Music Reviews

Crowhurst – “Everyone Is Guilty” – [Sol Y Nieve]

whngr   7/21/2021   A Library, Cassette

Debilitating electronic Dark Ambient Industrial Noise Drone with minimal Black Metal leanings in five parts.

Three tracks over 10 min. and two under 10 min. with some marked contrast existing between tracks that tend to straddle several genres but generally orbit around mild discomfort, disorientation, and despair, madness and misery.

Samples. Spoken-word. Sine wave serrations.

Washes of warm amplified feedback cum crumbling white noise, abstractions and other mildly belligerent aural elements. Crowhurst is one Jay Gambit of Boca Raton, Florida, who, along with myriad collaborators has put out over 40 physical releases since 2012. Establishing a following on digital file sharing platforms, Gambit seems interested in exploring multiple facets of sound production across several genres without the constraints of media or from labels and has worked with familiar (and many unfamiliar) labels like Prison Tatt, Chondritic Sound, Fusty Cunt, Prophecy Productions, and the one who released this limited edition (100) cassette in 2014, Sol Y Nieve.

Agonie – “Culte Funèbre” – [Solar Asceticists Productions]

whngr   7/21/2021   A Library, Cassette

Grieving Woe’s Misery

French-Canadian Black Metal.

Cold, grim, cvlt.

Somber, delicate guitar ballads (doubled reverb reverie) amid tortured wails. Buried trash-can drums, beastial expulsions. Heavily clipped amplified trem-picked horror, the plectrum pulled through entrails billowing steam into the frigid night. Deep guttural bellowing and shrieks of anguish slashing through sickening melodies with hooks.
Adapt to the damaged (defective?) tape (end side A-beginning side B, track 3 and 4 respectively) as the signal decays repeatedly. Perhaps this (used) tape was once repeatedly frozen in distant northern climes amid the towering snow-laden pines or maybe ’twas a cruel hoax meant to propagate the despair of fledgling dj’s (dig your heels in and own it, this is a miracle of magnetic tape (an analog aberration to be adulated). The meek, and the mealy-mouthed.

Final track is an menagerie of the animals most associated with evil and the night, encircling a demon as he curses (unintelligibly) the light of God and whatever traces of benevolence remain in the hearts of man.

Agonie is Nagash and K. 

Quebec-2017

Peace Killers “Magnetic Mountain” [Transylvanian Tapes]

atavist   7/16/2021   A Library, Cassette

These guys from Sacramento like to throw some full-throttled hardcore into their old-school stoner rollin’ metal. The stylistic swing from track one, Make My Day to track two, Pendulum, is pretty wild—not quite like two bands on a compilation, but moving in that direction. By track three, they’re finding ways to mash up clean stoner metal vocals and hardcore screams in the same track. Fast, rollicking, raucous, and sometimes a bit more subdued, but for the most part you’ll get straight-up rock and roll when you drop it in. FCC on track 1, which also is pretty quiet for the first minute and a half.

Saturno “Menhir” [Transylvanian Tapes]

atavist   7/16/2021   A Library, Cassette

Thick crushing doom that jumps into faster death metal passages. This is the debut full-length from this Santiago, Chile-based project, comprised of members who, for the most part, have been active in the stoner doom scene there for over a decade. With this project they want to go a bit more brutal, even tiptoeing up to black metal moments without fully crossing over. There is raw emotion here, beauty found in melodic riffs, ferocity and speed as well as slow expanses of filthy dirge. Saturno is never content to dwell on one idea for too long, so each track provides an exhilarating range of sounds.

Skravl – War Is Aer [coll] – [Legion Blotan]

whngr   7/15/2021   A Library, Cassette

Low fidelity Black Metal from Copenhagen

Two lone wolves pair up to howl blasphemy at the inverted solstice moon. Praying to the Dark Gods for release from this world filled splintered by light and sprinkled with benevolence. 

Skravl – Forlorn wails over tinny mid-tempo guitars and real drums. Hypnotic, valiant, and miserable with pensive synthesizer interludes.

Skravl is one, Skravl.

War Is Aer -Lurches through a quagmire of in-the-red melodies (synth? & guitar?) laid over buried, crushing, trash can percussion. Howls of suffering rise through the murk to arrive morosely at your godless ears.

War Is Aer is one, Jesper Bagger Hviid.

Hovedstaden, Denmark 2018

Aad Sleck – “Aad Sleck” – [Legion Blotan]

whngr   7/15/2021   A Library, Cassette

Furious bombast lacking subtlety or ornament.

Black Metal/Punk exploring the mining heritage of northeastern Britain.

It would not be difficult to write a long, cheeky review drawing obvious parallels to the sounds on this cassette and coal mining, black subterranean hell-scape etcetera, or spout-off whimsically about the limited scope of the genre reaching the end of its relevance… but I refuse. In fact, the opposite is true, as no other sounds could be more relevant and as appropriate to the themes explored. And besides, this is not the time for cunning insight or clever turns of phrase… for now… is the time for bludgeoning! Now… is the time for strength, now… is the time to… survive! Using your hands and back during the day and your heart and soul in the night to express the woes of a lightless life that will cripple you as well as sustain your meagre existence in the pit. A harkening to a time in America’s infancy when songs of the Appalachia’s echoed over the hills. Songs of sorrow and endless toil but I do not intend to wax poetic over I life I do not truly know and besides, the crude power of this recording speaks for itself. Thus, I shall not cheapen the miserable articulation of its creator and intend to leave the proof right where it belongs, squarely in the pud

Track 1 is perhaps especially crushing.

Track 7 is an uncredited sample from a venerable miner reflecting on the death of one of his peers directly after just joining the colliery.

Aad Sleck is one Nihtgenge.

UK, 2018

Frater Ximenes Is Dead – “Demo II” – [Fragile Branch]

whngr   6/25/2021   A Library, Cassette

Dark ambient synth, samples, reverb,and Black Metal.

Honestly pretty relaxing… (track 1 weird and meditative) until it isn’t (track 2 devastative and weird).

Dreary drones, chanting, no fidelity grinding and churning with vomitous expulsions of sick, samples, conjuring(?), and then… bird-song. Self described “Ritual Black Metal”  by this disturbed and disturbing two-piece. Limited to 66 copies, a quantity that would make it difficult to refute any claim to the “cvlt” moniker. That’s right, have a “scare quote” or two, but at the end of the day it is night… and that is the only appropriate time to listen to this sinister cassette from Fragile Branch Records.

Campania/Calabria Italy – 2013

Wet Labia – “Wet Labia” – [Kitty Play Records]

whngr   6/4/2021   A Library, Cassette

A chaotic din of snotty grrrage punk dripping in low fidelity. Rafter shakin’, vulva vibratin’, rock n’ roll for the unwashed and uninhibited.

Pounding, emphatic, and raw. Right in your face, rub it around, you’re a disgrace rock ‘n roll. Nice n’ southern with just a hint of morbid curiosity with nods to to low brow science-fiction and horror. A little t(w)angy, hot, sticky mess that just feels so fuckin’ good.

Frenetic female fronted three piece from Memphis TN, the “Labes”  wrote rousing and evocative numbers with memorable titles like, “Just A Whore” and “I Died This Way” while imploring us to, “… do the Zombie”, something I would gladly do if only I could return to the halcyon days of 2002. 

A-side was recorded by Alicja Trout (Lost Sounds) and Jay Reatard (Lost Sounds, Reatards) at the People’s Temple in Memphis.

B-side is a bedroom recording live to 4 track.

FCC’s: “What the fuck!?” in the first second of “Gone Away” on B3 (track 8 on the cd) and copious “Fuck”-‘s slathered all through “Fuck If I Know” B6 (track 11).

Ovskum – “Atto I – Atto II” – [Insikt]

whngr   5/28/2021   A Library, Cassette

Low fidelity depressive Black Metal from Italy circa 2006.

A dream of profound sadness and loss in four dismal parts. 

Buried electric guitar, buried drums (could be a sack filled with coins?), buried voices, buried ambient drone, buried lute (could be a zither)?, buried feedback, buried acoustic guitar, buried animal sounds (vulture?).

Murk, gloom, sorrow and doom tie these tracks together on a cassette that may or may not be the legitimate release (it does not match up with online information) from Insikt Records. Neither harsh nor intense this is like a diary entry written in tears, grieving the loss of one’s innocence or a profound loneliness that cannot be quelled in life… fortunately death is an inevitability, unlike love and hope.

Agonanist – “Cynicism of Solitude, The” – [Transylvanian Tapes]

whngr   5/28/2021   A Library, Cassette

Dreary Esoteric USBM

Dissonant guitars bend and shudder, esophageal wails expressing the horrors of life amid peels of poly rhythmic drums that intermittently pound, crash, and sprint towards the Suicide Cliffs. Rain spatters the ground, the tears are left hidden by the the torrent but the anguish has left deep scars that ache.

Deeply cloaked in mystery, it is only known that they hail from San Francisco though nothing more could be gleaned from any source on the author of this vertigo inducing Black Metal. Transylvanian Tapes 2020.

6th Circle – “Third Estate, The” – [Sentient Ruin Laboratories]

whngr   5/21/2021   A Library, Cassette

Dark Industrial / EBM project of one Matt Auxier of Columbus, Ohio.
Hypnotic vocals wind through pulsing strobes of electronic futuristic sounds (though now markedly retrospective), samples, and a few sparse metal elements. Dread, doom, despair for working your hips through the cataclysm. I envision a wet metropolis filled with crackling neon and holographic faces espousing off-world relocation. Strange cyber entities moving through shadows like rats through a maze without resolution. A terrible momentum seizing what remains of humanity, driving them towards improbable release from the hyper-stimulation in a world that has evolved beyond its bio-centric beginnings, haplessly marching towards irrelevance. This genre is concertedly not my strength or, to be honest, my interests but volunteering at kfjc has continued to stretch my awareness and appreciation of sonic realms I might have panned or deplored in the past. I am reminded of my time spent in Tokyo and the Trance scene that captivated my cohorts. I think I might have been a little more receptive to electronic dance music had it had the miserable perspective of 6th circle. The dark and macabre stance of the cynic and the malcontent. I fought with every ounce of my being the sounds I didn’t understand until the very last moment when I was forced to concede… that this was the sound of a dying civilization. One that, despite my reticence, I inhabited and thus was/am complicit with. Driven by digital devices controlled by lone operators as opposed to analog instruments played by collaborative individuals. Yet here we now are, our bodies writhing to the sounds of a world that cannot last, listening to the future sounds of the past.

Children With Dog Feet – “Curb Your Anarchy” – [Toxic State]

whngr   4/30/2021   A Library, Cassette

Irreverent genre bent sickening thrust of diabolic aural psychosis.

Depraved goth/punk that sinks its feral teeth into your skull nut and gives it a good thrashing. The canid saliva stains but fades… leaving you feeling worse.

Echoes, guitar violence, horns, heresy, poetic and perturbed with allusions to homicide and failing mental health growl shouted through a decaying atmoshere draped in thick, velvety reverb.

An aggregate of members affiliated with Toxic State Records that don’t want you to know who they are and I, for one, will do my part to help preserve their anonymity. No matter, fucking rocks like a blind-drunk sailor on deck in a raging typhoon. I’d like to imagine strobe lights and a bit of eye-liner but they’ll never visit here… maybe it’s time for a little trip.

NYC 2021

Gates – “A Mask Hidden In Memory” – [Hypaethral]

whngr   4/6/2021   A Library, Cassette

Sleepy Creepy Un/Comfortable SpaceGuitar based ambience and feedback with minimalist electronics.

Bleak drones, hums and aural shapes coexist in subterranean echo chambers of unearthly horrors or a sonic sculpture of your anxieties suspended in alien space. Track 5 is a reinterpretation of The Passing State of Plurality by Aidan Baker and includes an outlying instrument, drums played gently and with swelling complexity behind slightly more glitchy drones.

pulses / waves / plunks / squeaks / drone / soft percussion

Gates is one Bryan W. Bray (Jugurtha and formerly Demonic Possessor) of Toronto, ON.

Nihilum – “Dead and Forgotten” – [Insikt]

whngr   3/26/2021   A Library, Cassette

Sparse Sullen Dungeon-synth 

Miserable sounds for the bereft and emotionally hollow. When reflection on your imminent death is the only time you feel any modicum of pleasure. You’re already dead inside (T1), perhaps being dead outside will balance the scales (T2). Highly repetitive and morose compositions by one Nachtzeit (Henrik Sunding) of Östersund, Sweden ca. 2005. Cassette is single sided and 9:25 long. Don’t be fooled (as I was) by the copious amount of (mostly blank) tape presented in the window. Perhaps this is an aesthetic choice by the artist representing his emotional emptiness. 

Obscurae – “To Walk The Path of Shadows” – [Sentient Ruin Laboratories]

whngr   3/19/2021   A Library, Cassette

Created with GIMP

Grandiose Valorous Upheaval 

Crushing Black Metal with Atmospheric, haunting washes of synthesizer. Basically full-on annihilation ’til the final track, a somber organ wheezing into the night with gentle pulses of texture.
Obscurae is one Chad Davis (Hour of 13, Jenzeits, Subklinik) of Richmond, Virginia of with support from cohort Matt Davis (no relation).

Hallucination – “Hallucination” – [Sentient Ruin Laboratories]

whngr   3/19/2021   A Library, Cassette

Total Unremitting Carnage
One-Two, crusty guitar-fueled ugliness that aims to split you from stem to stern. 
Raw as fuck.
No further information is available or necessary.

Pacific Yew – "(((( Bathing ))))" – [Hot Record Society]

abacus   3/9/2021   Cassette, Hip Hop

Pacific Yew is a pacific coast evergreen conifer that ranges from the Klamath Mountains to the fjords of British Columbia that has a habit of rotting from the inside, creating hollow forms as it grows extremely slowly, much like these flourishing disjointed rhythms that grow slowly, spreading into the host of your psyche. this Oakland new wave r&b pioneer feels like some Lonnie Holley Scott-Heron bedroom pop, soulful singing set over simple grooves. lo-fi, like the skeletal tree forms that are ageless in their imperceptibility. the seed cones and berry-like structures spread around easily, as I’m sure this record has wide appeal that should make it around the airwaves smoothly.

Ulrich, Torben & Goldston, Lori – “Oakland Moments: Cello Voice Reuniting (rejoicing)” – [Obscure & Terrible]

mickeyslim   3/3/2021   A Library, Cassette

Brand spankin’ new tape label out of Seattle, Obscure & Terrible. This is poet/musician/painter/tennis player Torben Ulrich (yes, the father of Metallica drummer, Lars), reciting his poetry to the cello of Lori Goldston. They’ve been playing together since 2005 with Angelina Baldoz and Jaison Scott in a project called Instead Of. This, however, is their first project as a duo. Goldston is “Classically trained and rigorously de-trained, possessor of a restless, semi-feral spirit” and her evocative cello playing is haunting, flittering, profound, and raw, which pairs perfectly to Ulrich’s sing-songy delivery of his exceptional poetry. In what I wish was a longer release, this cassette does not disappoint, and often feels sultry and seductive.

The pairing is genuine, and clearly comes from a place of mutual sonic understanding. Dig it…

Cyclist, The – “Weather Underground” – [100% Silk]

cinder   12/21/2020   A Library, Cassette

Fresh sounds from Andrew Morrison, known as The Cyclist. Rhythmic electronic beats rotate and churn like LED-lit wheel spokes. It’s a chill house sound with throbs of “industrial hypnosis, basement dub, and soul lament within his signature saturated “tape throb” palette”. A refreshing spin!

Powerplant – ” Spine / Evidence” – [Static Shock]

whngr   12/15/2020   A Library, Cassette

 Synth-Punk-Rock “Pop op”. 

Ukraine / London oddity unleashes five tracks that are, to my ear, more profoundly dissimilar to one another, more dynamic, and take more risks than any rock outfit I’ve heard in recent memory a fact perhaps made even more exceptional when one notes that it was made by a single person, one Theo Zhykharyev. Bouncy, up-beat, danceable, and a bit dreary as well. Top-shelf good times.