Blitzkrieg Baby * Porcus Norvegicus (cd 2013)
On returning from holidays I am pleased to finally find the debut cd of Blitzkrieg Baby (or in this case actually Blitzkrieg Baby And The Squaeling Piglet Ensemble) in the mailbox (and a copy of the tape from another sender). This cd is great! Like on the tape there is a mix between old-style industrial, Thorofon-like ‘industrial disco’, more ambient tunes and a lot of musically original ideas. The tracks go from dark to catchy and the lyrics are usually wonderfully sleazy. This cd was released by Neuropa, so it is perhaps easier to get than the tape that was recently released, but my advice it to try to get your hands on both.
Links: Blitzkrieg Baby, Neuropa Records
Woe me. I have heard of MekanOrganiK a long time ago. Initially this album was announced to be released on Cold Meat, but in the end Neuropa took care of the release. MekanOrganiK is a side project of members of the Belgian tribal industrial outfit Militia and when the cd was out, I listened to some of the tracks on Myspace, but I was not convinced. I did not take a whole lot of attention until I got the cd. Well, MekanOrganiK may be even more interesting than Militia! The album opens with some sort of soundscape, perhaps the track that I heard on Myspace? The rest of the material reminds a lot of Militia, similar rhythms, similar sounds, same vocals. The difference is that MekanOrganiK sounds more electronic, more industrial perhaps. There are all kinds of strange, analogue sounds (water, stones, bottels and… cucumbers) over repetative rhythms. Very nice indeed!
My first acquintance with Militia was their “Black Flag Hoisted” 2cd box of 2000, a legendary album with tribal industrial (but varried in style) with (still quite rare in our scene) very leftish lyrics. After that it was always quite for some time, but Militia has built quite a discography of which this is my fifth item (including a 2002 rerelease of the 1995 split with Con-Dom). Before releasing a new album, Militia decided to rerelease some old material first. Since this album is called “Archive Collection I” I suppose that there will at least be one more. Also there seem to be a cassette with live recordings and a cdr with 1990 to 2010 material (“United We Stand”). Quite a period by the way! This easier-to-get archive album shows the old, more industrial (even noisy) side of this Belgian band, but also has the drumming tracks that we got to like this project for and most tracks are more energetic than the last album. A nice item in you industrial collection. I look forward to hearing the new material.
According to the label this album “is easily one of the most anticipated records in the neofolk underground scene”. Well, Der Feuerkreiner is a nice band that mixes different kinds of music to their own style, doing that well too, but the selling-line is a little overdone in my opinion. The releases that I already have are very enjoyable, but I do not play them too often. “Unsere Zeit” brings no news in the style of this Italian band. Female vocals sometimes making almost “heavenly voices” music in combination with soft orchestrations, to follow by some harsch and distorted industrial with clear sounds, lots of drumming and bombast. Listening to the new album, the style seems to have been polished a bit and comes out better than before making “Unsere Zeit” a good new album, but without surprises.
I am afraid that I have vastly over-estimated this Polish project. My first encounter was “The Fire Sermon”, a very nice ‘ambient noise’ album with an original sound. After that I bought some of the limited releases which mostly consist of some orchestral music build of classical music samples which sometimes sounds nice, but are mostly just making something of somebody else’s work. Unfortunately the same goes again for “The World…”. This time the sound is a bit more bombastic and here and there martial, but still the music remains a collage of samples and nowhere comes to the level of “The Fire Sermon” and not at all regarding style. Too bad, after a flying start Horologium seems to become just another project in the scene. The album is not horrible, but if you asked me, I would advice to spend your money on something else.