Panopticon, Social Disservices DLP and Wreck and Reference, Black Cassette LP

Well, this amazing record that I reviewed back here is now available (to preorder) as a double LP from our friends over at Flenser Records. Available on clear and black vinyl, and as a CD as well. The DLP is limited to only 250 and will likely sell out, so you are advised to pick it up ASAP.

Also available for a preorder is this hugely creative work that was originally released as a cassette by the band, and then as a CD from Music Ruins Lives... an "electronic doom" album called Black Cassette by Wreck and Reference, now on LP. I don't really have a good way to describe the album but suffice it to say you'll enjoy it. It's a unique album, and a damn good one at that. If you need to hear it first, go to the link above and stream or download it. I think you'll like what you hear. Like I said, it's been called "electronic doom" but it also has a pretty sweet post-punk edge to it that makes it so unbelievable catchy and addicting. Available on white and black vinyl, for which it has been remastered. There's a t-shirt as well.

Also check the Flenser Store for some flashy Flenser t-shirts as well as some new distro titles by Wreck of the Hesperus and others.

NOW FLENSING.

Junius/Rosetta Split LP

I had no idea this was getting pressed on wax, but I'm certainly glad to see that it is. It's a one-sided split LP from two great bands in Junius and Rosetta. The LP features a laser-etching on the b-side, and is available in a couple of different colors and/or package deals from The Mylene Sheath.

The new Junius album is coming out on Prosthetic, but The Mylene Sheath also have some 180 gram black copies of that for sale as well. Also, check out the new 2xLP from Beneath Oblivion, which sounds amazing.

Of course, if you're interested in the Junius/Rosetta split on CD, you can get that now from Translation Loss (which I assume will have copies of this vinyl for sale soon as well), along with the  new album Cenotes from the always amazing Giant Squid.

Support!

A Death Cinematic, The New World CDr and Book

A Death Cinematic is one of the artists that HSS has been very, very happy to support over the last few years. One of the more exploratory and creative artists doing ambient/drone/noise music today. The music never exists in a vacuum - there is always an accompanying concept and/or idea that supports the music and backs it up. On this new album, there is a book to back it up as well. It's a pretty lavish looking package, complete with wooden box, and the kicker is that it is, as always, all handmade.

There is also a trailer of a forthcoming video, made by the wonderful Frederick Lloyd, for the title track of this album, that you can watch now at Simple Box Construction, where you can and should also preorder this album.

Vit, The Dry Season

Two new tracks from HSS favorites Vit. You can download these two songs for a minimal fee, or just stream them in anticipation of the forthcoming physical release later this year or early next year by our friends at Music Ruins Lives, which will include additional tracks. Upon first listen, "Sixteen Bodies in a Cornfield" sounds very heavy indeed, while "The Dry Season" has a more rock-ish sound. Both good tracks. Enjoy.

Playlist: Michael Page

Michael Page is a visual and sound artist living on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. After several years recording and touring in the power electronics/industrial/noise genre as Fire in the Head, Michael formed Sky Burial in 2006 as an outlet to explore the ambient side of industrial music, often citing esoteric, literary, occult and mythological subject matter as a muse. Much like the Tibetan ritual from which the project takes its name, Michael chose to work under the Sky Burial moniker as an act of freeing himself from artistic confines, providing an unfettered route for sonic expression and experimentation. Although initially inspired by early industrial music projects and electronic/ambient/kosmische acts of the 70's & 80's, the music of Sky Burial continues to evolve and blur genre boundaries. Michael has released 40 recordings in the past 7 years under various names and has collaborated on releases (both visually and sonically) with Mark Spybey (Download/Dead Voice on Air/Zoviet France), Nik Turner (Hawkwind), Nick Blinko (Rudimentary Peni), Gee Vaucher (Crass) & J. Randall (Agoraphobic Nosebleed). Sky Burial's newest release, Aegri Somnia, features sax from Nik Turner of Hawkwind and will be out on Utech Records November 11. The release was mastered by Justin Broadrick and features art from Thomas Hooper.

Recent Rotation:

 

Early 4AD recordings:

Dif Juz - Extractions

Rema Rema - Wheel In The Roses

Mass - Labour Of Love

 

Vice Versa - complete recordings (great early raw,minimal synthpop from a band that would eventually become ABC)

 

Þeyr - complete recordings (great 80's Icelandic post-punk)

 

T.A.G.C. - Digitaria

 

Sad Lovers & Giants - first two lps

 

Trisomie 21 - their 80's output

 

Tangerine Dream - Nebulous Dawn box (first 4 studio albums)

 

Men Without Hats - releases through '84

 

Giacinto Scelsi (various compostions)

 

Allan Pettersson - Symphonies 6 & 7

 

Play Dead - complete discography (sadly overlooked 80's "goth" band)

 

Nocturnal Emissions -  Invocation Of The Beast Gods

 

Roky Erickson And The Aliens - the Evil One

 

Cevin Key - The Dragon Experience

 

Cindytalk- Camouflage Heart

 

 

ALWAYS in rotation:

 

The Damned

 

Hüsker Dü

 

Adam & The Ants

 

Soft Cell/Marc Almond

 

Hawkwind (first 5 lps & select mid/late releases)

 

SNFU

 

Fields Of The Nephilim

 

 

Reading:

 

China Miéville (various)

 

Neil Gaiman (various)

 

Jonathan Carroll (various)

 

Philip K. Dick - The Man In The High Castle

Ordo Obsidium, Orbis Tertius

I have a feeling you'll be hearing quite a lot about San Francisco's Ordo Obsidium in the future. I've had digital files of the tracks on their forthcoming debut album Orbis Tertius for quite some time now, and since the first time I heard them, I've been addicted. I'm a sucker for a well-crafted song, and this album contains 5 of them. The songs shift rather effortlessly between amazingly rich atmospheric black metal to heavy and edgy funeral doom. There are other bands that do this, and a few (I stress FEW) even do it well (Faustcoven comes to mind), but this record belongs in a league of its own.

It doesn't break new ground, it's not revolutionary, but it does accomplish one thing that a lot of bands seem to have problems doing these days; it recognizes and pays respect to the first and second wave of black metal bands that paved the way for most of what we hear today, but also moves toward something I hesitantly call "progress." Don't get me wrong; it's not a progressive record in the "technical" sense of the word, but it's clear that this band understands that black metal is getting increasingly bland and quite honestly, ridiculous at times. Ordo Obsidium may not be doing anything particularly new with their sound, but they've gone out of their way to write really good songs, with heavy, memorable riffs, unquestionable passion and enough atmosphere to fill a room.

Incitatus's vocals are perfect black metal vox, and when the tempo slows down, they still fit remarkably well. No easy accomplishment there. Balan's (from Palace of Worms) guitars are hypnotic and almost psychedelic at times, creating most of the atmosphere themselves. This prevents the record from needing a whole lot of keys; they are used, but minimally and appropriately, which is fitting for these songs and the atmosphere that the record tries to create.

The production on the album is fantastic. There's quite a divide growing between people that prefer their metal to be fairly well-polished and those who want it raw and filthy, but I think most of us can understand that the production must fit the band and the songs. Face facts, folks - Drudkh just wouldn't sound good with the same production as that last Bone Awl record. Likewise, any of those Black Twilight Circle bands would sound shitty if they were polished and clean. This album straddles the center; it's not overproduced by any stretch, but it's also not particularly dirty. Just dirty enough to be doomed and sickly; just clean enough to warrant a couple of acoustic passages that sound like the end times coming in on the waves.

There's really nothing about this record that I don't like. A more-than-solid debut release for this band that we will hopefully hear much more from in the future.

To sample two tracks from the album on Soundcloud, go here. To buy the CD from the Eisenwald shop, go here. US distribution will be handled by Ominous Domain, and our friends at Flenser will also have a few copies for sale as well. If I haven't made it clear, I recommend you buy this one way or another. This is not an album that anyone will regret having in their collection.

Sunn O))) meets Nurse With Wound - The Iron Soul of Nothing 2xLP

Imagine your worst nightmares come to life; drone-masters Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley of Sunn O))) team up with the enigmatic Nurse With Wound on this double LP to provide the soundtrack to the blackest, darkest days. This originally appeared a few years ago as the second disc of Sunn O)))'s Japanese Daymare reissue of ØØ Void, and is to this day one of the freakiest collaborations you'll hear. It is mesmerizing and cryptic, and not to be treated as background music. This will demand and command your attention, especially since this is a double vinyl pressing. Engage the music and go where it takes you; you'll likely learn something. 

Of course, if you're familiar with this already, you know quite well what I'm talking about here. You also know that this will be utterly devastating on vinyl.


This double LP will be available at the end of November. You may preorder now from Editions Mego.

Autumn offerings from Utech Records

Four new albums are on the way from Utech Records.


Delusion of Hope, the newest recording from Steven Hess and Reto Mäder's band, Ural Umbo, is seeing a limited vinyl run of 300 copies (on clear vinyl). Each LP comes with a CD version of the album. German photographer Alexander Binder provides the artwork for this release.

Sky Burial's Aegri Somnia, features saxophone by guest musician Nik Turner of Hawkwind, and mastering by Justin Broadrick. The CD comes in a heavy letterpress sleeve and includes a fold-out poster, with artwork from Thomas Hooper.

Urania is Architeuthis Rex's second album for Utech Records. Originally the solo project of Antonio Gallucci, the lineup has expanded to include new member Francesca Marongiu. The CD comes with heavy black-on-black packaging and a green poster, featuring drawings by Reuben Sawyer of Rainbath Visual.

Finally, there is a cassette release from Polish composer Adrian Aniol, titled It All Falls Apart. The B-side of the cassette is a remix of the entire piece by Steven Hess of Locrian, which was remixed without using computers.


Samples are available at the Utech Records site. These new releases will be available November 11.

Playlist: A Death Cinematic

"a death cinematic is a man with a single guitar, an amp, and some effects. all the sounds come from these four elements which are then mixed with intuition and improvisation before they are recorded and then cleaned up minimally on a computer. once these sounds are recorded and arranged they cannot be recreated. each composition is made up of multiple layers which are shifted and changed between tracks. this makes it impossible to reproduce them. the approach is not unlike one might use to make a painting or a sculpture. not all mistakes are eliminated, some are embraced and built upon as others might only slightly be covered or changed in order to produce a whole new effect.


"the man behind a death cinematic is also the man behind simple box construction. this aspect of the project is focused on all the visual and design artwork. this includes anything from photography to t shirt printing and design. all handmade cd packaging design and fabrication as well as small edition hand book binding and printing. both projects embrace the DIY aesthetic and sensibilities. often times forgoing professional production in order to focus on emotional impact of expression through sounds and visuals."

-taken from the a death cinematic last.fm page, written by A death cinematic.

The latest a death cinematic release is a split with ekca liena, and is available from Joe over at Small Doses. You should really pick it up, it is a very special release. 

this is only a generalized list, a snapshot of the past several months. as you are reading this, it should be said that this list has already changed and shifted. it would be impossible to list everything here. i thought about just doing a playlist for a day or week but that would force me to ignore the resonance of some really powerful works of art. what follows is in no particular order or preference. i also abstained form writing my opinions on the works here. it would be a monumental task so i chose to restrain myself. i leave it to the works contained herein to influence your own opinions about them. enjoy.

BOOKS CURRENTLY READING:

• angels - denis johnson
• the book of disquiet - fernando pessoa
• the animals - richard grossman

BOOKS RECENTLY READ:

• new essays on the psychology of art - rudolf arnheim
• dirty work - larry brown
• summer in baden baden -  leonid tsypkin
• outer dark - cormac mccarthy
• consilience: the unity of knowledge - edward wilson
• the death of bunny monroe - nick cave
• collected non fictions - jorge luis borges
• selected verse - federico garcía lorca

BOOKS I THINK ABOUT ALMOST DAILY:

• the poetics of space - gaston bachelard
• moby dick - herman melville
• blood meridian - cormac mccarthy
• one hundred years of solitude - gabriel garcia marquez
• the tao of physics - fritjof capra
• song of the silent snow - hubert selby jr.
• ham on rye - charles bukowski
• critique of judgment - immanuel kant
• ask the dust - john fante
• see a grown man cry - henry rollins

AUTHORS WHO'S WORK I THINK ABOUT ALMOST DAILY:

• friedrich nietzsche
• charles bukowski
• cormac mccarthy
• jorge luis borges
• raymond carver
• robert pirsig
• ken kesey

LISTENING TO NOW REGULARLY:

• angles of darkness, demons of light - earth - southern lord
• the call of the wretched sea - ahab - napalm records
• mammal - altar of plagues - profound lore
• subterranean light source - bones of seabirds - small doses
• luminous night - six organs of admittance - drag city
• the headlands - barn owl and the infinite strings ensemble - important
• opportunistic thieves of spring - a forest of stars - prophecy
• two hunters - wolves in the throne room - southern lord
• la lechuza - esmerine - constellation
• lost in the glare - barn owl - thrill jockey
• point of convergence - tetragrammaton - utech records
• ecotono - oikos - utech records
• float - peter broderick - type
• gratitudes - kinit her - small doses
• invisible mountain - horse back - utech records
• the crystal world - locrian - utech records

MUSIC THAT ALWAYS FINDS ITS WAY BACK TO THE PLAYER:

• a silver mt zion - entire catalog
• tom waits - entire catalog
• god speed you black emperor - entire catalog
• sunn o)))
• earth - especially the early stuff
• boris - especially the early stuff
• nick cave and the bad seeds - entire catalog
• grinderman
• nick cave and warren ellis - all
• palace, palace brothers, palace music
• will oldham, bonnie prince billy 
• johnny cash - sun recordings and american recordings
• ocean
• many, many more