Archive for July, 2022

nihiti – Sustained

Posted: 31 July 2022 in Albums
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Lo Bit Landscapes – 7th July 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

Life has felt somewhat relentless of late. I do mean this on a personal level, although this is perhaps as much a result off external factors as anything else. The pandemic turned me into an addict. An addict of 24/7 steaming news, of doomscrolling, of relentless checking of social media. When things are constantly happening constantly evolving, it’s easy to find yourself dragged into the whirlwind, and ultimately to depend on the maelstrom. Silence becomes scary. You’re overwhelmed by the volume of emails, texts, FaceBook messages and WhatsApps and find yourself begging for them to stop, but when they do, you panic that something is wrong, that there’s something more sinister afoot, something isn’t working, or that perhaps you’ve died and haven’t realised.

Lately, there’s been a tidal wave of music that’s been created as a reaction to life in lockdown, to social tension, to the mental health pressures of contemporary living. And I’ve been lapping it up, I’ve been loving it. Because people are bringing issues out into the open, and speaking in their own voice about the difficulties we’ve all been facing, relaying those relatable traumas. But I’ve started to feel more like a silent counsellor rather than a music critic. It’s a truism that a problem shared is a problem halved, unless you’re the recipient of all of the sharing. Sometimes, you need a break. Sometimes, you need to let all the tension go, and to simply float.

Nihiti’s Sustained is the perfect antidote to all the tension. It consists of three slow-moving ambient works, extensive in their duration. The shortest, ‘Tetrachrome’ is almost ten minutes long, and it opens with the immense, twenty-one-and-a-half-minute soft soundscape of ‘Stellar Observer’. I sit back by candlelight and close my eyes, and feel my jaw slowly unclench, and my shoulder blades gradually begin to loosen. It’s soporific, deep ambience that washes over you and with washing waves of sound and soft, elongated mollifies drones that drift like vapour. It isn’t without turbulence, but said distortion and treble waves crash a way in the distance and charge against a backdrop of slow undulations. The broad, textured sounds are indeed sustained, for what feels like eternities, and the yawn that swells in my jaws is one of relaxation rather than boredom.

There are glitches and switches in ‘If the Colour’ that disturb the flow, and you almost feel yourself tripping momentarily, like a sleep twitch, but things soon right themselves again, and you resume your calmness, despite scratchy samples and moments of dissonance, because in the overall sensory experience, Sustained is slow and gentle.

Breathe it in, absorb the vapours. Ignore the distant voices as they whisper and echo, and assume they mean no harm, despite the darkening sky toward the end. Let it simply hang in the air: sit back, turn down the lights, and tune in to your inner voice instead of the inaudible mutters. Trust your instruct. Trust the space. Absorb the calm.

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Listen: Forest Nocturne demos by The Lord

Posted: 30 July 2022 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Southern Lord continues the label’s prolific output with the release of a new album: Greg Anderson’s debut full-length as The Lord, Forest Nocturne, which we recently reviewed here at Aural Aggro.

Additionally, The Lord has unveiled the Forest Nocturne demo recordings, originally only available on the Daymare Records Japanese CD edition, now available via Bandcamp.

You can get your lugs round the demos here:

Forest Nocturne sees Anderson (guitarist of SUNN O))), Goatsnake & Southern Lord curator) taking cues from legendary film composers: John Carpenter and Bernard Hermann, in order to create cinematic landscapes which are heavy with tension, and offset by the injection of lethal doses of early 90s Scandinavian Death Metal – with Attila Csihar (of notorious Norwegian black metal band Mayhem & frequent SUNN O))) collaborator) lending his putrid vocals to final track "Triumph of the Oak."

For Forest Nocturne, Anderson worked with renowned producer Brad Wood. Dan Seagrave’s epic and fantastical style is instantly recognisable on the album’s startling artwork, something which seems to depict an ancient and unknowable force in the woodlands. Forest Nocturne is described by Anderson as “music of the night,” but inspired by imagery conjured on daytime hikes, and majestic, beautiful trees, which he sees as survivors – perhaps the last known connection that we have to an ancient world, and acting as a connector between past, present and future of the human race and of our time on this planet.

Greg Anderson began making music in the mid-eighties with hardcore bands False Liberty and Brotherhood before refining his musicality during the nineties with the post-hardcore collective Engine Kid. From that point on, the musical direction started shifting, channelling his love of tone, riffs and repetitive sound, vital elements that feed into the meditative cosmos of SUNN O))), and the ‘low and slow’ sounds of Goatsnake, both of whom find different ways to move beyond confines and tropes of their respective sound worlds.

In August and September 2021 respectively, Greg Anderson released two singles under the name The Lord; "Needle Cast" with Robin Wattie (the unmistakably emotive vocalist of BIG|BRAVE) and "We Who Walk In Light" with William Duvall (of Seattle rock legends Alice In Chains and hardcore-punk group Neon Christ). Unintentionally moving in a different direction from those bands within which he found his feet, Anderson was able to take on the mantle of The Lord in a new, pictorial approach to heavy music. Through this process, he found himself moved to collaborate with vocalists he admires.

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Watch: ‘Careless’ by A Projection

Posted: 30 July 2022 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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A Projection are a post-punk/darkwave act from Stockholm, who signed to Metropolis Records in 2019 for the release of their well received third album, Section. Initially inspired by the dark post-punk/proto-goth of The Cure, Sisters Of Mercy and Joy Division along with the electronica of Depeche Mode, the band are known for their compelling and dynamic live shows.

Following Section, the group released the singles ‘Darwin’s Eden’ and ‘No Control’ that saw them enter a more danceable electronic realm while still embracing their darkwave roots. Their brand new single, ‘Careless’, offers a further example of this sound and provides a taster for a forthcoming album that will be released via Metropolis in late 2022.

Recorded both during and after Covid lockdowns, ‘Careless’ reflects the restlessness and hope of the last two years. Additional recording assistance was provided by fellow musicians that included Henrik Linder of the group Dirty Loops.
The video for ‘Careless’ was made by Ukrainian filmmaker and artist Shorkina Valeri and shot in the band’s home city of Stockholm.

Watch the video here:

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alien machine – the sea complains

Posted: 29 July 2022 in Singles and EPs
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30th June 2022

James Wells

‘i write weird songs for weird folks’ writes alien machine, all in lower case. ‘A solo artist pretending to be a 3 to 5 piece garage punk outfit,’ ‘the sea complains’ is their fourth release. Details of this US-based artist are sparse to non-existent, but it appears that having emerged in 2014, they lay creatively dormant before deciding to reconvene with racketmaking during the pandemic, which seems to be a common thing as people sought ways of dealing with the strangeness and the isolation.

This is raw, primitive, and psychotic. The skewed, angular, murky mess of the first track, ‘math’ sounds like it was recorded on a Dictaphone in the living room while the band play their first rehearsal in the basement. The overall effect is very much early Pavement (pre-Slanted, those EPs collected on Westing were betonf lo-fi) / Silver Jews lo-fi so slack as to not give a shit about being in time / holding a tune / anything at all really, and it’s played with the wild, frenzied mania of Truman’s Water. Then again, ‘coward’ is a pulverising screamo-fest that brings in elements of Shellac, the guitars sliding and jerking in all directions over a loping drum beat, and closer ‘aquaburst’ goes fill Truman’s, with clanging Big Black guitars and everything going off all at once, but not necessarily in the same key or time signature.

It’s a headache-inducing discordant buzz, and it’s wonderful.

There’s nothing particularly weird about this – although fans off mainstream chart music would likely disagree – but it is a hard-on-the-ears trebly racket, that’s so slack it can’t even be arsed raising a finger to production or concessions to clean sound. It doesn’t get much more DIY than this.

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CUFFS – Cash Cow

Posted: 29 July 2022 in Singles and EPs
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1st July 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

Bristolian punk foursome CUFFS have been kicking out the jams – and the meaty, gut-busting riffs – since 20019, and they sure as hell haven’t let anything like a global pandemic slow their progress. It may have stalled their gigging activity for a while, where, on the live circuit in the south they’ve been building a reputation for their ‘chaotic’ live shows, but they’ve maintained a stream of hard-hitting singles which, as they put it, are ‘fuelled by angst and social frustration’. Oh yes, we feel it. At least, anyone who’s not on £80K a year does – especially if you believe plants on Question Time who spout off about people being on £80K not even being in the top 50% of earners, let alone the top five. Of course, such embarrassing outbursts only highlight just how divided the nation is between the haves and the have-nots, and how utterly fucking deluded and completely out of touch the wealthy are when they cry poverty because they have to drop one of their quarterly skiing holidays.

Listening to this on the day it was announced that British Gas owners Centrica saw their half-yearly profits increase five-fold to a staggering £1.34BN, against a backdrop of mass strikes from rail workers, barristers, and, imminently teachers, exam boards, health workers and more, because they’re so sick of being shafted and having to resort to food banks, everything comes together with a sickening thud. Profit before people, guns before butter, every time: the air is as hot with anger as it is climate change, and something has to give.

‘Cash Cow’ may contain a few obvious rhymes among its couplets, and even a couple that are awkwardly shoehorned, but they’re delivered with such passion and sincerity you forgive them in an instant. The guitars are a treble-mesh buzz, and ‘Cash Cow’ is a raw, blistering sonic assault, a blast of trad-punk but with a hard and hardcore edge and played with a furious ferocity that grabs you by the throat and screams at you to fucking listen. Wise up! The mega-rich are screwing us all. It’s time for change.

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Fantømex – Terraformed EP

Posted: 29 July 2022 in Singles and EPs
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3rd June 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

The best music is timeless. This four tracker from ‘lady fronted, post-hardcore influenced’ quartet, Fantømex, hailing from Asheville, North Carolina could have been released any time during the last thirty years or more, and that’s definitely a positive.

It slams in with the raging, angular grunge of ‘Fantomcatz’ that’s got strong echoes of early Hole or Solar Race, but amidst the screaming fury, there are some neat dynamics and a solid structure. ‘White Hole’ is lighter, popper – I mean, it’s all relative, it’s hardly fucking Beyonce – but it’s got something of a 90s Sonic Youth vibe to it, but then it goes full-tilt histrionic punk, before leaping back to being more Sonic Youth / Pavementy, and the guitars even jangle a bit, albeit briefly.

‘Gaslight’ is appropriately disconcerting, disorientating, and perhaps the most disjointed of the four tracks, but in context it works. It’s no sleight to draw a line to The Pretty Reckless with its more overtly ‘rock’ sound, before they round it off with a jarring slew off guitars that’s like a mathy mess squished into a melodic tune delivered with punk attitude, but at the same time, when she’s not spilling her guts, Abigail Taylor proves she’s capable of delivering a melody that can really tug at the heartstrings.

And so it is that in the space of around eighteen minutes, Fantømex whip together a whirlwind of musical styles and emotions, and do so with both style and force.

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Sleep Kicks – No Chains

Posted: 29 July 2022 in Singles and EPs
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29th July 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

There’s something quite unique about the Nordic / Scandinavian strain of contemporary post-punk. It’s not easy to pinpoint, nothing you can really put your finger on. But there’s something in that balancing of light and dark, and it’s something I probably became subconsciously attuned to at an early age, listening to A-Ha in the mid-80s when I was still in primary school. I would only later come to realise just how strong the currents of darkness and melancholy ran through their precise pop songs, and that this was what the enduring appeal was years later.

Sleep Kicks don’t sound like A-Ha, of course, although the same basic musical elements are there, not least of all something of an anthemic 80s feel (although that’s more In the vein of The Alarm or Simple Minds and bands with a more overtly mainstream ‘rock’ style). ‘No Chains’ picks up were they left off last year, and they’ve been honing the contrasting elements. The song is dark, but also light, with layers of guitar and a full production that gives it an expansive feel, but it is, also, without question, a killer pop tune with an immense chorus that’s bold and uplifting, with a sweeping choral backing, which makes for a big, fat, juicy earworm.

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Watch: ‘Old Spirit’ by Lucid Grave

Posted: 29 July 2022 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Dark heavy psych/doom group Lucid Grave has unleashed the “Old Spirit” music video, made by Dóri Halldórsson and Amanda Jensen. “Old Spirit” serves as the second song from the Copenhagen quintet’s debut album, Cosmic Mountain, which came out on 15 July via Electric Valley Records digitally and on four versions of vinyl (Test Press, Solid Yellow, Transparent Red Splatter Black Vinyl, Ultra LTD “Cosmic Edition”).

Lucid Grave Informs: “‘Old Spirit’ is a heavy psych rock song with influence from the early ’80s punk. The song is about a fast spacy universe in-between two worlds. The song is inspired by the lead singer’s days in the high desert in California. The desert heat is hard on everything and everyone. And the wind still tells stories of the Native Americans, the legends of desert rock, and the military base in the unforgiven sun.”

Watch the video here:

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Lucid Grave is a dark heavy psychedelic band with stoner-doomy tendencies from Copenhagen, Denmark. Sonically, Lucid Grave is a boiling pot of heavy fuzz rock like Black Sabbath/Coven/Hawkwind and ‘80s punk like Black Flag/The Nuns/The Gun Club, all wrapped up in a nice blanket of modern heavy stoner rock and doom. Honoring the howling occult cinema of the ‘80s, Lucid Grave finds inspiration in everything that’s heavy, filthy, and free!

They emerged from the underground communal house and punk venue Ungdomshuset in the dying days of 2017. A few months later, in 2018, they released a self-titled demo and spent the next few years playing shows around Denmark with bands such as High Priestess, Cities of Mars, The Gates of Slumber, and Heathe, while making more materials as well. In 2020 Copenhagen label Virkelighedsfjern released Lucid Grave’s EP called Goddess of Misery, a venture seriously disrupted by the coronavirus outbreak — which meant no shows for a while. That time was instead spent on writing materials for their first full-length album. In 2021 they released a single called “Surfer Bat,” an upbeat ‘70s heavy Rock song with a twist of gothic punk vibes and a dash of Latin music. It caught the attention of the Italian heavy psych label Electric Valley Records.

Cosmic Mountain, the debut LP of Lucid Grave, is a journey through your favorite drugs of life, the highs, and the lows, being chased through the desert and fighting a haze of demons. The album was recorded live and over-dubbed in just three days at the beginning of 2022. As it was with the previous single, “Surfer Bat,” Patrick Fragtrup was again behind the mixing board for the session, and it is clear that there has developed an understanding between him and the band as this record sounds both huge and fierce without losing any clarity or energy from the group. The project was finished by Shane Trimble of High Reeper at his California studio.

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Scum – For Health and Well-Being

Posted: 28 July 2022 in Singles and EPs
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Fast & Bulbous Records – 22nd July 2022.

They’ve been described as sounding like the nagging repetitions of The Fall mixed with the fury of Black Flag, played at 100mph. band names don’t get much more punk than this. And they’re from Leeds, which has in recent years proved to be a hotbed of guitar-driven musical fury. This is what happens when a large city with lots of little venues finds itself in a different place from the rest of the country. Richly multicultural, innovative and entrepreneurial, with a large student population, it’s both a centre for tertiary industry and mass-scale redevelopment and gentrification as well as a place of terrible deprivation. So much for levelling up; so much for the northern powerhouse. But Leeds has always been apart, as its 80s musical heritage is testament to, and since the millennium, it’s been a hotbed of emerging styles, through post-rock and jerky, quirky indie, through math rock and all-out noisy shit, with countless bands emerging – and quickly fading again – in the process.

Scum have survived the pandemic, having formed in 2018, to drop a second EP, and the trio haven’t spent the time away figuring out how to make their millions writing pop songs.

On For Health and Well-Being, the trio are everything they’ve been described as, with a dash of Trail of the Dead tossed into the mix, and it’s a punky, energetic blend of styles that all point to energetic fury. The title tracks is a 25-second spoken word piece where a swell of noise and feedback rises in the background before halting abruptly and the full-throttle guitar attack of ‘Abuserism’ (the longest song at 3:30) piles in.

Blink and you’ll miss the 32-second ‘Vanity Support’: it’s the furious ‘Hard’ that really grabs the attention with its thick riffage and hardcore attitude, and the closer, ‘Intravenous Inconvenience’ powers it to a close.

Take same time out and give it a blast, and do it on work time. Because employers are all about supporting Health and Well-Being, right?

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E-volutionary Echoes: Kevin Thorne / We Be Echo interviewed by John Wisniewski

Posted: 28 July 2022 in Interviews
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On leaving the seminal is supremely underground Third Door From The Left in 1981, which emerged from the early Industrial scene as represented by Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle, Canadian Kevin Thorne began recording as We Be Echo, before halting abruptly in the mid-80s. After some time out, and some time spent working as LivingWithanAngel, Thorne resurrected We Be Echo, since when there’s been no looking back.

The pandemic proved to be a fertile time for Thorne, knocking out three albums and an EP in 2021. 2022 got off to a strong start with E-volution. With another album in the pipeline, John Wisniewski was fortunate to get some time to pitch some questions to Kevin Thorne about his remarkable recent output and reflect on his extensive catalogue and 40+ year career.

JW: What is it like recording your latest We Be Echo 2022 release, No Truth, No Lie? You have been recording for about 40 years now. What has kept you going?

KT: I sold off all my gear in England (in the early 90’s I believe, as my last release was ‘I Dance In Circles’ on LiveEvil’s A Conclusion Of Unrestrained Philosophy compilation CD in 1989), and stopped doing anything musically. It was a dark time for me. In 1998 I moved to Canada, and once settled I started experimenting with music again, this time digitally. It wasn’t until the pandemic started and I bought a bass guitar that I did so in earnest. Music flowed out of me almost faster than I could get it recorded. I released Darkness Is Home, The Misanthrope and Isolation in 2021, followed by E-volution in 2022. I’m over halfway through my second album this year, No Truth, No Lie, which has a somewhat different feel to it than the previous releases, and I’m immensely proud of the tracks on it so far. I have several other tracks recorded and finished that I feel are good but just don’t make the cut for this album.

I record because I enjoy it. Especially this past two years, when it’s been my therapy. Since Gen dropped her body, it’s also been my way to keep communication open. When a track comes together particularly well I feel Gen’s presence. I still get a thrill producing a song that I love, and I will continue recording until that stops.

After I release a new album I tend to go through a mini depression. Because I love the album so much, and out so much into it, when I release it into the world and it gets virtually no response, it is upsetting. But after a couple of weeks, I get the urge to record again.

Any trends that you have seen come and go?

I’m not a trend watcher.

Where do you find inspiration to compose?

I think that the way I create music is quite unusual in that I don’t know where the song will take me, I have almost no control in the matter. It evolves from a bass and drum beginning (occasionally guitar and drum), then goes where it wants to, it feels like it has almost nothing to do with me. If I try to create something in a particular way, it generally moves itself the way it wants to. I still work full time, so I mostly record on weekends. I get up around 8am, go grab breakfast then relax for a bit and if I feel like it I go into the studio and record. Often nothing happens, occasionally a track comes together really fast. Sometimes it takes a few listens before I can appreciate what it could become. I usually record drums/bass (often several tracks of bass), then listen to that and wait for the lyrics to arrive… sometimes that’s easy and sometimes not. Then I flesh it out with more guitar or bass. I record the vocals in the basement when I’m alone (I’m still stupidly shy about singing), Listening to the track on an old iPhone with headphones while using my iPhone to record. On two of the songs on the upcoming album I started with lyric thoughts and recorded using them – the lyrics and vocals were recorded in one take with no editing, giving it a more “live” feel.

Any favorite electronic and industrial music artists?

Major Influences are TG, PTV, Cabs, but I listen to a lot of different kinds of music. Not much electronic or industrial these days though.

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You worked with Raye Coluori in your early days. What was that like?

Raye was great to create with, and we still chat and record on occasion. I was sick with Covid when he was in Toronto recently so missed out on a physical catch-up which was upsetting.

Recording with TDFTL was fun, our music was created in a similar way to we be echo, we started with drum and bass (me), and Raye (guitar or keyboard) and often some pre-recorded speech, then built it up from there. We recorded everything in case something worked. I think Raye still has the rehearsal tapes. I have one somewhere. His confidence really helped me boost mine. We played two binaurally recorded gigs, that we released on tape. For one track on our “Face The Firing Squad” cassette, we used a drum track sent to me by Mal (Cabs), and made good use of the Roland Chorus Space Echo I bought from TG’s Chris Carter. I still feel this album stands up, even after 40 years!

We have recorded and released one track together since I moved to Canada, and hope to do more, always seems I’m busy when he’s not and vice versa.

Later you recorded Ceva Evi. What was that experience like?

Recording on my own meant I could record what I wanted when I wanted which was very freeing. I loved the idea of using Gen’s Tibetan Thighbone trumpet on a track but couldn’t get it organized for the regular edition release, however Dave Farmer (iham) sorted it out for the special edition and he and Gen both play on the track ‘Inside Life’s Wire’.

Any future plans and projects?

I recorded a track with Iham that he will be releasing as a 12” single, and we are working on a new track now. The music we record leans more toward industrial than mine does.

I just finished a collab as Dream Duchess with Marcy Angeles that’s available on her bandcamp. I also sent out bass and drum stems of a track to a few people to see what they would do with it and have had some pretty amazing responses, but not enough to make it a release yet.

I’m also working, when time permits, on another album of old music (“Forgotten Beats”) that hasn’t seen a release yet, or was released in a very obscure manner originally.

Is there anyone that you would really like to collaborate with?

I’m open to collabs. There are many people it would be an honour to work with.

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