lørdag den 27. juli 2019

Miracle Of Love - You will Be Free



It´s summertime, love is in the air and people are happy in the warm sunlight. But every now and then thundering lightning and pouring rain will come down after a hot season. Miracle Of Love (in that sense) works with a sensation of physical relief, I am talking about masturbation (Or am I?) no ... I am talking about how one will physically feel when the rain and the thunder come down... after a VERY hot day! 

The act-name Miracle Of Love (plus the album title) looks like a new Swans-related/side-project release, I don´t think that the act-name hails from the hit-single by Eurythmics. Although I can assure that it doesn't sound like Swans, or Eurythmics for that matter!. Primal and heavy industrial-ambiance would be my words for it, somewhere along the line between the mid-era neo-classical ambiance of Raison d´être (Empty Hollow Unfolds) and the harsh monotonic death-industrial sounds from Megaptera. In other words, this act which hails from Rome sounds more like an early Swedish CMI-act then an Italian one (And there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING wrong about that. Limited released as a BEAUTIFUL (and completely black) CD inserted in a nifty slip-cover (See below). I don´t know how limited it is since I cannot locate the info regarding the exact number of releases pressed. Either way, better be quick than slow with this one. You can find it via the label´s Bandcamp site (Also see below).

The release/album and the sounds kind of works in the same fashion as when our favorite Cenobite speaks the immortal words ´Angels to some, devils to others´. It contains beautiful almost angelic synth-ambient melancholic-moments and then next you are deliberately thrown into a cage with venomous snakes! 


But still, the concept of the soundtrack/mood maintain its chosen aesthetic. You will encounter distorted guitar-loops, angelic/orthodox choirs, machine room-sounds, whispering voices, proto dungeon-synth melodies, harsh noise-aggression, even beautiful acoustic guitar moments. All of this being perfectly packed in that classic industrial-ambient/ritual-industrial sound-setting! 

From start to finish, it is a fantastic and terrifying journey... and yes!... It will set you free! All the highly individual tracks have all been crafted beautifully together to create this magnificent soundtrack. A 2019 must!  



Bandcamp (Label):








lørdag den 13. juli 2019



Maurizio Bianchi & Pharmakustik - Zersetzung by Kristian Robert Carter


The Oxford University description of decomposition is as follows -

" the state or process of rotting "

Zersetzung is the German word for decomposition.

Longtime MB collaborator and audio engineer Siegmar Fricke are Pharmakustik and he knows a lot about decomposition. He has been clinically dissecting sound for over three decades, critically analyzing the component molecules of audio data and meticulously documenting the sonic debris. Assembling the shards of sound into towering superstructures of fragile geometry. Constructing monoliths of complex patterns both dense and weighty but possessing an air of fragility as if the huge wall of drone he has constructed could be swept away with a simple flick of the wrist. His digital experimentation is as deep as the ocean itself but just like the ocean waves they pour forth and recede into the distance, in constant movement. Back and forth. Like time itself. Inexorable and unstoppable.

Everything decays.

All matter is in a constant state of decomposition.

One could say that life itself is one slow drawn-out process of undoing.

The moment we are born we begin to fall slowly to pieces.

Our cells divide, break apart and we eventually end up as an atomized dust, returned to the state of nothingness from whence we emerged.


Utilizing raw materials and field recordings from the legendary Italian electronic musician Maurizio Bianchi, Pharmakustik has tried to identify the nature of decomposition and decay inherent within the recordings supplied by Mr. Bianchi.

The four tracks upon this beautifully packaged release are the exploration of the decay that Mr. Bianchi recorded on a small handheld recorder. The ambient sounds of his home city of Milan are broken down into granular particles of pure noise and treated with layer upon layer of technology. What was captured in the original field recordings is given a new lease of life by the cryptic mining of the decomposition that is built into everything that exists upon this planet and every single object, person, animal or vegetable that has ever existed?

Pharmakustik strip away the sound of life itself to reveal the slow decomposing collapsing energy of nature and time.

Cracking static and crumbling waves of sound that are enveloped within a huge echo chamber give this album a claustrophobic air. Unusual spirals of noise twist and undulate like medieval mythic serpents, their presence is felt but they never become fully visible. Remaining at the periphery of awareness.

The second track sounds as if waves are crashing onto a vast deserted beach, the wave of sound crunching into the sand and then slowly receding leaving behind freshly deposited digital shingle that crackles with cobalt electricity.

The third and fourth tracks sound as if they have been recorded within a huge decaying industrial complex that is slowly falling to pieces, the individual sections of disused machinery captured and amplified as they are consumed by the passage of rot, rust, and entropy.

Siegmar Fricke hails from Germany and during my research into the term Zersetzung I discovered that the former East German Republic ( DDR ) had a covert surveillance program with the same title.

The Stasi used analog equipment to monitor and police dissidents imposing a sense of paranoia and mistrust in those who were targeted for surveillance.

It is not known if there is any allegorical link to either the process of decomposition and the Stasi surveillance program but one can imagine the sense of claustrophobic weight that was leveled at the surveyed dissidents especially on track three with its muffled voices and helicopter like sounds that flicker and dance across the speakers.

Whatever angle one approaches this album from it is impossible not to be consumed entirely by its dense weight and complexity.

Having worked together for many years Pharmakustik is still finding ways to explore and develop the ideas and sounds of MB.

Highly recommended.


MB (Official site):

MB (Wikipedia):

Pharmakustik (Bandcamp):

Pharmakustik (Facebook):

søndag den 30. juni 2019


MB - T.P.T.M.B.T.D. 

Written by Kristian Robert Carter



" Dedicated to all those who are searching for the truth " Whose truth? Truth is in short supply these days. Perhaps it's always been this way but in the fast paced hyper technological world we inhabit, truth has actually become a commodity. Truth is invented, truth is traded, truth is manufactured. In the era of fake news and misinformation; one must ask both what truth and whose. Maurizio Bianchi has been seeking the elusive and spiritual in the temporal for over four decades now. In his formative years he sought some kind of humanity in the increasingly cold mechanistic industrial environment of his native Italy. Vainly attempting to unearth the logic that lay behind the crushing facade of a society that perpetuates dehumanization and isolation within its socio economic sphere. In essence what Bianchi tried to capture with his early sound experiments was the complete atomisation of the individual within the technological world. He could see that rather than liberating us from our shackles, that very technology was instead entrapping us inside a bleak and sterile cell. Alone and isolated. Nothing more than an isolated atomic particle colliding in vain against the walls of our own technological hell. Through his bleak and cacophonous audio works he created an audible portrait of the static screams of the human race; as it was consumed by the very equipment they had created to liberate themselves. He stared headlong into the abyss and what he saw repulsed him He walked away. He sought a truth far from the technologic hell he had surveyed. Maurizio found some of the truth he had sought and returned after a lengthy absence. In order to continue his search for meaning through sound and art. To use music as a tool to explore his new spiritual truth. This album released on Japanese label Music Atlach is a remastered work that first appeared on cassette in 2015. Lavishly packaged and lovingly restored from the original master recordings. T.P.T.M.B.T.D is a lengthy disk. Comprising of two thirty minute sections. The first track entitled Tele Pro Thermo unfolds slowly, as if the track is a photograph that is obscured by smoke. As the smoke begins to dissipate the blurred image begins to slowly become discernible. I say photograph because the track is static, there is very little movement at all and in fact the movement is perhaps only distinguishable as the movement of the dissaptating smoke that clouds the frozen image. If your hoping for a clearer glimpse of what's actually upon the exposed photograph you'll be dismayed to find that the actual Polaroid is a blurred mess of distorted scenery. To actually ascertain what is captured in that exposed image is virtually impossible. One can only catch a fleeting glimpse of what may or may not be there. There are faint edges, contours and protusions but that is all. Everything is out of focus and ill defined. Whatever truth is lurking imperceptibly within the image is out of grasp. Trying to clutch at this truth will leave you frantically clawing at mist. There is nothing to hold onto and that truth will slip effortlessly through your outstretched fingertips.



The second track engimatically titled Mikro Bio Tetra Dys is a haunting floating hymn to an unrealised dystopia. Through the bleak murky fugue that surrounds this piece a choral chord sequence threatens to pierce the gloom and bring into this shade world a searing flash of luminence. However despite how hard the light pushes it is unable to break through the gloom and instead it is buried within the greyness that seeps at a funerary pace across the track. There is hope but it is only by piercing the darkness will you find any kind of salvation. Maurizio Bianchi has looked into that darkness and he has found his truth, his salvation. The question is; are you willing to do the same?




Official website:

Wikipedia:






fredag den 28. juni 2019

Hedvig Brandt on Radio Arkive



Fellow Kalteldur journalist Hedvig Brandt from Jutland, Denmark has the pleasure of presenting a new radio program on the internet "Radio Arkive"


As a DJ, she is known to play obscure tracks on her sets.
She goes way back to the 80s, where she started as a "Waver" more commonly known now as a Goth. She kept the tradition as identifying as a Goth for more than 30 years and has many tracks up her sleeve.


Her program is every Saturday on Radio Arkive, Danish time 19.00


Brasil time 14.00, where she will
play obscure 70's, 80's and 90s music, also allowed to play (up to 2002) newer cover tracks of these decades. Interested? Click on the link below!


Arkive Radio:


torsdag den 27. juni 2019

Javier Pinango & David Area - Drôle de Guerre



One of the latest releases from Spanish industrial-drone experimentalist Javier Pinango, you may have noticed another excellent release with him which we reviewed back in 2017 (Two Unfocused Cardinal Points). The album has been made in the company of a David Area, which has been thoroughly active in the Spanish experimental scene. This one also came out on Marbre Negre by digital means and physical as a 50 copies ltd. CD in an awesome looking slim-line digipack (Notice the fantastic cover artwork here folks!). A 7 tracks album, almost 80 minutes long!. This one is actually a live-recording... really interesting stuff here!.

First tracks open the ears to rusty glitch-sounds dripping into your brain, distant screaming, and hypnotic metallic drones, monotonic death-industrial bass-rumblings joined up with acid-drenched psychedelic moods. Really interesting and very digestible soundscape for any hungry ears/minds. So far it seems/sounds like a great live performance!. Second track takes me back to some of the early recordings by the BBC-radiophonic workshop or even the kraut-rock/ambient pioneers Cluster. Heavy industrial space-ambient anyone?. Beautiful mindbending sounds you can travel your mind with (Free trip into another dimension anyone??). 


The third track being the longest on the album (17:10 minutes) being also one of the most surreal and mesmerizing treats here. A kind of a modern update to some of the early ambient/atmospheric recordings by Throbbing Gristle, and yes... it will lift you some inches from the ground!. You can almost sense a touch of urban decay here, a touch of something (Abandoned factories) which hasn´t changed for years and years and then it just stands there... rotting and falling apart. Probably waiting for something to tear it down and building something new, which sadly will not happen (For some reason). A very beautiful dark piece which I can highly recommend for walkies with your headphones on in the decayed industrial and forgotten areas of your hometown. 

Fourth track sutle settles the mood further down, Tangerine Dream and Biosphere fans anyone?. Feels like the spaceship has finally landed somewhere, maybe it is soil? (Maybe not). It feels like drifting on an icy cloud while looking down?... What kind of cloud it is which u can land your spaceship on, I do not know! Incredible track this is. Love the mind-cutting high-tones here!. The fifth track puts you into a heavy sort of static hypnotic state, throbbing monotonic piece which bombs you further down to the surface from the icy-clouds. A pulsating beam shoots the space traveler through the atmosphere and the clouds, when will you reach the surface (if there is one?!).

From here, I will keep my mouth shut! I will then ask you (as the reader) to join this journey and explore it. As mentioned before, we are talking about other planets, dimensions, other states of minds, levitation... YOU NAME IT!. Heavy industrial space ambient, are we talking about a new genre?. FANTASTIC live-album, I would wish that I was there to experience it!. Sadly no :(.  


Bandcamp (label):

       

mandag den 17. juni 2019

Kalteldur will be on pause and will hopefully be back again after the Summer. All the demos and albums I will receive this month will be the last reviewed until the resurrection!



søndag den 9. juni 2019

Disen Gage - Nature




All the way from Mother Russia, Disen Gage has been existence since 1999. Taking elements from prog-rock, free-jazz, space-ambient, noise, and industrial music... so far they have come up with 7 albums and this one is their newest which came out last year via (No Name) label (Seriously!... that is the label name). A 3 track album, where each track is about 15 minutes each. A concept album working around the planets, trains, and animals. Otherwise, read this official and interesting concept statement:

This story started a long time ago when the participants of Disen Gage scoured in the night in the dangerous vicinity of the Moscow railroad station “Sortirovochnaya” trying to capture fascinating sonic roulades emitted by the wagons. At the same time, on the other side of the globe, in the State of Iowa, astronomers succeed in converting strange signals coming from the orbit of Jupiter into audible sound palettes. Later, in an Australian swamp, Mrs. Toad said to Mr. Crocodile: "Dude, why not concoct a Tops-of-the-Pops album of all those ingredients, one on which we would sing all together?” "I'll call Mr. Bear, my Siberian friend. He knows how to mix all stuff with a beat", answered Mr. Crocodile. Finally, the Nature, crafted from sounds of planets, trains, and animals including higher primates, is now in your hands. Still, we wonder how the human ear will take this… 
…and songs of the mushroom kingdom and bacteria are coming next.

The very first track (I know I have mentioned Dr.Who before) sucks you and the Tardis into some deep and weird dimension (We are talking about black and white Dr.Who-era). One of those kinds of dimensions where normality, as we know, ceases to exist! I can Recommend seeing The Mind Robber episode or The Edge of Destruction. Psychedelic trippy space-ambient with looped industrial machine rhythms... think the surreal and heavy industrial sounds of Deutsche Nepal and the cosmic space exploration ideas from Biosphere. Really like the first track, a lovely kind of organic feel to it. Interesting elements of free-jazz and deep space drones end it. 


Second track Trains, it gets a bit more... desolate and eerie. Sort of like being completely alone on a huge (and old) train station. Looped wind-sweeping rhythmic sounds, in the distance you have screaming trains slowing down the speed, hidden sound-drones lurk, repetitive and breathtaking and haunting ambient-tunes. The whole track just feels like something you want to dive into, and have you completely absorbed. Excellent soundtrack material here, really good!.

Last track Animals has according to the CD-cover a wide range of different animals as guest musicians. Anything from a bear, hyenas, crocodile, toad... you name it!. Looped, repetitive and exquisite strangeness streams through your speakers. Who could have thought that animal sounds could be so interesting?. Almost a kind of technoid rhythmic-electronica feel to this piece. Love it when you can hear the wolves howling here. Interesting psychedelic sludge-metal kind of ending.

I have nothing bad to say about this. An incredible unique release with a HUGE world of the sound-aesthetic inside (and ready to be explored!). The sound quality is worth to mention since it is incredible great!. When I am reviewing this release, I am sitting in a room where I have perfect stereo-sound. And the stereo sound is just mindbending here, it feels real and you can almost touch the sounds. You can feel and hear how the recorded elements float around you! This album is an absolute must! Again, it is available on digital format and on CD as well. You can get the physical CD format via the label-link below!.


Bandcamp: (label)

Bandcamp: (band)

    

søndag den 2. juni 2019

Stone Wired - G.R.I.M. [2008-2018]



Released last Christmas 2018, a double compilation (and double-sided) cassette release from Stone Wired limited to 66 copies. 2 beautiful cassettes encased in a lovely outer box. Both cassettes contain 2 albums on each side, first one has the albums Grim and Cold Bodies (recorded 2008-2018) and the second tape has the albums Habitual Discomfort and Dead (recorded 2018-2019).

Stone Wired is one of the numerous industrial projects from the same mind which gave us Human Vault, a project which thoroughly explores moody minimal electronic body music (see the former review of Human Vault´s Primordial). Stone Wired works within the perimeter of sinister death-industrial and flesh-scraping industrial-drone ambient. 

The first album called G.R.I.M. moves into death-industrial soundtracks. Really has a lot of "charm" to it, being submerged into every kind of basic human perversions you can think u cannot help but feel that every track has a story to tell. It´s primitive death-industrial with a touch of a high-tech sound, but not high-tech in a glossy and shallow kind of way. A thing between the heavy-ambient horror-soundtrack diversity of Swedish Megaptera to the kind of background stuff one (just might) could notice on albums like The Infidel by Doubting Thomas (Skinny Puppy side-project).

Second album Cold Bodies is something completely else. Murky drone and dark heavy ambiance get mixed up together in a toxic cesspool! Empty (and devoid of life) landscapes stretch on and on without end, almost have a post-nuclear feel to it. Total and pure isolationist ambient music with a focused apocalyptic feel. I would although prefer G.R.I.M. album compared to this one. I am a sucker for sound dynamics and I do think (to a certain degree) that Cold Bodies could use a bit more of that. Could charm the fans of Lustmord or Desiderii Margrnis. 



The third album Habitual Discomfort is... a kind of thing in between the G.R.I.M. and Cold Bodies. More in the ritual-industrial kind of way. Delivering industrial sounds while laying it cool with icy-drones. The coldness of the ambient-orientated tracks on this album actually works better for me than on Cold Bodies. The sound dynamics seem more organic and sincere. One of the tracks on here takes me back to the soundtrack to Clive Carpenter´s excellent sci-fi horror flick The Thing, cold and calculated atmosphere with a sense of... a certain kind of doomed dread which suddenly can appear without a single warning! Interesting focus on true-crime themes on this one, notice the samples/recordings being used here.

Fourth and last offering simply called Dead thrives on industrial noise and bass-driven ambiance. Not that far away from some of the classic and minimalistic recordings with early death-industrial pioneer Brighter Death Now. It has that slightly claustrophobic damp cellar kind of feel, pretty much being engulfed or swallowed up by that specific pitch black kind of darkness. Without a doubt the most sinister of these 4 minialbums on these two cassette-tapes.

And there you have it. Pretty much worth it from the start and to the end. It delivers what it should deliver when it comes to this kind of death industrial music. Balanced between the old school and the new school of death industrial. High tech sound, but still with a minimal and primitive aesthetic. Not a waste of time at all, worth your time!



Bandcamp: (band)

Bandcamp: (label)


    


lørdag den 1. juni 2019

Merzbow -  Kaerutope 

Written By Kristian Robert Carter




The second disk of the Japanese only releases of new Merzbow material recorded in 2016 - 2018. The sleeve is a jet black exotic frog or toad and all four tracks are simply named Frog. There are four tracks V1, V2, V3 and V5. Frog V4 made its appearance on the other Slow Down release Indigo Dada which was released simultaneously to Kaerutope. 

Frog V1 opens the album with the processed calls of amphibians that have been shaped into percussive clusters that act as a muffled slow quiet rhythm. Masami stealthily begins to weave a disparate and bewildering array of audio into the track, hums, pulses and discordant machinery emerge from the murky fugue. This track sounds muffled and there is obviously a deliberate process of obstufcation


Obsfucation. At times this is like a soundtrack to an hospital ward, where the listener is slipping in and out of consciousness, barely able to focus on their surroundings before sinking once again into narcotised tranquility. Frog V2 and V3 segue effortlessly into place and continue in much the same way as the opening track but subtle and beguiling elements are skilfully woven into the mix including a discordant picked string instrument, muffled washes of analogue squall, metallic percussion and a strange saw like sound. Flickers of detuned radio flit across the channels like a bird taking flight in the almost pitch black darkness of night. The closing track Frog V5 has a sense of impending ultimatum as a pulsating drone begins to slowly build in both speed and intensity. As the drone increases in tempo the accompanying scrapes, gurgles and Geiger counter like chattering grow louder and more persistent. Once again the processed amphibians return this time though their calls are almost like the harbingers of the planets collapsing the ecosystem. Over the inexorable advance of the planets gravedigger, this is the howl of nature. Shrieking back at its cold insensitive visage.

Label:

Bandcamp: (band)

Facebook: (band)

tirsdag den 21. maj 2019

Black Crown - S/T



Black Crown was delivered in my mailbox some months ago. I had an idea where this tape was from (but I wasn´t sure!). The project/act calls itself Black Crown, which is written/printed on thin, light-brown and plain cardboard-like paper (love the font!). No notes regarding who did the recording, no notes about when this recording was created and where. No information regarding... well anything!. The tape does reveal some kind of information, which is as follows: Limited to only 7 limited copies, a & b side + track-title. The track titles are really hard to read, the handwriting doesn't look clumsy but strangely... mysterious and automatic. Like the kind of handwriting, one might do after being possessed by some ghost/spirit who wants to deliver some kind of message on a piece of brown and thin cardboard paper. 

Now again, we are talking about a two-track cassette tape release. Self-released from the artist himself )I think). The first track on the A-side opens the doors wide-open for anything being completely enshrouded in obscurity. Strange mesmerizing ritualistic words being uttered (German language maybe?), heavily reverbed sampled vintage music going (Early rockabilly, blues, Motown, etc). And that is it, it all sounds very simple.... but it really isn't. Try to imagine that you are in a damp cellar, and this strange ghost-like band from days-gone-by are playing upstairs in the school's gym. That is exactly how it sounds and feel like. Very, very ... interesting!. Never heard anything like it! It just has to be heard to really understand it. The way the sound and the reverb has been treated is really... otherworldly. Kind of ... David Lynch/Twin Peaks soundtrack in psychedelic and strangely erotic haze.


Next track continues the same moldy-aesthetic psychedelic vintage mood. And then you are asking yourself, is that a bad thing?. No, because you seriously enjoyed the A-side and would like to have that feel continue. I would say that when you get to the B-side you would then be utterly hypnotized. When you have finished the tape/B-side, you will then flip it over and continue with the A-side once again!. And yes, it is that damn good and interesting. Avant-Gard aesthetics with a touch of ghostly vintage rock music, pure mood music for those obsessed with it! (fans of early C93, Nurse With Wound, Zoviet France etc). Go seek it! (if you can!). Note for this release, there is no Bandcamp or Discogs link (to be a detective and seek this rarity out!). 

onsdag den 15. maj 2019

Anonymous Masturbaudioum & Tuffo



Our favorite nylon fetish project Anonymous Masturbaudioum did an older split release (On Marbre Negre) back in 2017 with another project called Tuffo. A 2 two track cassette+digital release, capturing almost 70 minutes of raw and moody noise-wall material.

Each project works on doing a kind of noise-tribute to one of their favorite flicks. With Anonymous Masturbaudioum we´re dealing with a flick by Tinto Brass called The Key. If you do not know who Tinto Brass is, then I can reveal to you that he is the guy who did the infamous Caligula movie! In his early days, he was dealing in avant-garde movies, but later on, he began working with erotic themes incorporated in his movies. Here is information could be obtained about the Key on the world wide web:

The Key (Italian: La chiave) is a 1983 Italian erotic film directed by Tinto Brass. Set in Venice under the fascist regime in the early months of 1940, it recounts a tale of a voluptuous woman in her forties who is unable to respond to her husband but undergoes a belated sexual awakening with her daughter's fiancé, which enables her to please her husband at last. The film caused a scandal in some quarters because it contains several explicit shots of nudity (characterized by certain critics as "gynecological") and sex scenes involving the well-known actress Stefania Sandrelli. However, the film ultimately obtained a decent level of commercial success.

A blistering stereo-stimulating pain and pleasure experience with occasional samples from the movie running in the background. The whole noise-wall sounds like something cracking from above and then moving further down, microscopic shredding of a paper in slow-motion would be one way to describe it. Hypnotic suggestions of looped ambient moods are also present. Sheer delicate brutality to the point of extasy! 


Next in life is Tuffo, who will be doing the tribute to one of the greatest horror flicks ever made. Yes, we are talking about the Ed Gein inspired cult-flick the Texas Chainsaw Massacre from 1974 by Tope Hooper (R.I.P). Atmospheric, heavy and ritualistic drone-based distortions start the lovely B-side. Almost to the point of being drone-metal actually! Interesting flesh scraping knife-to-the-guitar-strings-sound (or something similar) going on. Screaming and sutle-expressive distortion pedals join up as well, starting off in a gentle way and evolve further on to more classic (and aggressive) harsh-noise territory. Interesting metallic steel-like bangings going on,  which also can be heard on the soundtrack for the movie. The whole recording is a soundtrack journey through sun-scorched murderous madness. Very breathtaking and intense!

So what are you waiting for?!. Classic and weird vintage cult movies bash up with the sound of modern noise artists! It works! And yes, we need more of this. Way more!. Go around Marbre Negre and acquire this excellent concept split cassette of a beast!.


Bandcamp (label):

Facebook (Ampmous Masturbaudioum):

WWW (Tuffo):