He’s been pursuing this plan for a number of years now, since 2012 to our knowledge, and though the project began as a necessary charm to preserve the hide of Clay Ruby himself, it’s now been extended to protect “the families directly involved with the Burial Hex project”, although I think regular non-initiates like ourselves can also use it, maybe by simply buying this CD and playing it (preferably quite loud and in the dark). I always imagine this scheme began life as a revenge charm on some highly-paid music biz executive after a music deal went badly, but it’s clearly now become a way of life for our hapless fellow, who must be tormented by as many demons as Saint Anthony in the desert. The more you look for them, the more they will appear. In the florid prose of the press release, there’s also some hints about denial, fasting, and a certain disgust at the realities of human flesh, a line not too far apart from the mortification of the flesh which the early Christian ascetics followed.

The magickal incantation aspects aren’t just confined to the music, but also extend to the cover artworks; the one on the back cover inscribes a lengthy written spell in a spiral form, placing it around the image of a mermaid or moon-witch, along with the famous Sator-Rotas palindromic square which has a long talismanic history. Also much to be said for the symbol-laden track titles, such as ‘Lion’s Breath’, ‘Double Scorpio’, ‘Lost Sailor’ and ‘Treasure Spirits’, which feel like they’re oozing from the pages of a 15th century book of emblems. Aurally, Burial Hex achieves his relentless ward-’em-off results by using much doomy percussion, distorted noise, and grotesque vocal incantations, words mostly unintelligible, but emotionally very direct, as if the vocalist were propelled by an urgent, near-hysterical force. Half the time, you feel the demons have won the battle, and are already possessing his body and soul. However, during the calmer moments on the album, the musician pulls off some remarkable feats of dynamics and tension; it’s not a full-on harsh wall of pain, and has moments of genuine eeriness and spooky vibes among the jolting shocks.

Nifty hype sticker uses the phrases “horror electronics” and “phantasmagoric post industrial” to evoke the power of this music. Strong potion in this bottle, from 4th March 2022.

To appreciate the music in context, you really need to look at a blog called The Seven Heads Of Gog Magog, a work subtitled “Seven oracular sound recordings illumined by a mythologically polymorphous blog”. Here, the seven audio tracks from this album are but one part of an elaborate construction, telling an episodic narrative about seven artefacts from the ancient world that are housed in the Fitzwilliam museum in Cambridge. None of these objects are directly connected with the figure Gogmagog, but the writer is interpreting them as though they were, determined to extract the hidden meanings from what they regard as “oracles”, or prophecies. This has entailed a very close “reading” of artefacts in museum cases, decoding texts, and looking for oblique clues buried in the past, with layers of additional readings and sources added to the mix. For instance, for the very first track, we’re invited to study a Greek painted wine cup and “concentrate your gaze on the severed head floating between the two intact figures painted upon it, and on the head’s painted mouth”. We should ask the head a question, then play the track; when we hear the music, our question will be answered. Repeat seven times with the other objects, and the prophecies will be revealed. Pagan magic meets antiquity, by way of crazed psychedelic folk song.

This may not have much to do with Gogmagog, the legendary giant which figures in Welsh and English mythology and who may have first appeared in print in the unreliable writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 12th century. Indeed there is another Cambridge connection with the Gog Magog hills, an area where the dowsing archaeologist Thomas Lethbridge (also unreliable and much disputed) once claimed to have discovered ancient chalk figures of a sun god and a moon goddess. I think the process that’s relevant here is the spinning of an elaborate yarn, a mind that makes abstruse and quite far-flung connections between objects and stories in history; according to the press notes, these blog posts make reference to Syd Barrett and Aleister Crowley within their warped narrative of the Oracle of Delphi and other half-digested elements from ancient Greek culture. The fiction is made even more intriguing by ascribing the authorship of the blog to one Emma Florence Bausor, who we are informed is 70 years old, is self-taught, and lives in a tomb. Indeed Bausor’s name is printed on the back of the CD, as the “presenter” of the work. Quite clearly it’s not a 70 year-old woman who made this strange music, but I admire the conviction and detail of this ingenious meta-fiction; and it goes even further down the dubious Robert Graves / White Goddess route than Julian Cope. Even without the connective tissue of the blog, it’s a great spin; a truly unique work. From 25 June 2018.

2025 update: try this link

‘The Feast Of Saints Peter And Paul’ is a work that in title at least must be understood as evidence of the “eerie religious allusions” noted in the press release; it’s not quite as violent or aggressive as some of the other punch-fests on this CD, and even allows the listener some room to breath in amongst teeming blocks of steel noise…but once you do inhale you will find the air is actually poisoned smog from the chimneystacks of Hades. Buried in this ingenious layered mix of shapeless black noise, we hear the pale echoes (the ghost of a ghost) of a celestial choir singing mangled hymns, as if Burial Hex were striving to portray the utter annihilation of all religious endeavour, yet still mourning its demise, and attempting vainly to reconstruct an entire church from the fragments of a charred and broken icon. A very bitter-sweet 19-minutes of angsty despair, chillingly beautiful in its abject visions…this was the A side of From The Rites Of Lazarus, released in 2010 on the Italian Urashima label.

‘Armagiddion’ was also rescued from Italian vinyl, the 2009 release Bagirwa Hymn on Von Archives. This is even more subdued and atmospheric and with its ambient tones, guitar sketches and exploratory drones, it’s almost like a zero-gravity stroll around what’s left of the scorched globe after a nuclear holocaust…Ruby once again finds a strange beauty in the horrors of the void, staring intently into dark corners where few men dare to peep. The esoteric artwork for the cover is by long-standing collaborator Nathaniel Ritter. From 30 November 2016.

As Ghastly Marshes, he made Ancient Spirits Of The Fen (PRCD20) around the winter of 2015-2016, aided by the visual skills of D. Finley (Invercauld), who provided the front cover image of stark fenland trees lit up in ghostly white against an uncertain night sky. With titles referring to ghosts, fog, witches, spirits, tears, anxiety and solitude, the listener can be sure of a highly atmospheric sojourn in a spooked-out zone for 60 minutes. Indeed the 15 titles are so elaborate they pretty much tell a story, chapter headings to a chilling ghost story where we can feel ourselves being pursued through inescapable woods by unknown supernatural agents. The sound of Ghastly Marshes is not especially inventive, but I do like the open-ended nature of these ghostly tones which refuse to resolve into recognisable musical chords or tunes, and simply murmur with a mixture of sighs, moans, and eerie winds passing gently through the branches overhead. Ancient Spirits Of The Fen may appear understated and samey, but there is a lot of information and detail packed into these evocative grooves. This is his second release under this name after 2014’s Shallafrost Course And Other Tales, which also appeared on cassette.

As Kurai Keshiki, Lago’s plan is to work with urban field recordings to produce supernatural ambient vibes, as noted on the earlier Mozaiku. In like manner, Senseeshon (PRCD19) is based on “samples and field recordings taken during real life – home, job and small travels”; there is some electronic processing, but not much, and the discipline here is to keep himself away from the keyboards, synths, and computers, in order to extract the underlying qualities of mystery and sorrow he craves from these mundane aural snapshots. Another understated release, but the nuances of light and shade are quite different to those on Ancient Spirits, and the work is filled with mysterious silences and gaps punctuating equally mysterious events. Real life is subtly transformed into a slow-moving dream, and as we listen we’re walking over pavements and roads like a ghost inhabiting a deserted shopping mall. Unlike the work of “serious” phonographers who have political and social agendas and are quick to point out the ground truths of the places in which they set up their microphones, Kurai Keshiki makes no claims to objectivity at all; the work represents Emanuele Lago’s highly personal (and somewhat introverted) take on his surroundings. As such, I like it just fine.

Black Mountains Chronicles was another mantle adopted by Lago, I think as a follow-up to his Tombstone alias; the intention here is to mix ambient with industrial sounds, and explore dark gothic horror themes. My Lolly: Or, The Shadow Of Her Former Self (PRCD18) is dedicated to the memory of a black cat, and right away you may think that Lago wishes to project the image of himself as a warlock with his familiar rather than a sentimental animal lover. I’m not sure if it’s as simple as that however, as the printed dedication reads “In loving memory of Lolly” and the titles make many references to the theme of rebirth and revenants, as if by making this music he was weaving a spell which could bring his beloved pet back from the dead. If this interpretation is halfway right, the record represents a compelling set of dark magick rituals mixed with more wholesome and down-to-earth emotions, so that the listener is halfway to being frightened to death by these stern ambient tones while simultaneously welcoming the brief apparitions of the cat; Lolly’s voice, I think, surfaces as a brief sample on at least one track, though its plaintive mew is more like a strange bark, and one imagines the poor creature is much puzzled by its passage through the afterlife. In all, the depressing ambient drizzle here will do much to dampen your enthusiastic mood, yet the clouds are sometimes shot through with glimpses of hope, and there are occasional skewed perspectives showing vistas of the world beyond.

No website; to buy these, email rerechan@alice.it

As Kurai Keshiki, Lago has a foray into a quite different territory. This side-project is only two years old but already has two releases to its credit, the second of which Mozaiku (PSYCHOTIC RELEASE PRCD16) we now have before us. The aim here is to train the camera on landscapes far less sunlit and much more industrialised in nature; urban field recordings are permitted to join the droning and echoing electronics, and after only a few moments of listening it becomes clear that the benign world of the fairies is many miles away. Even so, Lago exhibits the same lightness of touch in assembling his elements, and while the tenor and demeanour of Mozaiku is no doubt threatening and strange, these threats are not delivered in the pompous and moralistic manner we have come to expect from many dabblers in the dark-industrial-ambient genres, who seem to think we’re not paying attention to their messages of doom unless we are forcibly clubbed around the face and head with an iron bar of grinding sound. Again, “understated” is the key word, and it feels like Kurai Keshiki is not only able to imagine an entire world in sound, he’s also intent on exploring it in some detail, doing so methodically and rigorously. The long track ‘Katachi’ is especially mesmerising, gently moving the listener around many labyrinthine aspects of this dark and unknown land, sometimes through tunnels and catacombs, or overground through bleak ruined parklands and near-deserted cities. All is enveloped in a grey crepuscular mist that makes everything seem unreal. What’s encouraging is that he is able to do this without coming across as overly solemn or pretentious. From 28 August 2015.

The dull glow coming off this exotic gold on black digipak; showing two masked/hooded figures might point towards being a subscribing member of the Sunn O))) Knitting Circle and Scrambling Club. and, while the drone gong of doom is struck at certain moments, Polish scholars Luzask Jedrzejczak (synths/vox) and Kaba Ziolek (synths/gtrs/perc/vox) a.k.a. T’ien Lai appear to have thrown in their lot with the German school of kosmiche aesthetics instead. With their Da’at c.d., deep space reverb and chittering electronics are fleshed out with pitch and yaw dynamics to sculpt imposing largos of overloaded interstellar dread. “Tron” and the ominous “Jitron” employ simplistic/repetitive keyboard figures that are supplemented by atmospheric folk-referenced vocalese. Madonna’s “Vogue” makes a very unexpected appearance in “Gloria” before being absorbed into an ocean of crackling static which then leads to a looped (?) acoustic guitar strum that really does knock on infinity’s door…no bad thing in this instance. This, of course, can’t fail to trigger off connections with the copyright-baiting antics on Faust’s “Why Don’t You Eat Carrots?” with its Beatles/Stones drop-ins. Making that a further k-rock link, unless of course, I’m reading too much into this dark matter confection. But it’s too late to stop now, as there’s also an interesting sideline to all this. The album title translates as ‘knowledge’ and comes from the ‘Kabbalah’ (as does ‘The Sephiroth’ – the Kabbalah’s ‘tree of life’; pictured on the c.d.’s inside sleeve). I remember that Madonna and entourage attached themselves to this obscure arm of Jewish mysticism a couple of trends ago. So is this why the material girl’s, erm, essence was decanted on track four? I wonder…

Noish & Xedh have a cassette tape rlhaaaa to (PILGRIM TALK PT18) of which the A side ‘Coyote’ is frankly pretty tough going with its puzzling tracts of humming noise and half-hearted feedback squeals. The B side ‘Psy Htgu’ contains radio bursts and occasional intriguing snippets of electronic garbage, but the interminable humming continues to dominate, even as matters develop into full-blown chaos and massive disorder. Some of this is richly insane noise monstrousness, while some of it is curiously vacant and monotonous, where it’s very hard to discern the underlying logical pattern. May take some time before we start to sensate the hypnotic magickal intensity of which we know Xedh (Miguel A. García) is capable of weaving with his bony stumps. Noish (Oscar Martin) is also a diabolical fiend who experiments with computer language and home-made processing tools to mutate his field recordings in unpleasant ways. The figure of Death is printed in red on the green card cover and he steps out of a coffin while lifting its heavy lid as if made of balsa.

Plenty demonic imagery on Exhaustive Expulsion (PILGRIM TALK PT19) by Aaron Zarzutzki and Nick Hoffman. Two cassettes in a white vinyl pack. That’s Hoffman’s linework on the cover there. This is another example of near-futility. I would almost be tempted to call it a cross between doom metal and minimal improv. This low-key electric drone noise and shuffling about is just so modest it’s almost afraid to show its face. It’s like hearing the work being performed in the house next door. Only it’s more like workmen banging about with electric drills and belt sanders. There is more activity and even a little more presence and purpose as the work progresses though, and if you persevere across these four sides of magnetic tape you too may end up as inert and impassive as the anonymous man in suit and tie on the back cover, so ominous a figure his image appears three times. The inserts give us images from religious icons, the pyramids, and a magnificent possibly Chinese building in the mountains. And what’s with these minimal printed texts? Are they track titles? They just keep restating short, punchy messages about death. They are like crossword clues to a morbid cryptic crossword. So is the music. The only way to solve the crossword is by killing yourself, or others. It’s like the template for an extravagant masterpiece of doom metal music, merely awaiting the requisite musicians to step in and complete the outline with their loud amplifiers and expensive guitars. 50 copies of these edited live recordings, made on an “ancient tape machine”. You’ll be exhausted and expulsed, not to mention exasperated.

Electronic musician and improviser Jin Sangtae made Sacrifice 2 (GHOST & SON GHOST 4) using car horns. Another piece that sounds like it was recorded at a tremendous distance. I sense a pattern emerging here which may help us understand Hoffman’s aesthetic. This is a primo example of junkyard art improv with a vaguely “metallic” feel underpinning the largely unidentifiable sounds. It also presents the atmosphere of the room very well. The space in question is the Seoul Art Space Mullae. You will come to know its walls, via acoustic methods. After about 15 minutes of uncertain rumbling and shuffling, the work finishes off with some high-pitched squeals that are completely insufferable. More like car alarms than car horns. But maybe they do things differently in Seoul, automobile-wise. So far Hoffman’s vision of musical Hell is shaping up to be fairly grim in its desolation and unshakeable sense of futility. A strong vision, i’faith.

Just found Red River / Rio Tinto (GHOST & SON GHOST 5) by Miguel A. García in the package. Already reviewed this one and it’s a fiery bowl of chilis. Great to have another copy of this cobra-infested cable-biting noise-jam. Nine tracks of loopy abrasive gibberish. Almost a whole band at work on this Madrid mash.

Hell House (PILGRIM TALK PT 16) is quite a different proposition to all the above in many ways. Credited to Nick Hoffman, all the music is by Eyeless Executioner. Given that he’s the type to form and disband 18 bands and projects before breakfast, Eyeless Executioner could be one of Hoffman’s forays into the field of satanic metal (another one being Back Magic, a sort of garage-metal combo which I personally enjoy). It’s just that compared with the above, it sounds almost like a professionally-produced record. There are overdubs, power riffs, melodies, drumming, vocals, and guitar solos that make sense. It may not be especially innovative, but it’s a decent slab of Black-ish guitar metal with the strained and grunting generic singing we love so well, its melodies played in mean and menacing minor keys. Hell House is presented in a superb oversize 56pp booklet packed with Hoffman’s lovely drawings and artworks, on shifting paper stocks, some printed in full colour, with a gold on red screenprinted cover. The drawings are presented one after the other in a near random fashion, not telling a story or anything, and some of them have little inset images which make even less sense. Plus a little purple folded gewgaw with some lyrics printed on it. Unfold it and die…think of ‘Casting The Runes’ by M.R. James. 100 copies of this niftaroo.

In many of these Pilgrim Talk releases under discussion, even those not made by or involving Hoffman, there seems to be a discernible commonality in certain key areas:

1. The reluctance to edit out “mistakes” or “boring sections”, and for the most part presenting the material as it happened, and at some length.
2. A preoccupation with lo-fi or poor quality tape recording methods.
3. A general indifference to explaining how or why the music was made.
4. An abiding formlessness in the finished piece, which rarely begins or ends in what we might call a satisfactory manner.
5. An implied (or outright stated) theme of futility and despair, often expressed in supernatural terms.

While some listeners and indeed many musicians might tend to regard the above shopping list as a catalogue of calamitous proportions, to Pilgrim Talk these things are core to the label’s defining aesthetic, I would propose. #3 in particular is very refreshing to me personally, when one is constantly being fed “explanations” of a piece of music by its eager creators. Even if you might think from my descriptions that the music here is unbearably boring and painful to endure, I would still recommend that you seek it out. All this music has a directness, honesty and spontaneity that is hard to come by in the world of over-manicured, pre-processed and self-professed experimental noise. Let the sense of strangeness and weariness dissolve, and you too will come to perceive the fascinating corners, alcoves and bricks of Hoffman’s Hell House.

Excellent amplified trumpet work by American improvisers Peter Evans and Nate Wooley on High Society (CARRIER 010) from Carrier Records in New York. Seems the two of them have been working as a duo for about five years, but both have behind them an impressive list of collaborative work with many of the big fish in the international world of improvisation. On these six quite lengthy cuts, there’s a variety of engagement with the set-up, raw tones and impolite parpling effects wrestling together in a potentially dangerous arena. Sometimes they’re content to explore the long hearty tones and feedback from the amplifiers, other times the imperatives for performance are soloing in an urgent spastic fashion and a commitment to intense multiple note-production, as though their daily wage depended on how many C-sharps they can blow before close of business. Breathing techniques, spluttering lip movements, and valve fingering actions are all magnified and enlarged in frightening detail, and the modulations (some might call them collisions) between natural acoustics and electronic amplification are negotiated and exploited to everyone’s advantage. Hendrix-meets-Evan Parker in the living room of Wolf Eyes. And speaking of wolves, what’s the deal with the photograph inside the digipak here? It’s a pastoral tragedy for sure, like a Tarantino standoff in the animal kingdom, fortunately without the stage blood strewn everywhere.

Tuppence a bag

Another hypnotic item from the wonderful workshop of Simon Balestrazzi in Italy, who teams up with Monica Serra as Dream Weapon Ritual and released their 20-minute CD Another View (MWT 04) on his own Magick With Tears label. This wispy but potent brew is concocted using exotic stringed instruments such as the psaltery and the cümbüs, along with guitars, electronics, the VCS3 synth, and various sonic manipulators such as the Kaoss Pad mixing desk. Not forgetting the many layers of voices, which whisper and scallop around the charged recording environment in ethereal ways, making good the press release claim about “an aural world populated with ghosts”. The first cut ‘Unending Green Waves’ is a dreamy and meandery open-ended shroud of musical mist, but ‘Big Hungry Birds’ almost follows some form of song-structure, and Serra’s musical chant ‘Let’s feed the hungry birds’ grows in ominous intent over six minutes filled with increasing tension, until the track fades into a near-silent pastoral interlude filled with birds twittering in the background. This is like the ending to the famous Hitchcock movie compressed into a fraction of the time, but it’s an inverted scenario where Tippi Hedren and the other besieged villagers rush to meet the birds with emphatic acceptance of their fate. Very nice package design, limited pressing, hand-numbered.

Psychedelic Basement

Received two CDRs and a cassette from LF Records in Bristol at the end of June. One of them is the 30-minute workout of sullen electronic phased rock noise by Non-Ferric Memories, called Live at Joey’s Basement. (LF018). The NFM may or may not be an entire band from Swindon, producing a glorious psychedelic racket using over-echoed guitars, tremendous distortion, whistling feedback tones like the breath of an angry raincloud spirit, and a vocalist who whimpers and wails some luscious unintelligible murk in a soprano approximation as though mouth is filled with stale Minestrone soup. Chaotic, incompetent and weighed down by stoner acid-head inertia, this is like a garage-band approximation of the first LP by Amon Düül II executed by someone who had never played the record and only ever seen the cover art, and is describing it to the other band members by megaphone. Formless and dirgey psychedelic glory, a lightshow made with magic markers and drugs issued from a tube of Smarties; this is absolutely great!

It’s allright Maaaa, I’m only bleeding

From Poland I got this really great CD of harsh noise which is a split between MAAAA and K2 (TRIANGLE RECORDS TR-47). The booklet is extremely confusing but it seems that MAAAA, the duo of Sergei and Renata who we heard from with their superb Decay And Demoralization CD for Mind Flare Media, occupy the first five cuts in the same way that a bulldozer “occupies” a building scheduled for demolition. Using a combination of Korg synth and metal junk, this husband and wife team create electronic music of a devastating power which is as basic as the ‘Crude Petroleum’ of track 2 and as confused as the ‘Drunken Skinhead’ of track 4, but it’s also incredibly dynamic and inventive – jet-fuel rock music on power skis, mainlining its way to the heavy-metal heart of the listener. Recorded in Warsaw in 2010 and 2011, these five crash-collision powerhouse cuts reinvigorate the notion of “metal” in industrial music. Even so, the MAAAA cuts are almost eclipsed by the sheer manic viciousness and searing attack of K2 for the remaining three cuts; Japanese player Kimihide Kusafuka uses a vaguely similar set-up (Korg synths, ruined electronics, contact mics and voice but no junk metal) to deliver remorseless sweeping invasions of exciting dive-bomber racket. Where MAAAA feel somewhat resigned and pessimistic about life’s prospects, it’s clear that K2 wants to attack everything with a psychopathic relish, sawing through life’s hurdles with a chainsaw in one hand and an acid-blasting cannon in the other. He’s also a member of numerous band projects including The Bikini Pigs, Hospital In Vain, The Immunes and Lemon Negative. As with the best Japanese noise, there is something dangerously crazy and uncontrollable which feeds the core of this music. Hold tight and enjoy the ride. Many thanks to Sergei for sending this primo sizzler of harshness.

Another gorgeous work of dreaming-awake music from Joe Frawley is Carnival (JOE FRAWLEY MUSIC JFM-CD10). Using his familiar constructs of piano music, found sounds, tape loops, voices and other carefully-selected remnants, Frawley weaves his ambiguous dream-narratives in sound. Evocative titles such as ‘A sleepwalker’s vocabulary’ and ‘Premonition’ confirm his surrealist bent; each track is packed with sumptuous layers and inexpressibly beautiful moments of sound that pass and vanish in seconds, fading in and out like phantoms lit up in orange autumn light. The spoken-word fragments are planted and repeated like scraps torn from a poetry book and found strewn across moonlit pavements in strange cities. As ever, the listener has the delightful impression of being conducted on a dream-quest and invited to interpret multiple symbols, clues and fleeting hints. Collaborators on this release include Rachel Rambach, the lyre player Connie Alblas, and the guitarist Greg Conte, but in essence it is a Frawley solo piece. He has published a complete list of his samples and sources used for this miniature on his website. Received in May, but this feels like the sort of record you should be playing in the months of September and October, complementing the fey and wistful season with its mysterious charm. Come to that, it would be perfect for me if Frawley were to produce an interpretation of the stories of Ray Bradbury.

A stellar lineup of composers produced Quartet for the End of Space (POGUS PRODUCTIONS 21059-2): Pauline Oliveros, Jonas Braasch, Doug Van Nort, and Francisco López. On these eight lengthy pieces they assist playing each other’s compositions in the mode of performance which is quite close to “electroacoustic improvisation”, or EAI as some will have it. This strange work is largely charcterised by very alien, unnatural sounds; great duration; slow exploration of imaginary spaces; and certain affinities with the weather, of which Braasch’s ‘Snow Drifts’ is the most obvious example. His ‘Web Doppelganger’ on the other hand is asking profound questions about the very nature of improvised and aleatory music, and doing so in a very creative way. Recorded and performed in 2010, and put together with a great sense of deliberation and care; instrumentation is not detailed, but there is a deal of electronic music, signal processing and computer assisted sounds blending with traditional instruments such as the saxophone. All the musicians play with authority and gravitas on this profound and stirring collection.

Human Greed is mostly the vision of founder Michael Begg, whose Black Hill album we heard in November 2008. For Fortress Longing (OMNEMPATHY OMIC2), he’s joined by members of Fovea Hex, 48 Cameras, and Colin Potter, and the visual artists Deryk Thomas and Nicole Boitos, the former contributing heavily to the overall aesthetic of the project. The record is the result of Begg’s personal questing, involving much travel and self-imposed silence and exile, and an investigation into the properties of various droning musical devices, including singing bowls, the glass harmonica and stringed instruments. Mystical burnished drones result, at times so evanescent they seem to hang in the air like solar phenomena. Hermetic symbolism is implied in the cover images, texts, track titles, and that same sense of ancient mystery lurks within every moment of this slow and icy ambient music, as fragile and delicate as the tracery of frost on a window. Arrived here late May 2011.

A sizzling bruiser of raw electronic improvisation is Ktotam (ZEROMOON ZERO012) from the Argentinian sound artist Andrea Pensado, a kind of mixed-media composer who comes from Buenos Aires but has also lived in Cracow for ten years. These seven blistering cuts were produced with an unearthly combination of laptop noise and her own voice, using the voice to perform multiple tasks: barking out texts and fragments of speech, triggering gated samples in the set-up, and even controlling the mix in some way. I assume she’s equipped with a digital version of a snorkel or aqualung to perform these superhuman tasks. The results are just astonishing; dark magical incantations and spells for the digital realm. If I could send out one of these grunters in email form, I feel sure I could vanquish my enemies or win the girl of my dreams. Mastered by Jeff Carey and released on his Zeromoon label, this is a totally essential dollop of musical gravel re-expressed as virtual bits and bytes. I just adore the craggy formlessness of this energised mouth-music, at times so granular and crunchy you could eat it for breakfast with half a pint of milk. Pensado truly is a “bicho raro”!

Cough Cool‘s self-titled CD (DEBACLE RECORDS DBL055) is a reissue of his first cassette, remastered onto CD by this Seattle label. Seven songs in 20 minutes reveal the complex and unusual emotions which traverse the brain of Dan Svizeny, which he delivers with an idiosyncratic mix of minimal synth, guitar and drum music, occasionally allowing his electric guitar to roar in loud sweeps. His vocals invariably reach us through filters and distortion effects, adding to the sense of distance and remove. This could prove quite a grower; I like it best when his lyrics remain dumbed-down to the point of incoherence and he seems unable to do more than mumble the same inexpressive inanities over and over in time to his off-kiltre chords and beats. This was released early April.

Got a couple of newish Black Metal releases which arrived 11 April from Ladlo Productions in France. Numen are a five piece of pagan folk-metallers from the Basque country in Spain and the self-titled CD (LADLO PRODUCTIONS AO-004) is a re-release of their 2007 album. They’ve been going since the late 1990s and sing all their grisly yet hearty songs in the Euskera tongue, a tactic which may endear them to fellow Basque countryman Mattin. Competent enough fast guitar work and screeching songs is what they give us, seemingly “following the path of the ancient cult”. Cult Of Erinyes have released A Place To Call My Unknown (LADLO PRODUCTIONS AO-003), a more recent endeavour recorded last winter and offering nine songs about oppression and torture, in the “ritualistic BM” mode. Again, fast and overloaded music is the keynote here, but Corvus (main man who plays almost all the instruments) sometimes leads the drummer down some unexpected side trails.

Inside an elaborate chip-board outsize wallet is housed Mathieu Ruhlmann‘s latest endeavour of subtlety ANÁÁDIIH (3LEAVES 3L006), a 40-minute meditation in six parts which contemplates the beauties of the forest, plant life, the skies and mountain-dwelling with an enraptured awe. Banks Bailey is co-credited with producing these recordings, which to my ears seem to include many choice fragments and selections from nature’s bounty – insects, birds, horses, fire, water, weather and air, and certain unseen activities that might cause the bark of an elm to creak in sympathy. There are at least two layers of recording in motion at any one time, and sumptuous overlaid beauties emerge like multiple exposure photographs. Our Hungarian friend Ákos Garai did the mastering for his 3Leaves label on this, one of the clearest and most straightforward things I have heard from Ruhlmann’s catalogue (he can sometimes indulge in opaque murk and metaphysical conjecture). Comes with a tipped-in colour cover and a printed insert, and a paper band around the package. Arrived from British Columbia, home of the huge wooden log, on 04 April.

WP31 / REDUKT 014 is a CD packed in a DVD wallet on the Wachsender Prozess and Reduktive Musiken imprints from Germany, although my copy arrived from France on 18 April and was sent here personally by one of its creators, the impenetrable genius of “quiet noise”, Guido Huebner. As Das Synthestiche Mischgewebe, he performs the first long composition on this split CD with the title ‘Notre Besoin D’Attachment Est Aussi Celui De Rupture’. Unlike some of DSM’s compositions which have involved fragmentary cut-ups, this piece feels like it’s more of a start-to-finish document with no edits, but what strange event may have been transpiring before the microphones of Guido and Samuel Loviton is anybody’s guess. DSM specialises in this producing this extremely puzzling and alienating effect in his sound art that is well-nigh impossible to understand; this instance may start out like errant birds rattling the tops of empty milk-bottles, but it soon becomes a complex and difficult episode of vaguely electronic effects, rattles and pops. TBC‘s contribution, ‘They Never Come to Hit the Public’, has more substance than DSM on first impression, using synths and tapes and various processes to produce exciting variations on traditional musique concrète techniques. Moving freely over imaginary and real terrains in just 20 minutes, TBC is capable of a rowdiness that DSM would probably find most unseemly. But the combination of the two on a single release is just perfect; TBC’s piece is like a walk in fresh air after the cramped confines of DSM’s obsessive and vaguely neurotic internalising.

Simon Balestrazzi (1980s veteran composer and member of T.A.C.) kindly sent us three excellent new items on his Magick With Tears label, which have been languishing here in the box since 31 March. These mini-CDs (all 20 minutes) are limited editions and handsomely packaged in unusual outsize cartons which resemble slim volumes of esoteric texts. Uncodified: released Involucri (MWT 03), 20 minutes of splendidly supernatural droney effects whose single-mindedness I find most enjoyable, like being led down a strange tunnel below the surface of the earth by a big owl. All the more credit to this Italian musician for eschewing the use of computers in creating these strong and complex drones. Simon Balestrazzi‘s A Rainbow In My Mirror (MWT 01) is a lovely jumble using many acoustic stringed instruments (including a psaltery), organ, tapes and electronics; a rich and complex work that remains all of apiece despite meandering into many forbidden sonic territories. He does indeed imbue this 21-minute work with a sense of the possibility of time-travel or supernatural scyring, and it’s decorated with numerous images of skeleton siamese twins. Simon resurfaces on Untitled Soundscapes (MWT 02) as one-third of A Sphere Of Simple Green, an improvising group which also includes Adriano Orrù and Silvia Corda. Matter of fact his psaltery makes a reappearance here, along with his trusty VCS3 murmuring minimal mysterious electro-utterances that are quite sublime. Prepared piano and bass are the basis for most of this work, creating all manner of unholy textures with their hearty full-bodied scrape and nerve-shredding jangling. Kind of like a speeded-up and impatient version of MEV with added dark clouds of aural uncertainty, these three guys get the job done in half the time and for a fraction of the cost. Only the indifferent front cover disappoints here, although the interior is more intriguing with its gallery of abstract drawings.