Today is the Ides of March, once a day of celebration during Rome’s peak (and a deadline for settling debts), now remembered as the anniversary of the assassination of Julius Caesar. Former Siouxsie & The Banshees bassist Steven Severin makes available his ambient experimental work commemorating the event.
Tramp Records out of German is gaining quite a following because of their high-quality compilations. This one is a scorcher if you’re into funk-inflected disco. At least as I understand it, and I’m sure the label can correct any errors I make, the artists were from around the Akron, Ohio area, and it does blow my mind a bit that these artists weren’t bigger names in the 1970s. The music is a bit more lo-fi than the slicker top-40 fare of the day, but the bass grooves so hard in most of these tracks that it makes you forget that…
Though I cannot say I know much about Fundacja Słuchaj’s background, I can say that their releases tend to be excellent, releasing some of the bigger names in improvisational music. This collection is no different. The personnel on this four-disc set is pretty phenomenal: Rafał Mazur plays bass, Satoko Fujii plays piano, Guillermo Gregorio wields the saxophone, Natsuki Tamura and Artur Majewski perform on trumpet and Ramón López fills out this group on drums and percussion.
This one-track release was in my queue while I was doing some work, and when it came on, I assumed it was a track of Spanish cold wave from the early 1980s. Toronja, as it turns out, is a Chilean project from this year, and they manage to do a good job making a sound that is at once fresh and vintage.
Our friends JOHN 3:16 come at us with less an audible listening experience than a sheer sonic pummeling. Take for example Part I, which sounds as though the ghost of Cop/Greed-era Swans was under more control, a more musically apt, and put through the gothic/post-punk music grinder. Part IV goes into something more ethereal, dark, something between a horror movie and spaghetti-western soundtrack, with vocals provided by Caroline O’Neill / Rasplyn. The band always impress, but I wasn’t quite ready for this one. A very pleasant surprise, indeed.
It is a shame to think that when the words Bosnia, Herzegovina or Sarajevo are mentioned, most think only of the ugly breakup of the former Yugoslavia. It’s a crime, as the country, and especially her capital, have so much to offer. The people, the food, the incredible culture, so complex and rich, yet one forgets that Bosnia is a European country. Be that as it may, Sarajevo musicians continue to produce its most famous export – sevdah – the bluesy Balkan style that could be compared favorably to Portugal’s fado. It’s music rich with pain, pathos and rich voices.…
Composer, radio presenter, label owner, philosopher and old friend Toni Dimitrov has released a new album on the ever-interesting Kalamine Records. Here are some of the details regarding the release, courtesy of their Bandcamp page: Performance at SlovoKult literARTour 2020 in Gevgelija, as a part of Bosh Festival. SlovoKult literARTour is a small international festival of contemporary art, text and poetry, taking place in Skopje and Gevgelija, Macedonia and Berlin, Germany. www.slovokult-literatur.de
虚极 (Bliss-Illusion) are a band based in China who have caused quite a sensation all across the world of Black Metal. The music is a combination of the aforementioned Black Metal but adding a twist by mixing post-rock, straight-ahead metal, elements of doom, shoegaze and what they term to be folk-metal. If you’re sensitive to screaming vocals, you might want to sit this one out, but it works rather well with the music.
Vàli are a neofolk band out of Norway whose music shows references to bands like Ulver and Empyrium. It’s a rather gentle album with acoustic guitar and fiddle, reminding me of the American folk-rock band Changes and the Chinese neofolk band Raflum. A mellow experience.
Continuing on the Industrial (and post-Industrial) theme, this album was sent as a promo album to me while I was a buyer for Aron’s Records, the best record shop in Los Angeles before Amoeba steamrolled the competition (and are now, apparently, either no more or barely hanging on in L.A.). I had known a bit about the Hafler Trio because I was selling some of Andrew MacKenzie’s cassettes and limited edition releases on CD and vinyl, and business was quite good. I was partial to his music, but this combination with Reptilicus, who would become an important force in Icelandic…