Latest batch of Zoharum CDs from 18 July 2022.
Düsseldorf running Amok on their CD (ZOHAR 269-2) of same name…despite their German name this duo are all-Polish, but they do pay homage to a strain of Berlin electronic music with their sound, which is admittedly somewhat “cleaner” than many of the murkoid specimens which inhabit this label. Apparently the experts classify this as “EBM”, i.e. electronic body music, a sub-genre which splices together elements of industrial noise with synth-punk of the late 1970s and modern dance music. Amok ends up pretty percussion heavy, and when the drummer is let loose he can’t seem to stop filling up the cracks between the brickwork with his patented brand of aural cement. The multiple synth lines and macabre melodies are also working like steam engines, and the cumulative effect is quite melodramatic. All played by Tom Axer (synths, voices) and Jacek Sokołowski (drums), although Adam Radecki seems to be the original mastermind behind this project, active since 1989 on a sporadic series of cassettes for Odd Records.
Yutani are the somewhat mysterious trio from Warsaw with nine tunes on Not Much Of A Talker (ZOHAR 257-2). I like the title here, reminding me of when I once stormed out from a party of colleagues in a bar without saying goodnight, and later one of them told me there was no need to apologise for making a “Polish Exit”. Since then I’ve assumed that a sullen, uncommunicative mode might be a character trait of this noble race. Yutani don’t exactly manifest it here though, and this combination of bass guitar, electronics and drums is clearly the product of a threesome who have quite a lot to tell us, even if it might project a vaguely aggressive and dissatisfied air. Yutani seem keen to tick a lot of genre boxes (electronic, dark, psychedelic, chillout, industrial), unless that’s just the press department working itself into a tizzy. Some nice moments here, and full marks for telling us that the bass and drum parts were “recorded in dirty basement rooms of a building that no longer exists”, and having a drummer named Inutile Carcasse, but the musicians could benefit from developing a lighter touch.
Popsysze are another combo departing from the usual Zoharum aesthetic, and on their Emisja (ZOHAR 258-2) album deliver seven tracks of very competent and crisp gtr-bass-drums trio music, occasionally adding lyrics. If you’ve ever craved an Eastern Europe rethink of Firehose or Meat Puppets, this would be a good place to start. Apparently the producer Michal Mielnik and mixing by Michal Kupicz accounts for the “light touch” in the sound, since it seems on their previous Kopalino album the trio couldn’t help inclining towards their dark masters, such as the cocoa bean. The lyrics are sung in Polish natch, but they allude to imminent environmental disasters threatening the globe, not that you’d know given the equivocal and even-tempered timbre of the vocalists Jarosław Marciszewski and Jakub Świątek, who might as well be singing about an unsuccessful trip to the laundrette for all the emotional passion they muster. Still, I suppose that cover graphic could be read as an indicator of the growing global warming problem…
Back to more grisly territory now with Tearing Your Mind To Pieces (ZOHAR 267-2), a remorseless power electronics album from Harmony Of Struggle. It’s certainly very “retro”, what with the digipak covered with unpleasant photos of wartime atrocities and injured men, harking back to Throbbing Gristle and other shocking nasties from the industrial past, although the front image (no less unpleasant) has a combination of sexual and violent imagery which could be mistaken for a more extreme take on Surrealism. HOS have the hubris to name themselves after a release by Clandestine Blaze, the Finnish Black Metal solo act whose espousal of National Socialist Black Metal themes in their oeuvre have resulted in several sales being blocked and banned by the Discogs site. Plus you’ve got track titles here like ‘Shock Tactics’ and ‘In Control’, in a tracklist which reads like the Heinrich Himmler instruction manual. So far, so horrible. HOS is Neithan who might be Michal Kielbasa, also behind such projects as Whalesong, Lifeless Gaze, Grave Of Love and Nothing Has Changed – with this smorgasbord of depressing acts, he covers Black Metal, Doom, and Industrial genres. Plenty of horrifying themes on this release, and even the sound itself is deliberately made into something extremely ugly by excessive layering, distortion, and sound manipulation, with results accurately described as “deformed”. Jointly released by the hateful Polish underground label, Old Temple. Strong meat warning – approach this record at your own risk.
Reformed Faction comprises three ex-members of famed minimal droners Zoviet France, i.e. Andy Eardley, Mark Spybey, and Robin Storey, who in a moment of rapprochement joined forces again in 2005 and released Vota (ZOHAR 262-2) followed by a string of records for several years thereafter. I think Eardley may have walked away from the group at some point, but I haven’t looked into the tale too closely. The Zoharum label evidently revere Zoviet France, given their comprehensive reissue programme of Storey and his Rapoon albums, so one can see why they’d be keen to put this one out, although Klanggalerie already did a very good job of it in 2006. Even so, today’s version has been remastered, and the cover design has been slightly tweaked, with no expense spared on the spot-varnish on the digipak panels. I’ll admit I’m not the world’s foremost collector of Zoviet France, but this Vota album is winning me over with its subtleties. I like the understated, suggested melodies and moods, indicative of larger forms lurking below the surface of a misted-over pool. If it’s done through live group performances, as I assume a lot of it is, it’s all the more impressive for this mastery of many diverse elements – instruments, tapes, loops, and electronic effects blended like ingredients in the world’s largest and sweetest layer cake.
Lastly we have Groth (ZOHAR 268-2) by Groth, which is about one of the worst records we’ve heard this year. Utterly undistinguished and obnoxious metal music from this Polish foursome, of which the most nauseating aspect is the histrionic vocalist who seems to have affected an American accent and throws in plenty of outdated rockist cliches, perhaps in some misguided bid by the band to gain wider commercial acceptance. When the singer finally manages to shut his yap, you can hear how truly mediocre are the gtr-bass-drums trio manufacturing this clumsy, misbegotten mess. Still, the label seem to think they’re onto something, praising the “lurking ambient-psychedelic connectors” in between the sickening riffage and poundage. Yuck.