Tollund Men - Autoerotik

There is something about this release that I find very hypnotic and mesmerizing; there is definitely a sense of mystery here, which I absolutely love - it isn't something you see all to often in these glory days of the information age! Couple the fact that this cassette release meanders within itself as much as it leads with hypnotic rhythms, and you have the perfect recipe for pulsating electronic work. The "cassette" quality sound of the sound make it hard to differentiate whether this has been composed on analogue or digital equipment, but the density of the tape sound really adds to the overall atmospheric. Beautiful stuff. If you can track down an original tape, I strongly recommend that you snap it up.

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. 

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.

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. 

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.