Our friend JOHN 3:16 (a quote I subscribe to as well as a band whose work is consistently brilliant) has paired with the Belgian project Be The Hammer and the pairing have produced an album that, while fresh and brutally punchy technologically, also has a flair for reminding the listener of everything from Skinny Puppy…
Tag: Electronic Music
Nyokabi Kariuki – Peace Places: Kenyan Memories
When I hear the words Avant-garde in relation to contemporary classical music, I think normally of some me composers who pull out old, clichéd tropes. This release from Kenyan composer Nyokabi Kariuki is so stunningly weird that the album has given itself the right to be termed Avant-garde correctly.
Various Artists – Spacemusic #47 Like a Prayer
A friend whose work I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing in the past, Rettward von Doernberg, pointed me to a podcast from December of 2005. The music is well-done, deep electronic music, the sort I remember from the 1980s cassette scene. Slightly freaky tracks with hints of Tangerine Dream influence among others, it’s a rather…
Various Artists – Artoffact Records 2021 Sampler
2021 was a very solid year for electro-industrial record label Artoffact Records out of Canada. Some of the more incredible cuts from this compilation come from The Hafler Trio & Reptilicus, Cevin Key (from Skinny Puppy), Kælan Mikla with Alcest and of course, Canada’s own Front Line Assembly-related project, Noise Unit. A really good introduction…
Jeff Gburek – Trans Beskid Radio Volume 4 Extended
The last week I was in the United States before heading off to China, I watched MEV (collecting Alvin Lucier with Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum, may their names be ever remembered) and Kayhan Kalhor the weekend before. It was an incredible week of music before heading to more surreal surroundings. Jeff Gburek’s latest album…
CMC – CMC/Now
Hungarian band CMC have been recording albums since 1989, and, had they received their fair due during the heydey of post-Industrial Electronic Body Music (EBM), they would have been recognized as competitors of such luminaries as Front Line Assembly and Front 242, but with a darker groove. The band’s main actors, composer Vince Kósa and…
Perila – How much time it is between you and me?
Perila i(Alexandra Zakharenko) s a composer from Berlin of Russian roots releases one of the heaviest and, frankly, bleakest albums of the year. I spent today trying to unwind a bit as the snow looked pleasant, but after watching Juraj Herz’s The Cremator, hearing this album left me in a somewhat dark place. The sounds…
E.U.E.R.P.I. – Timid Memories
We have a new band to follow, and they’re out of Bulgaria. E.U.E.R.P.I. produce a sonorous and pleasantly dark ambient music that sounds heavily influenced by the works of Steve Roach, Matthias Grassow, or even Lustmord. E.U.E.R.P.I. have proven to be as masterful at using field recordings, blending them into their live performance as documented…
Scott Lawlor – The Mountains Cast Long Shadows
Scott Lawlor is an incredibly prolific composer out of Corinth, Texas. He’s collaborated with scores of musicians and has many fine albums under his belt, but this is a one-track piece clocking in at a bit over 1 hour and 14 minutes. It’s drone laden, cavernous in sound, and surprisingly warm, a bit like going…
Hualun (花伦) – Wuhan Wuhan (武汉武汉)
It’s a shame that Hualun, and electronic music artist from Wuhan, China, has only one track available to peruse on his latest CD. By the sound of it, the album is going to rival the slew of Japanese New Age reissues that have been coming out recently on various labels. It’s a mish-mash of synths, cosmic…