experimental / noise / drone / ambient

Unexplained Sounds Group

An interesting compilation, refined and superbly majestic, exceedingly experimental and underground in all of its sound. A curious and intriguing sonorous experience, that only the most fearless will dare to listen. Lucid and innovating, the twenty three track compilation is a devotional, as well as a demanding, universal experience in a penetrating sound device, that challenges moderate and common concepts. 

A compilation hard to define or classify, its experimental nature, is certainly the most prominent aspect in all of its groundbreaking shifts. Nonetheless, I will not dare to day that I have liked all of the tracks. While some of them are just noisy, others are really interesting musical pieces, tied together in a delusional field of embrace, really worthwhile listening. But this is a compilation very hard to embrace in several aspects, mainly because its greatest qualities are also its main weaknesses: while the album is markedly experimental, it’s too experimental. You have to listen patiently, to understand it correctly. Nevertheless, there is some interesting sounds here, that you will not listen anywhere else. Intriguing and mesmerizing pieces of music, that certainly will drive its audience insane. This is the right album to listen quietly, candidly, experimenting each and every one of its notes, to appreciate and understand correctly. But its overtly experimental nature also means that this compilation will be appreciated mainly by a select audience, and a smaller group of interested musicians.

All in all an interesting record, very sensible and markedly musical, tonal, florescent and daring, this is highly recommended for the ones who are not afraid of listening to refreshing new things. With great quality and a fearless touch of originality, Portugal Experimental Underground is exactly what its title means: a select and diversified cast of underground tracks made by Portuguese experimental musicians. A compilation that has charm, excellence and a spellbound rhythm that speaks to the soul, here we have coherence, cohesion and unity. While it is not perfect, it certainly is a marvelous experience, and a great collision that will certainly blow your ears away. 

But I certainly should reiterate that this is not an album for everybody. Ordinary people and ordinary listeners will not understand this compilation. Its serves to a basic premise, and only people already familiar with avant-garde genres will learn the proper way to appreciate. But this is also one of the main charms on the record: the fact that appeals only to the more open-minded audiences. 

Portugal Experimental Underground is not an ordinary album in any way, on the contrary: it is extraordinary in all levels. And if you’re not familiar with this type of sound, you will certainly find it strange. And – I repeat here – while I should point it out that I haven’t liked all the tracks, there are some fine pearls here begging to be listened and discovered, while also being a groundbreaking selection – and a fine audacious experimentation – on music, that we should learn of, a lot. A lucid and majestic compilation, I certainly wish that a volume II follow soon, for it certainly intrigued me, and I have learned a lot by listening to this one. Obviously the Portuguese experimental scene is monumental, and it’s a shame that the world knows so little about it. Nonetheless, I think compilations like Portugal Experimental Underground will change this, little by little. 

Certainly an interesting record, with tracks finely selected, arranged and produced, Portugal Experimental Underground is a fundamental album, for the ones who like music with an acutely prominent avant-garde concept.                       


​Wagner

electronic / experimental

An interesting electronic album, with dense and heavy dark ambient characteristics, Electrons – A scientific essay, by Sonologyst, is a tense, vague and dubious ambient album, relying on abysmal, anxious and afflictive insinuations. Cosmic, disturbing and decisively intense, this is an axiomatic album, that creates a universe of disturbing and fulfilling sonorous premises.    

With a nervous and corrosive sonorous surface, the album correlates its intense uneasiness with thin and distrustful ambiguous sensibilities, combining the darkness of its truth to the veracity of its causal reality of desperation and demise. Eventually falling into the magma of more usual dark ambient tonalities, Electrons – A scientific essay, creates into the layout of its magnificent sphere of dreadful harmonies an interesting journey of lethargy and sleepiness, heading for a somber and dark world, devoid of a perpetual omniscience.  

With turbulent elements that apparently departs from what appears to be, initially, a lucid dream, all sonorous devices here are eager to incorporate an hyperbole of different transient vigorous personalities into the music, using as a layout for the soul of the music a sincere darkness that never fades away. And using this premise as a starting point, we have the imagination of a devoured anxiety falling into an endless void of wrongful exhilaration, lust and protectionism, forever lost into the never ending demise of a darkness that will always remain. 

All in all, this is what Electrons – A scientific essay, by Sonologyst, sounds like. With its nine tracks that apparently came from outer space, this album provides to the listener the overview of a distant cosmic sound, with origins certainly out of this world, having been perfectly configured with all the correct elements of the most ambitious, fearless, voracious and agonizing components that dark ambient, as a genre, could have ever assimilated or discovered, in a distorted layer that even the universe itself, in all of its vastness, is yet to absorb.  

A very good and decent work, certainly this album will please all the enthusiasts of the genre. Finely arranged, composed and decently produced, Electrons – A scientific essay, by Sonologyst, contains the greatest elements of the genre, without limiting itself to be just another release. With all of its transient devices converging correctly, the stylistic veracity and the sharp truth that compels this album to the path of the fundamental albums of the genre certainly will find its way to the audience, with the potential to be hailed as a state of the art work.           


​Wagner

psychedelic trance / goa / electronic

A Trance compilation released by Californian label Goa Records, and compiled by electronic music legends Moonstar, also known by his more popular nom de plume Ovnimoon, from Chile, and DJ Rhino, from Greece, the double album contains eighteen of the most energized and furious tracks ever created in Trance music, on virtually all subgenres, from Goa to Neo and Progressive, amongst many others.

Divided in two cd’s, the first one has the following tracks: Rules of Levitation, by PsyBuddy, Physical Effort, by Dee, Vaisnava, by Analog Minds, Supernova, by GalactrixX, D.N.A, by Solar Waves, Ancient Tales, by Yar Zaa, Bounty Hunter, by Barby, Luminous Void, by Recursion Loop and Sweet Bitches, by Electit. The second CD has the following track list: Lost In Time, by Trickster, Attraction, by Spectro Senses, Polos, by Sinergia, Living The Dream, by Xamek, Misdirection, by tinY, Revelation, by The Unknown, Ghost of Nebula, by Goa Luni, Outer Space In My Mind, by Lectro Spektral Daze and Silent Sweeper (Cactus Arising Remix), by Omnivox.

A great compilation that reunites the most refined and distilled tracks ever produced on the genre, this exhilarating selection of songs certainly supplies an enormous niche within the Trance music scene. While this genre is primarily characterized by an harmonic noisy repetition, it appeals mostly to a very specific audience, working splendidly in live concerts and electronic music festivals. But, of course, if you are an enthusiast of the genre, obviously you can appreciate a great compilation like this one also at the comfort of your own house.

Characterized primarily by a uniformity that satisfies the listener by inserting him in a very familiar confluence of pronounced shattering sounds, these Trance tracks, that amazingly explores all of its different subgenres, reveals in detail the stylistic zone of harmonies upon which the path of its cohesive dynamics is centered. With the tonalities of the rhythms being constant, most of them converge to a very coherent stance, that summarizes altogether the sonorous principles upon which the genre relies on. However, with each track being approximately seven minutes long, you have to be a very enthusiastic fan of the genre, to be proud of such a collection of sounds. 

With a firm and visible pattern of evaluation that circles the harmony, making the sound intrinsic to its own melody resurface below the lurid challenges of a sphere that breaks the boundaries between antagonistic cadences, most tracks in this compilation are really centered upon a perfect match that counterbalances melody and resonance, revering time loops that shifts the breaks between continuity and bilateral noise. 


While I cannot say I’m particularly attracted to Trance music, this compilation really sounded astonishing to me. Beautiful, transcendental, expansive and true to the genre, enthusiasts of Trance music certainly have a lot of motives to celebrate. While I haven’t found any bad track that in my opinion should be tackled out, this compilation really outstood itself for its cohesion, coherence and beauty, celebrating the genre as a whole, without forgetting its most elusive elements, nor neglecting its diverse subgenres. While maybe I could possibly point it out as a prospective fault the excessively long duration of each track, I know that this is peculiar to this type of music, given the fact that Trance is a genre especially fit for live performances, as its popularity can be properly seen and evaluated at the prominence of the genre in the dance music scene worldwide, and electronic music festivals.                     

Undoubtedly a very good compilation, Fresh Horizons of Goa v2, with tracks appropriately selected by two authorities on the scene – artists Moonstar and Rhino – definitely can be considered among the best ever created on the genre. Even people who are not familiar with Trance music will feel amused listening to it, working also as a great introduction to the genre. Certainly, imposes respect, and deserves to make history, having enough strength on its axis to reach its audience with power and impact.  


​Wagner

ambient / electronic

A renowned name in the contemporaneous electronic music scene, Kick Bong – artistic nom de plume of French artist Franck Jousselin – released his most recent full length recently, on Greek label Cosmicleaf Records. Titled Destiny, this is an album filled with different colors and textures, impregnated with transcendental vibrations and consonantal dynamics, that mesmerizes the senses with all of its transient devices that celebrates a groundbreaking mixture of several different genres of electronic music, like chillout, downtempo and lounge music. With nine tracks, being them Time in Suspense,
Voices from Heaven, Ange Gardien, Traveling in his Head, I was asleep, Such Love, I Love this World, Destiny and Whirlwind, this album presents us Kick Bong at his best form. Experimenting, creating and regenerating the most effective and orderly sidelines of his music, being immersive, harmonious and methodic, while highly delusional, abstemious and cautious, the artist manages to be amazingly experimental and profoundly lucid at the same time. 

With a great set of songs able to inspire impressively high connotations of beauty, resurfacing and resounding with his very unique sonorous identity, in Destiny the songs are mostly meditative, transcendental, serene, calm, melodic and deeply poetic, with the preponderance of melodic resonances that infuses into his music a consistent layer of opacity and light, at the same time. Like an eternal rise of a poetic spring that acknowledges the importance of solitude, Destiny certainly brings to the listener a more reflexive, philosophic and deep side of Kick Bong’s music, being hugely transcendental in all spheres dispersed by the rhythms of the music. Certainly, all of his fans will be put into a state of grace, while listening to this. Destiny is definitely art, in the shape of electronic music.  

An amazing album, soon to be considered a great part in the history of electronic music scene, Destiny is filled, from the very first track to the last one, with beauty, elegant traces of self-discovery, poetic daydreams of lucid harmonies and exceedingly monumental eloquent charm. A marvelous form of majestic sonorous utopia, while extremely recognizable at the same time, Destiny, by Kick Bong, is a fundamental album. The future of electronic music, and the shape of things to come. 

A daydream in sonorous form, impregnated with a sense of devotional paroxysm, this is an album with potential to challenge the basis of the underground music. A milestone that obviously cannot go unnoticed, this is a major work that deserves to be hailed by its audience.         


Wagner

black metal

An amazing and fast traditional black metal album, filled with rhythmic twists and abrasive sidelines, Waldmark, by Alastor, is one of the best traditional black metal albums I’ve heard lately. With pungent abrasive vocals and graceful guitar lines that accompanies, structures and defines the basic layers of the music, Waldmark has thinly disguised on the deep spheres of its music some progressive elements, audaciously inserted at the nucleus of their highly expansive style of black metal, working in a hidden stylistic appeal in favor of the music. 

With a sound more diluted, but amazingly rapid, vaporized and strong, this album manages to be black metal with something more. Graciously appealing, and with an impressive and superb work of guitars, that centralizes the basic premise of the harmonies into a more direct and useful frame of abrasive aggression and sonorous digression, Waldmark is an album way ahead of other traditional black metal albums, for its courageous spark of originality, that centers in the aggressive side of their melodies a fiercely hostile component, that makes their music sounds way more impressive, brutal, organic, true and spontaneous. 

With a predisposition that sounds human, natural and volatile, an amazing element present in this album is the fact that its groundbreaking sonorous contrivance is purely monumental, and sinisterly effective, which makes Waldmark sounds so innovative, fresh and interesting. With qualities that highlight its distinctions, making this work in particular stay distant of more generic and convoluted black metal albums, produced by highly ephemeral, common and ordinary black metal bands, that limit themselves to be just copies of their influences, Waldmark, on the other hand, is a curious and intriguing black metal album, created by a band that clearly has discovered, evolved and developed their own style in the genre.                      

Besides the musical qualities, the album is clearly well produced, finished and have a sober, clean sound, above the top quality, which certainly helps. But none of it would be of any advantage, if the band, by itself, was deprived of abilities. Since this is not the case here, you can certainly bet that this album is a great exemplar of the genre, bound to please each and every true enthusiast of black metal out there. A magnificent work, traditional black metal will never be in better hands, after this album.      



​Wagner

ambient / electronic

Recently released by Greek label Cosmicleaf Records, Long Journey, by Aviron, is an ambient three tracks album, marked by deep and thoughtful harmonies, that comprehends the spirited meaning of expansion and rhythm. With serene, but constant melodies, that revolves around a sensational sonorous inspiration that immerses the listener into a long journey of peaceful delusion, this work, albei being brief, is deeply atmospheric and intense. Like small sparks of impressionistic notes, the colorful and poetic rhythms, almost detached from the reality that mesmerizes the factual perceptions of the senses, drives you into a whole new world of interceptive vibrations, that captivates and disseminates grains of poetic beauty to a new level of delusional transcendence.       

Sometimes flerting with Psytrance, the three tracks herein – Long Journey, Solving The Mystery and Hateship – throws ambient music into a different level of existence, matching the perfect coexistence of an audacious thrill of artistic experimentation with the traditional approach that characterizes the genre. With powerful rhythms and an astounding dissonance that immediately captivates the listener’s audition, groundbreaking dance elements surprisingly collide perfectly with the surface of the music, revealing a refreshing element of astonishing musical magnificence that makes this fantastic masterpiece not just brilliant, but incredibly fundamental for all enthusiasts of the genre. 

A powerful EP that really captivates the listener at the very first seconds, until the very end of it, Long Journey – although being a little bit short, in fact – is a profound and methodical exercise into electronic music, masterly mixing ambient, trance, psytrance and dance music elements, that reorganizes into the deep spherical layer of a protuberating art the immense and diverse abilities of an artist that really knows what he is doing. A great gift for the electronic music scene as a whole, Long Journey is powerful as an EP, and each one of its three songs individually can be categorized as state of the art symbols, bounded to make history in the annals of the genre.  

A powerful EP that everybody should listen, Long Journey is an incredible and lucid musical work, that no description in words can match. A groundbreaking masterpiece, whose only failure is being too brief. Otherwise, it would have been an epic contribution to the history of electronic music.            


Wagner

post metal / black metal

Eternal, the most recent work by Dutch band An Autumn for Crippled Children, is a great, sensational and astonishing album, that certainly has everything to be considered a masterpiece. With a powerful, effective and expansive mixture of post-black metal, black metal and experimental music – sometimes flirting with a more traditional approach to rock’n’roll as well – Eternal is a majestic and exceedingly artistic album. With ten tracks, being them eternal youth, i will never let you die, on fire, farewell, this small space you occupied is so empty now, you have been in the shadows for so long, days of sleep, swallowed by night's despair, cloud mood and
matters of the heart, An Autumn for Crippled Children’s music is characterized by a proficient and prominent poetic melancholy, that drives the listener all the way throughout their music, being efficiently melodic, but never slow. With beautiful melodies, and songs with a “normal” duration – which means that these songs are not as long as usually seen in most post-black metal albums –, even the brand “post-black metal” possibly does not apply here, despite some elements, and most prominently, the vocals.

With the beauty of their own style, and a highly solid stream of pungent melodies, traditional rock’n’roll elements are everywhere to be seen, as the basic axis of their music. With a poetic beauty that accurately surfaces as the mostly sincere and complacent driving force, serenity and resilience appears to be the greatest components of Autumn for Crippled Children’s music. A beautiful album that really transcends all explanations, Eternal erodes, transforms and dissipates tranquility and calmness, by the fluidity of a sound that seems to be an everlasting light. Resounding with an incredible sense of balance and equilibrium, Eternal is a masterpiece, that should transcend the underground boundaries, and achieve mainstream status, for such a marvelous state of the art groundbreaking work cannot be known only to a few thousand insiders.

With powerful lines of guitar, sincerely scathing vocals, enchanting harmonies, dilaceration and majestic rhythms, and a fantastic convergence of all of its elements, Eternal is material for major record companies, and worldwide distribution. Having never listened to something so incredibly poetic, intense and artistic on the genre, Eternal is an album that literally made me speechless. An enormous and gigantic work of musical expression, An Autumn for Crippled Children certainly is today the most promising act in the Dutch underground scene, having such a powerful and compelling degree of originality, that it will be a major waste not to thrown them to a higher place, where they definitely belong. 

Eternal is a majestic album. Certainly one of the best albums of 2016, it is destined to be hailed as a major masterpiece, and an impressive artistic achievement, for its ability to create sound at the rhythm of stars and galaxies. A phenomenal monument, it is the indefinite, ethereal and perfect embodiment of a priceless musical legacy.  


Wagner

electronic / ambient

A beautiful collaboration of electronic music artists Stimulus Timbre and Fourth Dimension, in a three tracks album – being them Ode to Terra, Strange Beauty and
Dancing Fields – despite its brevity, the record manages to be a beautifully serene, poetically cadenced and amazingly relaxed chill out masterpiece, that will enticingly surprise your ears, and flow through your senses as a mesmerizing journey of colorful reactions, eager to bring the paradise to your senses, and intensify the interior capacities of your hidden sensibilities.

A great journey of amazingly transient and ethereal soundscapes, these three tracks travel throughout your mind, unraveling a curious sense of serenity and freedom. As a great part of you deals with the fact that this beautiful music floats through the air in a transcendental journey of harmony and strength, the explicit poetry that flows through the beautiful melodies dance in the air, modifying colors and empty spaces,   all around the hidden layers of its happily effective inner universe. As the songs revolves in your senses, a wonderful ocean of stars dance above your eyes, setting a deep pattern of everlasting grace, that perpetuates within your thoughts the majestic, lucid and vivid harmonies of this album. Despite excessively brief, these tracks are not just impressive, but heavenly great and full of life. 

A marvelous and impressive example of chill out, the amazing joint effort of the two artists herein – Stimulus Timbre and Fourth Dimension – really requests a follow up. The astounding result produced three of the finest tracks ever written on the genre. With such poetic harmonies, and wonderful melodies perfectly synchronized with the sensational amazement of an infinite universe hidden inside the spectrum of a magnificent sonorous journey, Dancing Fields will certainly be a worldwide success among the enthusiasts of the genre. 

A perfect example that summarizes the possibilities hidden within the genre, Stimulus Timbre and Fourth Dimension captures in their collaboration an effective expansion of permanent harmonies, that dilates dimensional rhythms into one vigorous sonorous order. A glorious state of the art work, Dancing Fields is an album to be listened one thousand times, if not many, many more!    
     

​Wagner

A few days ago, we published fifteen songs for your Halloween playlist. If you know a little bit about the history of this holiday, you'll know that it originates from Samhain, the Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter or the "darker half" of the year. To celebrate Samhain, English label Sombre Soniks comes up with a Samhain Sale on 31 October and 1 November. So if you're still looking for some decent spooky music to play or if you're simply a fan of dark ambient and related genres, this might be your chance to pick up some grizzly gems. On this label special of Brieviews, we guide you through some of Sombre Soniks releases. To see all of them, click here. 

A Most Accursed  is a side project from members of Druhá Smrt, who are also a part of the Sombre Soniks stable. With this new album, they deliver three strange and haunting tracks, each one lasting exactly thirteen minutes. They're all grim, dark and droning pieces of work, with the second one, 'Where Owls Shriek All The Night', being the most unsettling one. You can actually hear the owls shriek in a vague and gloomy tempo. On opener 'In The Valley Of Feral Dogs' you can also hear the hounds creating this hint of rhythm. In all, this definitely is a must-have for fans of dark, mystic and obscure ambient music, certainly those who like to crossover to noise once in awhile.

From Finland comes lo-fi obsessed experimentalist Fecal Fetal with his second offering on Sombre Soniks. On this album, the artist works with a wide array of instruments and materials, from kantele to styrofoam, to create otherworldly pieces of music. The result are six strange and often uneasy pieces of music, here and there coming up with mere hints of melody and rhythm. The whole thing reminds me of other experimentalists such as De Fabriek, Maurizio Bianchi and Zoviet France. So if you're in for strange, bizarre, unconventional and downright odd, this album definitely is something for you. But beware, it might cause horrifying mental images.

Grist is a master in slowly evolving layers of soundscapes and loops and on this album he further explores that art. In three long tracks, the artist slowly drags you into his mystic, hypnotic world where you will experience visions and emotions you never knew existed. This constant building-up has a captivating and almost trance inducing effect, especially when it's played loud and in absolute darkness, which is obviously exactly what I would recommend. The tracks also seem to balance on the edge between musicality and noise, another constant throughout the career of Grist. If you're looking for something deep, droning and repetitive, this definitely is your cup of tea.

After his splendid cooperation with Yumi Hara on the 'Wheels Within Wheels', Guy Harries returns for his first solo effort on Sombre Soniks. On this album, Harries invites us on a long and mystic journey through soundscapes, noises and pulsating drones. The result is a gloomy and eerie album where unexpected sounds turn up. That being said, this would make an excellent soundtrack for a horror game. The five tracks consist of field recordings, modular synths and found objects which Harries turned into sonic adventures which will certainly have an effect on your psyche. This is something for fans of Zoviet France, Rapoon and Inade.

bandcamp

The 'Dark Ambient' series have become a constant throughout the oeuvre of Sombre Soniks. These compilations contain a lot of exclusive tracks from artists from the stable but also several songs from acts outside the label. On this twelfth edition you can find tracks from Akoustik Timbre Frekuency, Misantronics, Druhá Smrt, Backyard Ghost and Grist but also Kristus Kut, Catacombs Of Doom and Oneirich, amongst others. And, as usual, this is a highly recommended album for every dark ambient fan out there. If you're looking for a decent playlist for your Samhain activities, look no further and download this compilation. You simply can't go wrong with this.

bandcamp

Canadian act Sp3cd3rs returns with a droning and epic album which will definitely disrupt your consciousness and gnaw on your self esteem. I think it's safe to say that the songs on this album are lingering harsh ambient tunes with loops, soundscapes and unidentified noises. Yet, it's the repetitive nature of the whole thing that gives this album a certain vibe, a quite immersive one too. It's easy to get lost in these drones and let your imagination do all the work. For fans of minimal but harsh experimental music or "death industrial", this definitely is a must-have. If you have acts like Luasa Raelon, Brighter Death Now and Tim Hecker in your collection, you should add this one too.

This might be one of the most varied albums on Sombre Soniks. In no less than fourteen tracks, each one dedicated to a different element or planetary sphere, Portuguese experimentalist Babalith delves the listener in a whirlpool of drones, dark ambient, minimal folk and noise. The tracks differ quite a lot from each other, although they all have that gloomy dark ambient atmosphere. My favorite one is the long 'Venus Oscillation' which is a pulsating piece of music that reminds me of some of Deutsch Nepal's compositions. Anyway, this is already Babalith's fifth album for this label, one where you can certainly hear an ever evolving artist.

More reviews for Sombre Soniks releases:

Akoustik Timbre Frekuency - Harmonik Radiance
Babalith - The Dream Cycle
Misantronics - Contraformance
Druhà Smrt - Mythologem
A Most Accursed - Imaginal 
Sielwolf & Nam-khar - Atavist Craft
Yumi Hara & Guy Harries - Wheels Within Wheels
Druhá Smrt - Occurrentium
Weltensprung b Kaiserwetter - Prag​

ambient / experimental

Krysali Sound

David Gutman returns with his fourth release under the Drawing Virtual Gardens moniker. On this record, he further explores the possibilities of his guitar with processed loops, strange soundscapes and minimal melodies. In that aspect, you can blindly trust this album to be another great example of the things this artist is capable of. If you know and like his work, hesitate to longer and buy this album.

For those who are not familiar with Drawing Virtual Gardens, I'll try to elaborate a little further. Like many guitar ambient and drone acts, Gutman arms himself with a guitar, a heap of effects and processing equipment. That would place this act right into the scene where people like Dirk Serries, Stratosphere and Aidan Baker dwell. Yet, while those people usually concentrate on deep drones and atmospheric soundscapes, Gutman adepts a more experimental sound.

The tracks are titled after their respective beats per minute, but please, do not expect beats. This is not a dance album. Here and there, I can sense an underlying heartbeat, which along with the album title and artwork, makes me suspect that Gutman's family recently gained a member and this whole album is dedicated and inspired by what goes on in the womb. Then again, that just might be my imagination.

What I do know, is that this album is loaded with blissful soundscapes and strange, vague melodies. Although experimental in nature, it remains a nice and soothing listening experience for all fans of decent electroacoustic ambient music. It's easy to float along with the music and let your imagination do all the work. There's also a beautiful hypnotic feel to the whole thing, in the right environment that could even be somewhat trance inducing.

I'm not going to mention a favorite song, or any track for that matter. With coherent and harmonic music like this, titles become mere details, deviating the listener from the immersive nature of the music. I will recommend this to every fan of experimental ambient music out there. Check it out and get your hands on a copy of this magnificent piece of music. You won't be disappointed.


​Serge

alternative / metal

Would you like to be able to travel through your dreams and your fantasy? What would happen to you if someone invented a machine that would make such a thing possible? To me, it summons memories and visions of The Matrix movies and a whole lot of people who are suddenly leading a completely different life, one in virtual reality. A better one? That remains to be seen, since some people have a strange and sick fantasy.

Anyway, that 'Dream Machine' forms the concept of French rock band Sybernetyks. Rooted in modern metal, they add a bunch of electronics to their style, which reminds me of something between the radio friendliness of Linkin Park and the pounding industrial approach of Pain. Opener 'Virtual Lights' perfectly sets the tone for the whole album, being a well-written song, both heavy and perfectly suited for big arenas around the world.

'D.N.A.' is an early highlight on this album, but since the songs are usually based on the same concept, most of them have quite a similar sound. Perhaps that could be my only point of criticism for this one. Perhaps, the marriage between heavy rock and electronic could be expanded and explored a bit more in the near future. Yet, I soon forget that petite aspect when I listen to the epic ballad 'As The Stars Fade Away'.

In its entirety, the albums feels very modern and capable to entertain a large audience. The vocals, and vocal lines, are very listener friendly. No screams, no complicated hooks and twists, no nasty surprises, just a mature and victorious sound. In fact, I don't really have a lot to compare with, but I can easily imagine songs like 'Satellite', 'Tech-Noir' or 'Genesis' being used as intros for wrestling shows or such.

So no, I don't really know who to recommend this album to. Industrial fans might find this a bit too goody-goody while fans of decent written pop music might think it's too heavy. What I do know is the fact that 'Revolution' is a stunning piece of work, my absolute favorite here. You know what, I'll just recommend to all your rock and metal fans out there. It's something different, yet familiar and it's professional as hell too.


​Serge

post hardcore

The recent post-hardcore craze is somewhat of a mystery to me. I guess I don't really understand it, like my parents probably never understood my lust for harsh, evil and occult music either. I actually like most of the music, but it's the vocals that make me frown a bit. That too might be weird, since I have absolutely no problems with death growls and blackened screams. Yet, these hardcore screams often sound a bit out of place over the atmospheric approach to heavy music. They belong on hardcore punk, but on this?

Now, I have to say that in this genre, it makes a huge difference when you experience it live. On stage, these bands usually are a blast and in that aspect, French horde Aleska is no exception., I think Although their debut full-length will probably not appear in my day-to-day playlist, I would definitely go see them when they play anywhere near Antwerp. Besides, there is one song on this album on which the vocals add a lot to the sick and twisted atmosphere, But let's start from the beginning.

The album opens with the song 'Instaurer Le Vide', which initially sounds like an excellent post rock song, or post metal if you wish. After listening to the whole album, I feel like this is the luring-in song, the one that fans of the genre will like enough to buy the album. But then it starts, things start getting weirder, flashes of sheer insanity seem to appear and the intensity rises to often punishing levels. These levels seems to rise with each song. 'Leaves, Trees and Me' reaches a huge highlight but what happens next is simply destructive.

'Que-Reste-T-Il?' pulls out all the stops, grabbing influences from sludge, crust, hardcore and black metal to turn the song into a whirlpool of musical and vocal madness. This definitely is the most pummeling song on this selftitled debut. The madness returns on 'Our Illusion Is Creation', but in a different way as the music once again drives on these beautiful post rock guitars while the vocalist now seems to be lost completely in his dark, eerie and haunting world. Fans of bands like Isis, Envy, Cult Of Luna or AmenRa, this surely is something for you. Check it out!!!


Serge

post rock / noise rock

Once in awhile, someone asks me, "why did you start this webzine and do all that work". Well, apart from the fact that I love both writing and music, this "job" has a few other advantages. One of those is being able to shove some exceptional bands and albums under people's noses. Like the one I'm trying to review here. It's only been a few hours since I received a message from Polish instrumental ensemble Mindsedge and now my plan is to write a review good enough to get these guys on several festivals in Europe next summer.

Why? Well, I love post rock, a lot of people do. However, the scene seems to overload with quite similar atmospheric pieces of music. Most of them are ok to awesome but once in awhile a fan can do with something a little different, and that's where bands like Mindedge come in. At least, on this album they do. Yes, I'm finally going to write something about the album, rejoice. Fact is, this is a breath of fresh air, well, it is for me.

The album opens with the quite noisy song 'Tesla', which seems to immediately kick off with the noise rock influences. This isn't just post rock, this is a jam session by a bunch of friends having fun in the rehearsal room. 'Unmeisen' eventually comes up with the vintage soundscapes and the gentle build-up, placing Mindsedge back in the world of post rock. Yet, there's a decent sense of minimalism which reminds me of another band I like a lot, Alice In The Cities. Although Mindsedge is a lot heavier at times, there's still this nice feeling of "we don't have to overcomplexify the whole thing, let's just have fun".

​No, I don't think 'overcomplexify' is a word either.

The album continues in this joyful manner, here and there showing influences from stoner rock, more noise rock and even hints of jazz. Bands that come to mind include Monkey3, A Place To Bury Strangers, Sonic Youth, Deftones, Russian Circles, Rosetta, even Pink Floyd and Primus. So yeah, there's a lot more going on here, and there will be even more as well. Somehow, throughout the album, the songs seem to gain more momentum, a more immersive nature. 'Snowstorm' already shows a bit of that side of Mindesdge but it is 'Pathways' that forms the absolute highlight of the album.

'Pathways' starts gently, borrows the build op from traditional post rock and suddenly turns into a blast that will undoubtedly blow the roof off of some venues. That being said, I know I'm writing about post rock a lot in this review, but you might include post metal as well since it's basically the same these days. 'Vipassana' is another awesome track and so is closer 'Shades'. Oh well, you guessed it, this whole album is an inspiring piece of work, something a little different but just as enjoyable as all those huge bands you listen to, if not more. I like different, and I definitely like this.


Serge


​(right, now let's start hoping this review will effectively get these guys on some festivals....)

progressive rock / metal

When this album first came in, two aspects of it immediately dragged it into a certain musical style. First, there was the beautiful, gloomy cover art. Second, there were the last four letters of the band name. That being said, the album title also places this thing right into the world of gothic metal, or 'symphonic female fronted metal' as some people would prefer. So I was a bit sceptic about this album. Not that I dislike gothic metal, but let's face it, some of those bands have become way too theatrical and bombastic, no? Well, they do for me.

Yet, after listening to this album I came to a whole different conclusion.

Do you remember when Anneke joined Dutch death metal band The Gathering and suddenly inspired a whole generation to evolve into gothic metal, before that tag was even invented? Well, I feel like French act Wedingoth could be one of those first bands, creating progressive and emotive rock music with touches of metal and fronted by a vocalist with an excellent, versatile voice. And, what's probably more important, they blend these elements with great symphonic arrangements into a number of great, epic songs. 

The albums opens with an awesome intro, a nice piece of dark ambient, before the guitars and drums kick in on 'Alone In The Crowd Part I'. From the very beginning, Wedingoth manages to grab the listener's attention with their sometimes heavy but always well-written progressive rock. Bands that come to mind include Lacuna Coil, Black Sabbath, The Gathering, Ayreon and even some of Iron Maiden's epic ballads. So yeah, there's plenty of variation, but the whole thing remains a coherent listening experience.

Perhaps, the only point of criticism from my end, could be the somewhat too harsh grunts which appear once in awhile. Not that I don't really mind grunts, screams and growls but on this album they're not really needed. They push the whole thing back into the world of metallic extremes, while the rest of the album is perfectly suited for every fan of progressive rock, from Pink Floyd to Dream Theater. On the other hand, these vocals might appeal to a new generation of fans, those coming from the metalcore scene and looking for new sounds to explore.

No harm done in luring in some new fans.

In all, 'Alone In The Crowd' is an excellent album, and album that dares to explore and experiment, one which comes up with some amazing passages. It certainly convinced me of Wedingoth musical abilities. My favorite song, if I have to choose one, will probably be 'The Painter' or closer 'Alone In The Crowd Part II'. My suggestion is simple: check it out and allow yourself to dwell in this wonderful musical adventure.


​Serge

post rock

The Philomath is a 2015 album released by the creative and talented English musician Sam Morgan “Transmigrant”, currently based in Indonesia. Certainly one of the greatest underground albums of the last year, The Philomath is an instrumental album that flirts with neoclassical compositions, and also with lounge music, and it has on piano and violin the main components of its artistic power.   

One thing interesting about the album is the fact that, for the main part, its music is, to a great extent, indefinite in terms of musical categorization: its genre is very unique. Sam leads us through a personal realm of sound and sensibility, and, for almost an hour, you can swim through the great vastness of his creative musical endeavors, filled with an original input of passion and soul. In melancholic, but overwhelmingly beautiful sounds, permeated by the spoken word poetry of Charles Bukowski, Stanley Kunitz, Jean Binta Breeze, Adrian Henri and John Betjeman, as well as excerpts of speeches by Carl Sagan and Richard Feynman, you will certainly recognize a little of each sound deeply inside yourself.

An eclectic musician, Sam’s main inspirations for his work were, in his own words, Rock, Jazz, Classical, Electronica, and Ambient. Nevertheless, he managed to create something beautifully peculiar, with a profound degree of singularity that inspires wonder and admiration for his music. Without being pretentious, but sincere and meaningful, his originality should never go unnoticed.

With an atmosphere of serenity and peace, the melodies will captivate the listener, giving birth to an ethereal journey of different elements and perceptions, hard to name at first. A cool sense of nostalgia for classical Jazz and old radio songs will certainly invade your soul, and as soon as the album finishes, you will certainly feel the need to hear it again. Nevertheless, this is an album you have to hear, and drawn into your own conclusions, since it takes you onto a very personal journey of sensorial transcendence and reflexive wisdom.


Wagner

post rock

Code I is a British one man post rock project, led by musician Alex Wilkinson. With a very interesting, melodic and melancholic approach, Code I is a marvelous and very personal undertaking on the genre, being one of the most promising acts in his native country today. Phosphenia, his most recent work, was released on September 20. With ten tracks, being them Our Eyes Will Bleed Colour, Mágoa in Red, Mono No Aware (The Gentle Sadness of Things), The Esoteric Ones, We Sail Away, Tu Es Misère, Dear Reader, Selcouth, What a Beautiful Death Life Is and XXII, this is a very interesting album, with a singular, smooth and very delicate style of post rock. 

With a sonorous layout that perpetuates dreaming devices, Phosphenia is a soft album, one that can make the listener travel directly into the unconscious principles of his own mind. Deeply inserted into a sonorous cosmogony of gray numbness, the softness of the songs evokes a different universe of lethargic cataclysm, that rapidly shifts between soul sensibilities, radiating, retaliating and punctuating the beauty of an indestructible agony, into an easier and kinder prospect, that elevates thoughts into another perimeter of existence, and at the same time, conglomerates the beauty of sound into another level of composition.

A definitely more calm, serene and peaceful work, where the philosophy and the harmony of the senses strike together their mutual love of understanding, Phosphenia is an ode to the basic principles of belief. With a soundscape that correlates the painful antagonisms of the mind, this album does bring to the forefront of the genre some new and interesting elements, being quite unique in the development of a very personal style. 

Although I haven’t found the album to be a masterpiece – being a little tedious at times – it certainly has its own identity. A more horizontal, abruptly cadenced sound, and a somewhat slow energetic calmness below a surface of solitude, Phosphenia, by Code I, is a very different post rock album, with a very peculiar onset of characteristics. With prominent traditional rock’n’roll influences, the sound of Code I definitely surpasses the ordinary standards of the genre, specially taking into consideration that these influences are perfectly absorbed into a post rock context. 

While I can’t consider Phosphenia a masterpiece, definitely this album has a great value. With intriguing elements that definitely places it in a very peculiar and unique category, this album is a must hear for each and every post rock enthusiast out there. Listen without fear. Be certain it will grab your attention! 


Wagner 

dark ambient / drone

On a Deserted Path is a collaborative album between two artists, Hungarian István Csarnogurszky – here operating under the alias Black Hill – and the American Scott Snee. One of the best albums of the year, On a Deserted Path is a joint effort between two astoundingly different, but very skilled and creative musicians, here united by the desire to produce the most persuasive, beautiful and atmospheric anthems of underground music that you will ever hear in your entire life!

The first track already blew my mind away so overwhelmingly, that I could not believe what I was listening to: Desert eagle, the first song of the album, is a melancholic masterpiece, filled with a universal gloom where minor and major tons mix together, to make you feel literally above the clouds and below the earth at the same time. Beautifully executed, this calm, transcending and soft atmospheric guitar lingered meticulous abrasive sound is constructed very carefully under notes played by the spiraling shift of a sonorous colorful poetry never seen before. Note by note, you can almost feel the harmonies dwindling into your soul, as the peaceful atmosphere of its sound easily correlates your senses with the unbelievable life that comes out from the musical layer. I think I’ve listened to this song at least forty times, nonstop.  

Easily, the album goes upwards, in these same directions. Great introspective songs pervaded by the minimalist timing of riffs very well constructed under the basis of the infinite background of an unrestrained sensitive domain, ordained in an increasing path of meticulously premeditated sagacity, very well dosed by the concentrated objectivity to achieve what both where searching for: atmospheric layouts of reconnaissance harmonies, emerged in a catatonic setting of an eternal night filled with a serenity undefined by space and time. The second track, Stevie Slimm in bloody mood, a deep rooted postmodern pervasive piece, grounded in a very polished ambience of universal solitude, like the rest of the album, could easily be very well defined by the guys who made this beautiful full length: according to Black Hill himself, “The album On a Deserted Path was inspired by the sand of the south, western movies, desert creatures, and blues heroes.” And this is exactly where the album goes. It really evokes deserted landscapes, desolate places, sad dust glories and loneliness in interior and exterior deserts, that could be located somewhere, in outer planets. You can almost feel those beautiful songs coming up as the possible soundtrack of life itself, especially in downplayed moments of outstanding arid melancholy, that these two guys easily create so beautifully with guitar strings, filled with composite, but at the same time very soft harmonies, that seems to rise by a life force of its own, in the insurgent path of a calm transcendental music, filled with the never ending creativity that only musical geniuses have in a very higher ground, exposing it in a true setting that really benefits the music, and the ambient it creates. 

Although being very different musicians, each one with its own unique abilities, peculiar tastes and very singular backgrounds, the combination of talents here is quite interesting: they work together very well as a team, and maintain a structure that creates a cohesive identity for the album, that fits very well the awesome characteristics that make On a Deserted Path such an outstanding work of musical proficiency!

Despite the innovations, and the singular capacities of each musician, they bring some of the old stuff as well, albeit reinvented in very creative forms. You can easily identify some seventies rock and roll influences in the guitar layered outback sensitive atmospheres of at least some of those tracks, highlighting the outstanding inspirations that both musicians bring with their respective musical crafts, very well balanced in intriguing sensibilities, correctly placed in profound melodies, that easily tells to your soul a story filled with an outstanding and enthusiastic creative mission.

This is music for true underground fans. After hearing one time, you will have the desire to hear it numerous other times as well, over and over again. And of course, this is an album that obviously deserves and receives the maximum score! What these two guys have done is a great masterpiece, and all that underground fans will do next is to demand for a follow-up, certainly! What can I say, besides reiterate the fact that this is not just another marvelous album, but an outstanding masterpiece, that could easily be regarded as a magnum opus of underground music? I can say thank you, Black Hill, and Scott Snee, for this groundbreaking musical experience!  
   
 
​Wagner

post rock

The first The Seven Mile Journey album in five years, since 2011 Notes for the Synthesis, this much expected album comes in the right time for the post rock scenario. Seventy two minutes long, but having only five tracks – being them Substitutes for Oblivion, The Axiom Anomaly, Causalities, The Oddmory Principle and Tutorials – this work does have, more or less, the typical elements usually found on the other albums of the band. But Templates for Mimesis does have less prominent guitars, that composes here a softer and stable line of melodies. And while The Seven Mile Journey was known by their usually long songs, here they extend this habit more acutely, with two songs having more than twenty minutes long. 

With amazing and intriguing melodies, and a beautiful set of wonderful progressing rhythms, the chain of harmonies that balances the poetic cadences of these enchanting and powerful lines of music are among the best ever created on the genre. And this could never be different, since The Seven Mile Journey certainly is 
one of the most amazing, brilliant and excellent post rock bands in the world today. 

Templates for Mimesis comes to the forefront of the post rock scenario right on time. With a career almost two decades long, they only have five albums released. With years between records, somewhat this is very common for them, since their methodical line of work usually outstands perfectionism, and the final result is so good that you totally understand their necessity for improvement, when what you hear, in the end, is a monumental and incomparable masterpiece, that makes perfection an unbound and limitless device.

With a lucid and very detailed outline of rhythms, and a digressive and imponderable onset of melodic beauty, to hear The Seven Mile Journey, and more important, to understand them, is learning how to appreciate the most elevated and highlighted form of post rock that you will ever going to listen. With a masterful poetic approach that never gets tired, in Templates for Mimesis this exceedingly astounding Danish band exposes another of their monumental talents: they never repeat themselves, while being able to solidify and maintain precisely their style at the same time, which is quite an imponderable ability. And this is another of their virtues: the scope of their style is so gigantic, that the endless possibilities that they’re able to capture in the sound frame of their essence retains an infinite sonorous soul of universal melancholy, that permanently revolves around the stellar system of their never-ending sonorous dynamics. As you listen to this majestic album, a pronounced galaxy of a sonorous delight enters through you ears, and keeps you floating in a paradise of wonderful melodic tapestry.     

As much subjective as it is, directly frozen in a melodic soundscape of beautiful axiomatic melodies, a seemingly diverse galaxy of sonorous heaven is opened to the listener, when he listens to anyone of The Seven Mile Journey’s albums, although each one of them are a unique experience. And as you can imagine, Templates for Mimesis doesn’t disappoint, on the contrary. Well, it couldn’t disappoint, even if they wanted to! One of the best bands in the whole universe – and in what concerns my opinion, the best band in the whole post rock category –, The Seven Mile Journey rules absolute. Templates for Mimesis, with a transcendental melodic and poetic approach, beautifully arranged at the organizational symmetry of a devotional symphony of sonorous colors, is certainly one of the most magnificent albums in all post rock history, and the most wonderful surprise to come out in 2016. An intriguing, captivating, excellent, amazing and mesmerizing album, the absolute paroxysm of perfection in the genre, Templates for Mimesis confirms – not that there were any doubts – why The Seven Mile Journey is, was and always will be the most wonderful, amazing, absolute, brilliant and talented post rock band in the whole world. Past, present or future!

If you are a post rock enthusiast, I don’t even need to recommend this album to you, do I?  

An indispensable and fundamental album! The Seven Mile Journey rules!          

     
​Wagner

black metal / blackgaze

An interesting and fulfilling three track post black metal album, with experimental and blackgaze elements, from an Argentinian musician, Transient Life, by Sebastian Crugley released recently, on October 14, is an album characterized by sharped and acute lancinating guitars, and incredibly dark and melancholic melodies. With vibrating, surreal and harmonically captivating atmospheres, what we have here with this wonderful album is a more elevating form of dark post metal, filled with the beauty of anguish, affliction and transcendentalism, with a more elusive approach towards a sentimental affinity, that redeems the infinity concerning a majestically sorrowful, but exceedingly beautiful musical renaissance from the heart. 

With very poetic melodies, Transient Life, despite being very brief, is an interesting record, that breaks and transforms some elements of post metal. The first track, Transient Life I: Ineptitude, has aggressive lines of guitar, that compels the other elements of the song to just follow its abrasive rush, in a relentless bewilderment that explores the elements, leaving behind them a curious beauty, intertwined in a goal of illusive sonorous devices, all set in a second place, regarding the primary elements. Interestingly, while the vocals are placed at an unusual lower tone, the guitar and the other instruments are always inserted in a precise confluence of rhythms, at the forefront of a clear sound.                   

With brief, but very interesting melodies, Transient Life juxtaposes elements in a soundscape of tormented beauty. Set primarily in the melancholic onset of a sentimental ingenuity, this work really evaluates in a more melodic pattern the very own values of traditional post metal elements, arranged in a very peculiar pattern of musical sensibility. With a visible potential to please all the enthusiasts of the genre, the briefness of the record, while being impossible to make the listener feel bored, with such an interesting melodic and unexpected approach, highlighting so beautifully its dark melancholic tones, also makes you want more of it, leaving you curious in what concerns the style of this artist. 

Sincerely, despite its brevity, Transient Life, by Sebastian Crugley, is an interesting record. Its inserted in that unexpected, pure and almost undefined genre that certainly will give a lot of post metal enthusiasts that curious element that only very unusual works are able to introduce to the heart of the listeners, fulfilled in an artistic principle that mesmerizes, involves, revolves and captivates the heart.     


Wagner    

post rock / progressive

Meniscus are back, and I have to say that I've been looking forward to this moment. Why? Well, a few years ago, I accidentally discovered this Australian band when I bought a bunch of post-rock albums. Their previous full-length 'War Of Currents' was one of the cds and it quickly became one of my favorites. To this day, I regularly play that album and most of the songs appear in my immense post-rock playlist, flanking songs by Russian Circles, Mogwai, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Explosions In The Sky and many, many more. 

So when I noticed the "out now" picture on Meniscus' facebook page, I lightspeeded to bandcamp in order to get my hands on a copy. I bought the album, dragged it into my media player and pressed the play button. Opener 'Doom' started playing and immediately pulled me into a mature, varied and massively immersive post-rock album. "Hm", I thought, "this sounds nothing like 'War Of Currents', but it's still a mesmerizing piece of work". Eventually, I ended up playing the album several times in a row, allowing it to grow on me.

It's true, this new album is definitely not an updated version of their previous one, like some bands seem to record. Instead, Meniscus evolved and perfected their sound into a vintage post-rock classic. All the tracks here are meticulously written and performed pieces of music, extremely loyal to the traditional post-rock anthems. They continuously alternate between calm passages of cinematic music and outbursts of distorted guitars and pounding drums. Each one seems to tell some sort of story, which suddenly reminds me of Smetana's 'Die Moldau'.

I've always admired the narrative approach of post-rock, and on this album Meniscus certainly mastered that skill. A track like 'Overhang', has the power to remain stuck in your head for a long time, not only because of the recognizable guitar play, but also because it's quite easy to imagine a story while listening to it. 'Head Rush' certainly has that quality, being a massive track, a possible soundtrack for a beautiful adventure. You can really lose yourself in the immersive nature of decent post-rock, and in that aspect, 'Refractions' is a marvelous piece of work.

If you're a fan of the acts I mentioned earlier - yes, even Smetana - you should give this album a shot. I'm sure you won't regret it. In my collection, this one will soon appear on the top shelf of my post-rock collection, somewhere between Russian Circles and Explosions in the Sky, I think, and certainly right next to 'War Of Currents'. Of course, I'll still treasure the latter, but from now on 'Refractions' will blast to my speakers on regular occasions. I suggest you do the same and also join me in hoping that this quartet will be touring Europe soon, hopefully appearing on Dunk! Festival where they would exceed all expectations, again.


​Serge