• Music

    Schloss Tegal – Musick From Madness

    April 18, 2021 - By 

    Schloss Tegal have a storied history in post-Industrial, ritualistic and experimental music.  The duo of Richard Schneider (based in Prague) and MWBurch (based in New York) developed a body of work on their own, drawing from some extremely dark places, as well as collaborating with musicians like Aube from Japan and the American experimental music composer John Duncan. Our friend and colleague Raffaele Pezzella is releasing and has remastered these cassette recordings and unreleased tracks into a very coherent album.  To learn more about the history of the band, and how this collaboration came to be, consider going to the…

  • Music

    Lance Austin Olsen | Terje Paulsen – Nattinsekter

    April 1, 2021 - By 

    Though I am familiar with the great experimental musician Terje Paulsen, I have not yet heard the works of Lance Austin Olsen, and I’m impressed with this pair’s use of field recordings and instruments into one organic whole. From Lance Austin Olsen’s Bandcamp site: Nattinsekter (night insects) developed from my ongoing graphic score A Night On The Veldt, which references my childhood in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and the many times I was out at night with my father on the veldt listening to the nocturnal soundscape. The sounds from the veldt have continued since the beginning of time and will…

  • Music

    Steven Severin – 23 Wounds of Julius Caesar

    March 15, 2021 - By 

    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.

  • Music

    JOHN 3:16 – Tempus Edax Rerum

    March 12, 2021 - By 

    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.

  • Music

    Various Artists – Mailbox Records: Music for Another Sky

    February 24, 2021 - By 

    This collection of ambient music is curated by British record label Mailbox Records.  From their Bandcamp site: About this release: This compilation has been put together in order to raise awareness and/or raise money for the UK charity, Refuge. This means 100% of proceeds from all sales will go to them (after the standard deductions from Bandcamp and PayPal). It was 1971 when Refuge opened the world’s first safe house, so this year marks the 50th year they’ve been helping women and children escape a life of abuse and violence; the first to make the point that violence in the…

  • Music

    Coagulant – The Typhonian Experiments

    February 17, 2021 - By 

    Coagulant hail from Uruguay, a country not known for a deep experimental music scene.  This release, however, should attract attention to those who enjoyed those ritualistic post-Industrial music cassettes of the 1980s.  There’s a heavy B-movie soundtrack vibe to this release mixed with electroacoustic music. Quite enjoyable.

  • Music

    Li Daiguo (李帶菓) – Xiao Gong (笑功)

    February 10, 2021 - By 

    French label WV Sorcerer Productions 巫唱片 offers up a quiet, pulsating drone album from American-Taiwanese-Chinese composer Li Daiguo.  As far as experimental music goes, this is dark and foreboding in a far more organized way that what I’m used to hearing.  Quite a fine effort.

  • Music

    Tom Carter – Beautiful Saviour

    February 4, 2021 - By 

    Tom Carter was the guitarist of improvisers Charalambides, one of the heirs of fine Texas psychedelia.  His new album, Beautiful Savior, comes as a pleasant, hopeful respite after being inundated by moronic ‘devil’-related titles.  Is this an acid-Christian album?  Who knows?  The tones from this album speak for themselves. The music is beautiful, sparse and has a hazy, relaxed feel to it.  It clocks in at around 30 minutes, which is far too short for enjoying such a blissfully folky album which reminds me so much of John Fahey.

  • Music

    Aidan Baker – Lost in the Rat Maze [PWYC]

    January 24, 2021 - By 

    Imagine if you were listening to Neu! with a far more relaxed beat rather than the insistent and incessant pulse the legendary Krautrock band was famous for.  Hear me out on this.  It’s actually quite a magnificent sound to behold, really.  There is a lo-fi, drony vibe to Fanciful Flights after starting quietly, with lots of rumbling on the first two tracks. Aidan Baker has always covered a lot of musical ground on his releases, but this one, muffled as it might sound, managed to hold my interest for the duration of the album.