The final song in a trilogy of time-related experimental tracks, ‘Mnemosyne’ incorporates an original song – recorded in Mayfair Studios, London, in 1975 – into poetic musings, and haunting atmospherics, dwelling on nostalgia and false memory.
Posts Tagged ‘Atmospheric’
Listen: ‘Mnemosyne’ by Papillon de Nuit
Posted: 10 March 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPsTags: Atmospheric, chamber music, Experimental, Haunting, Mnemosyne, Neoclassical, Nostalgia, operatic, Orchestral, Papillon de Nuit, poetry, single stream, Spoken Word
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Plague Garden – Under The Sanguine Moon
Posted: 2 January 2025 in Albums, ReviewsTags: Album Review, Atmospheric, Bleeding Light, dark, Dramatic, goth, Nightbreed, Plague Garden, Suspiria, theatrical, Under The Sanguine Moon, vampire
Bleeding Light – 3rd January 2025
Christopher Nosnibor
Under The Sanguine Moon is the fourth album from Denver, Colorado-based goth rock band, Plague Garden. As the pitch tells it, ‘The album features a prominent vampiric theme. Delve into the catacombs of a nocturnal world, where tales of bloodlust at dusk reign supreme. Listen to fantastical tales of the undead and even a little bit of Greek mythology added in for variety… From the album’s blood-red artwork to it’s [sic] hemophilic lyrics, this LP is bound to please even the darkest children of the night. For fans of gothic rock, post punk, deathrock, darkwave.’
Having got into gothness around 1987, just on the cusp of teenagerdom, I would come to discover that, just as with metal, this was a genre with many disparate threads. The vampiric fascination, which represents the popular image of goth – and espoused by the myriad dark souls who descend upon Whitby for the legendary goth weekends and trace the steps of Dracula following the small port town’s prominence in Bram Stoker’s genre-defining novel – is a league apart from the origins of the music which would come to be synonymous with early goth – predominantly Leeds-based acts such as The Sisters of Mercy, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, The March Violets, and Salvation. You won’t find a hint of vampirism here. Bauhaus’ debut single, ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ predates the emerging Leeds scene, and the whole vampire / spooky template can be pinned squarely on this single, which can’t exactly be considered representative of their output as a whole. But still, people like to latch on to easy tags.
This perhaps unduly preface is to say that the goth / vampire thing is something I find difficult to fully embrace. Goth bands doing vampy stuff is simply not the same as Steven Severin providing live soundtracks to classic silent movies.
The other thing I find difficult to really align is that while there is a whole new wave of acts of a goth persuasion emerging, there are a lot of goth acts loitering and lingering featuring older guys – in the forty to fifty-plus demographic, which I will, in the interest of transparency record as being my demographic – doing this. Plague Garden do sit within this bracket.
Under The Sanguine Moon is a solid album. It sits in the third wave goth bracket alongside the likes of Suspiria and the Nightbreed roster of the late ‘90s – brooding, theatrical, with booming baritone vocals that are sort of aping Andrew Eldritch but fall into that more generic ‘fah-fah-fah’ singing down in the throat style. With piano taking a more prominent position among the standard musical arrangement of drums / bass / guitar, Plague Garden create a layered sound which does stand out from many of their peers, and they so absolutely nail that quintessential goth sound with the solid foot-down four-square Craig Adams style bass groove. This is nowhere better exemplified than on ‘Shadows’, with its spectral guitars, the perfect cocktail of chorus, flange and reverb creating that brittle, layered sound which defined the 80s sound.
The vocals are mixed fairly low, and it’s the bass and drums which dominate, and this is a good thing – not because the vocals are bad, but because it puts the atmosphere to the fore, and means the lyrics are less obvious, which is probably no bad thing.
‘The Dirty Dead’ is a crunchier, punkier take on the sound, and carries hints of early Christian Death – think ‘Deathwish’ – and this carries on into ‘Pandora’.
The cover they mention is ‘#1 Crush’ by Garbage, an early B-side that’s one of the hidden gems of their catalogue. Plague Garden’s take is unsurprisingly lugubrious, theatrical, and makes sense as a song selection with its nagging, picked guitar part and crunching percussion.
There’s a flood of blood at the end, with ‘Blood Fingers’ and ‘Blood Debt’ closing the album. The former, haunting, hypnotic, a classic moody goth cut, the latter offering a slower, dreamier take on the former. These guys have got their sound honed to perfection, and if you’re into more trad goth delivered with a more contemporary spin – but not too contemporary – you probably can’t go too far wrong with Under The Sanguine Moon.
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Watch: ‘Me’ by Spineless
Posted: 2 November 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPsTags: Atmospheric, Brooding, Chrysa Tsaltampasi, Dysphonia, Μe, moody, Post-Metal, Single, Spineless, video stream
Greek post-metal collective Spineless is thrilled to announce the release of their new music video for the track ‘Me,’ taken from their highly anticipated second full-length album, Dysphonia, out on Submersion Records.
As the 26th offering from Submersion Records, Dysphonia represents a bold step forward for the project, led by the renowned vocalist and musician Chrysa Tsaltampasi, alongside a talented collective of musicians from the Greek music scene.
Watch the video here:
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Dysphonia follows the success of Spineless’ 2018 debut Speaking of Chaos and Relative Peace, and sees the band evolve into an even more potent and gloomy force. Drawing influences from a wide spectrum of artists such as Chelsea Wolfe, Godflesh, Ulver, and Mike Patton, Dysphonia delivers a unique sonic landscape that balances calculated anger with haunting melodies and brutal honesty.
Internationally recognized for her powerful voice and as a teacher, Tsaltampasi has been involved in high-profile collaborations in recent years, including working with Ben Frost on the soundtrack for the Netflix series 1899 and recording with artists such as Sofia Sarri, Beyond Perception, Mother Turtle, and Bella Fuzz. These experiences have shaped the rich and experimental nature of Dysphonia, where monolithic post-metal meets melodic songwriting in a way that recalls the swirling dynamics of Neurosis and Mono, with a touch of 90’s alternative edge.
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Listen: ‘Regeneration’ (EP) by IXION
Posted: 23 October 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPsTags: Atmospheric, doom metal, EP stream, evolution, Finisterian Dead End Records, IXION, Regernation
French atmospheric doom-metal act IXION has recently unveiled the new and final chapter of their trilogy, titled Regeneration, which is now available for streaming online just a few days ahead of the album release.
They write:
How would we feel if we transferred our consciousness into a new biotechnological body ?
Would we rediscover the world, with new-born’s eyes ?
What to do with our mortal remains ?
How to grasp time, or even the meaning of life, while you experience immortality ?
These are some of the questions that arise over REGENERATION, the third part of our new album Evolution !
Combining the array of sounds and vocals of the first two parts, it also reveals some unusual structures and time signatures for us, like an hybrid and still ethereal doom metal!
Stream Regeneration now and immerse yourself in the haunting soundscapes and thought-provoking themes that define this atmospheric doom-metal journey:
Four years after their critically acclaimed album L’Adieu aux Étoiles, IXION returns with Evolution, a three-part concept album released as individual EPs. This ambitious project explores the evolution of mankind, its interactions with androids, and the rise of post-humanism and will be released on October 25th via Finisterian Dead End Records.
The first chapter, Extinction, released in April, delves into humanity’s struggle with mortality in a world dominated by advancing android technology. This EP guides listeners through atmospheric doom, blending symphonic and acoustic soundscapes that feel both epic and intimate.
Restriction, released in June, shifts focus to the constrained existence of robots and androids, emphasizing their desire for emancipation. This installment features a more electronic approach to doom metal, heavily influenced by ’70s and ’80s ambient electronic music, synthwave, and sci-fi classics like Blade Runner.
The final chapter, Regeneration, was issued on October 18 and imagines a future where human consciousness is transferred into new biotechnological bodies. This EP merges the styles of the previous releases while introducing fresh structures that bridge hybrid and ethereal doom metal elements.
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Watch: ‘Enter The Void’ by Malcolm Pardon
Posted: 2 August 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPsTags: Atmospheric, electronica, Enter The Void, Malcolm Pardon, Peder Mannerfelt, Piano, Roll The Dice, The Abyss, The Leaf Label, video stream
For Malcolm Pardon, there’s beauty in our universal, inescapable demise. Like the romantic notion of the orchestra on board the Titanic playing their repertoire as the ship went down, on his second solo album Pardon looks past the bleak or macabre to observe death as a multi-layered, lifelong acquaintance.
“It’s not meant to be threatening or horrific in any way,” says Pardon of The Abyss. “There’s this constant dialogue we have with ourselves about how we’re going to die at some point. It’s like a constant companion, so you might as well get to know it, and befriend it.”
As one half of Roll The Dice, Pardon worked alongside fellow Stockholm resident Peder Mannerfelt on brooding fusions of electronica and classical composition. By contrast, his 2021 solo debut Hello Death saw him take a much more stripped-down approach, placing the emphasis on plaintive piano composition with only the subtlest of sonic treatments in the space around the notes. Without intentionally setting out to record a conceptual follow up, as he developed the sketches which would become The Abyss, Pardon found himself contemplating unknown futures and the artists’ quest into unexplored territory.
“For me, on a musical level The Abyss represents exploring your own capabilities,” he says, “Starting from an empty canvas, then slowly finding the way forward by connecting the right notes. It’s almost a subconscious experience. I sit down by the piano, and if I’m lucky I find something that takes me down the vortex.”
The lilting romanticism of ‘Enter The Void’ serves as a perfect distillation of Pardon’s approach, balancing a delicate piano refrain with a low, rumbling blast of noise before being carried aloft by swooning strings that echo down a distant hall. There’s beauty and hope shot through with foreboding in the particular treatment of each sound, the harmonic interplay between the musical elements and the gentle rise and fall of the arrangement.
Hear the track and watch the video here:
The album is out on 20 September.
Listen: ‘Undone’ by Decline and Fall
Posted: 11 April 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPsTags: Atmospheric, Bleak Recordings, Darkwave, Decline and Fall, gloom, Stream, track, Undone
Decline and Fall, a new Dark Wave project from Portugal formed by Armando Teixeira, Hugo Santos and Ricardo S. Amorim, today share a new track off their forthcoming debut EP Gloom, which is set to be released on May 3rd via Bleak Recordings.
Armando Teixeira has a long and multifaceted career and is considered one of the pioneers of EBM and Industrial in Portugal, through projects such as Ik Mux, which began in 1986, and Bizarra Locomotiva, which he founded in 1993 and remained the main creative force until he left a decade later. With a vast and award-winning body of work as a composer, whether in Boris Ex-Machina, Knok Knok, Da Weasel, Bullet or Balla, which has been the artistic incarnation he has nurtured for the longest time, he also has a prolific career as a record producer.
Ricardo S. Amorim is the author of the books Culto Eléctrico and Wolves Who Were Men-The History of Moonspell, and met Armando Teixeira in 2015 for an article about Bestiário, the second full-length by Bizarra Locomotiva, released in 1998. When they met again years later, in conversations about music and records that influenced them, Armando Teixeira’s desire to return to his roots was awakened, composing in a way that brought to the surface what would be his primary influences, from post-punk to new wave, through industrial, but with a necessarily more evolved experience and artistic maturity, as well as access to completely different tools from those he had when he started out in the 80s, and a technical and theoretical knowledge that has never stopped growing.
Wanting to surround himself with people who shared this vision, Hugo Santos, from Process of Guilt, which, over the last 20 years, has explored heaviness and rhythmic intensity, punishingly repetitive and cathartic, as a privileged form of expression. Common tastes and influences are discovered, records are shared that have influenced all three or that are new discoveries for one or the other, inspiration grows and the seed that gives rise to Decline and Fall germinates.
Listen to ‘Undone’ here:
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Watch: ‘In Your Night’ by Eye
Posted: 9 April 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPsTags: Atmospheric, Dark Light, electro doom, Eye, Gothic, In Your Night, Jessica Ball, Mammoth Weed Wizad bastard, MWWB, New Heavy Sounds, video stream single
EYE – the new band from Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard (MWWB) singer-songwriter/musician Jessica Ball – recently announced the arrival of their eagerly awaited debut album, Dark Light set for release on 26th April via New Heavy Sounds (Shooting Daggers, MWWB, Blacklab).
Dark Light is an intensely atmospheric fusion of emotionally charged songcraft and inspired sonic energy. The clue is in the album’s paradoxical title. Chilling and even bleak melodies with arrangements daringly and deliberately stripped down and minimal. Revealing a kinship with sonic bed-fellows Mazzy Star, Chelsea Wolfe or even Portishead, which can be heard on first single ‘In Your Night’. Jessica comments,
“Our first release ‘In Your Night’ represents Eye musically, conceptually and lyrically and I’m proud for this to be the first song that everyone hears from us… Light and dark, night and day, quiet and loud is the running theme throughout this song and album as a whole. Whether you’re up close to a song, or listening to the album as a whole, these themes will be ever present throughout. We’re playing around with these two extremes sonically and what these represent emotionally and mentally. I feel that nothing takes you on a journey more effectively than a good build up, or something happening unexpectedly, much like real life. We are just the eye that witnesses it all.”
Watch the video for ‘In Your Night’ here:
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Watch: ‘Hertan’ by Wardruna
Posted: 7 April 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPsTags: Atmospheric, Hertan, Nature, Scandinavian, Single, video stream, Wardruna
Amidst Wardruna’s songwriting hibernation, the group resurface to offer a taste of their next album with the single release and music video for the song ‘Hertan’ on 5th April.
About the new single Einar comments: “’Hertan’ is the proto-Scandinavian word for ‘heart’ and that is exactly what we explore in this in this song and film. The duality of the heart with the rhythm, flow and pulse we can see, hear, and feel in nature and in all forms of life – and the more abstract idea of the heart, The rudder on the ship of emotions, our decisions, and our true desires.”
Once again, Wardruna teamed up with Finnish director and photographer Tuukka Koski for the video production of Hertan. Koski has previously directed Wardruna´s videos for ‘Raido’, ‘Voluspá’, and ‘Grá’. This time, the production mainly took place during some freezing nights in northern Finland at the island of Hailouto.
“It is always a true pleasure to create art with Tuukka and his colleagues at Breakfast Helsinki! His experience and eye for detail as well as the ability to always conjure up next-level material, is very inspiring to be part of. Three days, three locations, no sleep but a lot of heart. This is how it went down. Hope you will enjoy the result!” – Einar Selvi
You can see the result here:
Photo credit: Tuukka Koski
Reinhold Friedl / Martin Siewert – Lichtung
Posted: 10 January 2024 in Albums, ReviewsTags: Album Review, Atmospheric, Avant-garde, collaboration, Experimental, Karlrecords, Lichtung, Martin Siewert, prepaired piano, Reinhold Friedl
Karlrecords – 21st January 2024
Christopher Nosnibor
Reinhold Friedl’s career has been long and interesting, and continues to be so. The list of collaborations on his resumé is beyond outstanding, and he has taken the concept of the prepared piano, as first conceived by John Cage, to limits beyond imagination. As such, while the idea may not have been his own, Friedl’s advancement over the last twenty years has been the definition of innovation. But what makes Friedl such a remarkable figure is his capacity to explore so many different and divergent avenues, and to turn his hand to so many different projects – and this latest, with Martin Siewert is exemplary. Siewert’s instrument is the guitar, but his style of playing is far from conventional, tending to conjure atmosphere from feedback and sustain and otherwise working the space between the notes instead of blasting chords. As such, this is an inspired pairing.
Lichtung blasts in with a thick, heavy, grindy drone that almost borders on Sunn O)) territory: the twenty-four-minute first track, ‘Genese’ is a journey, which begins with an all-out assault of thick, gut-twisting drone and shards of shrieking feedback which twist into a maelstrom of chaos before receding to reveal altogether more tranquil shores. From this, it builds, a droning, churning wash, buzzing drones and dramatic crashes. And from the rising tempest, lone piano notes rise… These particular notes are identifiable as a regular piano, rather than a ‘prepared’ one – but that’s the nature of the tweaked instrument: random items on the strings create random sounds. It’s a curious array of sounds, and over the course of the track, the sound rises and falls, ebbs and flows, but the water is always choppy, the storm building and rumbling before it rages its full force. ‘Genese’ feels like it could be an album in its own right, but there’s a whole lot more to come.
‘Gedstade’ is a mere interlude at five minutes in duration: with plinking, plonking random twangs and scrapes and woozy drones, not to mention extraneous noise and crashes and more, it’s strong on atmosphere and oddness.
Often when interacting with music, or when critiquing music – and these are two different, if quite proximate experiences – I will ask myself, or otherwise consider, ‘how does this make me feel?’ Because ultimately, music, like any art, is about the experience of the recipient, and that experience defines its success and / or impact. To expand on that, and to clarify, many may dislike and so decry a great work of art on account of their singular experience, because it’s difficult to rationalise or otherwise quantify said work. As a critic, to baldly declare ‘they’re wrong’ would be a mistaken and to devalue the experience of others. But if others share a very different experience… then that is their experience.
And so we arrive at ‘Gestitche’, the album’s third and final track, a fifteen minute exploratory work which begins with crashes of low-end piano which sound like thunder and shake the ground beneath this exploratory composition. It’s heavy, doomy, dolorous. The scratchy, discordant guitar work only accentuated the album’s immensely broad sonic range. Squalling squealing guitar ruckus and feedback riot tears its way through the tempest of noise and plunging piano and sputtering sparks of wires. As the track progresses, things evolve and escalate, the thunder builds to a tempest, and at times you feel thoroughly assailed.
To my ears, then, Lichtungis a compelling experience. Lichtung is unquestionably niche, like all of Friedl’s but that in no way diminishes its value. And the joy of Friedl’s work is its variety, and the way in which he interacts with his collaborators. To this end, this album is a work which brings joy.
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West Wickhams – Vivre Sa Vie
Posted: 8 January 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPsTags: 80s, Atmospheric, Echo, EP Review, goth, Joy Division, Post-Punk, Reverb, The Cure, The Danse Society, Vivre Sa Vie, West Wickhams
1st December 2023
Christopher Nosnibor
My introduction to West Wickhams was the day their debut single ‘He’s Acquired a New Face’ crashed my inbox in the Autumn of 2019. Something about it absolutely gripped me. Something about it was strange and different. And of course, it’s no longer available anywhere. But it was the only thing they had out at the time, and for various reasons, I didn’t get wind of subsequent releases, the first of which arrived almost a year later, and now it turns out I’ve got some catching up to do, as it turns out they’ve knocked out not one, but two five-track EPs since June 2022. But first, Vivre Sa Vie. A nine track EP!!!
Admittedly, when most of the tracks are around two to two-and-a-half minutes in length, it’s definitely got an EP running time, and would easily fit on a 10” record, but still.
It’s a joy to discover that while the songwriting has evolved and expanded, they’re still magnificently idiosyncratic, and still revel in every layer of echo and reverb going. ‘I am Sparkling Cyanide’ is a mid-tempo shimmery tune that’s almost poppy, bringing together early 80s synth pop with a dash of The Jesus and Mary Chain, all spun through a shoegaze filter. But ‘The Maddening Crowd’ is a piston-pumping blast of fucked-up psychedelic surf rock with an agitated bassline and relentless cheapy drum machine creating a rigid spine, over which even cheaper synth notes tinkle and twinkle.
With its nagging bassline and monotonous programmed beat ‘Carla Suspiria’ plunges into haunting early 80s goth territory, its heavy atmospherics reminiscent of early Danse Society. The vocals – like the guitar – are almost lost in a cavernous reverb. The atmosphere gets darker still on ‘I’m Spinning I’m Spinning’: the fat bass sound is pure Cure and listening to it feels like floating in space – detached, disorientated, out of body.
‘At the Cinema’ transforms the mundane into a heightened emotional experience, channelling Joy Division all the way, even down to the sounds of breaking glass.
The large number of tracks is by no means an indication that they’ve just bunged everything on there just because they’ve got it: Vivre Sa Vie is quality all the way, and they’ve utilised the space afforded by the longer format to structure the sequence in a way that feels like there’s a flow and a certain linearity, punctuating the really bleak gloomers with the poppier efforts.
The final track, ‘Damned Defiant!’ crashes in on a barrage of beefy percussion countered by chiming synths, and it’s a total assimilation of The Cure’s catalogue, and it’s rendered so magically, and in the space of two minutes and nine seconds that it can only be described as doomy goth-pop perfection.
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Aural Aggravation 