Review: Holy Fawn "Death Spells"

Shoegaze wasn’t something I ever really got into - before this last year I probably wouldn’t have been able to name a band that is actually classified as shoegaze. I still don’t have a strong shoegaze knowledge, but I’ve started diving into it a lot more recently as I’ve realized many of the bands I’m putting on repeat right now are working from a love of shoegaze.

One recent band in this vein is Holy Fawn. Their 2018 full length, Death Spells, mixes shoegaze, post-rock, doom, and black metal to a wonderful effect. It moves seamlessly between softer, more atmospheric moments, dreamy guitars with big reverberating vocals, and doomed riffs, tremolo picking, and screaming. 

If you’re a regular listener to the podcast, you’ve heard me talk a lot about the importance of dynamic range, and how it can create tension and release through moments of rest. Death Spells doesn’t have a lot of dynamic range, but Holy Fawn does use tone in a way that’s very similar. The band will use the moments that are more dreamy and atmospheric, with softly strummed and picked guitar melodies, to make the heavy, distorted chords and massive drums sound considerably heavier.

Songs like “Drag Me into the Woods” show this wide range; the beginning almost sounds like it could be an ambient piece from Amulets, before going into a dreamy strumming backed up by huge drums. After a return to the sort of ambient textures of the early song, it breaks away to big heavy guitars, heavy drums, and screams that are buried in the mix like a textural element more than highly present vocal delivery.

“Yawning,” one of my favorite tracks on the album, also shows this blend of influences and tone. The melody of the opening guitar sticks with me and I find myself humming it over and over. The song blends from this driving riff with vocals that almost remind me of Sigur Ros, to big heavy chords, slamming drums, and high pitched screams, backed up by tremolo picking that is reminiscent of the opening melody. 

Another great example of their use of tone and atmosphere to create tension and range is in the middle of the album, when after the heavy final moments of “Seer” we drop into “Two Waves,” a fully ambient track that creates rest and relief to take us into the back half of the album. This track allows the listener to reset and ground themselves for the soft opening moments of “Take Me with You.”

I’d like to briefly also talk about Holy Fawn’s three track 2020 EP, The Black Moon, which is how I became aware of the band. In just three tracks, Holy Fawn demonstrates the attention to tension found in Death Spells. It’s heavy, it’s ambient, it’s atmospheric, and arguably a stronger release than Death Spells despite its length. It’s a fantastic EP, and I’ve probably listened to it a hundred times since I found it.

There are, of course, a lot of bands making heavy music that is inspired by shoegaze. Alcest melded shoegaze with black metal and created a sound that would inspire a huge number of bands like Deafheaven, Amenra, and Harakiri for the Sky, to name a few. King Woman pulls together shoegaze and doom to create a unique and heavy sound that sets them apart from others in the doom world. What makes Holy Fawn special to me is their ability to take all of these sounds (doom, black metal, shoegaze, post-rock) and pull them into one consistent and coherent idea that I haven’t heard anyone else do.

Review: Skinny Puppy "The Process"

Skinny Puppy’s The Process had been out 6 years by the time I first heard it. In the back corner of the aging, double-level Jelly’s Records and Books, I asked the guy at the front desk to throw it on the overhead system - which, at the time, was the only way to test a CD you wanted to buy. He skipped the first track, “Jahya,” which had a more ambient intro. He’d heard this one before. Spiky, black, hard-edged, it started.

In 1996, when The Process was released, a lot of reviewers didn’t know what to make of it. Nu Metal was on the rise: Deftones had just released Adrenaline and Korn’s sophomore album, Life is Peachy, would come out later that year. American Recordings, for which The Process would be Skinny Puppy’s debut release, were riding high on the success of artists like Slayer, Danzig, and Sir Mix-a-lot (who all had big albums out between 1994 and 1996). Fans were reportedly outraged at the “new direction” and polish of The Process - not to mention the news that this would be the final Skinny Puppy record (so they thought).

discogs.com image of The Process CD edition

Between initial recording and final mixing, long-time member Dwayne Goettel died due to complications with drug addiction. The album is dedicated to him. It’s difficult as a listener to separate the heavy themes of the album, the struggle in its creation, and what the remaining band members (who at the time were not talking to each other) must have been going through.

It’s important to note, but not dwell on, that the band had a lot of issues with their new record label and new management. While this had a lot to do with the building tensions at the time, it was part of a much larger puzzle that this review isn’t interested in. Through the Wikipedia entry for The Process, you can find extensive interviews and sources if you want to know more about this period.

The band reformed in 2000, beginning again as a strictly work-based relationship, but cEvin Key and Ohgr had different feelings about The Process. Key, while feeling it was their heaviest album to date, felt that its direction was arbitrary at times and was frustrated with the way tracks came together based largely on a vision Ohgr had and didn’t share clearly with the music-producing members (Key and Goettel). Ohgr stated, in this archived interview from 1995, “[The Process] remains a testament and should provide an interesting ending.” But for me it was just the beginning.

When I was ten years old, we moved to Hawaii and left whatever friends I had in Oregon behind. I was excited (I was ten). With me, though, I took a few precious burned CDs from the other weird kid in my neighborhood. Tool’s Undertow and Marlyn Manson’s Holywood (which I had misspelled in Sharpie to read: “Hollywood,” something I still think about in those early morning moments). Somehow, also, I had conned my dad into ordering Ministry’s The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste from Columbia House (based solely on the cover). Filth Pig was also in the catalog, but would have been a harder sell. So I was no stranger to a heavy guitar riff and some particularly depressing lyrics. But Skinny Puppy was something different. Listening back now, it would be a sound I would chase in many of the bands I considered very dear to my high school years: Cinema Strange, Wumpscut, Stabbing Westward. It lived somewhere between death rock, nu metal, and industrial. The band, which was deeply ingrained in the early history of Vancouver Industrial, was now shipped off to California by the record label to find a sound that both captured what made them popular but also what the label wanted.

The Process was an album thematically inspired by The Process Church of the Final Judgement, which filters Ohgr’s cut-up-style lyrics - about politics, animal rights, and environmental degradation - through the cult’s philosophy. While this is sometimes apparent in the lyrics, I found, after watching the documentary Sympathy For the Devil? The True Story of The Process Church of Final Judgement by Neil Edwards, that there aren’t a lot of direct references to The Process Church. Perhaps, in many ways, a thematic influence is used to deploy a kind of tribute to the topics and means by which The Process Church talked about the world - often focusing on controversial subjects with a psychological bend towards self-awareness. Ohgr seems to go into, at times, a religious trance much closer to what you’d imagine a southern Baptist speaking-in-tongues sermon sounds like.

From Cvlt Nation’s article on The Process Church

There is, though, a tension in the music and lyrics that you could see as a parallel to the antics of The Process Church, which is to say shock and mystery - purple-lined cloaks, Satan’s Cavern Cafe, a theatrical Black Mass. Early era industrial and performance artists would have loved the scenery. Horror movie showings, dark-cloaked rituals, handsome tall men with little goatees. Robert De Grimston. Black on Black.

Primarily through their magazine, The Process Church revelled in shock and counterculture philosophical investigations of what were, at the time, budding changes to psychology and philosophy. They were primarily concerned with the idea of there being different assets inside of all of us, to which we have to take responsibility. Some people were more aligned with their luciferian tendencies, while others shifted towards Jehovah. This, with the outward message that we must join Christ and Satan to end the world, when seen philosophically instead of religiously, can simply be about exploring transcendence. Not literal, not heavenly, but personal.

From this, we could guess that Ohgr was trying to reflect his own current societal issues and politics, in 1994, in the way that they were in the late 1960s. Subliminal messaging, propaganda, The West Memphis Three.

There has always been a drug-addled, mentally unfit quality to cut-up style writing. Whenever I read it, I both understand and fail to understand its appeal. Skinny Puppy is notorious for using this kind of masked vs. direct meaning in their albums, but through the filter of The Process Church of the Final Judgement, I think the messages are too unstable. Part satire, part self actualization, part judgement, and part shock imagery, the lyrics fail to find a cohesion.  

Perhaps the most clear dilation on The Process Church’s method comes from “Amnesia”: “When adding no result / time’s a shallow digging through the mud / thrown out, so expendable / Intentions not up front / and the shit that’s never faced / reflects the sliver of god’s face / and looped / a flaw rotates forever unresolved.” Part self-help wisdom, part religious meaning. Time is expendable. A mistake rotates, looped over and over again in your mind, forever unresolved. These are the kinds of lyrics that, at twelve or thirteen, you can pick and choose from to make a twisted psychology. A corrupt meaning to the antagonism you are already, somehow, fostering for religion and society and death.

At any moment I can recite to you all the lyrics from “Cult,” flawlessly, because I played it so often. There’s something so perfectly sad about the way the song was laid out. Musically, it’s by far the saddest song in Skinny Puppy’s catalog for me. “Killing Game” comes close, of course, but has a different, less personal sadness. A subtle bass-heavy piano plays under the verse and a rising, momentary clip of violins boost the lyrics into a space of core emotion. By the climax, the intense emotional vulnerability comes to a head in many voices: “crescent moon, I’m cutting through,” one voice says while another yells “she’s the one I live for. I live alone. I live alone.” And no matter where I am, I feel it. “Burns inside, horribly. She lifts me to the spirit burns, the darkest hours. My corrupt brain is hurting. Once again, the door lies quiet. Left alone, I’m thinking of her. Sitting the burning clock of time.”

Then, I start the track over.

It so clearly spoke to me when I was thirteen, that now, at thirty-two I’m still whispering it quietly to myself whenever I know I’m about to go into a sad period. When depression is at the door, “Cult” is there to smother myself with; and that’s comforting. It brings to surface that hurt teenage hopeless romantic that lives problematically inside of me, still. Much like Nine Inch Nail’s “Hurt,” I believe this track is an all-time bummer. But it’s not alone on the album. “Amnesia,” which comes later and is much more energetic, shares this certain painstaking sadness. Buried in the looped scale and the deeply dynamic bass line, is a classical minor streak, which runs just under the surface. Songs like “Candle,” “Amnesia,” and “Cult” remind the listener: the edge is always near. The abyss waits below and it’s just as dark as you remember. Then finally, with “Cellar Heat” we are back where we started. The ambient tape loops from “Jahya” start again and closure has come, full circle. 

There are good albums in the more recent half of the band’s history, but for me it never quite gets back to the raw trauma that is so well embodied in this album. Through personal tragedy, through social tragedy, and through environmental tragedy, this album was brought somehow into the world, and I am thankful for it immensely as a fan. But I would never want anyone to go through that period again.

Rest in Peace Dwayne.

discogs.com image of The Process CD edition

Skinny Puppy’s The Process is my favorite Skinny Puppy album. For nostalgia reasons. For personal, deeply connected reasons. But also because it’s damn good. You can find it at your local used music store, or here on YouTube. (Note: This album is not available for digital purchase easily. You can find it on Apply Music and Amazon for digital purchase.)

Review: MSC & The Body - "I Don't Ever Want To Be Alone"

To talk about The Body, you have to first talk about the space they leave open for their collaborators. From early in their catalog, there has been a drive to be both devastatingly heavy but also unique. Like Thou, who are perhaps their only true contemporaries, you never quite know what will come with the next release. On core albums, where The Body come together as a duo to compose a set of new work, there is often a conscious direction, which also may include many collaborators. From as early as 2013’s Christ, Redeemers, The Body has worked with The Assembly of Light Choir and Chrissy Wolpert, who brought choral and clean-singing additions to balance to the crushing, often overpowering nature of their albums. Wolpert returned for 2016’s No One Deserves Happiness, when They Body set out to make “the grossest pop album of all time,” which combined their knowingly heavy sound with what the album description on Bandcamp calls “80s dance tracks.” On tracks like “Shelter Is Illusory,” a drum machine is added to the plodding, nostalgically tom-heavy beat with just the hint of a synth melody buried somewhere deep in the atmosphere created by distortion.

Then, perhaps equally influential on the progression of their style and depth, The Body releases albums where collaboration is more the focus. In 2011, The Body & Braveyoung’s Nothing Passes was released, which featured a more cinematic atmosphere (created by stringed, almost atonal ambient arrangements), and begs The Body to slow even further. Braveyoung’s post-punk, delay and reverb heavy tone is given permission to be darker and The Body has space to, at times, be more beautiful.

Now, nearly ten years later, members of Braveyoung have formed MSC and are collaborating with The Body again on I Don’t Ever Want To Be Alone. While samples and looping has been filtered throughout The Body’s catalog in past releases (especially in the collaboration album with The Haxan Cloak, I Shall Die Here, where samples were deployed in a cleaner, death industrial meets Berlin school style), it’s never been used in quite this way. Deeply tonal, saw-heavy synth tracks like “Hell Is The Self”, which border on witch house levels of side-chain ducking and instrumentation (a la bands like D E P R E S S E D 0 4 0), are presented next to tracks like “All See What Other Sees,” which has a much more ethereal, almost uplifting quality and a sample that could have been pulled from a radio hit. It’s catchy in a way that doesn’t feel right for the other elements of the song, but somehow works so well. Despite the punching, bass-heavy drums and the ever-filtering distorted pads, the song maintains a driving energy, which is how I feel about the entire album. Even with different elements and styles, there is a strong through-line between every track (something I believe is accomplished by using a carefully curated palette of distortions and instrumental tones). I Don’t Ever Want to Be Alone is a devastating and diverse album that both highlights and challenges the sounds of two seemingly different tone-heavy projects to great effect.

I Don’t Ever Want To Be Alone is out now. MSC’s first and second EP were combined recently on Bandcamp to make the release I Close My Mind and Lock It. The Body has a new album out on January 29th called I’ve Seen All I Need To See.

Review: Deli Girls - "BOSS"

It’s easy to feel like not much has changed with Deli Girls between albums – the gritty instrumentation and alternatingly spoken and screamed vocals is a pretty straight line between Evidence (2017), I Don’t Know How To Be Happy (2019), and their newest album, BOSS (2020). The production is a little cleaner each album – despite the grit, there’s a clearer separation between instruments and the vocals gain more presence – but the rage is always there.

I Don’t Know How To Be Happy, one of my favorite albums of 2019, was unrelentingly aggressive. Every moment of that album I wanted to jump around and smash into things. BOSS continues this aggression, but also has a few softer moments, vulnerable moments even, that clarify the anger of the rest of the album.

The first moment where BOSS sets itself apart is the opening to “motherless fuck.” The instrumentation drops from the driven bass line into some softer digital strings, heavy breathing, and chord plucks. The vocal delivery is still screaming but against the backdrop of this instrumentation it feels more vulnerable – the delivery feels more aware of the hurt behind the anger. 

Another moment like this is the end of “loaded gun.” The frenetic, hardstyle-level energy of the song drops away at the last moment, leaving soft reverberating piano as a backdrop to a scream that feels like it’s pushed through sobs. This switch up makes the emotions before and after even more powerful; the moment of vulnerability makes the anger feel that much stronger when “feedback/failure” (featuring LEECH) begins.

Deli Girls’ collaboration with the amazing LEYA on “barriers to love” marks another wonderful moment of divergence from the hard driven sound that permeates Deli Girls’ work. Harps, strings, and guitars create a discordant ambience, and Danny Orlowski’s vocals are positioned a little further back, awash in reverb. It creates a haunting effect; a new and different kind of unease than I’m used to from Deli Girls.

The closing track of BOSS is a final moment of vulnerability, a final contrast to the animosity that paints most of the album. “all the things i’ve done” pairs more slow builds, pads, and synths –  like those found in the opening of “motherless fuck” – but in this case the song is completely built on and committed to this emotional texture. Orlowski’s vocals start in a spoken word cadence, slowly moving into the sort of sobbing scream heard in “loaded gun.” There’s moments of hope buried in the anger:

Are you with me? Are you with me then listen and all is forgiven

What means more than forgiveness? We want the same shit, it’s not giving in, it’s just giving a shit

Just loosen your grip and you’ll start to feel things

BOSS is a brilliant album. It’s easily in my top albums of 2020, and I think what makes it so strong is Deli Girls' use of the dynamics between rage and vulnerability make both feelings stronger. I love the ferocity of Deli Girls – “no such thing as good and evil” is easily one of my favorite songs on the album, a perfect anthem for a messy year. Its distilled anger is made that much stronger by the moments we find just after in “motherless fuck”; moments of quiet, like we find in “barriers to love,” provide the space to hear the anger all the clearer.

BOSS is the third album from Deli Girls, and is available on their Bandcamp.

Review: Chris Gooch's Graphic Novel "Under-Earth"

Chris Gooch’s “Under-Earth” (Top Shelf Productions, 2020)

Under-Earth is a story about human capital. In a world seemingly deep inside our own, there is a super prison shanty town made out of consumer waste and blood. Literally thrown in, on the first few pages we meet a new arrival – Reese Dixon – who has been charged with assault and witness tampering. Pushed from a moving helicopter by a faceless, masked guard, Dixon descends into darkness and falls deeper into a soft slime-mountain of waste. Delforge. A brutalist tower stands in the distance, but below, all around, men in striped jumpsuits cart bags of debris.

Chris Gooch’s “Under-Earth” (Top Shelf Productions, 2020)

Under-Earth is split into two competing, but deeply connected narratives. We follow Reese Dixon, who works in an even deeper pit collecting valuable waste, which he then exchanges for tokens to eat and sleep inside a building; and Ele, who is part of a two-person thief team, earning a living through small time heists. Ele’s world is toned yellow, which is an easy device to tell the two storylines apart but also an effective way to show character outlook and add another layer to a disgusting looking world. The art style is crudely intentional; heavy blacks and screentone shadows give the environment a sick feeling that does a lot of work to push the narrative along. You can feel the world is crowded and impoverished. You can feel the people walking around are at once a part of a large machine but also have their own despair. Bodies are hunched. Stall-sellers sit on the ground and negotiate high rates for nearly-broken, above-ground relics. The world is filled with collapsing things.

Chris Gooch’s “Under-Earth” (Top Shelf Productions, 2020)

While the social questions raised by how these characters are forced to exist and work set the backdrop, it’s also a narrative about people; about human connection and relationships. Reese makes a connection with another worker, Malcolm, who shows him how to survive in their environment. He buys him a meal, he shows him where to get a cheap room. Their relationship is slow and their friendship is tested, but most importantly their language is subtle. The deep feelings you interpret – in the silences and the time away from each other – adds emotional weight to their story. You can feel the choices being made. In an interview with Australian Broadcasting Company, Gooch said the characters speak to “what we want from each other and how we don’t often communicate it properly,” which I think is very clear in this relationship between Reese and Malcolm.

The story and the environment were interesting, but for me the book came together at page 117 (out of 560), when Malcolm is back in his room, with sheets for walls, and begins to read a discarded journal he found hidden in a wall of the pit where they collect valuable waste. “To whoever finds this – even if it’s just the maggots,” it begins. “I’ve started to recognize people out of the corner of my eye - people from above, people who have no business being down here. I yell at them – chase them down – but when I get there they’ve changed. It’s not them anymore. It’s just some guy I’ve never seen before.” This additional narrative - this anonymous journal entry - externalizes the quiet nature of personhood. The author begins to list the things they can remember from before they were sent to Delforge – “I remember the trees. I remember the sky. I remember how quiet it could be.” – and it’s devastating. Suddenly this fun crime and heist story has an emotional screw, and it’s turning deeper in.

Chris Gooch’s “Under-Earth” (Top Shelf Productions, 2020)

There’s a lot to say about the depth and viewpoint of the narrators. About nostalgia and being stuck in a place by force. Under-Earth is a quick and fascinating read at 560 pages. It sank into me and I had to finish it in two sittings. I dreamed about it. I woke up and made notes on its themes. I focused this review on one side of the narrative (and barely scratched the surface of what happens) because I want you to read it and be sucked in like I was. I connected more with Ele’s story, which should tell you a lot about why I chose to talk about Reese Dixon instead. There’s so much and Gooch’s style is so effective at delivering.

Under-Earth by Chris Gooch is published in the US by Top Shelf Productions and is out now.

Review: Eartheater - "Phoenix: Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin"

Eartheater’s new album, Phoenix: Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin, is a powerful mix of intimacy and vulnerability - a longing for feeling and knowledge that overpowers reason and drives towards destruction and rebirth. 

Sonically, Eartheater moves elegantly between traditional instrumentation and a chopped up electronic soundscape. One great example of this is the transition between “Below The Clavicle,” which at its foundation has a sort of wandering harp melody backed up by strummed guitar, layered with swelling strings, and “Burning Feather,” a song built on distorted vocal chops, scattered synthetic noise, and bitcrushed screams. Despite the sharp tonal differences, these songs feel perfectly at home next to each other. 

These transitions occur throughout the album and flow into each other. “How To Fight” contains traces of the chopped up vocals of “Burning Feather”; “Kiss of the Phoenix” pairs its uncomfortable distorted soundscape with the sweeping beauty of the harp heard in earlier compositions. You can trace the lines from the start to the finish - despite the clash of sounds nothing feels out of place or unintentional.

The compositional approaches mirror the themes of Phoenix - a collision is at the heart of the album. The earth moves, changes, and flows - volcanoes erupt, plates smash together to create mountains. Tectonic smashing and colliding, the forming of the earth, the reforming of foundations - maybe through this destructive collision we find something new in ourselves and thus are reborn through physical acquisition of knowledge. The titular phoenix rises from a foundational self-destruction that is both violent and beautiful.

The lyrics and tone of the album communicate a powerful feeling of longing for touch, but also a sadness, a fear of the change that this physicality can bring. In “Airborne Ashes” we hear the refrain “the only way out is through . . . born out, born out of it.” “Below The Clavicle” feels like it’s reaching out, grasping for touch, yearning for a knowledge that only the body can find. In “How To Fight” we reach some sense of triumph, but it’s still reserved, like there is a worry that the sought-after rebirth can be lost. In “Diamond In The Bedrock” there is a sense that something has been learned through the pressure and calamity, but there’s also a feeling of at what cost? 

It’s not until the final track, “Faith Consuming Hope,” that it feels like our narrator has come to any sort of peace, but even this final peace is uneasy. We repeat, “The only way out is through . . . born out, born out of it”; we hear “hope has a leak for doubt to seep in . . . faith has no doubt.” A death, a rebirth, and something new, exciting but unknown and unsure.

Eartheater is a New York based multi-instrumentalist. Phoenix: Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin is available now through PAN.

Review: Offermose - "Stilhedens Tårn"

Offermose is atmospheric dungeon run. Part atmospheric black metal, part dungeon synth, part outrun. If Lorn were to collaborate with the instrumental parts of Wolves in the Throne Room (or maybe depressive black metal band NONE) you would get somewhere close to Offermose’s new album Stilhedens Tårn. There are moments where I forget where I am, deep in the trance of filtered drones and kinetic, plucky outrun style leads. I’m in the forest, in the rain, in the coming winter. It’s cold and dark. Cinematic. But always subtle.

I’ve had “Stilhedens Tårn” on repeat since the pre-order. It’s perfect for writing in the evenings.The soft, moody, filtered pads are so expertly tuned to the deep sadness one can only experience through the expression of someone else. Under this, almost too quietly, a screaming, growling, (sometimes) crying voice reverberates, adding to the droning waves.

Drums are only used when they need to be. Most of the album is pure cohesive atmosphere. But on tracks like “Sjælens Ruin,” we’re treated to a very subdued outrun dance beat. It’s slow and driving, not over-stated. This is the middle point of the album and the only track with a direct beat, which I think is an interesting but necessary choice - it breaks the tension without straying from all the darkness that’s been built up to this point.

Kim Larsen from Of The Wand and the Moon, who was featured prominently in the first track of Offermose’s debut album, returns on the track “Seklernes Nat” to provide additional synth work. Also featured on synths for the track “Langs Skæbnens Kyst” is fellow Den Sorte Død collaborator Angst. I have to admit, I didn’t find much of a characteristic difference for either of these tracks, but I believe this has more to do with the album’s cohesive tone and mood than a lack of influence.

This album is also the official soundtrack for the Tower of Silence: the End of Prophecy board game, which is included with the purchase of the album (print & play). Designed by Jacob Schmidt-Madsen and Anders Nydam, Tower of Silence appears to be the most Dungeon Synth game ever created: players arise as shipwrecked souls, washed ashore in hopelessness. To find peace, they must climb the mountain and reach the tower. I haven’t had the opportunity to play the board game yet, but it looks cool as hell.

Offermose’s new album “Stilhedens Tårn” is out now on Third Coming Records.

Review: Oneohtrix Point Never - "Magic Oneohtrix Point Never"

Magic Oneohtrix Point Never is a study on change and seeking meaning in the unwanted. Drawing from pop, new age, and easy listening, with a thoughtful and curious experimentation, Magic… turns simple sounds into lush compositions that pull you in and carry you through an unforgettable album.

Magic... is built on a constant sensation of change and transformation. Instrumental or sample heavy interludes appear between many songs, giving a sort of tonal context to be interpreted through the following track. Some, like “Bow Ecco”, provide a raw musical framework for what will come next. Others, like the four “Cross Talk” interludes, exude a chaotic energy that is reminiscent of a Lizzie Fitch & Ryan Trecartin film.

The songs often feel like vignettes, sliding and morphing through their time. “Auto and Allo”, for example, starts with a chaotic, arhythmic scattering of chimes and vocal sampling before melting into a cascade of synths, strings, and effected singing. Similarly, “The Whether Channel” spends its first half oscillating between a soft melody built by swelling synths decorated with a rhythmless bleeping, and a buzzy, chaotic mash of saws, plucked strings, and pads. Seamlessly, it moves from these contrasting tones into a disconcerting mash of distorted vocal samples before giving way to a rap section which pulls apart at the seams, the vocals disintegrating into a bit mashed buzz.

This micro-movement approach to composition keeps the fabric of the album cohesive, even when tonal shifts between individual tracks are enormous. “No Nightmares” feels almost like it could have been pulled from a radio hit, but tonally smashes into “Cross Talk III”, a collage of disconcerting and highly processed vocal samples, which in turn leads into the chaotic introduction of “Tales from the Trash Stratum”. Despite the wildly different tones and instrumentation, these shifts feel right - they serve to underline the thesis of transformation and change that carries us through the album.

As infatuated as I am with these shifts, it’s easy for me to imagine someone unfamiliar with Oneohtrix Point Never’s work being overwhelmed - it’s certainly not a deeply accessible work. While I find myself carried by the rapid shifting not only from song to song, but even within individual tracks, I can imagine hearing the album and becoming frustrated and anxious from the lack of closure. This lack of closure, though, is integral to the themes of the album. Change is often anxiety-inducing and uncertain, and it happens faster than we can be ready for it. Magic Oneohtrix Point Never embraces the uncertainty of change, and revels in both the anxiety and beauty of it.

Magic Oneohtrix Point Never is available now from Warp Records. 

Review: Lauren Bousfield - "Palimpsest"

As 2020 comes closer to its end, I find myself returning to an album that says it was released in July, but feels solidified in my “this has been my favorite for years” list. Out from Deathbomb Arc, Palimpsest by Lauren Bousfield is perfectly attuned to how I’ve felt on most days this terrible year. A single song can swing so wildly from erratically noise-driven breaks to hard thumping, soul-driving rhythms that it lulls me into a kind of messy trance-state. 

“Adraft,” the second track, is where I recommend people start when checking out this album for the first time. The song’s moody, soft bass drives through many stages of buildup and teardown to construct a deep, foundational atmosphere that holds the rest of the album together. The voice is a rhythm element that often drives into brilliant epochs of breakbeat modular madness. But it never feels out of control or, perhaps more importantly, out of character for the album’s palette. 

The precision of Palimpsest’s tone is impressive. Even the end of “Clean Strategic Narratives. . .”, which is a slow and overdriven decline into a full wall of chaotic noise, leads to the calm and reliable bass rhythms of the next track, “Another World is Possible - Presented by US Bank”. Familiarity lulls you in and you’re bobbing your head, and the next track after that starts, which is also beautifully rhythmic and soothing in a way, and then the wheels fall off the car, and the boards break loose from the floor you’re standing on, and the windows shatter all around you – but you kinda like it. It feels comfortable. Like a blanket of saw wave chaos.

Palimpsest is an album that creates images. Cinematic and orchestral, rage and chaos. The thrashing breaks fall away, shifting almost to the back of your mind, and the violins of “Crawling Into A Fireplace Cackling” come to the front of the album, preparing you for the title-track end. For a moment you’re running through a rainy night, out of breath with freedom, and when you stop the entire world unfolds in shattering trance gates above you. Life flashes, it’s quick, and everything collapses into chaos again, but the voice is an anchor and you make it through to the next track.

The images, the cohesive (but broken) drum work, and the album’s carefully designed sound palette all come together to make this album work. In previous releases, like 2017’s Fire Songs, a similar chaos is used, also to great effect, but at the core of Palimpsest is a more considerate maximalism and expert sound design. 

Lauren Bousfield is a composer and sound designer. Palimpsest was released in 2020 on Deathbomb Arc. For more of her releases, check out her Bandcamp page. 

Poltergeists: Week of March 20, 2017

Michael

VVITCH - “Homecoming”

This is a super chilled out song from VVITCH. It took me a little bit by surprise at first, but the more that I listened to the track, the more consumed I became. The drum sounds are just complicated enough to keep me interested in what is going on, but not distractingly so. The mix on this song is really well balanced and I think that really helps with the flow once the bass and drums kick in to the main pattern. The artwork too - what initially drew me in - is incredibly on point with the atmosphere of the track. I’m having a hard time deciding whether the song needs to be longer, with a few more pattern changes, or if the current length is why it feels like it flows so nicely, but at any rate it is a great song that could easily fit into a blackgaze album’s interlude.

VVITCH is a Swedish project that has many influences and a really wonderful output. You should check them out on Bandcamp and buy some of their tracks!

Heretoir - “The Circle (Omega)”

It is a little bit sad to me that bands have to declare that they are anti-fascist in advance in this genre, but it is still nice to know! Heretoir make a point to delve deep into the emotional journey of “a life dedicated to the sun and to freedom” with their new album, The Circle. “The Circle (Omega),” is a powerful journey in itself. It is the only preview track up right now on their Bandcamp, so it is hard to say, but this track has such a powerful sound that I hope reflects the rest of the album - from a soft violin, to an intensely melodic verse, to an emotional, screamy chorus section, and back again. The singing reminds me of Alcest a lot, which is not only a good thing but important to note because Neige of Alcest does guest vocals on a different track. The path through this song is very deliberate to its name. The track circles back to the intro violins and adds some more emotion to it before kicking back into the heavier stuff again. I am definitely looking forward to this album’s release on the 24th of this month.

Wes

Mansion - “California Priest”

Mansion was recommended by Aaron Rieseberg in our latest episode, and it is some wonderfully weird and heavy stuff. “California Priest” is an interesting example of how Mansion touches on some poppier sensibilities in the midst of their noise rock deliveries. Low and quiet in the verses, discordance is created with the strange guitar tone against the vocal delivery. When the chorus does hit, it hits hard, bring the noise part of noise rock fully to bear, heavy chords building a wall of sound. At the end of the track, Mansion breaks away into almost a chant, punctuated by a guitar tone that sounds almost like something I would expect from a power electronics group messing with a loop pedal. After the structure of the rest of the song, it is an interesting and effective break to take us into the end.

Mansion was a noise rock band from Oakland, California. Their latest release, Early Life, is a free download on Bandcamp.

Heinali - “Sway, sway”

I was sent Sway, sway as part of the Telekon music exchange, and wow, what a beautiful piece of music. The title track is a wonderful movement of piano - the arpeggios on the lower keys present a backdrop of softness, almost somber. When the higher keys come into play, they initially dance in that beautiful sort of sadness before move even higher and creating a feeling of sort of tense hopefulness. There is a simplicity to the overall sound and delivery of the piece, but the minimalism works incredibly well. I’ve not had this long and have already listened to it  more times than I could count.

Heinali is a composer from Kiev, Ukraine. His latest release, Anthem, is available on Bandcamp via Injazero Records.

Poltergeists: Week of February 20th, 2017

Michael

ESA - “The Hold (Tight Grip Remix by ESA)”

Negative Gain Productions have a pretty consistently awesome set of releases and I tend to check in on what they are doing often. This release, though, needs no introduction! ESA (Electronic Substance Abuse) is a project that I can count on to be both dance beat heavy and emotional. Jamie has a way of making even the danciest tracks very dark and this EP is no exception! “The Hold (Tight Grip Remix by ESA)” is an epic, and yet somehow more thumpy, version of the original track - which features vocals from Valeriia Moon. The cello intro to the track is great - it has a wonderful dark folk feel and sets the stage for the pulsing, semi-tribal beats that are to come. There is an iVardensphere remix on this EP, but I didn’t review it because Scott is too cool for school and the Tight Grip mix had clear and wonderful cellos.

ESA (Electronic Substance Abuse) is the (mostly) solo project of Jamie Blacker and is one of those bands you should see live if you have the chance!  

Threads - “Words That Rhyme With Loneliness”

I have been getting into really minimal lo-fi atmospheric black metal recently. The emotions and the atmospheres are so sincere and mesmerizing. “Words That Rhyme With Loneliness” is one of many great tracks on Thread’s 2016 release As The Pale Chorus. A lot of the tracks contain a lo-fi spoken word section in place of vocals that I highly encourage you to translate if you have a minute. The writing is beautiful and tragic; it passes from hopeful life to a dark and lonely death. Here is a short passage translated from Spanish to English via Google Translate (sorry): “Let us share the same dream and in eternity we will float to the end. We will change our skin into more grayish pigments and we will feed on joy.” It is not just the spoken word that brings me to this song though. There are many different guitar parts playing off each other deep in the background, swelling and evolving to set the tone.

Threads are a lo-fi blackgaze band from Guanajuato, Mexico and you can find their album As The Pale Chorus on their Bandcamp page.

Wes

HØUNDS - “Transfiguration”

HØUNDS sounds, to me, like what you would get if Author & Punisher suddenly got into future bass. “Transfiguration” is the clearest example of this I think. You start with a simple vocal sample, and that sample is turned into a rolling, distorted sort of instrument. Then, you have the almost sludgy doom metal pace of the drums - the weight of every hit of the “snare”, the way the kick ducks the heavy bass. The bass itself, and the way it rolls and is glitched, reminds me of something you might hear from a Saturate artist. I missed this album when it first came out in 2015, and I would really love to hear what HØUNDS is doing now.

HØUNDS is an electronic project from Los Angeles. Their latest album, OUR LOVE, is available on Bandcamp.

Grebenstein - “Black Hatch Dive”

Making an eight minute techno track that doesn’t get boring is quite the feat. There is something about the rolling of the deep bassline that has a gravity to it; it pulls you in with wave after wave. The track is almost hypnotic in the way that it moves - at times, all the percussion fades away, leaving you with that pulsing, rolling bass, and right as you almost forget that the percussion had been there in the first place it drops back in, amping up the energy of motion in the song. The changes as you move forward are small and subtle, but have a significant impact on the feeling of the track. Little clicks pop in a little past halfway through the track, and suddenly the feeling shifts from the hypnosis to almost a frenetic, panicked feeling to the sound. These clicks give way to a sort of high pitched whine that creates a feeling of unease in the listener. All these little changes in the emotional timbre of the track feel completely intentional, and the results are excellent and endlessly listenable.

Grebenstien is a dark techno project from Kassel, Germany. Their latest release, Gloss, will be available on Bandcamp 24 February 2017.

Poltergeists: Week of January 9, 2017

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.

Poltergeists: Week of December 26, 2016

Michael

AmeshA SpentA - “Faces”

The depth of this song is crazy. There are so many little elements in the background, especially in the beginning of the song, that stand out so clearly. Sébastien Béné-Le Touarin is a very talented producer and almost every track on the new AmeshA SpentA album, Simplexity, shows that he can compose really beautifully perfected masterpieces. “Faces” is the track that I would choose to show anyone what the entire album sounds like because I think that this one track contains so many wonderful parts that play out in more depth throughout the album. The way that it progresses from this kind of slow breakbeat mashup of plucking strings and subtle shifts in the rhythms to this giant guitar-driven conclusion is incredible. It gets really heavy at the end, but still maintains its clear, subtle nature and that is something that is really hard to do.

AmeshA SpentA is the solo work of the French composer Sébastien Béné-Le Touarin. The new album, Simplexity, is out now on Audiotrauma Records.

Von Magnet - “Growing vs. Fading”

I am late to the Von Magnet party and I am extremely sorry about that! I was searching through some of the older Ant-Zen releases this week and was drawn in by the artwork for Von Magnet’s ni prédateur ni proie: two hands clasped together with black paint dripping from them -- which seems simple, but is very beautifully done. The opening track, “Growing vs. Fading,” is chaotic and compelling in that it contains a lot of call-and-response type vocal exchanges between Phil Von and Flore Magnet. These escalate from just talking softly to each other to a dramatic calling out, switching to an English vs. French dialogue, and then back again to English entirely. It is extremely effective. The music that also escalates under this exchange is subtle and equally epic. Minimal drumming and atmospheric droning pass through a number of variations and additions. There are pauses in the songs that act as false endings, only to come back through again with more elements added.

Von Magnet is a collective project that has gone through a number of variations and incarnations in their long and obscure career. I would suggest going through all of their material, but I started with their 2008 album ni prédateur ni proie, which is up on the Ant-Zen Bandcamp page.

Wes

M‡яc▲ll▲ - “Faceted”

It just wouldn’t be right to let a new M‡яc▲ll▲ release go by unnoticed! M‡яc▲ll▲ continues to build on their past work, making small incremental changes to their presentation and sound. In “Faceted” we can hear almost what feels like a return to a more classic M‡яc▲ll▲ sound; fast moving synth lines, backed up by equally fast bass and shuffling kicks and hats push the song into a level of aggressiveness that I don’t typically associate with M‡яc▲ll▲, but it works very well. We have vocals again from M‡яc▲ll▲, vocoded and obscuring the still mysterious person behind the music. The song evolves quickly over the course of its seven minute playtime, making tonal switches at just the right moments and never becoming boring to listen to.

M‡яc▲ll▲ is a project of the post-witch house diaspora. You can find their latest release, Aberrant Symmetry, on their Bandcamp.

Cursive - “Staying Alive”

Provided to YouTube by Saddle Creek Staying Alive · Cursive The Ugly Organ ℗ 2003 Saddle Creek ℗ ℗ 2003 Cursive Released on: 2003-03-04 Music Publisher: 100th and Blondo Music (SESAC)/Beltaine Music (SESAC)/MRM Music (SESAC)/Knock 'Em Out The Box Music (SESAC)/Jitterbug (SESAC) Auto-generated by YouTube.

I have been listening to Cursive’s The Ugly Organ a ton over the past couple weeks. “Staying Alive” I think captures a lot of what I love about the album; from the twinkling guitars at the beginning of the track, to the noisy, chaotic center, there is always a feeling of raw emotionality, barely contained, always ready to explode. In the end, the cellos sawing gently under the refrain, “The worst is over”, signal a return to the songs early lightness. It’s a beautiful track that I can listen to over and over without ever getting tired of it.

Cursive is a post-hardcore band from Omaha, Nebraska. Their latest album, a re-issue of The Ugly Organ, is available from Saddle Creek.

Poltergeists: Week of November 28, 2016

Michael

Weak Wrists - “Wither”

Weak Wrists is a combination of two of my favorite music genres, which has been accurately coined “emoviolence” (emo/screamo and powerviolence). “Wither” features some of the great elements bands like Oathbreaker and Fvnerals brought to my previous Poltergeists: powerfully chaotic sections, a break into more structured aggression, a wonderful breakdown with clean and mournful vocals, and a great chant at the end. The self-titled debut is a well-balanced mix of intense tracks like “Trail Stained” or “Leave,” which come in at 44 and 28 seconds respectively, and tracks that give the album atmosphere and space like “The Weight” or “In The Tangled Branches,” where time is set aside for the quiet and clean moments. It has a great impact on the album’s layout.     

Weak Wrists is an emoviolence band from North Carolina. Their self-titled debut is out now on their Bandcamp page digitally.

Chrysalide - “All Demons”

Chrysalide has been a perpetual source of influence and solace, especially in times like these. I recently went back and listened to Don’t Be Scared, It’s About Life and Personal Revolution back to back, which I highly recommend for anyone who has not heard these albums, or if it has been a while and you’ve forgotten what they sound like. “All Demons” was the first track that I heard from Personal Revolution (because the promo copy I received digitally from the PR company was in alphabetical order) and it was a jarring but compelling transition from the tracks on Don’t Be Scared, It’s About Life. There are trap and other modern electronic music elements mixed with a pointed and very personal message, which prevails throughout the entire album. I don’t think there has been an album, or band, that has more accurately echoed my own views or experience overall. Tracks like “It Gets in the Blood” and “I Had a Dream” are so personal and seemingly secretive testimonials. It is really something special and great.    

Chrysalide is a noise industrial project from France and all of their albums are the best, end of story. You can get their music directly from their label, Audiotrauma Records.

Wes

Nico Muhly, Nadia Sirota - “Viola Concerto Part. I”

Dipping into classical music can sometimes be a nice break from the musical realms I normally operate in. To that end, this release that I found through Bandcamp Daily exemplifies all the things I love about classical music that I find missing from much of the other music I listen to.

This concerto starts out so beautifully; the swells and pizzicato combine to build a feeling not dissimilar from waking up. Over the course of the song the dynamic range is quite broad - there are moments of relative quiet and calm that are interrupted by bombastic stanzas filled with horns and percussion. The song is a story told in its sounds, the way the violin moves, the way the bass swells. It is a fantastic reminder of the things that music can do.

Nico Muhly is a contemporary classical composer; Nadia Sirota is a viola player and member of Alarm Will Sound, a chamber orchestra from New York. Their collaboration, Keep In Touch, can be found on the Bedroom Community’s Bandcamp.

Ganser - “Strategies for Living”

On such a good release, it was hard to pick just one song to write about. “Strategies for Living” is a fantastic piece. Starting with chunky basses and chaotic guitars, the song has a feeling of unease - a feeling accented by the soft buzz and squelching in the background. That feeling of unease gives way to a more direct aggression as the song fully kicks in. The vocals float above the mix, pulling back on that aggression just a little bit, creating a mood that I can’t quite define. “Strategies for Living” is a good example of how This Feels Like Living differs from Ganser’s earlier Audrey; where Audrey felt a little more classic post-punk with chorused guitars and floaty pads, This Feels Like Living feels far more driven by its guitar work.

Ganser is a four-piece post-punk group out of Chicago. Their latest release, This Feels Like Living, is available on their Bandcamp.

Poltergeists: Week of October 17, 2016

Michael

Preemptive Strike 0.1 vs. Wolfheart - “Planet Eradicated”

There are many times when I go into a release knowing full well that it may not be for me - having heard recently that guitars were added to the lineup, or that a traditionally pretty bland electronic artist is doing more traditionally bland things - and this was definitely one of those times. Preemptive Strike 0.1 is an artist that I generally like, but the concept for this album has been done really poorly a bunch of times. However! What sets this album apart from most of the previous efforts to bring metal and industrial into a true merriment is that Preemptive Strike 0.1 went out and recruited a bunch of established metal bands that had very distinct styles and just let them run with the track (from what I understand and can conceptualize from the music). It works effortlessly and seamlessly. With this Wolfheart collaboration especially, so many of the elements are perfectly placed within the established style. The synth elements aren’t too loud or crazy and the quality is really high. I am pleasantly surprised and really congratulate the Preemptive Strike 0.1 team for getting this release together.   

The Eternal Masters release can be purchased directly from the label via Bandcamp.

Street Sects - “Featherweight Hate”

Street Sects is abrasive and intense in so many ways. It is really an experience that is best served live and I encourage anyone to travel as far as you need to to see the show. “Featherweight Hate” is the song on their latest release, End Position, that really captures the live moments in my mind and satisfies that crafted, noisy, and pointedly calm intention that the duo has such a solid grasp on. A brash and quickly fired off introduction, a moment of quiet and calm breathing, and then hell. Pure hell in sonic form. We asked them in our forthcoming interview if it was difficult to capture the live feeling on a studio recording and after seeing the show, reflecting, and going back to the record I can now say that they really worked hard to capture the dynamics and overall intensity of the show. It is a different experience entirely, but a very good one.

Street Sects is on tour now! Their first full-length album, End Position, is out now on The Flenser.

Wes

Dear Deer - “Dear Deer”

I tend to find eponymous songs usually are a bit cheesy, but not so with Dear Deer’s “Dear Deer”. This track, from the moment it starts, drives forward with a sort of fury. The drums are unrelenting in their heavy, reverb drenched beat, and the vocals drip with malice. As the chorus hits, the guitars basically become noise machines, accented by hammering metallic percussion and the call and response of the two vocalists. The vocal style is reminiscent of Cerce to me; there is familiar sense of anger to it. I’ve enjoyed the whole record this track is pulled from, and recommend checking out the full release.

Dear Deer is a post-punk duo from Lilles, France. Their latest album, Oh My, is available on Bandcamp via Swiss Dark Nights.

Zosima - “Embryo”

This track is a slow moving, slowly evolving work of pure menace. Ambient drones make up the floor of the song, fading in and out, ringing in your ears. A kick is always accompanied by hits of static and metal, grinding away at your sense of comfort. Sampled bits of percussion, whirs, grinds, and screeches assist in this aggressive movement. The song feels like it should be fairly low-key, but the way these elements are tied together, coming in and out of the track, keep you on edge, waiting for the next scrapes and hits. Sit back with some headphones on for this one, close your eyes, and just feel it.

Zosima is an experimental techno project. Their release Metamorphosis is available from Noiztank on Bandcamp.

Poltergeists: Week of October 3, 2016

Michael

Null Command - “Shutdown Warning”

On our recent trip to Victoria, BC, we had the awesome chance to see a lot of really great bands play. Null Command was one of the stand-out ones for me. A husband and wife duo that had me interested from note one. This brilliantly crafted minimal synthwave hits really hard live. It was cool to see it come together live because a lot of the elements that you hear here on the recording were unique and randomized. The vocal style on these tracks fits well in the eerie atmosphere that is left between the minimal beats.

Null Command is a minimal synth duo from Victoria, BC. Their only recordings are raw demos on their Bandcamp.

WIFE - “Native Trade”

WIFE is one of the great projects that came out of the Haxan Cloak-ian style of strange electronic darkpop. I really love when metal guys go electronic with their solo projects because there are often elements that really shouldn’t cross over that end up working so beautifully. WIFE isn’t a harsh electronics project by any means, but the textures of the sounds and the start-stop functions of “Native Trade” bring something to this style of electronic music that really appeals to me. The intensity of this track is in the buildup and the tension between the silences.

WIFE is the project of former vocalist/guitarist of the metal band Altar of Plagues. His new album Standard Nature is out now on Profound Lore Records. Also, check out this article / interview with Thump about the release.

Wes

Rooksfeather - “A Life of Warmth”

This is a fantastic release. Rooksfeather has a really interesting blend of influences; there seems to be bits of industrial, witch house, and synth pop in here, with occasional hints of noise and chiptune. This particular track has a nice, chill flow to it. It moves from moments of melancholy to moments of hopefulness effortlessly, building atmosphere through chopped up vocal samples, pads and slow moving percussion. The end feels somehow triumphant - not explicitly so, but under the surface - and it’s subtlety is very effective. Be sure to give the whole album a listen.

Rooksfeather is an electronic project from Vancouver, BC. Her latest release, Deep Nausea, is available on Bandcamp.

Ansome - “Poldark”

I was recently looking for stuff in the vein of Schwefelgelb and was turned on to this release from Ansome. While it is not exactly what I set out to find, it is still a fantastic listen. Ansome is working in the growing field of industrial techno crossover (or is it techno industrial?). Driving beats, evolving slowly over the course of the track, are built upon with heavy percussion and feedback loops. The music never feels boring; it evolves constantly and meaningfully. It’s ebbs and flows never feel forced, and it keeps your head moving from start to finish.

Ansome is an industrial techno project out of London. Their latest release, Stowaway, is available from Perc Trax on Bandcamp.

Poltergeists: Week of September 19, 2016

Michael

DJ Shadow - “Organ Donor (Christine Remix)

Christine posted this remix as part of a November 2015 release called Brand New Furies, which was a collection of remixes and collaborations. I had not heard the original DJ Shadow song before writing this article because the track is listed simply as “Organ Donor” on the Bandcamp page, but if you look at the album artwork it clearly states that it is a DJ Shadow remix. Christine’s style - which I would say is like Justice covering John Carpenter songs in the best way - really lends itself to this style of music. I love how they took the scratch and vocal elements of the original and brought it into the fold with the distorted, heavy beats that are typically in their songs. The song works incredibly well.

Christine is a French duo that has a Bandcamp full of great jams! Their latest single, Howling Wave, is a song that I play whenever I get the chance to DJ.

Seagrave - “Bonjour Tristesse”

Seagrave is a band that I found while rummaging through the Art of Propaganda Records Bandcamp, which is one of those labels that has a very closely curated style with a specific sound. This album has a very similar style to Harakiri For The Sky and I immediately added it to my wishlist for further listening. The guitars and the blend of hardcore, atmospheric black metal, and shoegaze hooked right into my recent obsession with the post-black metal genre. There is something in “Bonjour Tristesse” that makes me want to leave town forever and live in the forest. It lives in the atmosphere behind the melodic black metal guitar work and the longing of the vocals throughout the album.

Seagrave is the solo project of J.J. from Harakiri For The Sky. His debut album, Stabwound, is out now on Art of Propaganda’s Bandcamp.

Wes

Starkey - “Aphelion”

I’ve had Oddyssey Five, the album “Aphelion” is pulled from, on repeat since I saw that it came out. “Aphelion” is a beautiful and brilliant example of the release overall. Where most bass music I hear lately is heavy on trap influence, “Aphelion” takes a more gentle, thought out approach. Slow builds, deep bass, and stuttering pads are led forward by arpeggiating leads that evolve seamlessly over the course of the three minutes of the track. There’s no big drops; instead, we get soft moments of quiet where the bulk of the instrumentation falls away, leaving the pads to carry the atmosphere forward through the end of the song. If more artists operating in the future and bass music sphere can take Starkey’s approach, I’ll look forward to dipping back into the genre more often.

Starkey is a producer from Philadelphia, PA. His latest release, Oddyssey Five, is available on Bandcamp now from Saturate! Records.

Minimal Violence - “Houses”

This new track from Minimal Violence - released ahead of their new Night Gym EP - shows how much the duo has grown since 2015’s Heavy Slave. Where tracks from Heavy Slave evolved in what felt a fairly straight-forward direction, “Houses” feels carefully planned. The changes in percussion are less predictable and more impactful for it.The little hits of pads, the little plucks of bass, are blended expertly into a song that feels almost narrative. There’s a tension between the at times frantic feel of the percussion and the gentle swells of the synth elements. It’s a great teaser for the album, and I can’t wait to see what the full release brings.

Minimal Violence is a techno duo from Vancouver, BC. Their latest release, Night Gym, is coming out on 1080p Collection later this month.

Poltergeists: Week of August 22, 2016

Michael

GosT - “Maleficarum”

GosT "Maleficarum" music video - directed by Daniel Schwartz (Astronoid). This is track number 8 on GosT's highly-awaited sophomore album, "Non Paradisi." The album will be released on September 30th, 2016 through Finland/USA label Blood Music. https://www.facebook.com/gost1980s https://www.facebook.com/BlooodMusic

Blood Music really knows how to pick out the haunting and dark outrun artists. GosT, who is often on tour with labelmate Perturbator, is spot-on with this music video in both vision and execution. It is a great way to present this style of music because when you see outrun videos you usually see a bunch of neon and futuristic skylines, but this is a lot closer to the version of the movie The Witch (2016) that I wanted: creepy, dark, and at times bloody. GosT does a good job of bringing distorted bass breakdowns, mixing them with a little bit of lo-fi synth, and then just punching it hard.  

GosT has a new album out September 30th on Blood Music called Non Paradisi. People are very stoked about it, and you should check it out.

Hante. - “Living in a French Movie”

First single of the EP "No Hard Feelings" to be released on September 6 through Synth Religion | http://www.synthreligion.com Directed & edited by Hélène de Thoury Filmed by Hélène de Thoury and Paul Vauvrey in June 2016 in the Pyrénées (France) Lyrics: Nothing's gonna happen I'm sinking in a fantasy If we love each other Why can't we be dreaming together?

Hante., who we have mentioned here before, is at it again with a great new music video to promote their EP No Hard Feelings. They’ve included the lyrics in the description of the video - which, if you are taking votes, is a much better way to do it than a goddamn lyric video - which is a great move for this song because the images in the video (showing a woman walking along a path who slowly starts to run through the forest, then later a car driving quickly through mountain roads) reflect the almost maudlin nature of the lyrics. The video is shot in the Pyrénées Mountains in France, but it could have easily been shot here in the Pacific Northwest. The trees and the beautiful lakes in the video make me want to run out of this office and up into the deep forest forever - which I think is the point of the video and the lyrics.

Nothing’s gonna happen
I’m sinking in a fantasy
If we love each other
Why can’t we be dreaming together?

Nothing’s gonna happen
I cannot stand reality
Does true love only exist?
I don’t want to live in a French movie.

The No Hard Feelings EP will be out September 6th on Synth Religion records.

Wes

Zanias - “Follow the Body”

Video filmed and edited by Zoè Zanias and Clay Adamczyk From the 'To the Core' EP [NTK007, September 2016] // Written and produced by Zoè Zanias and Alex Akers

The first track from Zoe Zanias’ solo project produces an interesting mix of responses from me. The music is both driving and danceable, but also almost relaxing in a way. While the percussion and bass push forward, the synthy string pads and Zanias’ vocal delivery pulls back, airy and thoughtfully paced; the contrast between the elements, rather than clashing, feels right.

It’s interesting - you definitely draw lines to previous work from Zoe Zanias. The vocal delivery isn’t so different from Keluar, and there is still sort of an EBM feel. However, where Keluar’s ties to EBM feel direct, Zanias feels like she’s pulling the parts of EBM she needs and discarding the rest, building a sounds that feels distinctly hers.

Zanias is the solo project of Zoe Zanias (Keluar/Linea Aspera). Her first release for this project, To The Core, will be released in September 2016 on Noiztank.

Chynna - “Reaper [prod. Park Ave]”

If you haven’t heard Chynna before, I don’t know why, but you’re really missing something. The production on this track is really fantastic; slow and moody, the sampled electric organ provides a great backdrop to Chynna’s fierce flow. Chynna has a diverse arsenal of cadences, but for the most part, she keeps it pretty consistent in “Reaper”. It feels purpose driven - she has something to say, and isn’t going to stop until it’s been said.

Chynna is a rapper from Philadelphia now based out of Brooklyn. Her latest release, Ninety, is available on Soundcloud.

Poltergeists: Week of August 8, 2016

Michael

Vinterriket - “Nächtens”

I have to admit that I stole this amazing find from Heathen Harvest this week - Patrick from Heathen Harvest has a really nice album review and brief band history up on their site now that I definitely urge you to check out - but I have a few things to say about the style of the track “Nächtens” from Vinterriket’s newest release Hinweg. There are so many classic influences in this track that are subtle and still very unique to the album. Dimmu Borgir’s debut album, For All Tid, has one of my all-time favorite opening tracks to an album - it is slow and pragmatic at times, taking on different forms through a few short minutes while still embodying one solid motion of sound - and I think that this track is the closest thing that I have found to that style of early symphonic black metal. The tone of the strings and the subtlety of the track, with a few short phrases - almost spoken - stands out against the signature ambient texture in “Nächtens,” and largely throughout the album. While there are more complex acoustic-guitar / traditional-folk driven tracks on the album, I believe that “Nächtens” really sets the tone for Hinweg, and the project.

Vinterriket’s newest album, Hinweg, is out now on the Russian label Kunsthauch and you can purchase it in many formats from their Bandcamp.

VALHALL - “Тили Тили Бом/Tili Tili Bom (ЈѴѕҬ ВӠӋӀЍЭ ҮѺЦ Edit)”

a Russian lullaby

VALHALL is rad as hell and you should buy everything they have out this very second, including their full length out on Storming the Base.

Wes

Makeup and Vanity Set - “Great Leader Has Fallen”

I don’t know how I haven’t already written about this; I’ve been listening to Makeup and Vanity Set’s Brigador, Vol. I over and over for a while now. While the whole thing is a lot of fun to listen to I really like the feel of “Great Leader Has Fallen”. The fast moving arpeggios at the beginning set up the tone of the song wonderfully; there’s a little bit of darkness, a little bit of nervousness. This tone is shifted by the pads and leads that follow, which add a sense of hopefulness - there is still that nervousness but it is tempered. The song drives you forward, and as you move forward the sense of hope builds and the dark, while still there, takes a back seat. I’ve noticed that one of the things I enjoy about synthwave acts is that despite whatever darkness the tracks carry, there is always this sense of triumph to the music, a sense of pulling through despite the odds; “Great Leader Has Fallen” carries that feeling through the bulk of the track as well.

Makeup and Vanity Set is a synthwave project from Nashville, Tennessee. Their latest release, Brigador, Vol. I, is available on Bandcamp.

S U R V I V E - “A.H.B”

I gotta say, with all the Stranger Things hype, it is nice to see other people getting as excited by SURVIVE as I am. I think much of what I said about SURVIVE before continues to hold true in “A.H.B”. The song is crafted beautifully; there are a all these great little transitions from phrase to phrase that move so seamlessly it almost feels improvised. The little plucks and pads meld together wonderfully - the sense of triumph mentioned in the above track continues through here. The elements are pared back to the necessities. Nothing feels unnecessary in “A.H.B”. Every swell, every hit of the metallic, almost trashy snare, feels carefully throughout.

S U R V I V E is a synthwave project out of Austin, Texas. Their latest release, RR7349, is available for pre-order on Bandcamp through Relapse Records.

Poltergeists: Week of July 11, 2016

Michael

Harakiri for the Sky - "Calling The Rain"

Forever in search of new black metal sub-genres, I found a band that efficiently and powerfully bridges the gap between two of my favorite genres - black metal and melodic hardcore. I originally discovered Harakiri for the Sky through the post black metal tag on Bandcamp - which is an entire can of wonderfully weird music that I have yet to fully open - and found their music to be perfectly melancholy and aggressive. Starting with their second album, Aokigahara, I found the style and construction of every song so beautiful and particular to a set of influences. III: Trauma takes so much of what made Aokigahara such a dynamic album and escalates it both in production and quality. The songs are tightly executed, impacting every moment with a brutally sad hammer, chipping away at what Cascadian black metal bands like Agalloch or Ghost Bath have so rightfully sent to the top of my list. “Calling The Rain” is the ideal opening track: slowly building forward, setting the stage for what is about to come. There are so many emotions packed into the first eleven and a half minutes of this album - death, despair, self-hatred, blame - nothing is spared. I am anxiously awaiting the July 22nd release date.

You can pre-order Harakiri for the Sky’s new album III: Trauma from Art of Propaganda Records through their Bandcamp.

La Dispute - "Hudsonville, MI 1956"

La Dispute so accurately fills the void that emotional hardcore bands like Have Heart or Verse (which are both currently inactive) have left. “Hudsonville, MI 1956” is an entire world built in four short minutes. The storytelling in this song is incredible - there are so many lines in the lyrics that are poetic in their nostalgia. I have never been in a tornado, but through this song I can picture the horror of the experience vividly. The music behind the lyrics, equally important to the feel of the song, is so accurately impactful - both beautifully melodic and full of great moments of aggression. Each instrument has its own space and is spotlighted with great talent. I wish that more people would focus on this style of storytelling in their music - it is so honest and the imagery is powerful. Take the first stanza as a brief example: “There are bridges over rivers, there are moments of collapse, there are drivers with their feet on the glass, you can kick but you can’t get out, there is history in the rooms of the house.”

La Dispute is a melodic hardcore band from Grand Rapids, MI. You can pick up their 2014 album Rooms of the House on their Bandcamp page.

Wes

Lakker - "Maelsantkering Gating"

This song moves slowly. It starts with an aural premise and carries it through, building from a series of simple clicks and pads into more driven and weighty percussive elements. Bells, or maybe some form of improvised struck metal, rings out a tone to accentuate the pads and tones of the percussive elements. It seems simple, but it is compelling. The simplicity lends itself well to the weight of the track, and when new elements - vocal stutters, twitching synth lines - are introduced they feel more impactful; the space they take up is noticeable immediately.

Lakker is an electronic project based in Berlin, Germany. Their latest full-length, Struggle & Emerge, is available on Bandcamp.

Proux - “Just For Me (Original Mix)”

Sometimes I just want to turn something on that is going to cheer me up. This track makes me want to dance around, smiling, and not thinking about all the awful garbage that has been happening over the past few weeks, months, years - however long your ruler for despair is. Proux does a good job of pulling in elements from disco and juke, putting together a funky, dancey track built of electric piano, vocal sampling, and slappy bass lines. While the track is short, and ends a little abruptly, while it’s going, it goes strong.

Proux is a nu-disco project from Tijuana, Mexico (according to their Soundcloud at least). Their latest release, Just For Me (Single), can be found on Bandcamp.