euhm...

Here we go again, wandering in uncategorizable musical areas and wondering what the hell I am going to write about this album . Unsurprisingly, this album has been written and recorded by a Dutch band. I really wonder what's in the water over in The Netherlands. Many of their bands come up with original and exhilarating stuff, impossible to put a finger on. This is no exception, but it does have an awesome Dutch sound to it.

At least, the two first songs do. Titled 'A Show Of Might' and 'Equals Of Gods', these songs remind me of the music of their fellow countrymen Kong. With instrumental, progressive and immersive rock music, these two songs alone make the album worthwhile and the whole album is only beginning. After the massively energetic 'Equals Of Gods', the album starts blooming, as if those first two songs formed the stem and the sheer beauty is only now coming up.

I think the easiest way to describe this album is naming it "experimental post rock". Post rock is indeed a huge part of MNHM's music but they're not weary of incorporating other stuff, like the saxophone of Dead Neanderthals' Otto Kokke. With that, and with several passages, the free jazz elements appear, be it in a noisy kind of way. Yes, noise, because there is a lot of that to be found here too, along with its nasty brothers noise rock, math rock and sludge metal.

So maybe this will help: MNHM is what would happen if you lock Dead Neanderthals, Kong, Melvins, Swans, And So I Watched You From Afar, Yodok III and Frank Zappa into a rehearsal studio and force them to record an album. I know, that sounds like a list of people capable of putting an epic piece of work on the market and that is exactly what this album is, epic. Just listen to the action movie soundtrack worthy 'How Things End' or the doomy 'Rule Of Law'.

Oh well, The Dutch, what a strange kind of creative masterminds. You never really know what you're going to get (and I'll leave out the box of chocolate references, because Belgian chocolate is always better), but that is a good thing. My advice is simple, check it out, open your mind and allow this masterpiece to shock and awe you. You'll be in for several surprises and you will be astounded, I promise you.


​Serge

black metal

Portraits is an album by Italian black metal project Beheat Gorum de Mentheurd, to be officially released in the end of the month, on May 24. Forty four minutes and fifteen seconds long, the album has only three tracks. The first, Осень. Домотканово (which, translated, means “Autumn. Domotkanovo”), is four minutes and nineteen seconds long. The second track, Прасковья Мамонтова (which means “Portrait Of Praskovya Mamontova”), is fourteen minutes and thirty two seconds long. The third and final track – Девочка с персиками (which means “The Girl With Peaches”) – is the longest one, an epic song twenty five minutes and thirty five seconds long. Portraits reveals itself to be a beautiful and delightful album. A very experimental melodic black metal record with predominant atmospheric – and mostly ambient – elemental traits, that stays dominant throughout the work, Portraits is a formidable and calm lyrical allegory, that expresses in a frame of beauty the constant motion of surprisingly poetic cadences, overwhelmed by the serenity of silent virtues, wonderfully aligned at the intercalary sojourn of unpredictable circumstances, predisposed to the sensible degree of ecstatic waves of pale sonorous grievances, condoned at the behest of invisible forces awakened by the intensity of the ecstatic scale of invariably resourceful harmonies, that can be intrinsically felt throughout the album.   

Slowly elaborating an atmosphere where everything can be deemed a neutral disappointment of the heart, although ostensibly consistent at the same time, Portraits has in the intensity of its qualities and abilities the insurrection of a higher realm, fulfilled by the constant exhilaration of emotional battles, dragged by the painful resurgence of distant shadows overcoming the disabling despondency of a storm, lost in the sight of a preciously vivid dream.   

Especially in the third track – the long, epic and monumental Девочка с персиками (“The Girl With Peaches”) – the main features of the work are drastically and distinctly revealed. An effusively dormant and lenient ambient track with subtle nuances, the sonorous framework of the song is elevated to an expansive scale of lurid expectation, despite a fragrant – although dubious and inconsistent –sense of serenity ravenously dispersing an interpretation of morbidity in the air.    

Since black metal elements almost fade away in this work, having little to no prominence at all in neither of its tracks – especially in the last – to label Portraits only as an ambient album would be definitely more suitable. Nonetheless, this does not diminishes in any way the fantastic qualities and characteristics of this amazing work, as a record, and also as an imperiously marvelous work of art. Never tedious neither monotonous in any passage, all the way through, Portraits can be considered a terrific and wonderful ambient album. Certainly, has a dramatically unique sound, being expressively singular in its peculiar definition of a protuberant and composite atmosphere. Evidently, it is not like the ambient albums you have been listening so far, I positively guarantee you this fact.     
 

Wagner

ambient / experimental

Polar Seas Recordings

This is probably one of the most adventurous ambient albums I have heard in a while, and certainly the one with the most tracks. There are no less than twenty-five of them on this album, most of them short studies of a certain instrument or soundscapes while others are nicely elaborated pieces of music. I have been playing this album a few times in the past few days, mostly while writing my book, and I have to say, this one never gets one-sided. It always makes you wonder, "what is coming next?"

I'm not going into a song-by-song description with this one, but I have to pick out some tunes, just to show you how diverse this whole thing really is. It starts with an opener which features the voice of Veronika Zakonjšek. She appears on more songs, but out of those, 'Moje Misli' is my favorite, a mysterious soundscape, luring the listener in. The song is followed by my absolute favorite on this album, 'Sepastia', which reminds me of both O Yuki Conjugate and Deutsch Nepal. It's a rhythmic track and a damn immersive one too.

'Cutter' is a strange, otherworldly piece of music, short but certainly captivating. 'Vertigo' is an eerie track, one that reminds of either very experimental ethereal music or stripped down post-rock. 'ColourEyes' is possibly even stranger. Then there are vintage old school ambient passages, dark drones, classical arrangements and uplifting plucked snares. With that being said, this album just never ceases to grab your interest, even if the songs are rather short. You still have a seventy minutes lasting sonic adventure here.

But now the hardest part, who exactly to recommend it to? Well, see it this way. 'Ghost Folk' is one of those albums that has the power to get you acquainted with new things while still containing everything you like about ambient music. It's relaxing, it's spooky, it's surprising and it's incredibly diverse. So yeah, this is one that every ambient fan should listen to, at least once. Check it out, you might be pleasantly surprised here and there...


​Serge

electronic / noise / experimental

Sacred Bones Records 

At the end of 2015, I declared Blanck Mass' Dumb Flesh as the 2nd best album of that year, just behind No Joy's  More Faithful. In hindsight, judging by the amount of plays those albums got from me I should have declared Dumb Flesh as the best. It is a stellar album and I am not afraid to call it a landmark album in the history of electronic music. To say I had high hopes for World Eater is a massive, massive understatement. High expectations can yield big dissappointments though. M83's 2016  album Junk was a huuuuge let-down and I wasn't that impressed by Nothing's Tired Of Tomorrow as well. I know that musicians don't (and shouldn't) give a rat's bottom about how I feel about a particular album turns out though. It's their album, their fruit of their labour. Still, I got cautious about being too overly enthousiastic about upcoming albums, but in the case of World Eater I couldn't help it. This simply couldn't turn out bad or okay-ish, right? 

Right!! If anything it's even better than Dumb Flesh! I know I get carried away easily, dishing out hyperboles a lot of the time but this honestly surpasses all my expectations. Benjamin John Power takes his brainchild to the next logical step. Dumb Flesh already strayed much further from the ambient sounds of Blanck Mass' eponymous debut album by being much more rhythmic but World Eater takes it again to the next level. After the brilliant opener 'John Doe's Carnival of Error', that sounds like a musicbox mated with monstrous setup of analogue synths, complete with the (now almost trademark) glitched and cut-up vocals, 'Rhesus Negative' blasts through your speakers. A monster of a track that left me practically dumbfounded the first time I heard it. Again, the cut and paste vocals give it that alien feel to it. I really like the way that they are used as a percussion instrument. Speaking of which, the beats and occasional harsh vocals of this track lean very close to the rhythmic noise from artists on Ant-Zen and the likes, but the whole epic, larger than life soundtrack-like feel of the tracks results in something unlike you've ever heard. It's a glorious triumph of a track. 

'Please' drastically reduces the speed and yet again features the warped voices as the main focal point. I can't quite put my finger on it, but for some reason I'm reminded of The Bulgarian Voices Choir when it comes to the vocals. It has that same otherworldly feel to it. 'The Rat' goes down the rhythmic noise road again, albeit much more playful and, like the whole album in fact, doused in a huge soundtrack sound sauce. 'Silent Treatment' is as close to a "love song" as Blanck Mass will get and has a certain broody sensuality to it. 'Minnesota/Eas Fors/Naked' hearkens back to the debut with it's ambient sounds and moods. 'Hive Mind' starts calm enough, once again a sensual 'love song sound' but explodes into a glorious finale at the 6:30 mark which makes  you want to crank up the volume all the way to 11. Pure bliss. 

I haven't really gotten into the whole idea and concept of the album but then again, Power explains it all in the various press releases, as well as on the bandcamp page. So who am I to explain my interpretation to you, dear reader? I'm all for people finding their own meaning. Power states: 'The human race is consuming itself' and the anger and frustration that come with it are tangible throughout the album. Most notably in 'Rhesus Negative'. But it's not all negativity. There are glimmers of hope, and the aformentioned finale of 'Hive Mind' is a good example of that. At least, that's how I interpret it. The fact that Power manages to invoke so much feeling and emotion in what is essentially a wordless album is an accomplishment on its own. 

I cannot stress enough how absolutely stellar this album is. It is an album that transcends genres and like Dumb Flesh before it is yet again a landmark album. We are not even halfway 2017 but this will reach my number 1 spot, unless something even more amazing will come by.... 

​
Bjorn

ambient / experimental / shoegaze

metalcore / metal

facebook

hard rock

classical / ambient

drum & bass / industrial metal

facebook

progressive / thrash metal

nu metal

synthpop / new wave

techno / industrial

alternative rock

post rock

death metal

dark ambient / black metal

experimental rock

facebook

gothic / industrial metal

punk

drone / dark ambient

Years ago, my musical endeavors focused mainly on dark ambient and ritual industrial. I devoured everything that labels like Cold Meat Industry released. In later years, pretty much after the demise of CMI, I start wandering into different territories to satisfy my dark ambient needs. Those eventually lead me to love and respect our own Belgian drone and ambient acts, including CHVE, Barst, Dirk Serries, Stratosphere, Ashtoreth, acts who inspired me to make my own little steps into the world of ambient, drone and noise.

Empusae, the alter ego of Nicolas Van Meirhaeghe is no stranger to me. During those old days, I often listened to his music, often in playlists along with acts like Sophia, Deutsch Nepal, Sephiroth, Raison D'Etre and so on. However, for some reason both forms of ambient have always been separated, at least to me. But at one point Empusae found his way to Consouling Sounds and started cooperating with Barst. Now, after all is said and done, there is this new album, one which once again proves the Belgian dominance in this scene.

'Lueur' consists of two tracks, each lasting a bit over twenty minutes. If you want a short description, you can see this as a perfect marriage between Sephiroth and CHVE or between Sophia and Barst. Both worlds of ambient and dark industrial come together perfectly well here, thriving on Empusae's talent for gloomy but immersive music and the brilliant guest appearance by Colin H. Van Eeckhout (CHVE, AmenRa). Track one alone, named 'Guiding Light' is a massive piece of constantly evolving dark ambient, sludge and drones.

That being said, this album is just as inventive and adventurous as 'The Western Lands' by Barst, although that one has a lot more tempo changes and eclectic elements. 'Retinae Tenebrae' seems to focus more on a mix between neoclassical and dark ambient, which is just as welcome in my book. Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio comes to mind here, but also some of those epic sludge metal bands, in a way. That cannot be just Colin's influence, that must be decades of experience in all sounds dark and heavy.

The verdict? As I said, this album only confirms everything I said about Belgian ambient acts. Of course this comes highly recommended. What else did you expect?


​Serge

heavy jazz / grindcore / noise

Time to prepare for another slab of ruthless jazz aggression by Dutch combo Dead Neanderthals. The question is, how do you prepare for something like this? I mean, this is not the kind of music you usually listen to when you begin digging into the immense world of sound design. You got to have a certain history, some stepping stone bands, so to speak. For starters, you need to know your way around noise and experimental music. You should know something about jazz and then forget all about that. You should know about grindcore too.

A friend of mine once said that Dead Neanderthals "abuse their instrumental respectfully". I couldn't agree more. What they come up with sounds like pure equipment torture, but one that is only possible when the musicians is passionate about the music. 'Craters' is a thirty-six long extreme jazz composition, where sax and drums drag the listening into a cesspool of metallic, harsh and barely controlled chaos, for the occasion aided by a bass guitar. This album claws, scratches, screeches and gnaws, all in perfect Dead Neanderthals tradition.

I think it's safe to say that this is Dead Neanderthals darkest and moodiest work so far. In a way, it can compare to their previous work but also to acts like Barchan, Plaistow and Sunn O))). You know, jazz but heavy, overwhelming and perhaps a bit homicidal. Is it a recommended album? Well, obviously it is. Every Dead Neanderthals fan should have already got his hands on a copy of this album. Even if you're not a fan, check it out. You will either love it or hate it but you'll have to agree that it's something you don't hear every day. 


​Serge

ambient / experimental

Krysalisound

Experiments with sound have been my favorite activities since I discovered that tapping on my baby chair created music. During my searches through the bizarre world of sound art, I've been listening to printers, hard drives my mom's old washing machine, birds, train engines, metallic sounding conversations and whatnot. However, even I never thought that one day I will be listening to an ice cube for an hour. A 380 kg weighing ice cube that is.

Yes, this album by Italian experimentalist and musique concrete  composer Federico Dal Pozzo is an acousmatic composition, generated from the freezing sounds of a 380kg ice cube. So if you expected drums, synths, guitars and other traditional instruments, you might want to rethink your vision about music. Apart from being strange and unusual, this hour long composition is adventurous, almost alive.

Musically, this album fits in perfectly with your weirdest ambient and musique concrete albums, but it also fits in with regular ambient and all things soundscapes related. It constantly evolves, becomes loud, intense, overwhelming but also cold, isolated and alienating. It not only show the freezing ice cube but also beautifully blends in with the sounds of your surroundings, making this kind of music a part of everyday life. So yes, this one comes highly recommended. 


​Serge

electronic / alternative rock

Well, since we're dealing with deviant music today, I might as well throw this one in the mix. Again, much like the melodic death metal, the free jazz and the harsh hip hop I wrote about today, here is an album that shatters every expectation and leaves me wondering what the hell I'm going to write about the damn thing. Not that I mind, but the days of easily categorizing a band are over, that's for damn sure.

Unsurprisingly, Margaret Catcher are a French duo, that country is crazy. One is a drummer, the other one plays bass and both throw in heaps of vocoders, effect pedals and sensor paths. The result is something that resembles math rock music in an electronic and abstract way, a bit maybe like something between Add N to (X), Battles and Suicide. This album is loaded with weirdness, but also with uplifting and danceable songs.

Most of the songs are quite short, only a few make the three minutes mark. Nonetheless, they are full of unexpected hooks, dynamic drums and an old school sound that will make every vintage synth fan get aroused, easily. My personal favorites? Well, I'm quite fond of opener 'Not Too Bad' and title track 'Singularity' is a confusing but massively enjoyable piece of music. In between, there are other captivating tracks to be found. 

In all, this is a startling album, one that could have been made in the experimental scenes of the seventies or eighties. I think most of these songs will end up in my day-to-day playlist and I'm sure that I will grin each time they appear, especially when I got people over who have no idea that there is such a thing as experimental music. I suggest you do the same, you might be surprised what lurks in the rehearsal rooms of France...


​Serge

electronic / experimental / hip hop

We're still in France. We're once again dealing with something surprising, something stubbornly following its own path. Yet, this time, the music is something completely different, deviating from anything I usually listen to and certainly from anything I review. Right now, we're in the urban electronic hip hop scene, listening to beatmaker Al'Tarba and his gloomy tales of pariahs, sidewalk survivors and anti-heroes. 

Al'Tarba has been influenced by Mobb Deep and Wu-Tang Clan but also by audiobooks, field recordings, street dialogs and the sounds of everyday. Those influences are now being thrown into a intense and stunning album, 'La Nuit Se Lève' (which translates as 'The Night Rises'). The album is a mesmerizing blend of beats, electronics, weird soundscapes and a multitude of vocals. Hip hop and dubstep,  they seem to fit perfectly together.

Now, my knowledge of both genre is quite limited. So I'll throw in a few names that come to mind when I listen to most of the songs on this album. Cypress Hill is one, especially the ep they recorded with Rusko. The Herbaliser also comes to mind, along with Wu-Tang Clan, Eminem, Nas, you know, the in-your-face version of the rap and hip hop scene. In that aspect, 'Guillotine' is a brilliant angry hip hop track.

Now, I don't often listen to either hip hop, rap or dubstep but this album will definitely end up in my day-to-day playlist. I don't think I've ever heard these genres being this interesting, this varied and this immersive. Who to recommend it to? I don't know, I really have no idea. I'm not sure if fans of these genres read this website but if so, I recommend it to them, along with fans of weird electronics. This is the kind of variation you need in your collection, believe me.


​Serge

experimental / electronic / ambient / classical

I first discovered the wonderful and adventurous music of Jacaszek in a record store. 'Glimmer' and 'Catalogue des Arbres (feat. Kwartludium)' have been regularly played albums for years in this household. So when this new album was announced, I was immediately interested. However, like often happens with artists this talented and versatile, starting to write this review was a difficult task. So let's just begin by writing that this is an breathtaking piece of work.

For those not familiar with Michał Jacaszek: he is a Polish composer who combines electronically prepared sounds with acoustic instruments.  Over the years, he composed soundtracks and theatre music, plus a number of albums. His work blend classical music with experimental electronics and jazz. He knows little to no musical borders and continuously drags in seemingly strange influences. 

'Kwiaty' means flowers and in a way that is exactly what you get on this album; blooming pieces of music that look and feel familiar yet mysterious. The album was inspired by Michał Jacaszek’s discovery of an English anthology of metaphysical poetry from the 17th century by Robert Herrick, which to him — somehow-- sounded songlike when read out-loud. The album contains guest appearances by Hania Malarowska (Hanimal), Joasia Sobowiec-Jamioł and Natalia Grzebała.

The songs on this album are strange pop-ballads or jazz inspired classical pieces or electronically rearranged folk songs, regarding on how you feel about them. I hear influences from all these genres, including trip hop, dark jazz and the soundtracks to Tim Burton's movies or even Twin Peaks. There is a gloomy atmosphere, a mysterious feel but also musical ingenuity and beautiful vocals.  In short, this is Jacaszek at his very best.

Once again I refuse to pick a favorite track. I'm not even going to mention separate songs. I'm just going to recommend buying the album. Take the weekend off and enjoy 'Kwiaty' non-stop. Allow Jacaszek to guide you on an introvert but epic journey, one you will not regret. It will definitely be worth the effort. If you are into anything between Dead Can Dance, Bersarin Quartet and The Nightmare Before Christmas, you will easily get addicted to this thing...


​Serge

ambient

Strange things are happening in this house, strange coincidences to be exact. Recently, we have been working on a new project, one we truly believe in and one we are quite determined about. We believe that this project is going to take one year to be complete, at least, that is what our advisors have been telling us. A few days ago, this album came in, quickly followed by another one, both carrying the word 'Ichinen'. I'd never heard of that word before and I found it extremely coincidental that it suddenly appeared twice. 'Ichinen' is a Japanese word used in the art of zen meditation, meaning 'determination' and 'one year', among others. 

'Ichinen', the album by experimental composer Fabio Perletta, is the follow-up to his 2016 album 'Genkai'. It was inspired by a trip in Japan in 2015 and a book of Suzuki Daisetsu Teitarō, titled 'Living by Zen'. So I guess it will be no surprise that this is a meditative ambient album. Divided into three parts, this album is a collection of soundscapes, drones, noises and field recordings, arranged into narrative pieces of music, or "sound art". However, don't expect blissful ambient in the vein of people like Brian Eno or Harold Budd. No, this album is abstract, avant-garde and unpredictable. 

The best way to approach this album is to play it loud enough, find a comfortable position and allow the sounds to guide you through your own imagination. As I already mentioned, this is a meditative album, both minimal and immersive, if played in the right conditions, obviously. I'm not even going to recommend this just to ambient fans. I'm going to recommend it to everyone. In this world, full of stress, anxiety and depression, an album like this might actually help people to relax, to meditate and to discover talents and emotions they never thought they had. So check it out, try it. It's healthier than taking antidepressant medication...


​Serge

experimental / black metal / shoegaze

Anomie is an album to be released on March 1, by Azerbaijani musician Emin Guliyev, under his artistic nom de plume Violet Cold. With six tracks – the eponymous Anomie, She Spoke Of Her Devastation, Lovegaze, My Journey To Your Space, Violet Girl and No Escape From Dreamland – Violet Cold’s music is a complex mixture of several different – and at a first glance, disparate – genres, like atmospheric black metal, blackgaze, ambient electronic music, shoegaze and post black metal, amongst others, resulting in a peculiarly unique blend of sonorous artistry, that has created a singular kind of experimental music, in the whole history of the underground scene. A very surreal album, with sad nuances, opaque colors and emotional soundscapes, Anomie is certainly a very unique composition. With beautiful harmonies, and a fantastic melodic layout, the record is full of abyssal and enchanting dream-like fantasies, as well as sincere disdainful loyalties, deeply inserted in the vastness of a pure and cosmological vision, that resurfaces at the core of an unseen labyrinth of agony, never testified in a work with such level of sensibility, in the underground music scene before. 

With the serenity of unspoken, but deeply energizing harmonies, full of soul, relinquishing beauty and aggrandizing features of spontaneity, this is certainly a refreshing, embellished and interesting album. Deeply committed to a general level of uneasy originality, which, at least to a certain degree, seems obvious, given the fact that so many different genres are combined with the genuine proposal of creating something unique – though ambient elements do prevail most of the time throughout the album’s length –, Anomie is a magnificent record. Authentic and singular, certainly this album is anything less than a major outstanding work. 

Splendid, fulfilling, original, faithful to its roots, and genuine by the sake of its purpose, there is no other album that could be highlighted as a possible comparison. A formidable artistic achievement, you are never bored throughout its fifty three minutes long run. In the end, you will be asking yourself when something with such a powerful magnitude will ever be created again.   

A great experimental work, with a phenomenal final result, Anomie is a sensational record, being a splendid work in the experimental music category, probably the best ever made. With the perfect infusion of so many different elements from a lot of different genres, what has been created on this album is marvelously unique and unparalleled in the history of underground music. A splendorous sound from a different world, a different dimension and a different galaxy, you will never believe what you are hearing, in the first place. A majestic exemplar of artistic excellence, Anomie is an album that deserves its place of honor.  



Wagner

ambient / dark ambient / experimental

Unexplained Sounds Group

Another compilation featuring various artists, edited by Unexplained Sounds, Belgium experimental underground 017 suvey has twenty six tracks, from various groups and musicians specialized on the ambient music genre. Like all compilations, on this album you have a huge amount of different styles, several of them exceedingly good, vibrant and overwhelming, some ostensibly monotonous and despondent, others extensively ordinary, and a lot of them incredibly tense and surprising. The ambient genre primarily has to be heard and analyzed by experienced listeners, who really comprehend and love the genre. And Belgium experimental underground 017, above them all, have the best the ambient genre has to offer – both in the traditional and experimental verves –, in the underground worldwide scenario, so to speak. 

Analyzing a compilation like this one is thoroughly difficult, primarily because you have to deal with a huge amount of different artists, each one of them practicing their own peculiar style and particular understanding of the genre. Nonetheless, the compilation has a cohesive unity and a coherent uniformity all the way through, never being disparate, inconsistent or ecstatic in any moment. With a vast collection of excellent ambient tracks, the album relies mostly on very nervous, anxious and agonizing atmospheres, although more relaxing and calm harmonies can be heard throughout the album. A very singular collection of ambient music, Belgium experimental underground is a curious album, that managed to reunite the most talented, original, somber and sinister contemporary artists on the genre. The first few tunes already caught me by surprise: with conspicuous, subtle and funereal devices, they follow the more traditional layout on the genre, obeying the primary characteristics of ambient music. The apprehensive atmosphere is certainly amorphous and malevolent, and you evidently will find yourself caught into the dark underground of a depraved and doomed dimension of affliction and demise, if you listen to his whole album completely alone in the dark. The artists in the album are generally competent and skilled, knowing precisely how to properly create the exact harmonies for the sake of an ambivalent and nervous climax, precisely demanded on this type of music. If you really love ambient and dark ambient, you will definitely be thrilled by this album. With so many fantastic tunes, you will certainly find your favorites. One of the tracks that have completely captivated me is Requiem for a Star, by Aponogeton. A beautiful song characterized by a serene and transcendental harmonic cosmogony, it has an expressively poetic soundscape, infatuated by a corrosive, yet enchanted and graceful numbness, that runs free through the acquiescence of the rhythms, standardizing a correspondence between the subtle energy that flows between the invisible nature of the sincere grandiosity of a solitary universe and the dreams that unfold among the rivalries of ardent and infinite thoughts. 

Nevertheless, twenty six long tracks can be a tiresome journey. I strongly recommend you when listening to this album to divide it into two or three parts. In one day you can listen to songs from one to ten, the next day from eleven to twenty, and finally, from twenty one to twenty six. The songs are very long, and even if you are a very ardent enthusiast of ambient music, you will eventually feel tired if you listen to the album in a unique, long rush, like I did. 

But I should point it out the fact that the songs are impeccable, and the sinister atmospheres most tunes are able to evoke are simply fantastic. Belgium experimental underground 017 suvey is major ambient/ dark ambient compilation, that has everything needed to please the enthusiasts of the genre. With calm, serene, quiet and sometimes thoroughly ecstatic harmonies, the objectifying agony, the sensational anguish and the imperially dense and macabre virtuosity of these tracks really intensify a musical narration of fearful apprehension and unbelievable lethargy, as you feel yourself profoundly, physically and slowly transported to a vast and surreal dimension of delusional worlds, where nothing is what it seems.

With a prevalent hostile nature, full of afflictive vibrations, Belgium experimental underground 017 is a fantastic album, certainly the best ambient/ dark ambient compilation I have ever heard. Abundant in sinister nuances, dark grievances and derelict numbness, it is full of qualities, and has the best tunes created in the genre. A surreal collection with twisted expectancies, here ambient music escalates towards a new path of creative excellence, featuring the most melancholic, acerbic, pervasive, doomed, anesthetic, talented and experienced artists ever produced in the contemporary history of the genre.  


​Wagner

drone / ambient / jazz / krautrock

drone / krautrock / experimental

singer-songwriter

bandcamp

doom / dark ambient

metal / metalcore

thrash metal / hardcore

doom / sludge

metal / metalcore 

doom / sludge / black metal

doom

sludge / doom

Serge

dark ambient / noise / experimental / industrial

Last year, the apparent resurrection of Sielwolf pleasantly surprised me by releasing, 'Atavist Craft', a cooperation with German ritual ambient project Nam-Khar. Now, they return with a second effort, one that seemingly takes on an hypnotic, repetitive and industrial approach. Well, I cannot say that I'm disappointed by this direction, on the very contrary. This new album, 'Oppressfield' is pretty damn awesome, to be honest.

In fact, 'Oppressfield', both the title track and the entire album, are perfectly suited to function as the soundtrack for a post-apocalyptic horror game, or movie. There are unidentified noises coming from everywhere. The atmosphere is haunting and often quite intense. There are eerie soundscapes and drones. There is repetitive percussion, lulling the listener into a dark state of trance and taking him on an adventure through his deepest fears.

Of course, this is not an album for everyone. I cannot imagine people playing this at a dinner party or during a pleasant get together with friends and family. This is an album that should be listened to in absolute solitude, preferably loud. The gloomy drone track 'Failed States', for example, is a scary piece of work that only experienced ears can appreciate. But those ears will definitely adore this thing.

Who to recommend this to? Well, obviously to fans of MZ.412, Atrium Carceri, Brighter Death Now, Desiderii Marginis,... that kind of stuff. If you're into old Cold Meat Industry albums, 'Oppressfield' undoubtedly deserves a place in your collection. I only mentioned two tracks, but apart from the title track, I have to say that 'Crypt Trap' is the absolute highlight on this release, closely followed by the ritual droner 'Exorial' .

​Seriously, this is industrial ambient at its best...


Serge

dream pop

jazz / krautrock / post rock

electronic / idm

techno

rock / experimental

stoner / doom

psychedelic doom

black metal / doom / thrash

thrash metal

metalcore

drone / ambient / psychedelic

folk / rock

thrash metal

punk / hardcore

post rock / psychedelic / progressive

ambient / experimental / folk

IO Sound

Musical schizophrenia can be a beautiful thing. If you don't know what that means, I'll explain. Some artists start out as a noise act, but are also quite interested in folk music. Others make blissful ambient but like to add some heavy beats over their soundscapes. So what do they do to solve that dualism? They simply start a side project. I did it, and chances are big that yet another one will be coming up soon. Jim Wylde did it too, trading his repetitive death industrial (in the sp3ct3rs project) for gloomy winter folk under his own name.

​'Songs for the Brokenhearted from the Departed' feels like a collection of distant folk melodies, created by a tribe you will never see but always hear from across the cold wintery landscapes. There, often harsh, melodies release a strange, bleak atmosphere, here and there coming quite close to the musical scenery primitive black metal bands try to create. These melodies contain an eerie, distorted sound, making it tough to identify the instruments Jim Wylde used to record this album. Piano and guitar perhaps? Probably.

I think 'Without You' is my favorite track on this one, uncoincidentally it's also one of  the mildest ones on this album. But what strikesw me most about this one, is the sense of solitude it breathes. There is a composer, all alone, nobody to be seen or heard in miles and he makes strange, otherworldly tunes. My advice? Try it out, chances are big that you never heard something like this before, even if you're a noise-adept...


​Serge

psychedelic rock / blues

Today, the plan was to start another edition of Brieviews for Merchants Of Air. You know, working my way through the pile. After I'd written a few, I came across this strange little thing, sent to me by J. Kill & Mr. Mule, who apparently is a member of this band. It was presented as psychedelic blues rock with a focus on hazy improvisations. Since I had been listening to a lot of heavy stuff already, I needed something different, something calm and soothing. So I pressed play, opened my review template and just started writing.

The album opens with a long track which holds the middle between blues and post rock. One long immersive piece of psychedelic rock follows, one which somewhat feels like a massive jamsession between Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane and possibly some of their colleagues. When the vocals appear, I'm immediately imagining how awesome Woodstock must have been. With that, I mean that this whole thing sounds like a live recording from back in the days, which isn't perfect but certainly has its charm.

'Valkoinen Vuori' drags the whole thing deeper into the regions of blues and jazz, leaving the psychedelic approach behind for a while. This is a strange, somewhat eerie ballad but nonetheless an interesting one, showing the versatility of these improvisations. On other occasions, as in 'Toteemi', the band shows a bit more of their experimental style. In this one, I even recognize a touch of vintage doom metal. Earth comes to mind, so does Om and several other acts.

Yet, even though there are plenty of bands to be compared with, I feel like this is mostly a joyous and successful result of an intense series of jam sessions by a bunch of likeminded musicians. As far as I'm concerned, these guys can come to Belgium and play this kind of stuff in a local venue here anytime. It'd be awesome to listen to them jamming while enjoying a beer. My advice; check it out, you just might rediscover the sheer joy of making music.


​Serge

post metal / experimental

A few days ago, I was going through the pile of albums to be reviewed when this thing caught my eye. The accompanying biography mentioned post metal, which at that time seemed like a decent companion for my daily tasks. So I shoved the disc into my audio-machine, pressed play and started doing some household chores. The opening track 'Athens' started to play. I remember thinking, "that's a pretty nice intro, all classical and stuff". Even when the post metal vocals came in,k I thought, "nice approach, I like it". But then I didn't know that the whole album was going to be like this. After about thirty minutes, it was all over, and I found myself wondering what the hell I'd been listening to. Post metal and sludge, without distorted guitars. Is that still post metal?

Regardless of what genre this is, it's awesome. There are typical post-metal vocals by Matthieu Miegeville (My Own Private Alaska, Psykup, The Black Painters), both haunting screams and clean ones. There are drums (studio: Jérémy Cazorla (Shake Us) - live: Hélios Mikhail (Meredith Huner)), equally normal in this area of the musical universe. But then there are the classical guitars of Arnaud Barat and the cello of Audrey Paquet (Trio Milonga, Quatour Eveil). The result is strange but nonetheless quite impressive. It shows that classical music and metal aren't that different from each other and fit perfectly well together. It's like listening to atmospheric and acoustic sludge metal without losing the power of the initial style.

That approach also drags some jazz influences along with it, maybe not intentionally but certainly welcome. Finding references to other bands isn't really easy either. Maybe it's best to think of an acoustic set-up for bands like AmenRa, Eyehategod and Neurosis but also acts like Tool and Deftones. Regardless of all that, I think this is a pretty daring and a highly original album, one that breaks boundaries between genres and eras. I know I didn't mention any particular tracks in this review but that's because that whole thing is such a bizarre and somewhat chaotic experience. A damn intense one too. Recommended? Definitely!


Serge