Michael
Mesarthim - “Type III”
Epic, depressive, symphonic with space imagery and synthesizers? Yeah, I’ll take some of that, please. Bandcamp did a great article on Mesarthim wherein the band expressed the need for imagery and emotion in their music. Space and its void became a recurring theme in their music, and I think that it definitely lends an interesting angle to the sound that is well within a set wheelhouse, but specifically its own. The grand nature of the guitar sounds mixed with the choirs and synths lower in the background makes a very full composition of both large halls of reverb and emptiness. In the breaks, where the guitars are gone, and maybe just a piano is playing, you can really see the many talents of the duo.
Type II (E.P.) is one of many releases available on the Mesarthim Bandcamp page.
Mortiis - “En Mørk Horisont”
Mortiis, who I will always associate with great industrial songs like “Marshland” and “Spirit in a Vacuum,” has re-issued his first few albums on Bandcamp, and they are wonderful. It is a really fascinating look at the type of dungeon synth music that was coming out in the early 1990s. Many of the dungeon synth elements would, of course, make it onto intro tracks and various filler elements on notable black metal albums of the time, but to hear a full composition of those influences is, to me, very interesting. There is a mysticism that I apply to the sounds, which I understand is completely fabricated by me, but it makes me nostalgic for the forest and the darkness. This is, in a sense, the root of the music that I aim to make now, even if I have only heard it for the first time this week.
Mortiis has put up a lot of the early work in various limited edition forms on his Bandcamp page. These releases are also available digitally for the first time.
Wes
Niels Poensgen - “Divara”
I came across this track trolling the Berlin tag on Bandcamp, looking for that ebm/techno crossover sound I love so much. While “Divara” doesn’t cross over into the EBM world, there is a nice emotion to the track that puts it right into my wheelhouse. The building bass and rolling, filtered horns produce a nice sense of almost otherworldliness, and it never feels like it’s trying to go too big or too epic for that sort of reserved emotionality. It is a song that seems to set rules for itself, and creates something wonderful within those rules.
Niels Poensgen is a techno artist from Berlin, Germany. His latest release, Divara, is available via Keller on Bandcamp.
Roly Porter - “4101”
Ambient and drone music doesn’t often tend to grab me. There’s usually something about it that I find hard holding on to. This is not the case with Roly Porter. There’s something demanding in his music. There is a constant tension, a feeling of impending doom almost, that forces you to pay attention to it. It builds up as quickly as it releases, creating a rhythm in the soundscapes of the song that much ambient I hear lacks for me.
The soundscapes are impressive, too. There is so much thought clearly put into the design of this track; there is building vocal samples, little mechanical clicks in the background, little ringing instruments whose providence is unclear. All these sounds combine beautifully to produce that sense of tension and doom. I can easily listen to this track over and over, trying to pick out all of the little details that make it so successful for me.
Roly Porter is an electronic artist from the UK. His latest release, Third Law, is available via Tri-Angle Records on Bandcamp.