Skip to content

experimental

Ginger Leigh * A True Life Story (cd 2003 masuno)

The promo copy of this cd came to me with a long list of quotes from reviews of colleagues who all recognise the originality of this American project. Ginger Leigh mixes noise and some industrial with ethnic ((near) Eastern) sounds, some tribal drumming and avantgardistic music that reminds me of When sometimes. 16 Tracks and 43.31 minutes of crazyness and originality. Here and there a shred of recognition, but often not at all. If you want some vague comparisons, I can refer to Tesco acts like C.O.T.A. and Cruelty Campaign (both also from the USA) whose music I referred to as “livingroom industrial”, “industrial soundscapes” and “industrial hearplay”. All these descriptions I could also use for Ginger Leigh. That does not mean that Ginger Leigh sounds much like the two mentioned bands, but if you like them, I think you will also like this. As said, I hear When here and there and maybe if you like the State-Art kind of industrial, you should try to get your hands on this one. Quality-wise, I would say that Ginger Leigh comes between Cruelty Campaign and C.O.T.A., not too far after CC.
Good to hear that there is still original music from the industrial scene. “Sophisticated noise”, how is that for a description?

Dream Into Dust * The Lathe Of Heaven (cd 2003 chthonic streams)

At last there is a new DID cd. It was a long wait since the masterpiece “The World We Have Lost”. A less interesting (but still nice) 7″ and compilation contributions in the meantime and now a new fulllength. Derek Rush released it himself and did the wonderfull artwork himself as well. Musically DID has evolved but is still obviously DID. A strange but magnificent mix between tranquil electronic music, industrial, rock, acoustic guitars and the vocals of Rush and time also a violin. The cd is fairly melancholic and tranquil, but not without some harscher industrial sounds. 52 Minutes of great music of one of the best and most original bands from the scene.

Dernière Volonté/Novy Svet * El Continent!/Mon Mercenaire! (7″ 2002 hau ruck!)

I love DV. The “Le Feu Sacré” cd is wonderfull and the compilation contributions that came afterwards are even better. Novy Svet, well, I think they are funny here and there, but I don’t like their crazy music too much. But since I missed the first DV 7″ I didn’t want to miss this one too. This 7″ is not as much a split cd in the sense of one track per band, but two tracks recorded together. The result is a mix between the music of both bands that sounds pretty nice! Just try to imagine a mix between these two acts and decide whether you want to get this 7″. I like it quite a bit.

Der Arbeiter * Reflejos Del Sol (cd 2005 divine comedy)

This album was the main reason to get myself P2P after all, but it is too easy to get. I have a few nice compilation tracks from this Chilene band, but I didn’t know if I would want to have a whole album. Well, there is only one good track on “Reflejos Del Sol” and I already had it. Der Arbeiter makes tranquil music with trance-beats and a bit of a ‘neofolk’ style. Original, but not good.

Cyclotimia * New Death Order (mcd 2000 stateart)

After some nice tunes and a sample that was already used by Morthond 8 or 9 years ago, this mcd displays some nice dark ambient and then a brilliant dark industrial second track with ambient interludes and strange sounds and samples. After this the tracks are best described as strange soundscapes with a lot of samples and weird sounds and almost no ‘industrial’ influences anymore.
I like the first two tracks and the rest sounds… alright.

Cruelty Campaign * Distressed Signals (cd 2001 tesco)

A new duo from the USA makes it’s debut (I think) on the German Tesco Organisation. This cd opens very noisy, but pretty soon it becomes clear that CC is not just another American noise-act.”Distressed Signals” mixes strange soundscapes/recordings with various kinds of industrial music, samples and a great dark atmosphere. The result is something that I would describe as dark- ambient-industrial-noise. It is not very violent and there are no beats. There are deep drones, great low frequencies, well-placed samples (sometimes a bit too many though) and overall this is surprisingly original and good! A great release from our friends of Tesco! And it comes in a very nice three-fold digipack too.

C.O.T.A. * Marches And Meditations (cd 2002 sonick sorcery/tesco)

Our friends from Tesco again prove to have a good ear for what you could call “livingroom industrial”. Or maybe I should call it “industrial soundscapes” or “industrial hearplay”? I don’t know what to call this kind of music, but I think that those who are familiar with it, will know what I am talking about. This is the kind of industrial to put in your player and grab a book or maybe better listen intensively. Not the dancefloor-oriented stuff for sure, or the popular bombastic sound. “Marches And Meditations” has five tracks but lasts as long as 64 minutes. Musically it contains what I would call soundscapes. Not the monotous ambient kind of sound- scapes but more a collection of sounds backup by slow industrial rhythms or more tribalish drumming. It is hard to explain because I don’t know what to compare it with to give you a better idea. But, if you like the Cruelty Campaign cd from Tesco (see review below), I think that you will also like this one.

Chaos/Order * Order/Chaos (cd 2000 karnak)

No, this is not a compilation cd, but not really a ‘self titled’ cd either. Since the second word is upside down, the title may as well be Chaos/Order, it only depends on how you have the box in your hands.
The distro from which I got this title said that it is: “a mix between industrial, techno and noise”, but this really gives a wrong idea of the cd. It actually is a techno cd, but very strange and indeed with some industrial influences. Mostly -though- it presents a strange mix between several kinds of techno. The music is very chaotic, strange and nothing like I had ever heard before. Not just techno, that’s for sure! And sometimes it is quite irritating, at other times really great and on several occasions, this weird Italian act had some great ideas. I can recommand this disc to anyone who isn’t afraid of some experimental techno.
Karnak seems to be a subdivision of Radio Luxor by the way.

Camerata Mediolanense/Pavor Nocturnus * l’Alfiere (10″ 2001 eis & licht tonträger)

I was not at all happy with the latest cd of Camerata from Italy, while I do like their earlier albums. Still I wondered what they were upto this time, so I ordered this 10″ anyway. Fortunately I was not disappointed. Two rather short tracks of which one a good version of the the song that appears in a horrible live-version on the “The Pact …Flying Into The Face” compilation” (reviewed elsewhere). Both songs are pretty tranquil and drum-oriented.
On the other side a band that I didn’t know with the silliest of bandnames. The music is fortunately better. More electronic, atmospheric music with acoustic (?) drumming.