Isomer * Zero Lounge (cd 2005)
While ordering “Nil By Mouth” anyway, I decided to get this older (pre-last) album released by Tesco as well. However the “Nil By Mouth” special mcd release is a dark piece of noise, “Zero Lounge” is more in the style that I expect of Isomer: ambient noise with dark ambient and some soundscapes. This is more a Propergol kind of style with a dark atmosphere, many samples and here and there some noise eruptions to set the tone. There are a couple of impressive tracks on “Zero Lounge”, but also a few that are a bit too soundscapish for me. An interesting album to play as background music. I am glad that summer goes to its end, during fall and winter my musical taste shifts towards this kind of material again!
Links: Isomer, Tesco
I very much looked forward to this new album of our American masterminds of industrial dark ambient. The last album is 4 years old. When putting “Grey Emminence” in my player, my first thought was: “Post Scriptvm plans to do something different.” The first tracks of the new album sound like (analogue?) experimental soundscapes, the first not the least bit dark of tone and thus nothing like I expected (hoped for). The second track is also a strange compilation of sounds, but already a bit darker. Slowly the sounds evolves towards the dark industrial ambient that we love Post Scriptvm for. There is even a noise track. I have listened to “Grey Emminence” a couple of times now and it starts to grow on me. Post Scriptvm sounds different than before and “Grey Emminence” is surely something different altogether. Not (yet) as good as previous releases, but definately interesting.
I never really knew Isomer, I never really heard their music. When I read that this dark ambient project made a noisier album, I decided to try their latest attempt. “Face Towards The Sun” contains some great ambient noise tracks, some less interesting atmospheric tracks and some good dark ambient; the larger part is noisy though. Overall I am quite pleased by this album which serves well as background music.
A compilation dedicated to North Korea with a whole range of interesting bands to be found on it. Putting the cd on I am very pleased to hear that Turbund Sturmwerk didn’t loose their touch afterall. Their latest tracks were not too great, but their “Reunification” is pretty damn good. It opens very loud with a bit of a Firsst Law sound and after a noisy middle Turbund falls back in known patterns, but overall I am happy with this wonderfull track. Lovers of harsch noise can enjoy themselves with Operation Cleansweep, Con-Dom and Genocide Organ. The track that Militia contributed is quite nice, but when we skip on to Ex.Order we hear another wonderfull “ambient noise” track with a great dark sound. The Grey Wolves tear our ears to shreds with their power electronics and to close off Anenzephalia put together a quite typical track with minimal noise and screamed vocals; not their best material, but not boring either. Overall “Juche” is mostly a compilation for people who like the harder side of electronic music and who had to wait for their favourite projects to finally release something new. “Juche” has a nice A5 package, produced in North Korea and is limited to a mere 15.000.000 copies, so hurry up!
I have never been very fond of this project. This classic power electronics project makes too much power electronics for me. An extreme sound with earcracking noises, screamed vocals and too little structure for my liking. I would have liked to see them in Antwerpen a few months back, but I could not go to the Luchtbal the second day of the festival. At that festival the “Remember” vinyl set and shirts were available, the 2cd followed a little later. I decided to get a copy, because I have known GO for about as long as they are around, but I didn’t have anything of them. Knowing their sound, I bought this cd more for archival reasons than to play. “Remember” is filled with live recordings from 1989 (when the band started) to 2000 and have been reworked by Jérôme Nougaillon (Propergol/Hermetique) for this release. Here and there you will find a more industrial and rhythmical track, but most of the cds are filled with the most brutal kind of music imaginable. Since the band is not only extreme in sound, but also in lyrics and artwork, there is a nice text of Richard Stevenson who tells a bit of art and provocation.
Also Galerie Schallschutz played in Antwerp last night. Amazing when you think of it that their last cd is of 2005. I (thought I) knew Galerie Schallschutz, I was even under the impression that I had one of their two albums, but when I wanted to play one last week, I discovered that I actually didn’t own anything of them… This German project gave away a nice show. There thematic dark ambient soundscapes has some industrial and sometimes noisy influences and works around the subject of secret governental projects to influence their citizens. The first cd HAARP is about high frequency experiments to use as a weapon, with the Montauk Project the US government supposedly tried to create ‘psychological weaponry’. Musically this is poored into dark and eerie soundscapes, that are sometimes a bit too monotous, but nevertheless pretty interesting. For the show of last night, the band seems to have combined the themes and the music of both albums and added a piece of theater in which they tried to create ‘a 1984 atmosphere’ with three actors, mirrors, light effects and night-vision live images of the audience. Like the music, the show was sometimes a bit too long, but interesting still. The cd, by the way, comes in a luxery DVD size digipack with quite some information about the thematics and one of these images that changes when you look at it another way. Well done, surely thoughtfull and interesting and I guess it is about time for a new album.