Archive for the ‘Albums’ Category

Deborah Fialkiewicz & {AN} EeL – Purple Cosmos

Posted: 27 November 2025 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
0

22nd November 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

The second collaborative release of the year by Deborah Fialkiewicz & {AN} EeL (aka Neal D. Redke) lands amidst a blizzard of output from two musicians who are both insanely prolific – by which I mean prolific on a scale which isn’t far off Merzbow or Kenji Siratori: they each release more frequently than the average person has time to listen to it. I don’t in any way consider myself to be an average person – and we’ll not go there – but writing about music means that having something play in the background while I do other stuff, like changing the cat litter or whatever, isn’t always something I fancy, and certainly isn’t my way of hearing a release for the first time. Ok, so this is not how, say, my daughter, who’s fourteen, or her generation, or even some of my peers take in new music, but my formative experience of new music involved sitting down and setting a new album to spin and giving to my undivided attention for its entire duration. Sometimes twice in succession, or more on a weekend.

Attention, in 2025, is, it would seem, in short supply. And yet, flying in the face of this, albums with long tracks seem to be becoming increasingly more common. Perhaps it’s a sign of artistic rebellion. Perhaps it’s that artists feel a need to reclaim the focus and concentration associated with longer works. Whatever the reason, it’s welcome, and Purple Cosmos contains three compositions spanning a solid half an hour.

This is a thoughtful, delicate trilogy of compositions, which build from hush to tumultuous tempests of sound incorporating powerful space rock and progressive elements within their protracted ambient forms.

‘The Floating Monk’ is centred primarily around a thick, earthy drone that has the texture of soil, and it’s enmeshed with dark layers of serrated tones and thunderous rumblings. It’s dark and it’s dense, and it’s uncomfortable. The rest of the album doesn’t offer much by way of light relief.

Yes, the title track strays more toward bleepy electronic experimentalism –a different kind of space rock, if you will – and the final track combines wailing synth overload with some persistent beats… but first and foremost this is an unashamedly experimental work.

Purple Cosmos is a work which reflects a rare attention to detail, and it possesses a certain persuasive relentless in its marrying of dark noise, analogue undulations, and insistent beats. There’s more than a hint of Throbbing Gristle about it, and perhaps a dash of Factory Floor. It gets inside your head, and at the same time enwraps your entire being with its otherworldliness. It sure is a far-out groove.

AA

a2147012585_10

Dawnwalker – The Between

Posted: 26 November 2025 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Room312 – 24th October 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

You know you’re in ‘epic’ territory when an album contains just two tracks (or one, depending on the edition). With a running time of thirty-two minutes, The Between is inching into the bracket of monster works that includes Earth 2, Sleep’s Dopesmoker, or much of Sunn O)))’s output – or Swans for that matter – but still. What they promise is ‘a long-form suite of experimental metal that runs the gamut of their whole discography’, described by the band as “a guided meditation through death and dying”, which ‘takes liberal doses of ancient Eastern philosophies on life and death and pairs them with a modern existential despair.’

And so it is that the vinyl release features the half-hour long ‘The Between’ split across two sides, while the digital version features the track unbroken, and paired with a ‘bonus’ track in the form of ‘Remember Death’, which has a running time of over twenty minutes. In short, this is an absolute fucking behemoth.

And it doesn’t stop there: this material was recorded with a twelve-piece lineup. Yes, you read that right. Said lineup features contributions from Oli Genn-Bash (Codex Serafini) on saxophone, virtuosic guitar solos from Alexander Brown (Infected Dead), sound design by new recruit Jack D’Arcy and notably, the return of Dane Cross (Sacred Son) on vocals. No wonder they pitch it as ‘Dawnwalker’s most ambitious work yet.’

I feel a degree of preparation is required for this experience. Candles are lit, whisky is poured. And I’ve brought the bottle up to my office because I suspect that I’ll be needing a refill before the album’s over, and I don’t feel like breaking the spell by pausing it and heading downstairs.

‘The Between’ begins with a bell chime. It rings on… and on… hushed spoken word and hovering tones conjure a rich atmosphere. There’s a magical mysticism about it, as well as a slow-build as rolling cymbals swell and drones hang, thickening the air. Over time, the instrumentation shifts, and doomy folk transitions towards post-rock, then towards cinematic progressive soundscapes. Four minutes in, it goes large… and there’s no looking back from here. It twists and turns, and takes myriad unexpected paths, with a sudden lurch into sludgy guttural metal. With dark, growly noise sharing space with huge progginess, and the riffs lurching this way and that, there’s a schizophrenic feel which begins to take hold after about five minutes. Nine minutes in, a wild solo simply explodes, and POW! Moments later, there’s a sax break. It’s simply too much to process rationally.

Ambitious isn’t the word, really. We’re talking about an album – A SONG – that veers more or less between Black Sabbath and Radiohead. It’s nicely produced, but where does that sit when you’re confronted with such extreme contrasts? ‘The Between’ is a head-spinning, brain-bending experience.,

The same is true of ‘Remember Death’. It begins with haunting, post-rock picked guitar and spoken word, and introduces the idea of years and life itself being cyclical: it’s gentle, its calm, and it’s human. Lyrically, it’s deep, deep, deep… ‘I know it’s an uncomfortable subject, but it shouldn’t be’, says the speaker. And it’s true. Death in our society remains a taboo subject. But why? That as a species we are afraid of death is one thig, but our avoidance of the topic is simply wrong, and the words of ‘Remember Death’ articulate all of this magnificently.

The simple fact is that death is inevitable and we all shall die. Preparing a will or something is good, but simply an acknowledgement of the inevitable rather than fully facing it. Facing it is to live every day like it’s your last. And the fact is, it may be, because you never know.

Things start getting particularly brain-bending around four minutes in. by this point, the atmosphere is hypnotic. You’re invested. You’re open, vulnerable. “The existence that we have now is not real. It’s an illusion. What we see as existence is fundamentally mistaken. What we see and perceive and taste and touch and feel is all filtered by subjective elements… and thus, we do not see reality.” And there is some truth in this: we each experience our own reality. We see colours differently, and our reality is simply our individual experience. It’s why eye-witness accounts of an event vary so. Wildly different as they may be, they will all be true for the person recounting the event. “Through a perfect death, we regain that perception of what is real…” the narrative continues. And this is where it really starts to get difficult, and strange. It is a very, very difficult listen. It continues in this vein, expounding the principles of Gnosticism, while the guitars gradually ebb and flow. The instrumental shifts are subtle, and ‘Remember Death’ contrast dramatically with ‘The Between’.

This would have worked well as a double album, but equally ‘Remember Death’ would have worked as a standalone album. Then again, they’d probably prefer that it was situated as a satellite work, being so far removed from the main release and their other work.

However you approach it, this release documents the work of immensely imaginative band at a creative peak, and it provides much food for thought.

AA

a3046346800_10

Keihj Haino & Reinhold Friedl – truly, slightly, overflowing, whereabout of good will

Posted: 24 November 2025 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , ,
0

zeitkratzer productions – 21st November 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

This is by no means the first time these legends of the experimental world have come together, and one would hope it won’t be the last either. Reinhold Friedl, leader of the Zeitkratzer collective and master of the prepared piano, as pioneered by John Cage, has built a staggering body of work through the years, taking into account Zeitkratzer releases, solo works, and almost countless collaborations. Of those many collaborations, this latest one is indeed strong and ambitious.

There’s something unsettling about the sound of laboured breathing and strangled whispers – and not just because they’re the domain of horror movies. Something in the human mindset makes us fearful of these sounds. Perhaps there’s the notion that a certain type of breathing is the sound of panic, and hearing it triggers a panic response. And so it is that against jangles and creaks and wispy, wraith-like drones and hovering hums, conjured by Friedl, Haino gasps and chokes and hums mystically through the thirteen-minute abstract journey that is the appropriately-titled ‘strange fruits’.

‘wild harvest’ eighteen minutes of exploratory dark ambience and abstraction. It starts quietly, a soft haze of static – and then very swiftly gets weird. Haino’s vocals rapidly transition from a plaintive mewling to satanic snarlings, while Friedl tinkles and scrapes like he’s tinkering away on an egg-slicer. But then there’s a slam of keys like psychotic demanding attention, and Haino violently switches between gasps and rasps like he’s being strangled by a poltergeist, chthonic grumbles, and tortured howls like he’s having his fingernails torn out while on the rack. The eerie metallic scrapes which set the teeth on edge are one thing, and Friedl masterfully builds a wall of discomfort, the sound of post-industrial collapse. It’s the sound of rust, of degeneration, rain-sodden sci-fi dystopia, and in itself it’s bleak, harrowing. But Haino’s contribution amplifies the discomfort, gargling and gurgling like nothing recognisable as human. It’s hard to place and hard to describe as anything but the sound of suffering. And we reel at such sounds: something biological, instinctive, primal, kicks from the inside and tells us this is not good. How we react is varied – some rush to aid, others cringe and curl – but ultimately, it’s something which affects us, it’s something we feel in a way which isn’t readily articulable. But however we react, the paint of others, it hurts us (and if it doesn’t, you’re clearly defective as a human being). As much to the point, however, is that this is challenging listening: discordant tinklings and guttural retchings are not pleasant or easy on the ear, and later, it trips into wailing psychosis and derangement. Again, we struggle when confronted with psychotic gibbering and incomprehensible raving, because we simply don’t understand, and many look upon those experiencing metal disturbance with distain, but this is, in truth – an often unspoken truth – born from a fear that they’re only a slide away from being there.

But regardless of and individual prejudices and fears, the fact remains that this is disturbing, weird, and does not correspond with out normal way of interacting with the world.

‘true, sightly fly’, the track which provides at least half of the album’s title, is a twenty-three-minute monster of a track. It’s on the CD and digital edition, and included as a digital download by way of a bonus with the vinyl edition, which feels like a shame, but then the cost of adding a second disc would likely be prohibitive both in terms of productions costs and sales. How times have changed from the late 80s and early 90s when vinyl was a budget option compared to a CD, when an album cost £7:50 against the cost of a CD being £11.99 or so. But it does feel like vinyl afficionados are being somewhat short-changed with only two of the three tracks, particularly given the fact that ‘true, sightly fly’ is arguably the belt of the set.

On ‘true, sightly fly’, Haino and Friedl plunge into the deepest, darkest, most unsettling depths, gasping, throat wrenching, slithering, churning noise unsettling the stomach writhing and churning, unsettled with beastly gasps rushing onto your nervous, trepidatious face.

This… is not fun and it’s certainly not entertainment. truly, slightly, overflowing, whereabout of good will is not fun: it’s uncomfortable, unsettling, and at times deranged, demented. Inarticulable is, sadly, a reasonable description; I am out of words, and this is weird – but good.

AA

a0384773058_10

Ov Pain – Free Time

Posted: 22 November 2025 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
0

Room40 / A Guide To Saints – 7th November 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Free time? What’s that? Who actually has free time anymore? Something seems to have gone awry. Every technological advance promises more leisure time: from the industrial revolution to the advent of AI, the promise has always been that increased productivity through automation would give us more free time. So where the fuck is it? I don’t know anyone who isn’t constantly chasing their tail, running just to stand still, who doesn’t feel like they’re losing the plot or on the brink of burnout simply because the demands of working and running a household is close to unmanageable, and making ends meet is a major challenge… and the stress suffered as a consequence. N

Ov Pain – the experimental duo consisting of Renee Barrance and Tim Player seemingly scraped and made time to record this album, a set of live improvisations (saving the time required to write and rehearse compositions), whereby, as Tim explains, ‘We recorded four different synthesizers – two apiece – straight into a computer pulled from a skip.’ This is how you do it when there’s no free time and no spare money. Although not explicitly detailed in Tim’s commentary, these factors are quite apparently central to the album’s creation, and by no means unique to Ov Pain. There’s a reason many acts peter out when the members reach a certain point in life: jobs and families mean that creative pursuits require some serious drive to maintain.

Tim adds, ‘One thing that is important to us is the immediacy and economy with which it was made and how that immediacy and economy becomes the thing itself.’

For all of its expansive soundscapes and layered, textural sensations, there is very much a sense of immediacy to Free Time. But, by the same token, for an album recorded quickly, it certain makes the most of time, in terms of space. There are long periods of time where little happens, where drones simply… drone on. The sounds slip and slide in and out, interweaving, meshing, separating, and transitioning organically, but not without phases of discord and dissonance.

The first track, ‘Fascia’ – with a monolithic running time of nearly eleven minutes – is a tormenting, tremoring, elongated organ drone, soon embellished with quavering layers of synth which warps and wavers, .it; s like watching a light which initially stands still but suddenly begins to zip around all over. It sits somewhere between ambient and extreme prog, with some intricate motifs cascading over that monotonous, eternal hum. Towards the end, the density and distortion begin to build, making for a climactic finale.

‘Slouching Toward Erewhon’ tosses in a neat literary allusion while bringing a sense of bewilderment and abstraction to proceedings, before ‘Comparative Advantage’ slowly pulses and trills, then crackles and buzzes, a thick surging swell of noise which is uneasy on the ear. And yet, the seconds of silence in the middle of the track are more uncomfortable… at least until the throbbing distortion bursts in atop stains of feedback and whirring static.

It may have been building for some time, but this is one of those evolving sets which after a time, you suddenly come to appreciate has expanded, and gone from a fairly easy drift to a heavy-duty drone assault.

Over the course of the album’s seven pieces, Ov Pain really do push the limits of their comparatively limited instrumentation. ‘Slander’ is a squalling, eardrum-damaging blast of gnarly treble that borders on extreme electronica, a straight-up assault on the ears and the mind. It hits all the harder because there is no let-up, and the frequencies are harsh and the sounds serrated. Around the mid-point, it goes darker, gritter, more abrasive, making for a punishing six minutes. Further layer of distortion and screaming noise enter the fray. It’s not quite Merzbow, but it’s by no means accessible. The final track, ‘Pusillanimous’ presents seven minutes of slow-pulsating ambience, and is altogether more tranquil to begin with, but before long, there are thick bursts of distortion and overdrive, and low rumbles heave and grind in ways which tug at the intestines. I feel my skin crawl at the tension.

Free Time is an album of surprises, and, more often than not of discomfort. It’s the sound of our times.

AA

AA

a2380798111_10

The Azimuth Tilt – Alignment

Posted: 21 November 2025 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Sinners Music – 1st October 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Sinners Music – the label established by electronic music maestro and one-time music shop owner, Ian J Cole, continues to offer up new music that’s interesting and unusual. There are some context where ‘interesting’ is somewhat dismissive, diminishing, and people of a certain age will remember snooker legend Steve Davis being given the nickname of Steve ‘Interesting’ Davis ironically… although the double irony emerged that he was genuinely interesting, as his work with The Utopia Strong abundantly attests. Here, my use of ‘interesting’ is neither ironic nor dismissive: it’s meant sincerely, as there is no specific ‘house’ style or overt genre specificity evident. This is one of the reasons why boutique microlabels can be worth following – you never know quite what you’re going to get from them, but you can guarantee if won’t be ordinary. And this release by no means ordinary.

As for The Azimuth Tilt, their bio informs us that this is the work of ‘a solo ambient electronic project exploring the liminal spaces between sound, memory, and landscape. With a name drawn from the alignment of a real to reel tape head, the project orients itself toward the unseen—subtle shifts in perception, emotional resonance, and the hidden geometries of the natural world… Blending atmospheric textures, glacial rhythms, and immersive sound design.’ There are no clues as to who this is the project of, but it matters not, and in fact, the less we know, the better. This is the joy of abstract ambient works: all you need is the sound, and all you need from the sound is to let it drift, to carry you away. And this is what Alignment does.

On a certain level, it does very little. On another, it is a quintessential deep ambient album. Alignment features just six compositions, but has a running time of some fifty-seven minutes. The soundscapes which define it are sonically rich, with soft, drifting, cloudlike contrails merging with lower drones and contrails. In combination, filling the entire sonic spectrum, Alignment does a lot.

From nowhere, halfway through ‘An Unqualified Person’, a raucous sax breaks out.

And the layers build. Against scrawling spacious drift, it’s quite a contrast. And then there’s some subtle piano intervention, and from hereon in, the piano and sax alternate in leading. It’s nice… and not in a turtle-neck top kind of way. It’s nice but… a little strange. But ‘The Exquisite Space’ crackles and swirls abstractedly, with some supple motifs rippling and intertwining with a mellow mood exploration which arrives at more sax. Always more sax.

This seems to be a dictum The Azimuth Tilt are happy to follow, although it’s melted into the echo-soaked atmospherics of the final track, ‘And the Band Played On’. Alignment is not a dark album, but it’s one which feels unsettled, uncomfortable, unsure of its destination – and whatever it may be, the journey is worth the exploration.

AA

a0054555481_10

Songe – Daughters

Posted: 16 November 2025 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Cruel Nature Records – 28th November 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

November always feels like plunging into an abyss. It’s the month when , after the clocks change on the last weekend of October, the darkness encroaches at an exponential pace, while, simultaneously, the weather deteriorates and temperatures suddenly drop. I struggle with November, and I’m by no means alone in this – but the darkness and muffling cold brings with it a blanket of isolation, too.

Listening to the debut album proper by Songe in this context makes for a heavy experience. And it’s the context that counts here, because in reality, Daughters is largely calm and spacious rather than dark and oppressive.

The Anglo-French duo consisting of Gaëlle Croguennec and Phoebe Bentham formed in 2023 ‘upon stumbling on a lonely church piano’, and, we learn that ‘Songe explores what it means to live in a postmodern world that feels rooted in destruction’.

This resonates. Right now, it feels as if the world is on a collision course. The so-called ‘great pause’ of the pandemic seems more, in hindsight, as if it was a time during which tensions built and nations pent up rage ready to unleash the moment the opportunity arose. Some of this a matter of perception and distortion, but the bare fact is that the last COVID restrictions were lifted here in the UK on 21 February 2022, and Russia invaded Ukraine three days later. The pandemic, for many, felt apocalyptic. It wasn’t simply the deaths, the fear, but the impact of the restrictions, which didn’t suddenly dissipate the moment those restrictions lifted. The end of restrictions felt like a deep-sea diver coming up for air, the aftereffects akin to the case of the bends. While we were recovering our breath and dealing with the cramps, Russia invaded Ukraine, and from thereon in it’s felt like an endless succession of disasters, storms, and then – then – the annihilation of Gaza.

Musically, Daughters – on which the duo deliver a set of ‘vibrant and experimental soundscapes using a variety of e-pianos, pedals and theremin, pairing a traditional playing style with bit-crushed granular delays to create a soaring top line met with ethereal vocals’ – is by no means dark, bleak, or depressing. In fact, quite the opposite is true. It’s a delightful set of compositions.

But sometimes, the more graceful, delicate, uplifting the music, the harder it hits. And on Daughters, Songe reach some dark and hard-to-reach places. From the most innocuous beginnings, the epic, nine-minute ‘Warmer, Hotter’ swells to a surge of discordant churn beneath soaring, ethereal vocals. The piano-led ‘Ashes’ borders on neoclassical in its delivery, and is rich in brooding atmosphere. ‘Heol’ begins with distorted, discordant harmonics, with frequencies which torment the inner ear. Gradually, through a foment of frothing frequences and fizzing tones, bubbling undercurrents rise. Haunting vocals rise through the mist, the haze, the dense and indefinable drift. It’s ethereal, spiritual, bewildering in terms of meaning.

Waves crash and splash before soft, rippling piano takes the lead on penultimate track, ‘Eveil’. It’s graceful, majestic, emotive – but not in a way which directly or obviously speaks of the album’s subject or context. The vocals are magnificent, but the words impenetrable. It works because of this, rather than in spite of it. It’s slow, subtle, powerful.

It’s not until the final composition, ‘Wraith’, that we feel the emotive power of a droning organ, paired with saddest of strings, that we really feel the depth and emotion al resonance of Daughters. As it fades in a brief reverberation, I find myself feeling sad. No, not sad: bereft. This is an album that takes time to take effect, to soak in. It deserves time to reflect.that time.

AA

AA

cover

Cold in Berlin – Wounds

Posted: 14 November 2025 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

New Heavy Sounds – 7th November 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Cold in Berlin have come a long way over the course of fifteen years and now – after a six-year wait – five albums. Give Me Walls was sharp, defined by an angular post-punk sound which crackled with nihilistic fury. You wouldn’t exactly say they’ve mellowed over time, but they’ve become heavier, darker, and have evolved the ways in which they articulate themselves, musically, and lyrically.

January 2024 saw the release of the EP The Body is the Wound, which introduced the thematics of a new and significant project, and indicated where they were heading, and came with references to an album to follow later in the year. The year came and went, and here we are, at the dark end of 2025. But as lead single ‘Hangman’s Daughter’ and follow-up ‘The Stranger’ foreshadowed, Wounds was worth the wait. Perfection takes time, and that’s what Cold in Berlin have delivered here.

But more than that, this is an album which wrestles with difficult stuff. As the band explain, “Wounds is a series of songs about the different ways people live with and process ‘the wounds’ of their lives… A strange celebration of that formative pain we have all experienced in some way. The loss and joy of survival – the celebration of finding others like us, the gift of knowing life comes after fire.” For all the noise of how we need to talk more about mental health, the fact of the matter is that it’s really just that. There is still real stigmatisation surrounding the subject in real terms, with reactions to attempts at open dialogue tending to range from diminishment, to dismissal, to awkwardness and paralysis before moving on with an embarrassed cough. And yes, I’ve learned this from painful experience. Raise the subject of mental health, anxiety, and dealing with bereavement while adjusting to life as a single parent with a teenage daughter… it’s amazing how many people go quiet, how many friends seemingly vaporize. The simple fact is that the majority of people are afraid to touch on dark topics, to venture to dark places. They can’t handle it, and so… these are my personal wounds, and why this album reaches parts other albums don’t get close to.

It’s ‘Hangman’s Daughter’ that raises the curtain on the dark drama which will infold over the course of nine songs. The big riffery that’s become their signature – and nowhere more apparent on predecessor, 2019’s Rituals of Surrender – is very much present, but there’s a lot happening here, in terms of detail and dynamics and arrangement, with pulsating electronics which owe considerably more to Krautrock than glacial gothy / post punk traditions prominent in the mix, and some thunderous drumming (which does belong more to the post-punk lineage) and some spindly lead guitar work that’s classic trad goth – and at the same time, the song’s imagery leans more toward folk-horror. It’s a potent mix which sets the tone – and standard – for a phenomenally powerful album.

Piling straight in hard and rather faster, ’12 Crosses’ is another showcase of stylistic eclecticism: the tense, cyclical guitar straddles post-punk and noise rock, and creates a claustrophobic, airless atmosphere – then, seemingly from nowhere, there’s brass, which, in context, introduces something of a post-rock feel, which is a sharp contrast with the spiky, Siouxsie-like stylings of the song’s second half. It’s fierce, but there’s more than straight attack.

A mere two songs and ten minutes in, and I find myself reeling by just how much they’ve packed in, in terms of range and depth, and the attention to detail is superlative.

‘Messiah Crawling’ provides… not respite as such, but some headspace to be carried along by a thick, doomy, Sabbathesque riff. ‘They Reign’ marks a change of pace, bringing down the tempo and volume, leading by a more narrative lyrical form. After a slow-build, rolling drums and swathes of synth conjure a cinematic sonic expanse which is transportative. It makes you feel, on a spiritual, perhaps even primal level. Landing mid-album, ‘The Stranger’ is rather sparser and it’s the synths which take the lead on this shimmering prog-pop cut, which grows and twists as it progresses towards a surging climax. Final song, ‘Wicked Wounds’ is nagging, and somehow antagonistic and more overtly punk in its delivery

Throughout, Maya’s vocals are powerful, commanding, but equally, rich and emotive. Not only has she never sounded better, but never more suited to the music her vocals are paired with, running the gamut of emotions from anguish and torment to reflective and vulnerable.

With Wounds, Cold in Berlin have stepped up to another level – and in every aspect. It didn’t seem possible they could keep getting better… but here, they’ve surpassed expectations, and once again exploded beyond the walls of genre to deliver an album which is something else.

AA

Wounds_Cover_3000x3000

Oscillator – OSC

Posted: 12 November 2025 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Dret Skivor – 7th November 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Dave Procter is / has been involved in more musical projects than your mum’s had hot dinners. Having left Leeds for Sweden, not least of all on account of Brexit, he’s currently paying the UK a visit with a tour which features performances by no fewer than five of them – last night’s set in York was one of two halves, featuring the polite extreme electronica of Trowser Carrier and the whacked-out post-punk infused racket that is Loaf of Beard. So about these ‘Brexit benefits’… and the fear of taxing the rich for fear they’ll leave the country. Since they’re not paying much tax anyway, where’s the loss there? Meanwhile, we’re losing migrant workers who keep the NHS operating, who harvest crops, and flip burgers, AND we’re killing creative industries by making it harder for artists to tour here. A few years ago, there was considerable coverage given in the media about the country’s so-called ‘brain-drain’; there’s been rather less coverage given to the slow murder of the arts. The Guardian and The Independent have raised their hands in quite anguish over the killing off of arts degrees, degrees which are being targeted as not providing a route to a well-paying career, but in the main, this is happening quietly. What’s painful is that there’s so much raving about ‘small boats’, hardly anyone is noticing, and even fewer care because they’re too busy buzzing over the Oasis reunion or Taylor Swift. I’ve got no specific beef with Taylor Swift and her sonic wallpaper, but the point is that there is so much life and art and creativity beyond the mainstream. There is an extremely diverse array of subcultures, an underground that’s as big as the overground, only more diverse, eclectic, fragmented, and this is what’s suffering.

To return to topic, somehow, amidst all this activity and while in transit, Procter’s managed to launch both a new release and a new project via his Dret Skivor label, in the form of OSC, the debut – and likely one-off – album by the imaginatively titled oscillator.

The accompanying notes are unusually explanatory for a Dret release, forewarning of ‘Glitch, ambient and toy keyboard experiments. Play through decent speakers and headphones, the lows are LOW!!!’ The tracks were created during some free studio time in Copenhagen in October 2024, and, as ever, the CD run is minuscule, with just 6 copies. This, of course, is typical of the DIY cottage industry labels, particularly around noise circles. It’s not only a sign of an awareness of just how niche the work is – and it very much is that: no point doing 50 CDs or tapes when it’ll probably take a year to sell four – but also indicative of a certain pride in wilful obscurity. Just think, if the bigtime ever did beckon, those spare copies sitting under the bed may actually acquire some value. Just look at how much early Whitehouse albums go for, for example.

OSC is very much an overtly experimental work, featuring six numbered pieces – the significance of said numbers remains unclear, if there even any significance, although notably, they’re all zeros and ones, or binary – which range from a minute and twenty seconds to just over eight and a half minutes.

‘01’ is a trilling electronic organ sound skittering over long drone notes, and abruptly stops before the bouncing primitive disco of ‘10’ brings six and a half minutes of minimal techno delivered in the style of Chris and Cosey. It’s monotonous as hell, but it’s intended to be, hypnotic and trance-inducing. Zoning out isn’t only acceptable, but a desirable response. ‘100’ is seven and a half minutes of dense, wavering low-end drone, the kind which slows the heart rate and the brain waves. As the piece progresses, the rumbling oscillations become lower and slower and begin to tickle the lower intestines, while at the same time some fizzy treble troubles the eardrums. Nice? Not especially, but it’s not supposed to be. Sonically, it’s simple, but effective.

‘101’ is so low as to be barely audible: not Sunn O))) territory, so much as the point at which the sun has sunk below the horizon and the blackness takes on new dimensions of near-subliminal torture. The final track, the eight and a half minute ‘110’ is a classic example of primitive early industrial in the vein of Throbbing Gristle, with surging oscillations which crackle and fizz, a thrumming low-end pulsation. It ain’t easy, but it’s magnificent.

Procter loves his frequencies, just as he loves to be eternally droney, and at times Kraut-rocky. OSC reaches straight back to the late 70s and early 80s. OSC is unpredictable, and tends not to do the same thing twice. It’s in this context that OSC works. Embrace the experimental.

AA

a2917884968_10

GHOLD – Bludgeoning Simulations

Posted: 10 November 2025 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Human Worth – 14th November 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Human Worth seems like a comfortable place for the latest album by sludge behemoths GHOLD. The band has forged a remarkable career to date, with each album showing development and progression, building on previous works – and as they’ve been going for some thirteen years now, that’s some significant expansion. PYR (2016) saw the duo expand to a trio, and Stoic explored the potentials of the three-way interplay in much greater depth. INPUT>CHAOS took the band in a rather different direction, fully embracing the avenues of straight-up noise while bringing, at times, almost accessible shades to the monstrous riffery that defines the GHOLD sound. So many bands spend their entire career recreating their first and second albums because they’re so desperate to appease their fanbase, and while that might be alright for acts who’ve sold their soul and their lives to major labels and likely have no say in the matter, any act who has artistic freedom who peruses such a creatively limiting course is likely doing it for the wrong reasons.

GHOLD’s unpredictability, then, is a strong positive. And Bludgeoning Simulations is bursting with surprises, and none greater than the tremulous piano opening on the first track, ‘Cauterise’. It’s tense and dissonant, but at the same time, soft, reflective… and then the monstrous, churning riff crashes in and lays waste to everything which stands before it. The guitar and bass are welded together tight to forge a solid wall of sound, and it’s delivered with attack., a raw, barrelling intensity. You don’t just hear the volume from the speakers: you feel it.

Without a moment’s pause, a thick, lumbering bass riff crashes in hard, and leads ‘Lowest’ into spectacularly Sabbath territory – it’s hard and heavy, but also captures both raw contemporary feel and that vintage 70s sound. Sabbath as played through a filter of Melvins goes some way to explaining where they’re at. It sound like abrasive hardcore played slow.

The ridiculously long and sludgy single cut, ‘Place to Bless a Shadow’ s a beautiful slow-burner, expanding everything they’ve ever done to a new and remarkable breadth. There’s detail here, and deep, dark, whispering atmosphere, before ultimately, after some sparse, slow-building tribal beats and simmering tension, not to mention vocals that start gently but gradually come to resemble the rage of Trent Reznor on The Downward Spiral, they finally go full Melvins sludge mania just after seven and a half minutes. It’s heavy, and it’s wild. And – alright, sit down and take it – it’s solid GHOLD.

‘Fallen Debris’ is a fast-paced, buzz driven blast, and a contrast in every way – hard, driving, it’s a tabid blast of a punk / gunge / metal hybrid that hits like a kick in the stomach. Whipping up a stomach-churning maelstrom in the last couple of minutes, we find GHOLD hitting peak energy, before the slow-churning Sunn O))) ‘inspired ‘Leaves’ drifts in and drives hard. It’d s heavy as fuck. And it hurts.

There are no simulations here: this real bludgeoning, from beginning to end. Bludgeoning Simulations is heavy, and make no mistake, there are no simulations here: this is fucking REAL. The album’s second monumental beast of a track is the groaning, droning, nine-minute monster that is ‘Leaves’, and it’s nine minutes of sepulchral doom fully worthy of Sunn O))). It’s heavy shit, alright, but the reason it hits so hard is because of the context: Bludgeoning Simulations is remarkably nuanced, inventive, a questing work that seeks new pathways, new avenues, and shows no interest in genre boundaries of conformity. ‘Rude, Awaken’ brings the dingy riffs that will satisfy thirsty ears, but again, there’s a stylistic twist that’s truly unique, in a way that’s not even easy to pinpoint. It’s simply something different.

Bludgeoning Simulations is inspired, and inspiring, and finds GHOLD conjuring sonic alchemy with a visionary take on all things doomy, sludgy, low, slow, and heavy.

AA

a0166716374_10

Recur – A Strange Loop

Posted: 7 November 2025 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , ,
0

Aumeta Records – 7th November 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

The ever-accelerating pace of life, and the endless noise of not just the Internet, but absolutely everything, seems to have given rise to an increasing popularity in the sphere of ambient works. It can’t simply be my perception: post-pandemic, everything has got louder, busier, there’s more traffic, the driving is worse and more aggressive, there are people everywhere at all times of day, and even country paths and lanes are chocca with cyclists, runners, and dog walkers even at 2pm on a Wednesday afternoon. Never mind the fact that the entire world is at war, is flooded, is burning, rioting… fuck! Just make it all stop!

A Strange Loop may be Recur’s debut album, but the project’s lead, Tim Harrison, is by no means new to this, being a BIFA-winning composer, and for this excursion into analogue explorations, he’s joined by Richard Jones, the Ligeti Quartet, Jack Wyllie and the album was created using unique instruments crafted by Chase Coley. It’s not really ambient, not by a long way, and at times it’s quite dramatic, but it is immersive, in a way which leads the listener away from the turbulence of the everyday and into calmer waters, a sheltered cove where the tides are diminished, and there is respite, time and space to simply breathe slowly and regroup at distance from the noise, the constant disruption, the endless agitation and consternation. We simply don’t get anywhere hear enough time to breathe. When was the last time you properly relaxed your shoulders, filled your lungs to full inflation, and exhaled, slowly? When was the last time you truly felt ok?

The eight here pieces are slow, hazy-edged, abstract, immersive. Calming. ‘Oscillate’ delivers on its title, the volume surging and sliding unpredictably, creating a trick of the ear at times, with smooth, silken saxophone drifting in and out through delicate piano and washes of sound without any definite sound source. ‘Id Etude’ veers toward a chamber orchestra feel with picked strings and gliding notes.

It’s simultaneously focused and free: you very swiftly appreciate that this is a work where each composition is complex, detailed, the instrumentation varied, and the interplay between the instruments is both integral and remarkable. There are no fewer than thirteen players credited here, including four marimbas, two violins, two vibraphones, viola, cello, piano, and a host of more obscure instruments.

‘Nocturne’ brings the percussion to the fore to forge a hypnotic, beat-driven sway, before ‘Hieroglyph’ brings slow chimes, clumping trudging beats, and unsettling scrapes which evoke a mysterious, ominous sensation. This is Recur at their best: for all of the people playing here, they manage to create sparse, minimal, ominous, sombre works, pieces which are delicate, elegant, soft, supple, pieces which evolve, which shift gradually between places and moods, which make you feel… That’s it, really: they make you feel. From tension to emotion, from ease to unease, the scraping strings and swelling … ‘Iridescent’ is exemplary. It’s gentle. It surges and swells, there are moments of near-silence… and these moments are uplifting in a strange way, perhaps because moments of near-silence are so rare in all the babble.

Recur are unafraid of the silence, and, indeed, embrace it. We all need to embrace the silence.

AA

Recur – A Strange Loop album cover 1000px

Older Entries
Newer Entries