Tagged: dark

March 6, 2014

Toxic Beach Party

Old Komm
Ventspils EP
UK DISCREPANT CREP08 EP (2013)

Latvia’s sixth largest city, Ventspils, has been a shipbuilding history that goes back to the Sixteenth Century. The port’s ice free harbour still makes it an important transportation hub today, so a record which presents electronic music derived from field recordings made in various locations around Ventspils promises a vaguely maritime listening experience, or so I first thought. This is not the case. I failed to recognise any obvious sounds derived from water, ships, heavy plant, cranes and so forth.

An intriguing 12” ep here. Old Komm declare the presence of field recordings, broken synths, found sound and church pipe organs. The first side is peppered with vocal samples like “no other attempt was made” and CITE. Tones could have been supplied by machines from a dental surgery or the cardiology ward of your local hospital. Vintage voltage-controlled synthesisers boosted with Warfarin. The beats are minimal and sullen; they seem from another world on this side, helping as they do only to propel the sinister bass frequencies. After this, there is an interlude with what sounds like the auto-accompaniment feature on one of Leslie Crowther’s massive old one-finger Kimball home entertainment keyboards.

But then things get a bit more abstracted.

From the robot cat purr paired with feedback samples played on a broken midi keyboard on an ironing board for a stand (perhaps) could be the source of the following musical development here – and musical it certainly is – despite their heavy use of samples and field recordings, these sources are arranged in a similar way as if they were traditional musical instrumentation.

Digital water drips, digital cowbells patter, handheld digital hard-drive recorders capture rain splashing on hot tin roofs. What’s interesting here is that Old Komm have an undoubted talent for production; for example, there are some cheap-sounding general midi-type sounds here but they are buried so low in the mix that their very nature is changed from the banal to the exotic. More vocal samples but detourned this time around – only vaguely reminiscent of human speech. A colossal, possibly the world’s largest, Leslie Rotary Speaker eventually comes to rest in a power cut while a Soviet politician rants and a “choir of angels” synth preset (038 on the Roland JV1080 or similar), while a car politely beeps its horn. Something extremely low-end attempts to shred my speaker cones before the sounds of waves breaking on a beach merge with the sound of fluff on the needle on a run-out groove (not mine – I checked), in a kind of post-apocalyptic beach party for the infected.

As I turn the record over, I’m expecting more of the same on side B, but am surprised to discover a completely different view of the city.

More heavy on the field recordings, but this time heavily processed and with a melodic low-register element hung off them. Its clear field recording techniques have been employed in the pre production, but the result is open, narrative and cinematic only without the detail and verve of Mecha/Orga or David Velez, for example. But these are perhaps unfair comparisons – Old Komm present themselves as an electronic act and not field recordists exclusively.

The nicely laid out sepia-toned cover is festooned with detailed photographs by Sergey Gorsky of Ventspils port itself, and the inner sleeve displays a series of shots of the interior of a ruined building presumably somewhere therein.

A vinyl edition of 250.

Discrepant

March 2, 2014

Death Zoo

The Invisible Hands (ABDUCTION ABDT050) made a fine self-titled album of songs from Alan Bishop of Sun City Girls; he goes under his Alvarius B. alias for this Egyptian project, which took about two years to complete and features various sidemen from Cairo, where it was recorded. Bishop wrote and sings all songs and plays most of the instruments (guitars, keyboards, percussion) backed by Cherif El Masri, Magued Nagasti, Aya Hemeda and Sam Shalabi. Bishop is also responsible for the no-nonsense production of the album – mostly acoustic, dry and crisp sound, no frills, no pedal effects. This spare framework gives us a bare stage, the better to showcase the bang-on precision of the players, and also to bring home the full impact of his songs’ content. When Alvarius B. recorded with Cerberus Shoal in 2002, no maiden’s blush was spared as he dredged up gory, nightmarish images from the deepest buckets of his Id. Well, not especially wackoid surreal lyrics on this occasion, but as ever the content is tinged with dark horrors flapping at the edges like vile bats on periphery of vision. It’s hard to pinpoint any specific nastiness in the words, yet by the end of three minutes you’re walking away unnerved and jumpy. His “patented sinister style” is most evident in the singing; at best, he sounds impatient and twitchy, as if spoiling for a fight. At worst, ready to flare up into unexpected violence at the drop of a flick-knife. His lips curl sardonically around each tune and supply this undercurrent of menace, even when the melody and chords can be quite sweet; the song ‘Dream Machine’ might as well be sung by the dark brother of Frank Sinatra crooning an inverted Perry Como song in a Hellish cocktail bar dive. The clean production puts all of this implied malevolence in clear focus, and leaves the listener very little room to hide; you feel like Alvarius B. has his beady eye fixed on you throughout. All sung in English here, though apparently there’s also a version of the entire release with all the lyrics sung in Arabic, exclusively available to the Middle East market. Sumptuous cover art from the graffiti of Alaa Awad. From 11 March 2013.

In same package we received a Sun City Girls compilation called Eye Mohini (ABDUCTION RECORDS ABDT049), volume three in a series which rounds up assorted seven-inches and rarities by this unique and unclassifiable band. Recorded between 1986 and 1993, here are 14 glimpses into an overheated hashish world of scaryifing Eastern unfamiliarity. Most of these were originally released on their own Majora Records label, around the time of the amazing Torch of the Mystics and Dawn of the Devi LPs, and represent a time when the band were playing around with “Arabic guitar instrumentals” and “pseudo-Asian vocal folk styles”; 1993’s ‘Kickin’ The Dragon’ is one such, a rendition so accurate that you’d easily mistake it as a refugee from one of their Sublime Frequencies compilations. As such, the comp is mostly acoustic rather than “rock music”, although a few tracks such as ‘It’s Ours’ or the long live track ‘Soar / The Flower’ will satisfy your thirst for the crazed and unpredictable “Death to Jerry Garcia” styled guitar jamming this trio could execute while spinning sideways on their whirling Sufi asses ¹. Like the Alan Bishop record above, it’s also got its vaguely threatening undercurrents (I always feel if I fail to listen to their music “correctly”, then I’ll invoke the wrath of Kali upon my head), but it also possesses a lot of the Sun City Girls’ dark humour and sense of the absurd, an aspect which I think they always undertook with perfect seriousness; they played their pranks for keeps. I wasn’t even aware of this reissue project (the other two volumes came out in 2008 and 2009) but then I never had any realistic hopes of being a “completist” when it comes to hoovering up every last scree of this band’s considerable output. Given rarity and high prices of original Majoras these days, this CD is most welcome.

This gag adapted from a catalogue entry by Stefan Jaworzyn. ↩

February 27, 2014

Kwjaz (self-titled): lush soundscapes of Sixties / Seventies psychedelic nostalgia

Kwjaz, self-titled, Not Not Fun Records, CD NNF 238 (2012)

Originally released on cassette, this self-titled debut from one-man project Kwjaz had to be issued on vinyl and CD due to the attention it garnered in the musical underground. Easy to see why too because even on first hearing I was instantly transported away into a hidden universe of strangely soft-glowing ambient colours and lush forests of shrill glittering sound and light textures. Kwjaz is the brain-child of San Francisco native Peter Berends so one presumes that this is the music project he was called upon by Kismet to direct; with his background steeped in the popular music and culture of that fair city, and that cornucopia of fine sounds Aquarius Records located not far from his neighbourhood, he really had no choice. The CD version of the album comes with the original two 20+ minute tracks plus two bonus pieces. (Dontcha just hate that when you’ve already bought the cassette?)

“Once in Babylon” ranges far and wide in musical inspiration and influence but the most interesting part comes about the 8th minute with a languorous beach-combing rhythm strolling by while space-lounge tone effects flutter about and a trumpet trills overhead. Our beach-comber soon reaches a discotheque and from there on it boogies sedately along the dance-floor. Little spaceship noise squiggles wobble high in the pulsating atmosphere and trumpet tones parp-parp by. Next think you know, you’re underwater in a funny sub trawling along the sea-floor while gloopy green currents of water slide past the port-hole. The track seemingly describes various experiences that inhabitants of a Golden Age of Mass Culture and Consumerism enjoyed over 40 years ago: there’s plenty of muzak and elevator music to pig out on.

Needless to say, “Frighteous Wane” is the flip-side to “Once in Babylon” in concept as well in the album’s original cassette format: it’s queasily psychedelic, a bit cold and clinical in parts – it’s the music that might delineate the hangover that comes from too much consumption of the most banal and mediocre experiences and material goods of the decades in which restraint, good sense and taste, and foresight were prominent by their absence. Nightmarish drones of a deliriously deranged kind are beguiling in their own way and even though you know you’re going to feel a bit sick, you can’t help but follow the music where it will. Withdrawing would give you anxiety attacks. You know you’ve made the right decision because the music does take you into some wondrous dimensions of jewelled sound and mood melody, all veiled with a slightly sinister atmospheric veil. The best moment comes about the 15th minute with a detour into an odd world of childhood tinkle toy jewellery box nostalgia and kitsch Oriental gardens of neat pagodas, little bridges over artificial streams of goldfish and carp, and cherry trees in perennial blossom. The whole vista is a little nauseating.

Of the bonus tracks, the unexpectedly short “A Certain Sprout” dallies in Sixties lounge nostalgia with analog synth melodies made a little creepy with touches of cold ambient space tone. “Elevation: Elation / Jah Wad” consists of a chain of various musical snapshots that might have come straight from an old-time late Seventies radio station playing songs straight through with no station announcements or commercial breaks. Overall though the bonus pieces don’t add anything new to the album that we don’t already know from the original pieces and some of the music on “Elevation …” echoes “Once in Babylon” with its mixture of beach-holiday ambience, lazy tropical rhythm and wistful nostalgia.

This album is the most intriguing of journeys into a realm that initially seems very familiar and nostalgic but threaded through with uneasy-listening elements that force you out of your comfort zone to confront perhaps some very uncomfortable truths about what the world you grew up in really was like. The best moments of the album are its most alien, the darkest and most ambivalent.

February 24, 2014

Another Green World

BJ Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa
Góða Nótt
AUSTRIA EDITIONS MEGO eMEGO156 LP (2012)

Murky results from a piece of serendipitous endurance recording which mortally challenges the musicians’ minds and bodies, if you believe the snow-bound PR for this slab of worrisome and isolating drone-creep. Indeed, there is a cheerful account of being trapped in the studio in a particularly heavy snow storm on the editions Mego website. Nilsen and Stilluppsteypa somewhat matter-of-factly say this: “…so we decided to work on new recordings influenced by the situation.” Harrowing.

The first side of this long-player strongly evokes a feeling of growing unease. The music is a type of crawling, dark ambient affair, cataloguing ghoulish nocturnal manoeuvres; lunar orbits shifting, transient mortality; distended roots systems taking up brackish water. Saturated ground, saturated tape. Stunted seasonal growth. Weird shapes in the gloom. Time to break out the isopropyl alcohol and clean those heads? Abstract and mysterious concepts are suggested by this music. The sound is crisp and expensive. Clearly they’re using quality outboard in their icy, frostbitten studio facility; here and there a nice vibrato effect. But psychic rations are dangerously low: this music is more wary, and less exuberant, like a young tearaway grown old looking back over a meaningless, hedonistic life at the onset of dementia. Tired, sad, but confused and embittered too. It seems to me that the influence of Ligeti is noticeable in some of the drones used – a lambent echo of the paranoid presence of the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Or, it could just as easily be the sound of your central nervous system amplified through the PA system on the main stage at any major European music fest. Things you’d rather not know about happen in the distance; hidden by the dust and ash from a million volcanoes. Here be percussive sandstorms, and giant reptiles’ intestines rumbling. Disorienting. High voltage supply voltage lines act as perches for tropical birds. Shortwave radio transmissions almost blot out a very quiet and disengaged vocal right before the run-off groove.

By contrast, the flip is a film of speeded-up crane arms circling around a (sub)urban horizon. A beleaguered vessel far out at sea. A slowed-down, super-annuated organ grinder; his aging monkey’s final breath. Storm clouds gather. The thermometer drops, and the monkey is watching Tron with the sound off. The inaudible digital screams of dying computer servers in an overheating machine room on a distant planet. Fifty years of accumulated dust ignites. The first violin section of the London Philharmonic all wearing skinny black jeans and fluoro-orange Crocs as they are led into the cryogenic chamber. Sheet metal peels back like tin foil as the cockpit shears off and turns to face the wrong way. Barometric pressure is measured by the tonne. Four blows of the lump hammer. Music you can barely hear, like it’s coming from the other side of the planet. Even its creators seem a little disorientated by the results, stating “…as we doctored the tapes of our recordings we seemed to have created weaknesses in space and we developed a total, complete darkness finding ourselves out of this world, travelling without moving, into the flickering green light.”

Cover images made by Franz Graf.

February 20, 2014

Akkord (self-titled): pulling in a huge range of influences for a spacey dark techno album

Akkord, self-titled, Houndstooth Records, HTH015CD (2013)

If you’ve been following my reviews obsessively – in which case, I would advise you all to get a life or see a shrink – you’ll know that I have a soft spot for dark minimal techno electronica and anything that comes close to it. This self-titled debut by the Manchester duo Akkord (who also DJ separately as Indigo and Synkro) falls within the event horizon of that genre with its mysterious and perplexing mix of sinister space ambience, tribal rhythms, dance grooves that turn out not to be very dance-y at all, trance-like loops, jazzy skitter, techno, house and dubstep among other genres.

The scene is set by “Torr Vale”, an amorphous piece of abstract space-atmosphere drone that draws listeners into a black hole with a beguiling rhythm, low-end bass wobble, a delicate beat that transforms into a booming second rhythm loop. It’s deep and ominous, reminiscent of some Lustmord ambient space recordings I’ve heard in the past, though with a nod to the musicians’ dance club backgrounds. In “Space Circle”, we find ourselves observing a ceremony paying electronic dance homage to dark gods who demand a bloody sacrifice from their worshippers. It’s a spooky music tour and you start to wonder what the folks back at home will make of your travel souvenirs. Worry not, “3DOS” and “Folded Edge” bring some familiar techno-dub sounds and stop-start electronic rhythms of the kind Techno Animal and Porter Ricks might have patented 20 years ago.

Subsequent tracks are a sop to the more hedonistic dance crowds touring with us: they’re very strong on undulating rhythm loops and weird wobbly noise effects. “Navigate” has some interesting flubby noise effect loops that conjure up an image of an alien jungle oasis grooving to its own insectoid noises on a lonely asteroid. “Undertow” marks our return to space base “Torr Vale” (track 1) with its heavy breathing and clanky industrial rhythms.

It’s an interesting debut with a huge variety of influences and input from different music genres, some of which I’m not at all familiar with or have only the vaguest idea about: techno, jungle and dubstep are definitely present and there may be some grime as well. All these styles are pulled together with a definite shadowy and sometimes forbidding if airy atmosphere and a remote attitude. Parts of the recording have a very unearthly beauty and hint at something much greater than what is actually heard.

February 15, 2014

Honky Tonk Medusa: an unassuming gem of dark and bittersweet folk pop

Donovan Quinn, Honky Tonk Medusa, Northern-Spy Records, NSCD 019 (2012)

The title of this album, the third solo full-lengther from Donovan Quinn since he left The Skygreen Leopards, suggests this work is going to feature light and dark in equal amounts. Certainly the tone throughout hints at melancholy and a slight sense of foreboding on what would otherwise be sunny and bright folk pop songs. There may be a theme dwelling on aspects of modern life in a post-industrial world where the American Dream is proving to be more nightmare than dream and people must struggle just to keep sane coping with the pressures of daily living.

The songs all have quite a distinct flavour though I can detect the influence of Bob Dylan in Quinn’s style of singing. (I’m not familiar with the history of American folk music from the 1960s on so readers will have to forgive me for my sketchy knowledge.) “Night Shift” is an early highlight for its deep droning near-industrial rhythms and the use of spoken word recordings in the background that reference the busyness of modern urban life. “My Wife” is a dream-like wistful piece, forlorn and sounding a bit nostalgic in its mood, with a sinister darkness at its core. (The song references the Who song of the same name and David Lynch’s TV series “Twin Peaks”.) “Dying City” comes across as a gentle, sorrowful elegy. “Love in an Evil World” is the most poppy-sounding track with its catchy melodies, slow though they are, and its unexpected twists that capture perfectly a sense of uncertainty and passive acceptance of whatever hardships may come.

The music can be challenging in its ambiguity and its attitude of seeming resignation and observational distance. Although Quinn is a good song-writer, there is something lacking in these songs: they seem so introspective that they don’t reach out to their audience and the listener must try to find a way into Quinn’s world and concerns. Of course, whether Quinn is interested in making a direct emotional connection with his audience is another thing; he’d certainly sell more records and become famous but he may not want the attention, expectations and pressures that fame would bring. Honky Tonk Medusa is a very unassuming little gem of bittersweet quality that with time may gather its own small group of devoted fans.

February 7, 2014

Beyond This Vessel: a dark and demonic sermon of swamp folk psychedelia

Geist & the Sacred Ensemble, Beyond This Vessel, Moon Glyph, cassette MG68 (2013)

It’s time for some dark and demonic ritualistic psychedelic folk from way down in the fetid, humid swamplands of … uh, Seattle, courtesy of a bunch a-callin’ their selves Geist & the Sacred Ensemble. Lazy drawling half-singing / half-declaiming vocals from Geist himself lead the way and what a trail is blazed by these musical gypsy travellers: a lackadaisical rhythm, simple tribal percussion, stark and sometimes massive guitars, and a generally heavy kind of atmosphere.

The guys swagger through “On the Next Full Moon”, simmering up some Southern Gothic rock dirge drudge drone for the monthly sacrificial lynching ritual to appease an angry Old Testament spirit. The music becomes a bit more urgent and apocalyptic on “Seeker”, Geist almost in supplication to the personal demons and angels locked in eternal battle in his heart for his soul. The guitars change from insistently heraldic and emphatic to soft woozy wash. This becomes “Terraformer” and as the title suggests, the music has indeed metamorphosed from structures based on simple beats, repetition and riff loops to soft desultory, dreamy ambience with rippling guitar notes out front and reverbed guitar wash out over the skies above. Geist’s singing sleepwalk barely holds the track together. Black misty shadows rise from the still green waters beneath the tangle of mangrove and tree roots, a giant reptilian shadow glides through the muddy depths, a deep alien machine starts to rumble - perhaps there is a UFO down deep within the marshes?

“Bird Passage” is a peculiar name for the lethargic ritual conducted by Geist in deadened preacher mode, leading an equally enervated congregation in prayer to their unholy chthonic spiritual masters. Woozy wobbly effects and a solemn acoustic guitar accompany Geist on his journey to whatever passes for spiritual enlightenment and union.

It’s a surprisingly short album for its cassette format – the album repeats over on the B-side (this must be the new trend in recording albums to cassette tape) – and with the songs sort of joined up, listeners could be forgiven for wondering what happened to the second half of the album, unaware that it in fact has sailed right past them. The music is brooding and haunted yet not very absorbing; the vocals tend to be exaggeratedly twangy and drawling and need some real sulphurous fire-and-brimstone passion to capture that full-on prophet-in-the-wilderness apocalyptic quality. There probably should be more thumping hypnotic psychedelic music with the guitars soaring at wild and swerving tangents to create an intense rallying mood in which it should be possible for listeners to fall to the floor shaking uncontrollably, foaming at the mouth, perspiring by the bucket-loads and uttering pathetic little cries that appeal to their dark pitiless god for mercy or delivering warnings of global doom in guttural demon tones.

February 4, 2014

Cold Mission: into the far reaches of experimental dark techno abstraction

Logos, Cold Mission, Keysound Recordings LDN042CD (2013)

London-based producer James Parker comes from a grime / dubstep dance-club background but this solo debut is far removed from the more rhythmic tendencies of that scene; “Cold Mission” has much in common with minimalist dark techno in its structures, moods and ambience. He lulls his listeners into a false sense of familiarity and security with the intro track and then throws them into entirely new territory with gruff lion-roar sounds, dramatic warm synth flourishes, imitations of chirping birds and skittish percussion (“Statis Jam”). The dark brooding spaces Parker creates become the background against which he plots his almost skeletal course of sound, melody and rhythm experimentation. Whatever warmth and security might exist here are very fleeting and are to be found in the sounds he splashes about on his black velvety canvas.

Parker uncovers some very gorgeous vistas here: “Swarming”, a collaboration done with a musician called Rabit, features beautiful crystal tones that trick you into thinking you’ve entered a giant hard and sparkling glass cathedral of myriad mirrors reflecting colours and sounds. “Seawolf” is a defiant number of Mexican stand-offs of duelling sets of drones, ripples and bass whoops with crackling samples of guns being cocked. Two guys Dusk and Blackdown help cut out abstract geometric shapes with stuttering bell, voice samples and crispy crackle percussion effects on “Alien Shapes”.

Later tracks seem less experimental, more rhythm-bound and of less interest. I guess there has to be the obligatory dystopian futuristic Bladerunner-esque alienation / dehumanisation / trans-humanism piece that is the title track. “E3 Night Flight” leaves me cold with its insistent rhythmic inanity. The third collaboration, “Wut It Do” featuring Mumdance, restores the album’s reputation with an aggressive attacking intensity and shifting rhythms. Outgoing track “Atlanta 96 (Limitless Mix)” is a little disappointing after “Wut It Do”, losing some of its predecessor’s energy, but it seems to be a summary of what’s gone before and at the same time it’s champing at the bit and anticipating more experimentation on future solo Logos releases.

The album has its ups and downs, and sometimes I have the feeling that Parker retreats back into familiar structured rhythm territory to please his fans and let them know he hasn’t entirely forgotten his origins. At least the first half of this album is very brave in its experimentation and shows much skill on Parker’s part in describing a new, quite alien world in which we must rely on our own resources to navigate its reaches, find a foot-hold and discover unexpected comfort and joy. Here’s hoping he can go much farther in sonic time and space on subsequent recording excursions.

Contact: Keysound Recordings / Cargo Records

February 2, 2014

Kinder in der Wildnis: a cosmic blast from the past that should be reverberating around the world

Günter Schickert, Kinder in der Wildnis, Bureau-B, CD BB151 (2013)

What have we here? It’s a blast from the past courtesy of one Günter Schickert who was active in the 1970s and early years of the 1980s but whose work since then has been obscure. His output apparently was small and this reissue of work first released on cassette in 1983 and later subject to another cassette release in the 1990s consists of material from Schickert’s own archives. The songs are not related to one another and there are two bonus tracks tacked onto the end of the album which were recorded in the 1980s and which show influences from the Deutsche Neue Welle movement , analogous to New Wave in the UK of the same period, that hit the German rock scene.

Schickert’s signature is repetitive looping rhythm guitar riffs which appear on nearly every track on this compilation. The entire album sounds like early Amon Duul II at their most shambolic and eccentric; the music sounds as if it’s about to full apart any moment and only fraying string and old sticky-tape are holding it together. Environmental field recordings, chanting vocals with slight reverb, psychedelic guitar and mesmeric tribal rhythms are some of the elements that make this music very idiosyncratic in a scene known for a lot of wacky and way-out experimentation. The throbbing, thumping rhythm patterns of “Rabe in der Nacht” have such a hypnotic vibe that even Schickert himself might be in thrall to it: it reappears in slightly changed and sped-up form in the title track that comes much later on this collection.

The music is dark dark dark and very trippy in a very heavy way, with lots of strange put-on voices and bird noises (which include Schickert’s own attempts at imitating crows), swirling synthesisers, bedazzling effects and a thick atmosphere that alone could make your head spin. Each track seems weirder and more unsettled than the one before it. Tracks 3 and 4 are highly immersive and repetitive pieces of musical mesmerism while “Suleika” seems a bit more settled and structured. Even then that track shows signs of falling off the straight and narrow path into a wild world of trance psychedelia. Schickert’s vocal delivery here suggests a knowing psychopomps beckoning us to follow him into the underworld of spirits, from which we may never return.

The original album’s highlight is the title track which features Schickert’s then four-year-old daughter going head to head with dad on vocals at full tilt. (Ah, it must be fun being a little kid when your dad is an experimental musician who plays by his own rules; you can count on being drafted in as session musician and singer, and if your dad is named Campbell Kneale, you even gain credits as a fully fledged artist and presumably earn the same amount in ice cream currency as adult musicians do in real money.) The little girl goes for her life with reverbed voice against Schickert’s flubby trumpet and while the rest of the music stays steady throughout, there’s an air of slight craziness as a result of the singing.

The bonus tracks have a clean sound and the music seems much tighter and a bit subdued. Schickert’s voice comes over as curiously flat and a bit disembodied. The overall clinical effect may be intended but after the glorious messiness of what has gone before, the extra songs might seem a bit disappointing to some listeners. Now I’m not insinuating that the Deutsche Neue Welle movement was not a good influence on German pop and rock; indeed that particular music trend from the late 1970s seems to have disappeared from most discourse on German contemporary music and rarely gets a mention elsewhere. Probably the closest most people come to referring to DNW is when the names of bands associated with that scene (Malaria!, Deutsche-Amerikanische Freundschaft to take the best-known examples) are dropped into conversation. It’s just that Schickert, in trying to accommodate and adapt some of its influences, comes off second-best while updating his sound and the result ends up the musical equivalent of a caged bird, severely restricted in its movements and unable to fly.

Nonetheless this is a mesmerising recording from the history vaults of Seventies German rock which deserves to be much more widely known.

January 29, 2014

Wash Your Ears Out

End Of Silence
Auditorium
Ecocentric Records E.R.#177CD / Heart & Crossbone HCB039CD

The first release in 16 years from this German trio, which started as a spin-off from the grind-noise band Seven Minutes of Nausea. The roots of the band are apparent in the use of traditional musical instruments (guitar, bass, drums), however instead of short bursts of Anal Cunt-ish noise blurr, instead this album presents three long-ish tracks hybridising the genres of noise, dark ambient and drone.

The first track gets off to a frustratingly hesitant start, as an isolated cymbal crashes once every few seconds. The effect is not unlike Chinese Water Torture, as the listener waits desperately for something to happen. After about five minutes of this a distant warbling of guitar feedback enters. The drums become more varied, with plenty of frantic rolling toms, and a sort of droning duel between guitar and drums ensues. Interestingly, at one point, the drums even kick into blast beats, giving this the air of a noise/grindcore jam session, and perhaps the album’s only throwback to the sound of Seven Minutes of Nausea.

Track two is more on the dark ambient side, with a tremolo guitar sound playing against the backing of what sounds like a rusty garden gate. Minimal computery squelches lurk in the background, like grasshoppers hiding in undergrowth. The stereo-delayed tremolo feedback eventually becomes the sound of someone manically scraping their wet thumb against glass, with rain pattering in the form of cymbal hits. The feedback eventually builds into one single note – a thumb describing an endless circle on the rim of a wine glass. Halfway between hypnotic and maddening, depending on your personal preference for repetition. As always, the devil is in the details, and the slight sonic differences as the sounds rub up against each other are what provide the interest.

The final track opens with jittery static storms. Guitar feedback swells in and out, while a snare drum patters along randomly. Brooding and Lynchian ambience suddenly gives way to the harsh noise of squealing distorted synth. Bass wind gusts through the howling storm in what is the noisiest of the three pieces. Towards the latter stages of the track, watery blurbles of sound give the impression of a Kraken rising through the depths, or just possibly that the listener has fallen into the washing machine and is being given a thorough rinsing.

For the genre purists, this might be too busy and noisy to succeed as dark ambient drone, whilst the harsh noise heads might find elements of this too brooding and minimal. If you like a bit of variety in your non-musical sound however, you’ll find plenty to interest your ears here.