Kalteldur top 10 of 2021
Number 10:
Jugendwerkhof - Leibenfamie
Low Life High Volume
The relentless aural punishment from this harsh-noise beast was hard to forget. A devastating metallic-grinding post-apocalyptic mess that will swallow you whole, leaving you absolutely drained of mental and physical energy when the album ends. I love the way how they have managed to sneak in the industrial sound into a harsh-noise setting, we could use more of that in the future!
Number 9
Flow Control - Endless March
Elm Records
Ambient music is easy to make, hard to actually make it really good. Flow Control is a good example of that statement, which I actually think that Brian Eno once said in an interview somewhere. Endless March was... an endless album. The feeling of being completely isolated while the corona thing was going on, with a huge fire ravaging the landscape at the same time. It is a quiet and pleasant album, but with a kind of... silence before the storm which made the album kind of... unnerving in a memorable post-apocalyptic way. A brilliant ambient treat with a good conceptual idea.
Number 8:
The Secrete Society - Thee First Secrete
Marbre Negre
Dark and extreme electronic music is always a guarantee when dealing with such labels as Marbre Negre. Thee First Secrete is absolutely no exception. I even had a rather horrific experience listening to this tape with my Sony Walkman. It was all about a nighttime walk in nature, in a place I didn´t know. A place where the moon was high, and a minor storm was blowing through the trees around me. Well, the thing was that I was lost. So I ended up walking like 2 hours to relocate to my place of origin, which in my case was a summer vacation cottage in the outskirts of Denmark. For 2 hours I listened to this album in a state of growing anxiety, the album contained a certain kind of darkness that you could almost drown yourself into. Pretty gruesome and truly frightening industrial ritual music from your absolute worst Lovecraftian nightmare! As raw and dark as MZ.412 and as surreal and intense as Coil. That album was stuck in my mind for several months after that experience.
Number 7:
Cities In Ruins - Athanor of Souls
Cities In Runs came with a surprise. A rather deep one if you would ask me. We were all just talking about a mini-album with two tracks and an additional track which was just another version of the first track. The thing which came out of the speaker was truly something worth taking notice of. Engulfing melancholic dark-ambient moods with a kind of post-war´ish sort of setting. Imagine huge buildings being completely devoid of human presence, huge buildings/locations that once have been booming with activity and human life. Chernobyl if I should name a place, among other places as well. Ghosts and memories are all that this tiny album will haunt you with... and it leaves you with a strong impression. I actually think that if you have one of those tape-players that automatically flips the side, you could actually listen to this thing for hours without getting tired of it... it is that good people!
Number 6:
Monosymbiosis - 1
Realm of Sleep
´It was just a colour out of space´. The same thing I thought of when 1 by Monosymbiosis ended. It contained all the elements of the human imagination when considering the vastness of space, equally fascinating and equally frightening! A truly adventurous album with its cold, dismal, adventurous, and vast proto ambient/kraut-rock sound. Could be like traveling through the vastness of the great cosmos, or even through the human body. The whole album is like a pulsating living thing with huge space inside (a bit like the Tardis!). Go out and get it, and explore the worlds within!.
Number 5:
Parthenfelder - Enduring To the End
Sektion1
In the veins of Anazephalia and Grey Wolves, the project Parthenfelder was something new to my ears. Immensely intense without aggression. Power electronics with a mood-before-action-approach so to speak. Works almost like a religious experience, like some radio channel through which God can speak. Quite epic stuff from the muddy and cold trenches of the first world war. When I had my job as a Corona-test-employee for the state, this tape was living permanently on my Walkman. Perfect for when you have a worldwide pandemic party going on! Best power-electronics release of 2021 here kids!.
Number 4:
Starless - Lezo
Despot
The album is as... mind-boggling as the cover itself. Surreal, free-styled, anarchic almost... sort of a space/room where ANYTHING can and will happen! It sounds like a bloody avant-garde mess when I am trying to describe it... but... there is a thin red line running through the entire recording... leading you through the chaotic schizoid landscape of sound! It is incredibly well achieved, and the electro-acoustic sound quality is absolutely gob-smacking! When the early exploits of the arty avant-garde meet the early industrial sort of. A classic to withstand the time for many years!
Number 3
En Nihil - Time Destroys Everything
Deathbed Tapes
I must admit that I am a HUGE fan of death industrial. I am so huge fan of death industrial that I must admit that I do think that... too many acts are using that label to describe their music. 90% of the cases you end up with something which just doesn't fit the tag, you either end up with some Genocide Organ-wannabee screaming on top of their lungs or some death-metal band just messing around with electronics. En Nihil was no doubt the real fucking deal, absolutely and 100% true death industrial to the core (almost sounding like a metal dude now). En Nihil is also an act that goes way back to the mid-90s, so it was easy to hear (and experience) that we are dealing with someone being quite experienced in the specific field. Although not as known as either Brighter Death Now or Atrax Morgue, which in my case leaves me to say that En Nihil is an underrated act. Go and seek it out from Deathbed Tapes.
Number 2:
Sokushinbutsu Project - 即身仏
I heard the entire album on a long bus trip on my Discman. While reading the highly detailed booklet, I entered into a mediative state of mind. I still do when I am hearing this übermensch sort of an album! So what is Sokushinbutsu Project about then?!. It´s not Japanese, it´s from Ithattaly by the way. It´s a concept album that revolves around a certain ritualistic practice done by Buddhist monks. Which in this case is self-mummification! Each track on the album is about the 4 stages which the monk has to endure to reach Nirvana.. which is actually death while meditating!. The difference between the real thing and this album is... you do not die while listening to the album, and this album only takes 50 minutes to get through... while the real deal takes about...3000 days!. A different beast to describe. Partly ritual-industrial with elements of experimental noise here and there, the whole album is completely beyond description. As extreme and otherworldly as the real deal!
Number 1:
Lyke Wake - At The End Of The Dream...
Aseptic Noise
I never thought that Lyke Wake could outdo something as good as the former album Crawling Through The Abyss. Crawling Through also managed to get it the best of 10 in 2018 as number 5. This one actually took my breath away (And my feet). Abysmal synthy stuff, imagine if John Carpenter did a soundtrack for a Argento flick in the 70s! And again, it´s Lyke Wake. He has his own personal style and sound. Creating angelic melodies with esoteric industrial noise on top of it. No one does it better. He even managed to add some deep and ceremoniously female vocal parts on the album as well, which sounds really... incredible gob-smacking. I am so glad that I have been fortunate to hear this incredible album, an absolute masterpiece!
