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.
Links: Isomer, Tesco
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.
Like I said, if you (like me) don’t like brutal high-pitched noise, this album will be more for archival reasons, so that you can let your grand-children hear what extreme music sounded like around the year 2000 when you are already 80 yourself!
Links: Genocide Organ, Tesco
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.
Links: Galerie Schallschultz, Tesco
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After a cd on Somnambulant Corpse (2002), Hermetique (2005), Post Scriptvm have found their way to Tesco, the ultimate industrial label. The new album is much less dark than the previous album, but can still be catagorized as “dark soundscapes”. Post Scriptvm again created a nice atmosphere and a very nice cd to play on the background while reading. I think I like “Marginal Existence” (the second album) better, but I better make my final judgement when I have played both of them after eachother a few times.
Here we have a real Tesco release. A 71 minute noise cd in an oversized package of a French band. 11 Tracks with a lot of variety in styles of noise and power electronics including everything from high to low-frequency noise, from relatively tranquil to very extreme, lots of rhythm, lots of samples, sometimes with distorted vocals and most of the time pretty dark. Get it before it is gone!
Waiting for the new album herr Julius decided to rerelease his debut lp of 1997 that was still released on the ‘label’ Arthur’s Round Table back then. I am one of the 250 lucky people who got a copy of this nice-looking picture lp. It had a very minimal lay-out and the cd is kept mostly the same. The front and back of the picture lp are in the inside of the digipack and behind the cd.
To the music then. Don’t forget that this are Albin’s very first experiments with Der Blutharsch and in the beginning it didn’t quite sound like it does now. The debut is more ambient, rather industrial and only at a few moments you can hear the bombast that would characterise Der Blutharsch’ later sound. One track you may know from the live album “The Long Way Home”.
Anyway, the debut isn’t too good except for a few nice tracks and especially in comparison to the The Moon Lay Hidden album of the same year (“The Smell Of Blood But Victory”) it was completely overshadowed.
I suggest that you buy this cd to complete your Der Blutharsch collection or if you are interested in Albin’s early solo actions, but not if you expect another “The Pleasures Received In Pain”. Just think of the “Der Sieg Des Lichtes” ambient tracks and you will have quite a good idea.
After a few re-releases of older cds, here we have a cd with brandnew recordings. “All Pigs Must Die” is a bit of a strange cd and can definately not be compared to the previous cds that were recorded with Albin Julius of Der Blutharsch. There is again a guest musician again though: Andreas Ritter of the German neo-folk band Forseti, but his role is (I think) not comperable to Julius’ on previous albums. Ritter plays accordeon and flute on a few tracks and this actually goes very well with the DIJ neo-folk style.
And there I said it, “All Pigs Must Die” contains neo-folk, somewhat in the ‘familiar’ DIJ style of some years ago, but a bit more experimental in a way. As the cd continues, the songs are getting more and more experimental and eventually go over in a bunch of noise tracks. Not very extreme noise, but still. The last track is what I would describe as ‘ritual’, strange soundscapes with slowed-down vocals and a dark atmosphere.
Nope, DIJ is not easily predictable, so don’t try to imagine how Douglas’ new albums will sound.
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.
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.