Documentary Review: Klub Kranium/Dark Blossom by Hedvig Funeral

Klub Kranium/Dark Blossom is a danish debut documentary film by Frigge Fri.

The documentary portrays three young people, Josephine, Mareridt, and Jay from Denmark who find friendship through their shared alternative lifestyle and the struggles that friendship brings through balancing love, friendship, and religion. The documentary follows Josephine who doesn't feel she belongs in any “normal” social gathering and the people surrounding her in her very small hometown of Fjerritslev, in northern Denmark/Jutland. 

The start of the documentary is somewhat loud as a promising beginning but as the film moves forward it becomes duller with not many conversations between the protagonists and oozes out by a lot of small clips and mobile phone clips that doesn't fill the screen and leaves a “debut” feel to it. 

As a viewer one might feel that a lot of the original content and far more exciting scenes and happenings are cut out and the experience of the viewer feels like... that too much is left out. That could have filled the empty spaces between no conversations and small clips.

Although as a viewer, I find the story of Josephine really good and shows how a young person struggles with the balance in the fight between friendship and her love life. I feel a disconnect between the title, the content, and the subculture as I also feel the documentary took a “wrong turn” or chose another path later on and the meaning behind it was another, to begin with, and it really shows in the storyline and clips that could just as well have left out the Alternative Subculture theme or lifestyle and followed three everyday people in Denmark.

Director: Frigge Fri

Producer: Mathilde Hviid Lippmann

Film duration: 1 hour and 20 min

Release date: 24th of April, 2021

Language: Danish/English subtitles

Two out of five coffins from me 

Official website :

https://cphdox.dk/da/film/dark-blossom-da/

 Anaru - Silent Hunter

We have had the pleasure of Anaru a couple of times on Kalteldur, and it is always a great pleasure to do again. If you don´t know Anaru, then I can reveal to you that it is a Lithuania-based industrial solo project which started around 2017. Sort of surreal experimental technoid act with a nod or two to the early cultural cyberpunk-aesthetics (William Gibson to Japanese toons like Akira etc...)  This time we have something in a classic CD format, an album with 9 tracks and is almost 40 minutes in length.

First track is called Atėjo laikas Galaktiką ginti peiliu! (translated Its Time To Defend The Galaxy With A Knife!). A rumbling, noisy and rhythmic industrial piece with a lovely doom-laden synth-melody in the background. Love the weird noises/sounds here, lots of interesting loops, and eerie stuff going on. The sound is kind of high-tech and primitive at the same time, in other words... lovely balanced between the chaotic and the structured.

The second track Alkokareivio-samurajaus Ataka (Attack of the Alokaarii samurai Border) works with futuristic sounds meeting up with sounds from the second world war! City-alarms going on, sinister-sounding knife-japing synth-keys, ritualistic undertones, warped radio noises etc. Sounds very chaotic, but it is very well structured if you ask me. A lot of ideas being mixed up here, but it works so far. 

The Third track Ritual Schizophrenia Campaign (Takes time to enter the original track title) moves closer to a kind of Deutsch Nepal sound. An interesting sample is taken from some film-noir hardboiled Detective flick and gets mixed into cool technoid rhythmic eerieness. Love the vibrating metallic sounds going on, kind of a David Lynch/Twin Peaks sort of a wibe going on here aswell. 

The Fourth track Infinite Despair Factory Staff might just be my favorite track on the album. Fans of early Autechre anyone?. Interesting and messy robotic rhythms clashes and bangs while a slightly melancholic and hypnotic toy piano (and a haunting synth tune) goes in the background. It´s fxxxxxx great, heard it a couple of times now!. 

The Fifth track Blood Citadel Intermission is a lovely and futuristic ambient-techno track. High to the ceiling while giving a good opportunity to the listener to reach a certain aesthetic of delight. 

The sixth track Prophets of a technocratic future offers metallic clashes and haunting melodies. Kind of takes me back to some of the eerie technoid pieces which you could hear on Cold Meat Industry´s The Karmanik Collection!. 

The rest of the album (3 other tracks) is for the listener to explore! And they are worth exploring. Silent Hunter is a grim and merciless journey into a dark and cold future, where everything and everyone is ruled by a technocratic elite. You can already see it now as it is happening. A post C19 society with Iphones all-around, no contact with anyone just in contact with the information from your iPhone (which is controlling you!). Just me rambling offcourse, but do yourself a favor and check this album out!. Also out on a limited CD release ( SeeBlack Ring Ritual Records Bandcamp link below ).

Bandcamp (label):

https://blackringrituals.com/album/silent-hunter

Bandcamp (band):

https://anarup.bandcamp.com/album/cold-zero

     

 

 

 

 En Nihil - Time Destroys Everything

You might have heard of En Nihil, maybe with the 1997 death-industrial classic Death Keeps CD which was released via Red Stream?... Well, this project is still alive! After Death Keeps the project had a 13 years pause, and until 2010 there have been numerous releases on numerous different labels. One of the latest En Nihil releases ended up in my Kalteldur-review-mailbox, the album title is Time Destroys Everything. Released via cult label Deathbed Tapes... the cassette tape is already sold out, but that shouldn't stop you from checking out the digital album via Bandcamp.    

The first track (all tracks are nameless) starts with a subtle humming bass... the kind of aural paranormal bass sound one might hear inside a coffin (when buried offcourse). Later on a thumping, distorted and flesh-scraping-chopped-up-sound moves up and down like a drill while additional (and lovely) layers of deep ambient sounds and harsh distortions wraps it all up! It´s terrific and pure death-industrial to the core, more focused on the early BDN-sound than the later power-electronics sound. 

The second track moves us even closer to that classic, powerful and depressive BDN sound (Necrose Evangelicum). The sound of a bone-crushing machine working on some subterranean dungeon of pure torture, in the background there are wails and screams from souls in hell... begging for release! Everything is cracking and bubbling here, with lots of action and lots of that heavy-industrial sound!

The third track has a sound that sounds like someone exhaling their final breath, which then ends with a sound that sounds like a bomb that just has been dropped... this is looped in a rhythmic way! High pitched sounds of psychedelic morbidness prevent you from escape! Very nice, very nice indeed! 

We continue with the B-side, the fourth track that is. A clear focus on thumping heavy-ambient-moods! Might just be the most rhythmic aggressive and cha piece on the album, really love the interesting and horrific layers of sound going on in the background! Perfect executed death-industrial! 

The fifth (and last track) track moves more into the territory of free-styled harsh-noise. A grinding and lovely moment on the torture table. Every distorted sound feels like shattered glass which rips through your senses, imagine a looped car crash in slow-motion? 

5 tracks through 5 places in hell. Slowly building up from the first track and ending in a chaotic moment of pure delight. A great album, and great to experience that someone is doing something which actually sounds as great as Brighter Death Now. Have you forgotten the classic death-industrial sound? Check up on Time Destroys Everything!. 

Bandcamp (label):

https://deathbedtapes.bandcamp.com/album/time-destroys-everything

Discogs (band):

https://www.discogs.com/artist/75588-En-Nihil

   

 Parthenfelder - Enduring To The End

I have just discovered a new Danish label called Section 1, and I have also discovered that Section 1 releases some highly obscure releases with new and unknown acts (Which I haven´t read or heard about until now!). Nevertheless! One of the cassettes I received from Section 1 which I gave a listen to, was the debut by a power-electronics act called Parthenfelder, and the album is called Enduring To The End. I am not 100% sure who the band members are (No info on the World Wide Web!), but I have my suspicions... but offcourse I am not gonna tell you!. A double-sided cassette, filled with atmospheric and hypnotizing concentrated anguish! 

First track Deliverance Of Tourture... Tourture?. Maybe they meant Torture instead of Tourture (Or did they?)... Something about a tour being... well... like torture... oh never mind. The track starts with a serious spoken-voice recording/sample with a moody and doom-laden synth in the background, I suspect it is a sample taken from some old documentary related to WW2. Then the track starts off (just like that!). Primitive and hellish drone noises... a bit like the engines of old fighter airplanes (Diving bomber aero-planes!). Looped and animalistic sounds of human voices. Hidden sound-activity and spiritual vocals lurk deep in the background. A flawless power-electronics intro-track. Very German old school! (Anenzephalia, Ex-Order)  

The second track Abstersion ( the action or process of cleansing ) is a track that sounds...very cold and compact. Incredible dense and incredible...mesmerizing. The recorded sound of a huge machine room in the lowest parts of the earth... As a fan of Doctor Who, I cannot help thinking back to the cybermen's early episodes. They too ALSO did the action of cleansing... sort of. 

The Third track Blinded By Ideology continues the looped machine-anguish with a focus on the vocals, very much in the same vein with Anenzephalia and Ex-Order. Not the aggressive noisy Whitehouse stuff, but more in the sort of monotonic and moody death-industrial sound. And yup, so far... it sounds like the real deal folks!. 

The Fourth track Study On Hanging Rats (and the last track on the A-side) drives a pulsating hot needle in your bloody skull. Looped throbbing noises and flesh-scraping distorted moods... Fxxxxx great!  

I think (maybe) there is maybe a hidden track on the A-side which isn´t mentioned in the booklet. So far I have counted 5 tracks on the A-side, and the booklet tells me that there are 4 tracks. No Matter. This track might just be the track called Stratagem (Deceiving and outwitting the enemy). Another decent, intense, and relentless ambient-noise track. Still maintaining that old-school Germanic sound!

                                    

"B-side" continues with Abondon All Hope (On Discogs it called Abandon!). A broody drone moves (slowly) up and down in close connection with the heavy wall of an analog bass sound. Love the effects on the vocals here again folks!.

The second track on the B-side called Enduring To The End. Continues in the same fashion as the previous track, just more menacing. Fans of Brighter Death Now´s Inner war should take notice!. Long and very epic!   

The fourth track In This Land (Album title), cools it down with atmospheric harshness and aggressive ambient vocals. The lovely heavy-industrial sound here (very metallic!). The perfect mood/sound for describing a battlefield in the first World War!

Fourth track (and last track) Outro gets back to that German bomber aero-plane sound, or just the sound of fighter airplanes on a hangar... all humming together to create a cacophonic wall of destructive sound. Something going on in the background here sounds interesting! 

An album that delivers something... well... nothing new really. But, why be new all the time?! This album delivers a sound that I think is a rather overlooked style/genre in the world of industrial and noise music. A style that borrows something from early power-electronics, industrial, and what we could call proto death-industrial?. An ambient version of power-electronics?. At one time another act (Dagda Mor) from Germany called the style Cold Electronics. Whatever Parthenfelder delivers the thing like pure perfection. Sounds like an old school in the new school, it does the thing!

Discogs (label):

https://www.discogs.com/label/1637277-Sektion1

Official Site (label):

https://sektion1.bigcartel.com/