7JK * Anthems Flesh (cd 2012)
When I heard about this cooperation between Matt Howden (Sieben) and Job Karma (hence the name 7JK) I thought that finally something interesting had happened. It did! Matt Howden we of course know for his poppy music made with his violin, effect pedals and vocals, Job Karma is more a classic industrial (or post-industrial as they say themselves), ambient, ritual project. “Anthem Flesh” opens with a very nice uptempo song “Dirt City” with nice rhythms over Howden’s violin and voice. Then comes a more Howden track, slow, a bass-guitar, Howden’s voice and violin and some electronics. What follows are mostly quite soft, trancey industrial tracks that sometimes have more of the Howden sound, sometimes more of the Job Karma sound. Together they go well and in particular a less typical track such as the hearplay “Planning For The Zombie Apocalypse” is very interesting. Indeed, a nice combination of two approaches to music.
Links: Matt Howden / Redroom, Job Karma
The new ORE is not released on CMI?? For the rest it is ORE like we know them. This mcd opens with two versions of the title track and it sounds like… ORE. Then there are two new versions of old songs. “Reaping The Fallen, The Second Harvest” lets us hear what happened in in the style since 1995 and “Who Stole The Song” is a new version of a more recent track. As always, nice, but nothing too special.
The two new tracks on this mcd are like the cover: more minimalistic. There are almost no samples anymore and the two melancholic songs are again more singer/songwriter-like than previous releases. There are some nice string arrangements which also ‘upgraded’ two old songs “Der Brandtaucher” and “Der Erscheinungen Flucht”. The songs are nice, but not as ‘gripping’ as on earlier releases (safe for the strings). Rome might evolve out of the spectre of my musical taste, but first let us see what the future brings.
I saw Ianva at this years WGT, never having heard of the band. However I did not like most music too much, I liked their show. Many good musicians on stage, uncommon elements such as trumpets, several guitars, drums and male and female vocals. I mostly enjoyed the cabaretesk songs with the female vocalist. Curious about their recordings I got Ianva’s latest album with the strange cover. The music is well-done, nicely layered and of a nice atypical (for our scene) Southern sound and here and there some martial influences. Point is that listening to this album, my conclusion is the same as when I saw them live: not really my cup of tea. I do not really like the Italian vocals and the music does not really do anything for me. Again the songs with the female vocalist (which have a different style) are the better, but there is one great song called “Bora”. It is good to hear that the scene is still moving, but my musical preferences do not allways move with the scene it seems.
Starting as the new hope for martial industrial and military pop, the new label advertises for Rome with comparison to Leonard Cohen. You do not have to fear for a bluesy folk sound (nothing bad said about Cohen of course), but indeed, Rome seems to continue to move towards more of a singer/songwriter approach. I was not immediately impressed by the previous release, which Jérôme himself calls a “single”, but I do happen to like to play it. “Flowers From Exile” has blown me away from the first play, just like the earlier releases. Rome has officially turned into a duo, but that does not change much about the sound. As a matter of fact, the sound reminds more of the earlier material than I expected from “To Die Among Strangers”. Like I said, the music is more “singer/songwriter”, mostly just guitar and singing and a bit of drumming, but there are still things going on on the background and Rome does keep a ‘martial’ edge in the use of samples. The songs are great, better than when I heard them at the performance in Leipzig. Just as before, Rome manages to work on my mood (the fact that the music is pretty damn melancholic is a reason that I do not play it all that often). There are nice melodies, good ideas and, like I said before, that ‘full’ sound with things on the background, the details that I have loved Rome for since the beginning. “Flowers From Exile” is the first full length on the German label Trisol, which is Rome’s way of reaching new audiences and they definately deserve that, since they have again proven that they are the better songwriters of our scene. Finally a masterpiece has come from our scene again.
So the new Rome is a mcd, a “teaser” for the new album? Because of the new label perhaps? Four tracks of which two are rerecorded old tracks. Three times poppy neofolk and an ambient/industrial sound collage. Not bad, but I prefered a new full-length. I guess I will have to wait.