Hasufel - Winter on the Hill Cumorah

Did a review last year with this interesting (and very ritualistic) dark-wave/dungeon-synth act. It was a great release, and I was looking for more with this... and here it is! Released on Chondritic Sound as a 100 limited golden esoteric cassette, gold paper with black ink (the works!). The mystical album title, Winter on the Hill Cumorah. The Hill Cumorah is a so-called drumlin which is located in Manchester, New York. A drumlin is a hill formed as an inverted spoon. On this drumlin, a certain Joseph Smith was handed golden plates by an angel named Moroni. These plates were then translated and formed into a book, the Book of Mormon. And if you don´t know about the Book of Mormon, then I suggest you do a Wikipedia check-up. The artist behind the act has this to inform the curious:

"Winter on the Hill Cumorah is a dark exploration into the history of the Mormon church and its founder Joseph Smith, whose death mask graces the cover of this album. Utilizing synthesizers, voice, kaval and Egyptian ney, Hasufel craft baroque experimental pieces with a distinct sensibility for songwriting. Field recordings and Helmut's own voice augment these missives, as perhaps heard seeping from the stone while ransacking the temple. Music for days spent searching for warmth in a damp crypt, or nights spent beneath the clouds among the headstones of the churchyard."

Pretty heavy (and adventurous) theme to work around with? Always an interesting concept idea to work with, mass religion and its mystical history. So what about the music then?! Here goes!

The first track A Pillar of Light starts off with disturbing (but strangely merry) melodic religious-changing. It could sound like one of those drunken sessions with the Blutharsch (Where he sampled the dwarves from Snowwhite!).  A strange, curious and eerie evocative intro (good ear-opener). Second offering the Orchard involves ritualistic bells, Arabic-sounding guitar-strings, Lovecraftian synths, and haunting and doom-laden male-vocals. A touch of that early Death In June / Current 93 apocalyptic mood/feel here. Very mystical deep stuff here. Third track Haun´s Mill continues with that arabic-feel, a Mideastern-sounding flute playing while being surrounded by an alien otherworldly ambiance. A terrifying scream ends this track! 

Fourth piece Seer and Revelator makes it quite clear that the history and background of the Mormon church... is a quite dark one. Doesn't sound like a come-and-join-the-church-guys track. Atrax Morque´ish death-industrial synth-work with a sermon-like sample in the background with distorted vocals. Hymn no.2 (A Fire Is Burning) continues the religious-sermon with heavy and atmospheric synth work and ritualistic metallic bangings. Cool sounding Sleep Chamber´ ish vocals and sacred chantings add up the mood. Ritualistic industrial as it should be! The last Dispensation of the Fulness of Times is the sixth track, welcomes Berlin-school touches and illbient stillness before the apocalyptic storm. Additionally sampled rhythmic-sections come later on with melodic vocals also. Might just be a marriage between dark-wave/ritual-industrial and dungeon synth going on here! Next track Hymn no. 246 just creeps you out! The second last track In The Mountain Meadow continues in the same manner as the Orchard. Strangely pleasant and tranquilizing Arabic-ritual moods, and very decent made! Very last track Deseret ends the album with unpleasant sea-sick synths and doom-is-upon-you melodies. Probably the darkest piece on the album!. Great way to end an album.

And there you go. Lots of unpleasant religious creepiness and less of pleasant esoteric industrial-mumbo jumbo. We are not in the Crowley-teachings with Psychic TV etc, we are in the unpleasant (and very REAL) believe-system-territory which have (sadly) followed humanity for nearly all time. This album proves that fact, through sounds and mood. A perfect apocalyptic album.   

Bandcamp (label):

https://chondriticsound.bandcamp.com/album/winter-on-the-hill-cumorah?fbclid=IwAR1PA9XrVgWlCDK-aApy8ULFJAJmYMEtaEALEOyCby9Gl_nxYf-TYHNIf1Q

Bandcamp (band):

https://hasufel.bandcamp.com/

 

Maurizio Bianchi & Gaba

Some kind of music/noise/recordings sounds best when the mood is just right. Being completely socially isolated in a ghost town (which used to be noisy) and now it´s just... ain't. An invisible killer lurks in the mist, in the form of a virus. Not only does it kill and infect millions, but it also gives the financial-world a huge dent in its fancy sportscar. One of the challenging records/albums which pleases my apocalyptic and virus-infected ears would be one of the latest by the Italian maestro and legend of industrial-experimentalism Maurizio Bianchi, in dear (and excellent) company with another act called Gaba. Gaba is a project of Garazi Gorostiaga and Enrique Garoz , Garoz is also the brain behind the excellent Tube Tentacles (see former review/link below). A limited 58 copies cassette release from Marbre Negre, sure to please any industrial-noise fan. 2 tracks, one on each cassette side and 47 minutes total. 

Maurizio Bianchi´s track called Eur Voy, starts with sounding like something only he can do/create. Not actually industrial, not actually noise... not actually anything. BUT, it is nonetheless very interesting. Kind of spacy, abstract and brutal sort of psychedelic noisescape. Swirling and distorted synth-sounds collide into each other and end up in a rotating and liquid-like mass of sound, pumping and organic heart-rhythms can be felt in the undercurrent. Noise for psychedelic dopeheads (early Cluster) psychedelic-ambient for harsh noise-addicts (Mauthausen Orchestra). Interesting and good recording for sure.

Gaba´s track moves away from the abstract art-performance eerieness of MB and moves closer to a more soundtrack´ ish movie-aesthetic. Windy and woodsy-sounding drones haunt the deepest part of the dark and misty woods, undercurrents of mechanized factory-drones (and a pulsating organic rhythm) enter the arena of sound while a stream of surreal static works in the background. Great intro sofar! A choir of eons-old tortured souls can be heard (and felt) and gives the whole thing an excellent dark-ambient/ritual feel. Kind of Aghast/Brighter Death Now/CMI-feel here! Everything here feels and sounds realistic, close your eyes and listen... and you will be there. This recording is actually also a live recording (excellent quality recording here!), and you can feel the live feeling here very much, the intimacy is honest, sincere and VERY well done!

The split between MB and Gaba is VERY good, it would be a shame if you should miss it. Seek it out and give it a listen, you will not regret it!.  It is as simple as that!. 

Bandcamp (label):

https://marbrenegre.bandcamp.com/album/split-9?fbclid=IwAR1RrFo6AE3Imxel-aOxXWZPXdw0VKXrCOu0uYAhR2gc8hCSNjE5eftnj5c

Kalteldur (former review):

http://kalteldur.blogspot.com/2018/03/miguel-a.html

      

Ideal Father - Serial

A new and rather obscure industrial act has just emerged from the Swedish underground, first debut release via digital Bandcamp and as a limited 30 copies cool-looking cassette as well. Most of you would probably think ( when you are looking at the cover-artwork ) that we´re dealing with a power-electronics act, it fooled me. Far from aggressive material here, creepy industrial-music moods with touches of ambient and drone. Through my research, I found out that the act has been influenced by Brighter Death Now and Aghast (Cold Meat Industry) when I first heard it... I was thinking about some of the moody and eerie pieces with Throbbing Gristle (tracks like Beachhead and Epping Forrest) and to some of the weird ambient-creakiness by Nurse With Wound. Purely sinister mood music with a nod to old-school industrialism and off course Cold Meat Industry.  

The first track called Pure starts with a single... cowbell sound?. Additional (and misty) ghost-like vapors of sound sucks the listener right into a cold parallel universe. Moaning and dead´ ish recordings of human voices can also be traced here, with haunting industrial drones. Fxxxxxx loves it. It has that thick fog/misty atmosphere, so thick that u cannot see through it. And you know how the sound is when there is a heavy fog in your neighborhood! Cold-like hell, perfect!.  

Second track Drop is a spine-tingling piece with humming ambient-machines. Cannot help thinking back to Lars Von Trier´s paranormal series called Riget, this stuff could work perfectly as the soundtrack! Very sinister, yet strangely calm and seductive.

Third track Never follows up and convinces the listener that we are (certainly) dealing with something which is good for everyone! Look away from the cover-artwork showing a naked female body in a bloody bathtub! I just have to say, sinister and evil sounding? Yes!... But incredibly soothing (and hypnotic) at the same time. Pretty neat tech-guys behind this project, the atmospherics are bloody amazing!

And that is all that you will get from me. Most of the tracks on this album are similar in mood, theme, and style. BUT, that doesn't make it a lesser album. Ideal Father has found a unique conceptual sound-aesthetic, and have chosen to use that on an entire album (and they have done so perfectly). The first thought I had (when the album ended) was that I wanted it to be longer, it´s that kind of an album. A well-thought recorded idea that needs your attention. Fans of classic and traditional industrial and Cold Meat Industry will love it, I am sure of it!. 

Bandcamp:

https://idealfather.bandcamp.com/album/serial 

 

Yunclas - Tripalium Ligatum

Limited cassette release from Spanish Marbre Negre. Yunclas is a highly productive act which started back in 2017. 7 albums, 1 split, and several EPs as well. Interesting detail regarding Yunclas is its sole-member Adolfo F, who normally is a guitarist doing hardcore punk in an older cult band called Intolerance. Yunclas is something far away from hardcore punk. The album works around a concept, which sounds like this :

"Tripalium Ligatum" is a work that shows the darkness of salaried slavery in the factories where the worker tortured and tied with different methods of the "Tripalium" but equally effective.

Tripalium basically means being tortured on an x-formed cross. And Ligarum means tied. The cover artwork itself almost returns to a kind old-school industrial aesthetic, the idea of cut-up images/collages where ancient and religious imagery gets mixed up with a factory´ ish background. The recorded material on the cassette also returns to that old aesthetic as well. Take Scatology with Coil, early Laibach, C93, Severed Heads, SPK and Konstruktivists sort of sound. Sounds good? Sure it does, and it sounds pretty original and personal as well (so it´s not a copy-a-band thing!).

First track Dolar Machina is one of those perfect industrial-music introductions. Rhythmic and ritualistic pile-driver thumpings, corrosive and disharmonic noise-guitarwork, ghost-like eerie tunes slither out from a broken radio... Very imaginative dark soundscape and VERY good! True industrial music in my book! Second track Patiens Vocatio starts with a looped and rhythmic sampling of warped radio-noise which gets accompanied by an evocative and almost vintage-sounding dark synth. Tribalistic metal-percussions is there as well, with strange mesmerizing recorded vocals in the background. 

Third track Tripalium Ligarum enters further into the avant-garde sound. A very dream-like and psychedelic soundscape. A move away from the calculated industrial machines/aesthetic from the first two tracks, interesting guitar-work working in the background here as well. Fourth track Patiens Ad Mortem heightens a strange esoteric vibe. A sacrilegious monotony bleeds and pumps eternally into a mechanoid human-like being, a very dark and unforgiving piece! Fifth track Patiens Mora ends it into a quicksand of industrialized sound. Screaming microphones, power-tools, radio-noise all trapped into a subway-tunnel. 

A pure and experimental vintage-sounding industrial album with a personal touch, without the elements of either power electronics, dark ambient, death industrial or harsh noise. Highly recommended for old-timer industrial fans, or for those who need something in the background while watching flicks like Begotten (without sound).

Bandcamp (label):

https://marbrenegre.bandcamp.com/album/tripalium-ligatum

Discogs (band):

https://www.discogs.com/artist/5550429-Yunclas        

Jorvvik - S/T 

written by Balderus

From the first step on ‘Daybreak’ to the last nightly one on ‘Family’, from dawn on Coppergate to dusk drinking a local ale at The Maltings pub, the abiding and inspiring chase after this unnamed man leads to all these narrow streets and ageless thick walls preserving York’s history and legends from around the corner.

The tunes are simple and first catchy in a positive naïve mood that pre-empts the auroral awakening of every morning’s life on the ‘Market Place’ and maybe along The Shambles. With the walk going ahead you reach a further step by crossing any bridge over river Ouse ‘Through The Fog’ floating over darkish waters; the tunes grow darker and more atmospheric, bring kind of a more Burzum-like ambient mood to the front.

Who are these two shadows walking through York’s dew-scented streets and loans? The mystery behind two souls sliding through the vanishing fog and the uprisen blue-yellow sunlight defies any witness’s comprehension and this ‘Peaceful Patrol’ shows a parallel ecosystem of melancholic vibrating sounds and harmonies. Darker moment in darker places on the way to the ‘Dark Cavern’, a grotto or a fast rest under shady vaults, comes after and intensifies the feeling of tuned concern.

All this Yorkish work ends on a melodic revival distilling ‘Family’ consolation to the walking ghosts. To any York fan it is surely a great piece of music to help you enjoy a city walk, where Ivarr the Boneless founded his first kingship. To any York visitor it must be an indicated soundtrack which insures serenity and a way of introspection at the foot of Clifford tower or in any history charged place you like. I dare saying it is a great debut release. No doubt.

Bandcamp (band):

https://jorvvik.bandcamp.com/album/jorvvik

Winterblood ‘Luftschloss 

written by Balderus

OK, basically I am a big Winterblood aficionado. The breed that plays any release by this one-man band when I read, or simply when I want to start an introspection or a daydreaming session. ‘Luftschloss’ has systematically marshaled me through my reading times since it was released a few days ago. Like have ‘Hiraeth’, ‘Foresta Impenetrabile’, or my favorite ever ‘Waldeinsamkeit’ on earlier texts. This review is more a confirmation than a popping highlight.

Be sure these two 40-minute-and-more tracks shall bring you somewhere high and, as the title mentions it, a castle in the air. And by this I won’t mean a pipe dream like the idiom refers to but well and truly a musical stronghold of trancelike adventures. The artist himself describes the release as:

The 'meditation' goes on. Luftschloss is an etheric journey through the icy mountains, arcane presences, my steps into irrationality, and my inner voices; sounds that disintegrate my thoughts and put me in front of my soul. All of it lies within the music...

The first track ‘Apparition dans la forêt’ (transl. ‘apparition in the woods’) suggests that the canopies are the moonlit nightskies and the wraith appearing an ethereal being, undefined and hypnotic. Feel the translucent layers of ghostly air!

Then, the second track ‘Autre dimension’ (transl. ‘another dimension’) confirms that this mysterious wraith can be the astral boatman to the evoked other dimension. The track structure shows an efficient progression from the canopies to this now reachable castle in the air, where halls are roofless, opened to further journeys.

I’ll conclude by saluting once again this Italian band and encouraging all of you to use this tool to have access to these wide and tragic kingdoms in the air. Be brave: wander through the aerial woods and don’t reject this opportunity to know other astral dimensions!

Bandcamp (band):

https://winterblood78.bandcamp.com/album/luftschloss-2

Facebook (band):

https://www.facebook.com/WinterbloodOfficial/

Blackhouse - One Man´s Collection

Shouldn´t need an introduction... BUT! Blackhouse is one of the oldest (and still active) industrial acts from the United States. Been around since the 1984 debut Pro-Life, and to this day has released around 25 albums... and also this compilation. Need a quick intro to this legendary act, then this compilation should serve your hunger. A cool cardboard-thick digipack with a detailed and informational booklet inside, and a very refreshing and cool looking cover-artwork in a scene which has been drowned in second world-war and serial killer-imagery. The compilation offers tracks made between 1984 to 1988, with an extra and last bonus track (maybe brand new!). 

Blackhouse is NOT your typical old-school industrial act, although the true old-school industrial sound-aesthetic is there alright. Soundwise they are something in-between early SPK, Einsturzende Neubauten and Whitehouse. Power-electronics infused industrial with elements of ritual-ambiance... and been very much Christian-themed?! Yup! They were also the first Christian-based industrial-act, a pre-cursor to such acts as Swedish Mental Destruction.

Lots of cool cuts on this compilation. The first track More Than You And Me, being a VERY convincing subversive piece of religious industrial mood music. Organic heart-beat drum, edgy 80´s horror-synths, and really excellent warped ritualistic voices here (love the way the voices travel through speakers!). The second track Rhythmus moves away from the gentle hypnotic moods and straight into brutal and rhythmic industrial music, screaming distortion and pounding industrial-scrap rhythms... What more can you ask for?!. Third track Numerology moves closer into complete madness, you simply HAVE to hear it...to understand my short description of it! Next track Power of the Lion is the only track from the debut Pro-Life, any fan of old-school industrial will love it (Kind of... with the Throbbing Gristle´ ish distorted flanger sound). Remember Who Took the Fall is the fifth track, offers almost rap-like vocals and martial industrial rhythms. Sixth track Stairway To Heaven adds more subversive atmospheres to the mix... heart-beat pulse-drum, creepy reversed and distorted vocals shifts between the left channel speaker and to the right with a horrific haunted-house piano sound (Very kind of... Amiterville/Haunted-house thing with this track!).

Seventh track Hope Like A Candle, a piece of iconic industrial music. Probably the most iconic of all the Blackhouse tracks. Rhythmic scrap-metal industrial with a kind of eerie Whitehouese´ish sound going in the background. Eight and ninth track Answers For You and What Do You Know About Me gets closer to that early Whitehouse/and Minimal-Man-sound. Love the rhythmic-noise monotony and the warped over-the-top vocals here! Tenth track Rock Rock offers a dark and cool futuristic Terminator-sound/mood. Cold robotic dancy track with a sense of ritualistic doom anyone? Next track simply Dog, is the track which does not appear on any Blackhouse album. And yes, being God backward if you haven´t noticed. Cool kind of dub´ish Scorn-like rhythms, screaming microphone/loose-wire-distortions, and recording of barking dogs? It´s mad as hell, but it works!. Last track being Totally Gone, almost works around a kind of... Fad Gadget meets the Human League kind of melody/sound (Interesting).

And there you go. Madness from the start and to the end. Lots of cool 80s industrial rhythms to please fans of Dive or Esplendor Geometrico, tons of eerieness for fans of Suicide and Minimal Man and lots and lots of severe sound-brutality to please Whitehouse and SPK fans. A truly great industrial-music gem, and a perfect introduction to the beginner! And again, it´s out as the coolest looking digipack to Dark Vinyl (link below!)

Bandcamp (band):

https://blackhouse.bandcamp.com/

Official website (band):

http://www.sonic.net/~lfmusic/blackhouse/

Official website (label):

https://www.darkvinyl.de/

Facebook (label):

https://www.facebook.com/darkvinylrecords