AUN - Black Pyramid

AUN are one of those bands that I constantly end up back at. For what is essentially noisy ambiance with synths and the odd guitar, this is quite impressive. Fantastic, shoe-gazy drones meet unfurling electronics in transcendent "songs" that average around the 7 minute mark; deep, involving worlds swirl into life, conjured from the chasms of nothingness by this bleak yet somewhat inspiring show of digital noise. Enter the Black Pyramid!

Burial - Young Death / Nightmarket

Another thing that slipped unrecognised under my nose in 2016 was the new Burial EP. It appears that the urbanism-as-sound mastermind continues to favour the EP format over releasing another full length for us, although there is something beautiful about one of these EPs dropping every so often, offering us a glimpse into the modern, concrete existence of Burial's world through a drizzly, fractured lens.

It may sound a bit frightful if I tell you that I find this 12" to be more of the same, but I promise you that this is just as excellent as anything the elusive producer has ever dropped. This is London put to wax. 10/10. 

The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation - Roadburn

I was actually lucky enough to be in the room when this performance was recorded, and it was a fascinating hour spent staring at the intense visuals the band had prepared to play alongside their live show. It was one of the more memorable experiences from Roadburn 2012, so I'm very grateful indeed that the entire thing was recorded and released later on as a double 12" package.

Equally delicate as it is at moments crushingly bleak; the twisting, muted soundscapes of The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation are the perfect soundtrack to any form of introspective deviance, be it sensory deprivation, psychedelic drug use or just playing GTA V on mute with this blaring at full volume. Yeah.

Anyway, irregardless of my inane rambling, this is bloody fantastic. 

Björk - Biophilia

I love Björk, I really do, but a lot of her later output leaves a lot to be desired, in my opinion. Case in point: this entire album. Despite the lead single "Crystalline" being one of my favourite Björk tracks, and "Mutual Core" being a fantastic, brooding ballad-meets-speedcore headfuck, the remainder of Biophilia is unfortunately a lazy wasteland of ploinky ploinky quirkiness that goes absolutely nowhere, which in a bizarre twist of fate is simultaneously Björk's appeal as well as her undoing.

It is hard to analyse a record that literally does the same thing over and over on every track (please give me the sweet release of harsh noise wall!), so I'll just wind this up quickly. It doesn't matter how weird or perplexing Björk's lyrics are, when you've heard *x* number of icy synths or obscure percussion instruments being strummed/plonked/hit/keyed out of time for ten tracks in a row, the peculiarity loses its charm. For die-hard Björk fans only.  

This is the best song here by far, and the video is awesome too.

The Haxan Cloak - Excavation

Presenting you with haunting digital soundscapes from one of the masters of the genre, the Excavation record is a true trip in ethereal ambiance and beatwork. I first spun this at about 4am on a nightshift; it was that eerie time of night when everything literally stops dead, even though I was in a room full of people. There is something about "the witching hour" - that unique stillness - that is just so palpable. The Haxan Cloak was the perfect choice. Perhaps it was fate.

I gave Excavation a listen as a whole, rather than study the layout and the track listing, which is what I usually tend to do when obsessing over something awesome, but everything just seemed to fit together so well as a whole it didn't seem worth breaking down. I just went with the ride, and I enjoyed every second. I almost fell asleep, but it was almost as if my mind was asleep, and not my body.

A fantastic record all round, which seems like it could easily be a film soundtrack of some sorts, if the opportunity was right. I was also pleasantly surprised to find out that Haxan Cloak had done a bit of work on the latest Bjork album, which had a slightly darker overtone than a lot of her stuff. Anyways, I digress. Check the links below if you're in the mood.

Swans - The Glowing Man

The Glowing Man is the final Swans studio album in the current reformed incarnation of the band. At first it seems extremely reminiscent of it's predecessor, To Be Kind, due to the package setup (another triple LP on card with minimal art) and the length of the record (although despite it's enormous run time, The Glowing Man is the shortest record the band have released in five years). As with 80s Swans, I've noticed an overall thawing in the menacing, noisy edge of Swans as the records have progressed, but this time, the delivery simply becomes more ethereal and almost peaceful, rather than deliberately less abrasive. Just compare the title track of The Seer to any of the 20+ minuters here, and hopefully you will see what I mean.

I mean, this is Swans, so it's hardly easy listening, but it's like your now being lifted to a higher plane, rather than being dragged there kicking and screaming. "Frankie M" is a stand-out track for me personally, especially the latter half with it's twisting lyrical repetition (I remember it from recent live shows), as is the rather harrowing piece by Gira's wife, "When Will I Return?". The title track, at a fucking glorious 28 minutes, reprises To Be Kind's "Bring The Sun" before culminating in, dare I say it, some sort of almost Kraut rock-style march. These 28 minutes seem to recap to me this entire recent reincarnation of Swans, pulling from all corners of the chaos in one final piece. The closing track that comes after it merely seems to exist as a cool-down period for the listener, and is aptly titled - "Finally, Peace".

Whilst I am extremely sad to see this era of Swans come to an end (I will miss mainly the death stares and gurns of Christoph Hahn) I am very excited to see where Michael Gira will take the project next, and if nothing comes of it, then The Glowing Man serves perfectly as an ending chapter to a long and extremely challenging musical career. 

If you have Spotify, you can stream the whole thing below. 

Gnaw Their Tongues - Abyss Of Longing Throats

(Words by Doomfinder General)

I'd never heard of Gnaw Their Tongues until I saw them live at Roadburn and I was almost instantly blown away by them (I say them - it's just one guy making so much horrible music from his basement). A mix of black metal and noise would probably be the best way to describe this but then again so would two people screaming at you when the sound of the world ending at million miles per hour plays in the background. so when i got home pretty much the first thing I had to do was find the newest album by them.

Abyss Of Longing Throats is a more darker and restrained beast than I was expecting, with opener "Lick The Poison From The Cave Walls" going at not much more than a crawl. The music is mostly various horrible noises in the background with intermittent black metal style vocals. You have to wait until track 3 to get any blast beats, giving the music almost an illusion of being straight black metal but with an industrial hint.

The rest of the album doesn't really deviate from that formula as such, going from slow horrible noise to, well, faster horrible noise, all the while having vocals screamed at you. But it's amazing nothing else in the world really sounds like it so go give it a listen.

MZ. 412 – In Nomine Dei Nosti Satanas Luciferi Excelsi

I came across MZ. 412 on my quest for bands that mix black metal with power electronics. Although to me MZ. 412 takes elements from both genres of music (with both being quite introspectively similar in some respects and also a million miles apart in others), yet it seems to stand alone from both in a sound more rooted in industrial, or experimental ambience.

This is something morosely militant about In Nomine... which lends heavily from the martial side of power electronics, and yes, the repetitive beats are distorted and overpowering, but that’s where the similarities end, for me at least. This creepy, isolated record is more akin to the soundtrack for some independent horror movie rather than anything along the lines of A Blaze In The Northern Sky.

I write lots of words and post the pretty pictures but realistically the music itself needs to do the talking. Mad props to Dave Wilson for introducing me to the world of MZ. 412.

Forgotten Pathways - Shrouded In Mystery

Forgotten Pathways play really retro-sounding ambient / medieval "dungeon music" in the vein of early Mortiis or some shitty video game soundtrack. What makes it more akin to a game soundtrack or something like that is the often-appearing drum machine, something which is absent in a lot of this type of music. It makes actually quite a lot of difference; instead sounding like some cheap classical music, Shrouded In Mystery sounds like a lo-fi journey through the arcane.

The synths are long and meandering, often repetitive, and kept in check by the ticking beat of the drums. It is at moments grandiose and others hammy as fuck. There are some vocals, used sparingly, whispering through the mix like long forgotten spirits. I swear this thing loops through twice, repeating on me and making me seem totally insane, or that could just be the nature of this mesmerizing creation.

If you are playing an old RPG then this is absolutely the perfect soundtrack.

AUN - Multigone

AUN are another band that I picked up on thanks to Roadburn Festival. I missed them on the day (2012 edition I believe) but in a ritual that my friends call Pre-Roadburn Listening I got listening to their Black Pyramid record. Multigone is an earlier recording of theirs, and is a bit harshier than the meandering ambience present on Black Pyramid. AUN's approach to noise is droning, unfolding soundscapes that almost have some tangible tune to them, but the edges are blurred with harsh electronics and soaring, cutting synth works. 

Multigone is a 7-tracked affair, with track lengths spanning from the usual 4/5 minute length up to 10/15 minutes a piece. The longest track, "Steel Skull Plain", suprisingly doesn't seem too long, which is a problem I find with a lot of experimental and noise tracks. My favourite tracks are the opener title track, with it's droning splashes of noise and atmosphere, and "Palejoy", with it's heavy guitar drone overlaid with dark and throbbing beats. Yummy.

Available in a really fancy CDr package from Crucial Blast, and limited to 300 pieces.

Emeralds - Does It Look Like I'm Here?

'Scuse the lack of posting guys and gals - it's that time of year again where I fall off. Just had to drop in to share this post though; one of the most positive and uplifting records I've heard in a while. I've been craving fresh, new musical experiences lately in amongst flying about being a mental-busy spastic, and I've been journeying to musical realms that I've rarely touched up in the past. I heard of Emeralds for the first time in, of all places, a Pitchfork top 100 list. Bored in work one day I did a drive-by sweep of their 100 best between 2010-2014, and tried to pick out stuff that looked interesting, perplexing, awesome or just not-too-hipstery. Emeralds was one of those bands. 

Whilst the fact that it appeared in a Pitchfork listing in the first place doesn't do much to defend it's non-hipster credentials, I don't really give a shit because Does It Look Like I'm Here? is one of the nicest things I've heard in a while. It is a composition, a series of miniature musical scores, that really bring in some fantastic vibes and feels throughout the entire album. The songs flow with immense fluidity, and the long, bubbling synthesizer passages are nothing short of complete audible delight. 

This is watching a city come alive at 5am music. This is power-walking through that final 100 meters to the mountain peak kinda music. I'd also say that this is pretty cerebral and would recommend it for tripping too, as it's extremely immersive and enveloping without being at all threatening or aggressive. 

Main - Motion Pool

Main is a band that was formed by two members of Loop, including Robert Hampson who was also in Godflesh for a little bit (he played on the Pure album). Main, to me, appears to be some sort of experimental industrial-tinged ambient project that places heavily effected guitar work into a world of noises and other creepy atmospheres. 

And that, essentially, is what Motion Pool is all about. It’s a great, minimal listen for chilling the day away with something a little different. In one sitting it can be a bit hard to differentiate when one track ends and other begins, but then again, I am an idiot, so that’s probably not a fact. You can get this in a digipak CD or even a pretty fancy triple LP package, but a lot of Main stuff is now available on Spotify (oh revered bringer of music!) so you’ve got no excuse; have a go!

Cintecele Diavolui - The Devil's Songs (10")

This is probably one of the more bizarre things that I have bought recently. Cintecele Diavolui is an old alias / side project that was used by Mortiis in the mid/late 90s when he was deep into making mainly dark ambient synth and keyboard based music, or as he called it - Dark Dungeon Music. Cintecele Diavolui is a pretty cool name in my opinion. The phrase means "The Devil's Songs" in Romanian, which is also, rather coincidentally, the name of this 10" mini-album. The five tracks here are spooky, and a little cooky; dark and suspenseful writing portrayed through the slightly cheesy classic-horror medium of synthetic organ sounds. The record claims that the music here isn't performed by Mortiis as such, but by an old vampire called Vukodlak, who Mortiis "brought to life" for this release. Make of that what you will.

Musically, it is a charming yet cheap sounding record. It depends on entirely how you approach listening to the thing, and the same goes for all of Mortiis' 'Era 1' output; if you can get past the fact that this sounds like it has been composed using the shittiest of the shit MIDI keyboard sounds in existence, then you will probably really enjoy it. These quirky, bargain-basement instrumentations can be over-looked on sprawling works such as Født Til Å Herske, Keiser Av En Dimensjon Ukjent and Ånden Som Gjorde Opprør, but The Devil's Songs suffers with the same ailment as The Crypt Of The Wizard's material; once the composition is broken down into smaller tracks with more active instrumentation you can't really ignore the shoddiness of the equipment used. It feels like music on a really old video game.

I suppose that the tackiness to the sound really adds to the overall atmosphere, but if you are familiar with the early Mortiis works listed above, please do not expect Cintecele Diavolui to possess the same haunting and depthless darkness. All in all, The Devil's Songs isn't a bad record in any way, the writing is fantastic, it's just that the method of delivery used could have been more inventive. If you hated The Crypt Of The Wizard era Mortiis, then it's a safe bet you won't like this. Considering this isn't a canon Mortiis release and was marketed as an entirely different project of "vampire music", it would have been super, super awesome if this was played on a real church organ or something, for extra spooky and spine-chilling effect. But, it is what it is.

This was self-released by Mortiis back in the day, using his Dark Dungeon Music label. I would say that this is probably for fanatic-level fans only. Like I said, if you're not too fussed on the Era 1 stuff then I wouldn't bother checking this out. Otherwise, tuck in! *Does insane, Italian-accented vampire laugh*

Lull - Moments

Lull is another Mick Harris project, one I believe that he worked on between Scorn releases back in the day. Lull takes pages from the book of Lustmord; extremely minimal yet puzzlingly fulfilling compositions of sound, often devoid of any noticeable instrumentation, pummelling you instead with lulling ambience (no pun intended) and claustrophobic barrages of atmosphere. Moments then, is the stifling ambient soundscape of choice for those with a short attention span. Instead of the usually lengthy tracks that come hand in hand with this sort of thing, Moments splits these aural passages into 99, er, moments, I guess.

Some last mere seconds, and without a single one of them reaching three minutes, you’d be forgiven for mistaking this to be a short release, but alas it is not. Each piece of the puzzle falls together create an entire whole, something which can be a bit of an issue if you burn this into .mp3 format or download it off the internet – those little millisecond gaps between songs will absolutely ruin this listening experience for you.

It’s hard to believe but each of the 99 tracks here are different. It’s like an ever-changing aural landscape, that whilst being as flat as Holland, does vary greatly in weather and atmospheric pressure. 

Mortiis - The Song Of A Long Forgotten Ghost

Out of all the early Mortiis ambient keyboard pieces, The Song Of A Long Forgotten Ghost is probably the one that I am least familiar with, which is a crying shame because it's a truly beautiful piece of music. Sometimes I wish I had the patience to put something like this together but I have to accept that I just can't play the piano, organ, synth or what-have-you without any practice or training haha

Early Mortiis conjures images of lands lost and shrouded in mystery and intrigue; of misty fjords and leaden skies; crumbling castles and times gone by. Yeah. My favourite way to jam early Mortiis when I was younger was to import all of his Era 1 stuff into the sound files for games such as TES III: Morrowind and the likes, and have them as my soundtrack for exploring fantastical worlds. Some of my most affectionate memories of the times spent in those games stem from extremely moving scores such as this. Sad? Yes. Nerdy? Yes. But, it was fucking awesome. I don't normally get that nerdy, but I enjoyed it immensely.

This impossible-to-find gem has been re-released on a series of formats, most notably vinyl and CD, or even a CD-book in a variety of pretty colours. You can even pick up some signed by Mortiis direct from the man himself if you've got a few extra quid spare. It's artists like Mortiis that make me sad to be parting ways with my physical record collection.

Anyways, I implore you listen to the original demo tape recording over any reissue you may come across - the sound here is absolutely amazing; including tape wobbles and treble heavy sound. It's not perfect, but it's so goddamn amazing. Lose yourself in another world!

Earth - Primitive And Deadly

Fuck! What happened here? Earth are definitely not messing about on their new record - the heaviest thing the band have done in over a decade. I can get behind this! Since their reformation / regrouping, Earth have been all about calm, serene, bright and wavering tones; colossal monuments of clean guitar work and uplifting instrumental soundscapes - almost like the shoegazing equivalent of their early drone days. But this is something else entirely. Someone finally decided to turn Earth's amps up, and I couldn't be happier with that decision.

The Bees Made Honey... is one of my favourite things ever, and I loved the first part of Angels Of Darkness Demons Of Light, with it's dusty, haunting, almost western sound. The second part of that double album was much, much more sparse, and I must admit I lost interest a bit, with Earth's already stripped back sound being reeled in even further (I gotta say though, the bass playing was pretty funky). 

I'm not sure if I'm entirely sold on the inclusion of guest vocalists (Rabia Shaheen Qazi and sometimes-QOTSA collaborator Mark Lanegan) but the reappearance of distortion in Earth's work has made a world of difference for me. It's not as if it is overpowering in any way, or like it even detracts from the subtleties going on around the guitar, it's just that everything sounds much more alive and vital - something that can do no harm for a band as far into their career as Earth. 

Enter a shimmering, mesmerising desert of sonic absolution.

Fury 161 - Armageddon's Maw

Fury 161 are a noise / death industrial based project with members hailing from Wales, Ireland and originally, South Africa. They came together in 2013 to produce misanthropic, hateful atmospheres about futility and anger towards all of mankind. 

Opener 'Thanatos' builds a dark, clanking atmosphere without getting too harsh. It is the audible equivalent of an incomprehensible mechanical world gearing up. 'Spirits' follows, which almost sounds like the distorted offspring of a Public Castration-era Swans track, that is until the vocals kick in. The vocal attack is reminiscent of the styles used heavily in black and death metal, with feral growls and throat-shredding howls barking across the surface of the searing, depthless and machine-like compositions and noisescapes.

Harsh noise enthusiasts shouldn't be too quick to pass them off here - Fury 161 might not be as harsh or brutally uncompromising as some of their noise and industrial peers, but this is still some disturbing, twisted shit. Fury 161 aren't afraid to use cerebrally crippling waves of distortion, but instead of blasting us with these audible cannons for entire tracks, Fury 161 play the soundscape game, building dissonant and creepy atmospheres using synths and ambient sounds (and often incorporating some kind of electronic beat) before melting your head off with some good ol' fashion noise. The track "Black Heart Attack" is my favourite example of this approach, with its haunting synth melody and pulsing distorted beat, meandering in and out between the beautiful and downright fuck ugly.

This is a fairly long album, clocking in at 56 minutes with most of the tracks averaging around the 5 minute mark. Closing off the ceremonies is the 7-minute epic "Tears", which matches rasping howls over a warbled drone and eery, clanking percussion. 

All in all, I would definitely recommend you giving Armageddon's Maw a listen to. You can stream the entire thing at the Bugs Crawling Out Of People Bandcamp page (linked below), where you can also pick up the record on CD, and a bunch of t-shirts. As you can see from the pictures, the CD comes in a really fancy card DVD case, which looks absolutely awesome. Check out "Black Heart Attack" and the rest of the album in the link below:

Scott Hull - Audiofilm II

It took me a while but I finally got around to buying the second instalment in the Audiofilm series. I don't really know what has taken so long, considering it's not particularly rare, difficult to obtain or even worth a lot. I got this off Discogs for £1.50, which for even a 3" CD is criminal. The packaging and artwork is more of the same type of stuff that was introduced on the first Audiofilm disc (clicky) so I'll just get on with a quick overview of the music on offer here, as I've gone off waffling too much in recent posts!

Audiofilm II is much harsher that it's predecessor. It opens with some heavy atmospherics, which doesn't stay in the same state for long; it is only a matter of minutes before things have shifted into drone territory, and a blink of an eye until all outputs build and build until the pummelling atmosphere becomes dangerously close to harsh noise. The track continues in this vein, coming to and fro, but for the most part remaining particularly full-on for something that is meant to be an atmospheric piece. I know noise conjures it's own atmosphere, but it is not what I was expecting here. Scott Hull is the master of heavy, we all know this, but with Requiem and Audiofilm I, he did not set us up for a harsh noise attack. Here's hoping to one day seeing the guy return to Japanese Torture Comedy Hour with Jay Randall.

This little 3" CD was released by the distro/label Crucial Blast, and is limited to 1000 copies. Check out the entire thing in the link below. Make sure you're speakers are turned up loud and you're streaming in the highest possible quality.

Burial - Burial

Some of you might remember my enlightening conversion to the ways of Burial when I picked up the Traunt / Rough Sleeper 12" not so long ago; what an uplifting yet sorrowful journey that 12" was, and how it made me long for more Burial records! But, due to the overwhelming amount of shit that I'm into it's taken me quite a while to get around to buying another Burial record, but I finally picked up the self-titled double LP in Spillers earlier this week (24th November edit: "earlier this week" was fecking months ago haha).

The first thing I notice (other than the lush tunes) is how fast this thing goes for a double LP spinning at 33rpm per side...the needle literally slides across the wax like a graceful ice-skater...this shit lasts nowhere near long enough! Again I am already longing for more material from the excellent Burial. Ambient passages mash awkwardly, yet peacefully, with minimal synth work and jarring, broken beats, resulting in a soundscape that is reminiscent of both urban decay and human futility rolled into one bittersweet ball. Yet, at the same time you get that odd uplifting feeling of knowing joyfulness; that those two negative things have contributed to help mould something so beautiful.

Poetic description aside, this really is a great record. I have read it described on one Amazon review as the perfect soundtrack to taking the night-bus around London (and I'm pretty sure they weren't talking about Trafalgar Sqaure and all that shit). I think that sums it up nicely. I can't really pick a favourite song here because this thing flows so well and I tend to see the record as a whole rather than a collection of songs. Well worth a listen! Out on Hyperdub.

Aphex Twin - I Care Because You Do

Gah, don't you just hate it when 2 x 12"s are rammed into one non-gatefold jacket? Something about this just gets right on my fucking wick, son. If you're gonna fork out for a double album repress on heavy-as-shit vinyl then you might as well go the full hog and be good enough to include a gatefold jacket. This poor bastard is loaded to the gills with discs! Blinkin' heck Warp, it's not like you haven't got the financial clout to do so ;D

Anyway, on with the music! Aphex Twin's I Care Because You Do is a mammoth electronic record of brain damaging proportions. What the hell is going on here then? Ha ha! You would literally be hard pushed to put anymore weirdness into this mixed bag of jarringly different tunes, "songs" and collages of noise. Equal parts relaxing, confusing, uplifting, inspiring and introspective, I Care... runs the gamut of the electronic music genre; pushing the envelope in all four corners at once. People tell me that the Aphex Twin is boring or not challenging enough...well I think those people have had a few too many knocks to the head! This shit is utter genius, hands down!

Boo! Hiss! Get it in a gatefold!