black metal / experimental

A fantastic, intense and majestic album released on September 8 by Italian post black metal duo Falaise, well-known by their melodic, introspective and artistic style of DSBM, My Endless Immensity has a way more experimental overtone than its predecessor, heavily flirting with progressive, indie and post rock, and showcasing a virtuous and creative audacity, that certainly will highlight Falaise tremendously by their fearless and boundless originality. With ten tracks – Nightgaze, The Embrace Of Water, You Towards Me, Crimson Clouds, Dreariness, The Abyss, Sweltering City, Pristine Universe, A Veil Of Stars and Les Ruches Malades (Amesoeurs Cover) – My Endless Immensity has a monumental art concept, that is severely structured over dense melodies, conjugated at the epicenter of a divine collision of harmonious sapience and benevolent poetry, that on the other hand, maintains a primordial black metal intensity at the nucleus of its everlasting twilight of infinite sensibility.

Merging and sometimes fusing the frontier of the many genres they flirt with at their endless and brave experimental sonorous horizon, Falaise searches for the perfect melodic density, that invariably reaches an abstract level of beauty, eventually colliding with their technical proficiency, where each and every aspect of their music compliments one another with astounding perfection, in a poetic delightful enchantment that creates marvelous worlds of sentimental serenity, that elevates the spirit towards a monumental plausibility that gracefully heals all the wounded majesties in the personal overview of our ordinary world perspectives. 

With a monumental sensibility that evidently aggrandizes introspective sonorous principles and transforms them into a marvelous quest for serenity, the music of Falaise on My Endless Immensity certainly reaches a whole new level of artistic and sentimental amusement, structured over a greatly pungent diagram of splendorous melodies, filled by curiously electrifying and transcendental elements, that feels like a new universe is being created all around you. 

A fundamental album, filled with overwhelming beauty, surreal enchantment and gloriously peaceful introspection, My Endless Immensity is a rewardingly pure, efficient and original album, that showcases not only the fantastic musical evolution of the promising Italian duo, but also reveals their commitment to a constantly evolving musical groundwork, that has no limits, sees no boundaries, and doesn’t care about genre. Their creativity has no boundaries, and this record in particular, besides the fact that is a major state of the art work, reasserts this as a mordacious and absolute fact.             


Wagner

ambient / experimental

It's Sunday afternoon. The sun is shining, keeping my coffee warm. My muscles ache from three days of heavy duty. I have just finished writing a review for a heavy doom metal album. For now, I'm done with the harsh areas in the world of music. I need something else.

My inbox guides me to Omrr, the stage name of Omar El Abd, a self-taught musician, guitarist and sound artist based in Cairo, Egypt. His new album is a pearl, so gentle, so calm. It is exactly what I needed today.

Although it contains the simplicity and the calm atmosphere of ambient music, the track on this album are more than that. With electronics, microsounds, field recordings and elements from glitch and modern classical music, Omrr creates instrumental songs with a minimal yet immersive approach. 'Illicit' might be the most traditional ambient resembling song on 'Devils For My Darling' but this too contains something extra, like an own identity.

Throughout the album I can hear influences from acts like Laraaji, Brian Eno, Biosphere but also hints of Autechre and Aphex Twin, along with classical piano. Yet, most of all, I can hear a self-taught musician finding his own little path in the vast world of experimental music. This is an incredibly beautiful universe, created by a very talented artist. Each one of these eight track can stand on its own but if you listen to the entire album, which I obviously recommend, you'll be blissfully smiling all the way. I know I am...


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drone / jazz

Last year, I reviewed 'Werl', a cooperation between Aidan Baker (Caudal, Nadja) and ​Tomas Järmyr (Motorpsycho, Zu). I loved the album, and apparently so did both musicians. They turned the cooperation into a live duo and simply named it "Werl". Today, exactly a year after it was recorded in Hamburg, Werl releases  'HH.2016.09.08'.

The album contains two lengthy tracks and explores the regions of ambient, drones and free jazz. Aidan's drones open the set but you just know that Tomas is presents from the very beginning, doing something unexpected with his drums and cymbals.

Of course, after a while all hell breaks loose and before you know it you'll be entangled in an array of drones, noises, drums and whatnot. If you share my musical taste, you'll love it too. I love how the music pulsates and progresses. I love how there is not a dull moment to be found on this album. Drone jazz seems to be the new thing in the world of experimental music and I couldn't be happier about it. If you are into acts like Yodok III and A-Sun Amissa, Werl definitely earns a place on your record shelves. I can't wait to see this live...


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dark ambient

black metal

post hardcore

drone / dark ambient

doom / post rock

death metal / punk 

doom / sludge 

hardcore / metal

experimental / ambient / noise

bandcamp

funeral doom

black metal

speed metal / black metal

bandcamp

death metal / grindcore

techno / rave / house

techno

Serge

ambient / experimental

Infinite Waves

This 12" reached me a while ago and I have been listening to it several times since then. Not because I have to review it, but because this is such a diverse and intreguing ambient album that I absolutely love it.
Besides, I quickly decided to postpone this review until a few days before the actual release. It would be a shame if this one goes unnoticed and fades away into the huge pile of reviews before people can actually buy the album. So, therefore, the review appears today and if you're too lazy to read further, I can tell you that this is a must-have for fans of experimental and somewhat unusual ambient music. 

Sofie Birch is 28-year old composer from Denmark. Perhaps you know her for her ambient and humorous scores and sound designs on a long line of animated shortfilms. For this solo album, she wanted to create something that made sense in her own head only, coping with dreams and emotions. In a way, I think she succeeded in that, as this is a rather unique piece of ambient, stubbornly following its own course.

Yet, another part of me wants to claim that these tracks make sense for me too, and perhaps to a large part of the ambient community. The six tracks here are made out of field recordings, a plethora of instruments, electronics and Sofie's own voice. The result is an adventurous album, where ambient music meets the avant carde of sound design and the nervous nature of free jazz. Laraaji and Eno come to mind, something that doesn't often happen.

But yes, I think I know how Sofie must have felt while making this album. Comfortable but somewhat uneasy. Certain of her musical qualities but doubting tiny aspects. Trying to play it safe but not being able to withstand to experiment. Being an ambient producer myself, I can imagine the recording process and I wish I was there to witness it. But since that's not possible, I will just keep on enjoying this breathtaking album and I urge you to do the same. 


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ambient / experimental

ambient / electronic / downtempo

doom / sludge metal

ambient / classical

punk / antifolk

progressive metal

death metal / industrial

black metal

shoegaze / alternative rock / dark rock

facebook

ambient / downtempo

electronic / techno / experimental

Hypermedium

black metal

drone / ambient / minimal

noise

techno

post hardcore

classical / experimental / folk

A few days ago, when leaving the house for a nice get together with friends, I found this album in my mailbox. The envelope looked crumpled and torn. I opened it and saw that the accompanying biography was damaged. The corner of the digipac were folded backwards. The whole thing looked like it had been a car crash. The CD itself was intact, although it sounds weird and unusual. That is probably not because of the horrible accident it went through. This strange and otherworldly sound is created by violinist/fiddler Sarah-Jane Summers. It's an experimental solo effort, a confounding study of her instrument.

To give you an example. Did you know that a fiddle can sound like a noteless blow in saxophone? I didn't know that. The tracks 'Mirr' and 'Aitran' taught me that. Then again, nothing is really normal or usual on this album. I mean, when I think of the fiddle, I think of songs like 'The Devil Went Down To Georgia', not about eerily creeping acoustic strings that have the power to send shivers down my spine. That never occurred to me.

Sarah-Jane Summers is Scottish but lives and works on Norway. She holds a master's degree in Norwegian traditional music. She started recording this debut solo album after a two-week trip to Montreal where she performed with the contemporary string quartet Quatuor Bozzini. The album is inspired by extreme weather conditions. The booklet explains the titles. My favorite track here, 'Aisk', means "A haze, mist, bank of fog". No wonder it's my favorite.

As I wrote earlier, the album is not a collection of joyful fiddle tunes. These are experiments, ranging from avant garde classical music over eerie folk to harsh, intense outbursts of free jazz, all created by fiddle and viola. On 'Unbrak' Summers plucks the strings, on others the bow gently strikes the strings and a few tunes sounds as if Summers has been scratching the strings with spoons. So no, don't expect a nice Mozart-like tune here.

Still, unusual and strange as this album is, it's an interesting and often captivating study. I like how silence plays a role here too. But in the end, the most difficult question is, "who to recommend this album to?". Perhaps fans of experimental classical music will enjoy this and free jazz aficionados too. Ambient fans might find it a bit too abrasive at times but most of these songs are perfect ambient-remix material. In any case, this is a unique album, something definitely worth checking out. Damaged and torn as the sleeve is, I'm keeping this one...


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dark jazz / ambient / experimental

In my previous review (read), I wrote that Finnish one-man project J. Kill and Mr. Mule had evolved into a full band. The whole thing has become more serious instead of an experimental playground so the band decided to change their name to Käki, which means cuckoo. The music however is still exciting and immersive as ever. So I guess it's only natural that I throw their first four albums into one big review.

"Katoa" means "disappear". This is the first album, a solo effort. Jere recorded this after four days in isolation in a basement studio. It took him twelve hours to complete the album but the result is quite interesting. It combines dark jazz with something I can only describe as gritty Americana music. The songs are slow, lingering blends of jazz, drones and ambient but in a way they also come close to some cosmic, psychedelic jams. I think this stuff is perfectly suited for fans of Dale Cooper Quartet and the Dictaphones or Bohren Und Der Club of Gore and I think I will have to mention these names again real soon.

synthwave / black metal

A fabulous and magnificent album by experimental artist Abstract Void, Into the Blue is an audacious and beautiful work, that perfectly amalgamates in electronic musical textures the intrinsic and volatile rapture of atmospheric and post black metal sonorous elements, in a marvelous virtuosity of ambivalent harmonious symphonies, like you’ve never experienced before in your life. A little less than twenty nine minutes long, this is a very short album, with only six tracks: Strings of Time, The Night Wanderer, An Euphoric Dream, Into the Blue – the title track –, Police Cruiser and It's Not the End. With an astonishingly expansive amount of creativity, the music of Abstract Void is a profound ocean of consecrated and virginal vicissitudes, that elevates the soul of the listener into a more demanding existential path of sensibility and serenity. Without any fear of introducing groundbreaking innovations, the music presented on Into the Blue is exceedingly original and boundless, energized with an unprecedented scale of genuine vivaciousness. 

Marvelous from the beginning until the end, there is not a single second on this record that sounds generic, or out of order. Certainly the product of a very original and restless creative mind, Into the Blue surprises for its consistent, appealing, authentic and colorful mixture of electronic music and atmospheric black metal, but doesn’t limit itself to this feature – although to combine in such a perfect symmetry two apparently disparate genres is no minor achievement. More precisely, what we have here is a symphonic electro wave sound deeply committed to function as the basis for a poetic, melancholic and sensible type of black metal.

With its unconventional sentimental style, and a very audacious combination – that reverberates the ascendancy of a brave musical originality –, Abstract Void creates a singular, as a matter of fact, an exceedingly vast and peculiar genre, as well as its own signature into the underground scene, that contemplates a new direction of creative settlements, destined to circumnavigate and to expand the boundaries of its own parallel paradigms, where sonorous barriers and conventions simply don’t exist.     

A fabulous album that will certainly impress its audience given the strength of its fearless originality, Into the Void is a sensational, magnificent and exponentially solid work, the product of a vivacious and formidably creative artist, that has so much to present, to expand and to contribute to the worldwide underground musical scene, that, in our limitations, we simply can’t predict what surprising masterpieces he will be releasing in the future.


Wagner

jazz / experimental

In the past few years, Dutch heavy jazz combo Dead Neanderthals have truly been making a name for themselves. With exploding gigs, an intriguing blend of jazz and grindcore and loads of energy, this duo have shocked and awed audiences far and wide. Including me. I've been a fan since the first time I saw them live. So much that they even ended up in my upcoming book, Cecilia's World. Now that the pre-order for their next album has been kicked off, I think it's finally time to write a few words about this remarkable album. 'The Depths' will be released on August 18 but you can (and should) pre order it right away. The CD version is limited to 500 copies.

What is so special about this album? Well, you can say that Dead Neanderthals recorded it using the biggest reverb/delay effect they could find. Each member of the duo was placed on a different side of a 100 meter long air tunnel. Obviously, such a tunnel creates loads of echoes, delay and reverb on its own and there is no way of manipulating or controlling those sounds. So, to be able to make the recording, Dead Neanderthals had to adapt a completely different way of playing. Below this articles, you can find a documentary about the recording process, filmed by Dick van Aalst and Inge Hondebrink.

The most notable difference between this album and most of their previous work is the tempo. Coming up with hyperspeed drums and even blast beats would make no sense and only result in noise and chaos. So this album is a lot slower than what we're used to from this duo. The four tracks, 'Surface', 'Descent', 'Glimpse' and 'Decompression', are jazz experiments with sax and drums. The whole thing begins with careful exploration of the possibilities, perhaps a bit hesitant at first. Yet, gradually, Dead Neanderthals open up and showcase their full force. 

'Glimpse' is my favorite track on this record. It's an impending tune that seems to nudge towards the dark jazz scene and sounds more atmospheric than experimental. Of course, there is still a lot of delay and reverb, creating this eerie and haunting sound, which I like a lot. But in all, this is a successful experiment, one that certainly fits in with all your other Dead Neanderthal or experimental jazz records. So obviously this one comes highly recommended. It's their calmest record to date, and an experiment that can be repeated anytime.


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