Music Reviews

Murderous Vision – “Abscission” – [Live Bait Recording Foundation]

whngr   10/23/2020   A Library, CD

Creepy Dark Ambient/Industrial Noise.  Not spooky in a supernatural way, more like discovering the ruins of a forgotten civilization, doomed because of avarice, conceit, and a myopic perspective on their relationship with the environment that they might have corrupted, poisoned, and destroyed due to lack of insight and empathy.

Dark rumbling textures, throbs, disembodied voices, a thumping primal beat, pulses, hollow distorted shouts that echo and decay, strobes, trembling drone, empty space, and other electronic abstractions layered to induce an unsettling, hypnotic, aural forray into humanity’s (none too distant) future. One where the skeletal artifice of civilization has been consumed by the earth, lying dormant and forgotten beneath the rubble and residue of time. 

Murderous Vision is one Stephen Petrus of Live Bait Recording Foundation and co-producer of the filmCity/Ruins, a film about the Industrial scene of Northern Ohio.

Vague Imaginaires – "L'ile D'or" – [Not Not Fun]

cinder   10/21/2020   A Library, Cassette

Solo project of Frenchie, Denis Morin. Lush, dreamy, whimsical, chillout grooves from this release entitled L’ile D’or (Golden Island). That name perfectly encapsulates the sounds that drip like freshly warmed morning dew into my ears. Soothing and meditative, in a futuristic fantasy island way. Track titles like Floating Mountains, Sunken Volcanoes, and Up There On The Dune… you can almost envision the candy colored swans with crystal diamond eyes, floating in their pastel lagoons. This is an instant relaxer! Float with us.

Isabella, Jasper and Simon Fisher Turner – "Savage Songs of Brutality and Food. By The Extreme Angels of" – [Soleilmoon Recordings]

cinder   10/21/2020   A Library, CD

“A child’s imagination is the finest open canvas ever. No rules rule.”
London sound artist Simon, recorded his 2 kids talking, singing, playing, putting on plays, etc and compiled them into an experimental kids album. It’s mostly from their childhood up until they hit pre-teen. The sounds behind are the typical haunting and beautiful explorations you get from Soleilmoon Recordings, so lovely. Having a British accent makes the little children voices so much more enjoyable and cute, too.

Three Point Circle – "Layered Contingencies" – [Palace of Lights]

cinder   10/21/2020   A Library, CD

A collaboration between K. Leimer, Marc Barreca, and Steve Peters. Lovely, meditative soft sounds and drones. Ambient is the defining word. Wafting tendrils and slow movement. Ghostly tones fill the abandoned, fog filled streets at night. Definitely something you could use to sedate your senses and fall into a calm dream state. 

Bruitisme 1913-2013 [coll] – [Influencing Machine]

lexi glass   10/21/2020   A Library, CD

This 2013 compilation commemorates the 100th anniversary of “The Art of Noises,” the manifesto of futurist artist and founding father of noise music, Luigi Russolo. Bruitisme features works from artists that continue to advance Russolo’s radical project into this century. The artists were selected by Zorin, a member of the pioneering French industrial group Le Syndicat (who contributed not just to the group’s extreme sound but also to its propaganda-inspired visual aesthetic) and its spinoff noise project Entre Vifs. Both of his groups appear here: Le Syndicat opens with a sound collage of a snarling traffic jam (T1) and Entre Vifs concludes the disc with a rhythmic, vocals-driven piece that sounds like a broadcast from an abandoned radio station (T6).  They’re accompanied by the sustained feedback blasts of Finnish artist Tommi Keränen (T2), the shredding psychedelia of Government Alpha (T3), the mind-control machine music of Rodger Stella (T4, if there’s a modern day intonarumori it would sound like this), and Lasse Marhaug with a track that sounds as if he’s stripping a piano to pieces, tossing its strings, pins, hammers and keys into the drum and tumbling them around inside (T5). Released by local experimental label Influencing Machine Records.

Bipolar Explorer/Deux Anges

carsonstreet   10/15/2020   A Library, CD

Bipolar Explorer is Michael Serafin-Wells, Summer Serafin and Sylvia Solanas. Other contributors appear on some tracks but that is the core. Michael describes his music as Dreampop moving into more experimental sounds. More Delia Derbyshire than Beach House. His music and lyrics come from dreams. Michael was hit by a car in New York City suffering severe injuries followed by a near-fatal pulmonary embolism. Michael says: Adrift in those ten minutes when my heart ceased beating, a pulmonary event nearly always fatal, twin angels both celestial and earthly, returned and guarded me from their vantages “on either side of the divide, enveloping me in love and protection.” Thus DEUX ANGES. Mysterious, otherworldly and altogether enjoyable. An emotional musical journey.

Adnan Othman/Bershukor

carsonstreet   10/15/2020   CD, International

The legendary Adnan Othman has long been a driving force in the Malaysian rock scene. As early as the 1960s his groundbreaking songs in the style known as Pop Yeh Yeh (rock and roll sung in Malay) attracted fans from across Southeast Asia. Recently, he has gained many new fans around the globe due to a renewed interest in rock music from this region. Adnan first rose to fame during the groovy Pop Yeh Yeh era (1964-1970) in Malaysia and Singapore and he continued to evolve as a musician and composer throughout his exciting career. He made his first recordings in Singapore in the early 1960s, when he was invited to record with a highly popular backing band, The Rythmn Boys. He produced innovative material well into the 1970s, but always stayed true to his Rock-and-Roll roots, even when many other artists were turning towards more predictable disco influences. This album draws from all eight of his solo EPs.                                                          

Elucid – “Seership” – [Self Release]

mickeyslim   10/10/2020   A Library, CD

E L U C I D’s 28-minute, mix-match, skritch-scratch, beat-noise, hip-hop extravaganza! ELUCID is one half of the project Armand Hammer alongside Billy Woods, but this is a solo project. In what feels like many songs stitched together to create one almost cinematic piece, this sometimes spacey, sometimes industrial journey is always unsettling, elaborate, and well worth everyone’s attention. Dig it.

Ljain – “Endasalmar Og Klofnar Tungur” – [Signal Rex]

whngr   10/10/2020   12-inch, A Library

Ljáin (Lē- yaw-in [scythes]) are an abstruse Icelandic black-metal project and this release is (originally from 2016 released on vinyl [currently in your trembling claws] by Signal Rex [Lusitania]).

The intro is a murky, haunting choral affair that segues into a brief echoing church bells before the avalanche of low fidelity metal ensues. A turgid, miserable flow of hollow wails, reverberating guitars, and buried, ugly drum assault. So murky and cacophonous that it could almost be atmospheric at lower levels but surely that is not the intent of Ljáin. In the red, all the way up, chaotic barrage of untethered rage sprinkled with spooky back tracked interludes. The vibes are of doom, terror, misery, death awareness, death longing, murder-lust, shivering spectral dissonance, famished troll worship, sweeping landscapes of jagged rock and ice…

Jackson-Pratt – ” In The Night, I’m Lost In Love” – [Oxen]

whngr   10/9/2020   A Library, CD

Jackson-Pratt is the name of a device used to drain surgery sites so you probably can glean what kind of harsh-noise this is: In the red, splatter-misery. 2020 release on Oxen. An excellent accompaniment for clawing your respiration barrier off in a convalescent home and forcing blood laden piss from the filthy incision in your abdomen.