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Silken Tofu

v/a * Epicurean Escapism II (cd+dvd 2013)

Epicurean Escapism is an ‘extreme media’ festival and this release looks back at the second edition. There is a cd with tracks from Ke/Hil, Anemone Tube, Post Scriptvm, Trepaneringsritualen and Dieter Muh (the last is a 20+ minutes track). Compared to the DVD all these tracks are ‘easy listening’. Dark, noisy, industrial, ambient and quite enjoyable too.

Then we go to five videos recorded by Con-Dom from 1983/4 and one from a decade later. The videos are mostly shots of photos and images taken with a shaky camera. Some footage has been montaged in between. The videos are accompanied by Con-Doms most uncompromising sound. No ‘easy listening’ for sure! In fact, I do not really like this side of Con-Dom. The videos have been remastered and they are interesting ‘for archival reaons’. They give a peek into the early extreme noise scene.

The packages is DVD box sized and made from cardboard. A booklet is glued to the last panel and contains an essay and photos of artwork that was on display during the festival. The concerning artists are Alex Tennigkeit, Andrew Liles, Carmen Burguess, Dennis Rudolph, Philip Best and Rudolf Eb.er.

I like the more ‘overall approach’ to this release, but personally I find the cd part the most interesting.

I see that volume III was also released a few months ago.

Links: Silken Tofu

Trepaneringsritualen ‎* The Totality Of Death (cd 2013)

You have got to love a project with such a name, right? So why did it take until I heard that Peter Johan Nijland (Distel, Hadewych) cooperated to this release before I actually listened to them? The release is somewhat confusing. There is a tape, apparently released by the band themselves and there are two cd versions, one from a label that was unknown to me (Silken Tofu) and another from Malignant. These are not two versions though, but two parts of the same compilation. Roughly said, the first part (Silken Tofu) contains more industrial sounds, the second more ambient. Industrialwise the project goes from somewhat chaotic industrial, reminding a bit of Objekt/Urian, to darker, but also to more noisy sounds. The second cd is pretty dark with, like I said, more ambient sounds but also with industrial and noise influences.

Trepaneringsritualen may not be brilliant, but they certainly released some interesting material, especially for people who enjoy the good old industrial sound.

Links: Trepaneringsritualen, Silken Tofu, Malignant Records