excellent piece of “ambient noise”. Not too extreme, a pulsating rhythms, highly distorted vocals, but with that weird Post Scriptvm Sound.

The rest of the album is mostly the strange ambient soundscape type of sound with only here and there the vocals and a more industrial approach. Interesting, different, but not too much to my liking.

Links: Post Scriptvm, Tesco

O Saala Sakraal – Etmaal (cd 2018)

Only out on December 21th, but the good thing about running a website is that sometimes I get promo material. Here we have a collaboration between five Dutchmen including two from Hadewych (and hence, including Distel).  Indeed, O Saala Sakraal reminds of Hadewych here and there.

Hadewych has a ‘soundscapish’ sound, but with guitar and more energy here and there, a quite unique sound that is hard to describe. That soundscape side is more prominent in O Saala Sakraal, but also here and there the sound becomes more ‘lively’. The music is fairly dark, nicely weird (but not as weird as Hadewych), contains several vocalists who recite poems, scream or sing. Overall this album is more tranquil from what we know from Hadewych and (of course) somewhat different in sound, but I think that band gives the best idea of what to expect from the album that has a Dutch title which cannot be immediately translated to English (perhaps being the reason for being chosen?). The word “etmaal” refers to a day of 24 hours. There are two tracks of about 20 minutes by the way.

So, a nice album if you like something dark and original.

Link: Cyclic Law

Hadewych – Welving (cd 2018)

You can leave the making of weird music to Peter Johan Nijland. Nijland is probably better known for his project Distel, but he has other projects too and Hadewych is not a new project either. I know Hadewych’s previous full-length (untitled) in the 2009 rerelease, but judging Discogs I missed a range of smaller releases.

Hadewych found its way to Malignant Records which will certainly improve the spread of the release. “Welving” is an odd release on Malignant though. Just as on the debut, the music has quite a lot of guitar. Sometimes the music reaches towards (industrial) metal, most of the time it is dark and ‘droney’ though (with or without guitars), sometimes slightly ritualistic. The combination of guitars and dark electronics brings memories of bands such as Necro Deathmort or The Body. The mix between dark and ‘sweeter’ sounds made me think of Dream Into Dust as well. It is not like Hadewych really sounds like these bands, but just to give you an idea of the odd sound.

“Welving”, just as on Distel releases, contains poetic lyrics, often in Dutch. The album is somewhat short, but contains good to exceptionally good tracks.

Indeed, recommended!

Links: Hadewych, Malignant Records

Hermann Kopp ‎* Cantos Y Llantos (7″ 2017)

Hermann Kopp is the only ‘atypical’ project on Galakthorrö. The other projects sound quite alike. However this ‘other sound’ is good in a way, Kopp happens to be the only Galakthorrö project that I do not really like… Also it is one of the few projects that also releases material through other labels.

Kopp makes weird music. He experiments with his violin and his voice and mixes that with some sort of soundscapes. The result is interesting, but not always my taste. When you know previous releases of Kopp (on Galakthorrö, I never heard any of his other releases), you will have a fair idea of what the four tracks on “Cantol Y Llantos” sound like.

Links: Hermann Kopp, Galakthorrö

v/a * मोक्ष (mc 2015)

I do not receive a whole lot of promo/to-review material. Actually I am glad about that. When I buy an album and do not like it, I will say so; when I do, the same. I hear a lot of music that I am indifferent to. It may work as background music, it does not annoy me, nor does it please me. When I get such an album, I frequently decide not to review it at all. The owner of the Russian UIS label insisted that I would listen to their “post industrial” compilation to hear its brilliance. I did listen to this compilation, three times. There are but few reviews on this website of albums that I heard three times before reviewing it. Still I find it difficult to write this review. However the music on this compilation is varried in musical style, all tracks seem to have something incommon. They do not really ‘work for me’. But, to (probably) present you some new names, here we go for a free Bandcamp compilation that was earlier presented as an audio cassette.

The title of this compilation translates as “Mokṣa”, a Sanskrit term that according to the label means “breaking from chains of reincarnation and all the miseries of material existence”. The music is inspired by the funeral music of the balinese village of Trunyan. There are nine tracks on the compilation. The opening act is the Russian project Obt Grubuscrum with a rather typical, but descent, ritualistic dark ambient track (think of Herbst9 for example), Project Hypoxia reminds more of the Hyperium sound with melodic, ‘ethnic’ sounding music. Per Aspera also starts with such a sound, but goes over in something somewhat technoish. Next up is Bhārata Mātā with a bit of an experimental tribalish track. After this we get a slightly darker, yet melodic track of Krrau. As with Bharata Mata, we now get another piece of experimental tribal industrial, perhaps reminding of the more tranquil material of Hybryds; the project is named ﻗﺎﻣﺖ ﺍﻟﺳﺎﻋﺔ. Угасание is more dark ambient soundscape type music. The same can be said about Vehjora, but this goes over in guitar-drone. The closing track is weird minimalistic and experimental music; Discogs has it listed as “ethno-ambient” which roughly covers the sound (but could be applied to other tracks as well); the project is presented under the monicker Ajuleg & Irm.

The compilation works as background music, but to me the music is not interesting enough to really listen to it. What is somewhat funny, I more or less get the same feeling with each track (indifference, there are not really ‘highs’ and ‘lows’). Would that mean that “Mokṣa” is very well compiled?

Link: UIS

v/a * Martyred Heretics (cd 2014)

I got this compilation with a Beläten order. It is limited to 200 copies and so far the only release on the Mustard Relics Recordings label.

After an introduction follows a nice track of what we would call “minimal wave” nowadays, but according to Discogs the project called Prayers only released two 7″s on WEA and EMI in 1990 and 1992, filed “eurohouse”!
Continuing with Angels Dust, a new project that creates strange ‘beat-scapes’ with female vocals. Perhaps best described as IDM. Not really my cup of tea. The other track of Angels Dust does not sound entirely alike, but the description again fits.
Pornostroika Dadaifi also contributed two tracks. Discogs lists them as a “Cyber Punk band formed in 1999 in Lesvos, Greece”. This may go for the weird and nice second track, the first is a less interesting experimental, atmospheric thing; perhaps old-style-industrial is a decription.
Another project with no releases on Discogs: Mach Baron. Their only track starts as dark ambient, but quickly goes over in quite typical “gabber”, hardcore techno.
Then we have a project that does have two releases on Discogs, recent even, 2014. Street Sects makes noisy industrial rock. Not of the typical Ministry style, but do think in that direction.
After this follows the only project that I knew: Blitzkrieg Baby. Kim Sølve contributed a nice, strange and slow industrial track.
The next project I have not mentioned until here presents an interesting track. Pyrotoxxxn starts with a dark sound over rattling beats and after a more quiet middle part continues with more ‘hiphopish’ rhythms. The end becomes more energetic and interesting again.
So how do I describe the track of Peopling? A steady, noisy pulse functions as rhythm. A (digitalised?) bass guitar makes the only thing that can be called a melody and then there are strange vocals. A noisy interlude slides into a more quiet end. A very interesting track! Peopling has another interesting track. “Groundloss” I think is more in the nowave tradition with noise created with guitars and effects.
A long track is Scab Queen‘s “White Forest” of almost 10 minutes. This is a (to me) uninteresting unstructured ‘scape of sounds’.
The longest track lasts almost 15 minutes. Glanko‘s “Terr” (live!) starts as dark ambient, takes over a third of the track to go over in a more guitar-trance like middle part with a piano-synth and ends more spacey again. A track much different from what came before, but interesting when you enjoy experimental spacerock kind of music.

Not only uncommon names, but also uncommon sounds. Some of it is quite nice, so “Martyred Heretics” makes a good surprice. Buy as cd or Bandcamp release. Click on the link below.

Link: Mustard Relics Records

Sebastian Melmoth‎ * In Ruins (mc 2014)

I ordered this tape from the Beläten Bigcartel rather than the Bandcamp shop, so I had not heard it when I ordered it. What to think of a description speaking of “post-rock vibes, psychedelic ballads, epic dirges, motorik-driven acoustic dance music, twitching post-punk”? The tape certainly is experimental!
The opening track is a tranquil track loaded with speech-samples. Then we continue with post/noise rock, industrial and more poppy or wave songs. Not the most common combinations indeed. I do not immediately love this tape, but it all sounds quite interesting and I think it will grow with a few more listenings.
Link: Beläten

Post Scriptvm‎ * Benommenheit (cd 2014)

I had no idea that Post Scriptvm had a new album coming until it showed up in the Tesco newsletter. It is even released by Tesco. Well, the previous two albums were too, so this is not too strange.
I love “Marginal Existence” (2005), from then on Post Scriptvm seemed to become less dark and more experimental. The following albums were all interesting, but I mostly like this project for the older material. When I put on “Benommenheit”, I was pleased to hear some pretty dark material, somewhat noisy even, great! A bit furtheron this album reminds more of the previous album “Grey Emminence” (2010) which is alright, but less interesting to my ears.
All in all certainly one of the more interesting releases in the style that I will for convenience sake call “dark ambient” and especially the first tracks are great.
Links: Post Scriptvm, Tesco