Posts Tagged ‘Drone’

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

Orphax – Embraced Imperfections

Posted: 4 November 2025 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
0

17th October 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

…and still, the COVID pandemic continues to yield new offerings, even if some are repackaged, or otherwise documents of events which took place during that strange, strange time. Real live music events were, during those dark days, simply things of memory, which we could only dream of happening again – because, for a while which felt like an eternity, there was no end in sight. Live streaming events were as close as we got. I watched a few, participated in a handful, too, but like having beers on Zoom, as much as they went some way towards filling the gaping chasm that was social life, these things were countered by a certain pang of sadness and consternation, reminding us as they did of what we were being deprived of, highlighting the fact that there is truly no substitute for the experience of live music. I write this as a fairly ardent misanthrope who will sometimes go to quite exceptional lengths to avoid other people. But sharing a room with musicians and people who seek to become one with the sound and the experience is something altogether different. Unless it’s one of those gigs where casuals turn up and yack at one another in loud voices for the duration, of course. I find that this happens less in proportion to the obscurity – and / or extremity – of the music. The more difficult, the more abrasive, the further from the mainstream the artist, the cooler the audience. In this context, Orphax’s audience must be bordering on godlike.

Embraced Imperfections features ‘two live performances recorded during a live video streaming event during the early covid-19 pandemic’, originally released as Embraced Imperfections and Live in your living room, now, remastered, they come as a two-disc release. The title reflects the nature of the recordings – both performances were improvised ‘with various synths, organs, and effects’, and as such are inevitably imperfect. But… how would we know? Artists – musicians in particular – are commonly their own harshest critics. They kick themselves for the most minor flaws that simply no-one else on the planet would notice in a million lifetimes. But still, making peace with and embracing imperfections is a significant step.

The first disc – Embraced Imperfections I – offers forty-one minutes of slow-sweeping organ drone which subtly undulates and quivers, humming on, ebbing and flowing, but in the minutest of microtonal shifts. Above all, it’s a continuous sonic flow, and the shifts in its sounds and structure are made at an evolutionary pace. You don’t listen to music like this to be affected, to feel impact, but instead to be carried along, to feel it envelop you, to wash over you, to experience full immersion. It isn’t that nothing happens… so much as very little happens, and does so incredibly slowly. If listening requires patience, so does the making. It is not easy to hold a single note for long minutes at a time without feeling a certain pressure to ‘do’ something. As this performance evidences, Orphax possesses the Zen-like ability to resist any urge to increase the pace of movement – so much so that time itself seems to stall and sit in suspension here. Even the first fifteen minutes feels like a lifetime, and the secret to appreciating this is to stop listening and simply let it become the backdrop as you slow our breathing and allow yourself to relax. Remember what it is to relax?

The shorter Embraced Imperfections II, which clocks in at just over thirty-six minutes, is less overtly organ-driven and more constructed around an electronic hum, and it’s dark, claustrophobic. It also feels more low-key, and more ominous. It’s still another extended dronework, the sound of which is absolutely the immersive dronescape, the hovering hum that feels like nights drawing in and claustrophobic depression descending on the dense darkness. It’s a dense, scraping, soporific endless polytone that scratches and hums for what feels like all eternity. While far from accessible or easy listening, it does make for an immersive journey. And cat pics always win… embracing impurrfection.

AA

AA

a0536185753_10

IAN – Come on Everybody, Let’s Do Nothing!

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

Human Worth – 17th October 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Ok, so Ian was never a cool name. Growing up in the 80s, I knew a few Ians. Ian sits alongside Gary, Craig, Kevin, Gavin in a list of names that have fallen out of fashion and always seemed to have connotations of lameness. Calling a kid Ian or any of these names almost certainly consigned them to a future or shelf-stacking or low-level supervisory or managerial work.

Not IAN the band, though. Come on Everybody, Let’s Do Nothing! Is a magnificent beast of an album, which, over the course of five monumental tracks – the shortest of which is seven and a quarter minutes long – combine post-rock crescendos with post-metal explorations and spectacularly heavy raging fire.

The first track, ‘Manuel’ is a far cry from Fawlty Towers. There’s nothing comedic about it. Instead it builds… and it builds. Six minutes in, it’s a raging, speaker-shredding, overloading tempest of all-pedals-on-full , heads-down distorting riffery that’s nothing short of annihilative. It’s one of those pieces that leaves you feeling dazed, and with no idea where B was in the route from A to C: all you know is that you have tinnitus and your chest is palpating and you feel like you’ve been battered.

Muttering voices – presumably samples – reverberate amidst a growing drone at the start of ‘Building Pyramids’, and there are hints of Amenra in this slow-burning build, which you just know will erupt sooner or later. And of course, as the tension builds, it becomes apparent it’s going to be later. The suspense brings an ache to the gut. You need the levee to break. But still they push on with the low, slow, crawling doom drone… 4:39: Bam!!! And holy fuck. It’s not simply the slamming of pedals, the stepping up the racket. It’s a full-blown sonic tsunami. ‘Fennel’ is an all-out slugging, sludge-metal rager. Does anyone really like fennel? Even Jamie Oliver? Really? That anniseedy flavour in a meal just feels wrong. I understand the anger… or something. During the second half of the song, the grindy low-end is contrasted with a squalling lead treble frenzy, and the impact is devastating.

AA

The soft, string-led ‘Selma’ marks a strong contrast. It’s supple and moving, until three minutes in when all feet hit the floor and in an instant everything is blistering wall of guitars and drums which ricochet hard and fast among the riff-driven chaos which has erupted. Shit gets heavy, alright. And then we’re faced with the thirteen-minute finale, ‘Not Erotic / Cop Film’. Initially, I’m transported to the time around 2005 when every other band I saw was post-rock and post-metal didn’t seem to have been invented. Both of these things may be true, but what is certain is that with Come on Everybody, Let’s Do Nothing!, IAN actually do a lot – the album is a genre-splicing and immensely ambitious work which explores deeply the interplay of texture and dynamics: at times graceful and delicate, others face-rippingly furious – and always nothing short of immense.

AA

a2344961920_10

SUNN O))) – Eternity’s Pillars b/w Raise the Chalice & Reverential

Posted: 16 October 2025 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Sub Pop – 14th October 2025

This one has seemingly come out of nowhere. And it’s on Sub Pop. And they’re calling it a Maxi 12”, as was the term for a 12” EP back in the 80s and 90s. And I suppose it does actually quality, given that the old-school Maxis tended to feature either two tracks per side, or an extended version of the single, plus B-sides, and that’s then case here. But with this being a sunn O))) release, the lead track is just shy of fourteen minutes in duration, and the tracks on the flip are eight and seven-and-a-half-minutes long respectively. Back then, a maxi would cost maybe £3.50, or £3.99 (I’m talking about the ‘90s: it was a couple of quid in the 80s… I can’t actually remember the price of an LP in the 80s, but have receipts sitting inside sleeves that verify that in 1994, a new LP on vinyl cost around £7 and a CD £11… so the fact that this ‘maxi’ is $25 tells you all you need to now about inflation and capitalism and how times have changed.

Anyway. The three tracks on this release, with a total running time of almost half an hour are notable as ‘first official sunn O))) studio recordings to feature only the original core duo on heavily saturated electric guitars and synthesis.’ It’s also introduced with a sense of elevation that’s typical sunn O))), when they inform us that ‘sunn O))) gave extreme focus and care to each step and aspect of the recording, each tone and level of saturation, each gain stage and speaker, each arrangement and harmonic. The Pacific Northwest forest is our guide.’

‘Eternity’s Pillars’ is a raging behemoth of feedback and sustain, every chord struck a billowing beast that punches through the endless drone, and while it is unquestionably classic sunn O))), it also brings together the defining elements of early Earth, in particular Earth 2, an album which effectively created the blueprint for the entirety of sunn O)))’s existence. Not a lot happens: that’s never the point. Downtuned guitars churn the bowels, scraping and snarling their way to monumental, megalithic sustain, though a continuous whine of feedback, each strike hanging in the air for what feels like an eternity. The pace is a crawl. Time stalls. It’s absolutely punishing. New shapes emerge, fleetingly, toward the end, notes rising like monuments from a cloud of smoke – by no means a melody, but it’s a progression, a change in mood.

‘Raise the Chalice’ is named ‘for a rallying cry often uttered by Northwest legend Ron Guardipee throughout the mid-1990’ – making it their second composition in his honour (the other being 2023’s ‘Ron G Warrior’, which was also released on Sub Pop), and opens with a full growl like a giant engine slowly revving , but instead of revving up, it gradually revs down into a slow-churning sonic abyss. It doesn’t sound, or feel much like a rallying cry. With the density of dark matter, the enormity of the sound engulfs the senses. By the arrival of ‘Reverential’, there’s a feeling of exhaustion, as if all the light and oxygen has been extracted, and yet still the sound continues to apply a crushing pressure.

While it’s difficult to really rank or compare sunn O))) releases as to what constitutes their ‘best’ or ‘heaviest’ work, this is certainly classic, quintessential sunn O))), and it’s very, very heavy indeed.

AA

a3585267222_10

VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Watch ‘Ranine Copper’ by Deep Cross

Posted: 13 October 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
0

It’s been two years since Deep Cross delivered Royal Water, and now they return with the enigmatically-titled Scaffolded Dawn.

As the accompanying notes outline, ‘Utilizing treated vocal drones, tape, modular synth and an array of found sounds, on the new album, Deep Cross delivers seven tracks of heavy Devotional Electronics. Blistering and crude yet ecstatic and sacred, Scaffolded Dawn focuses on transition points where tempers blur beyond ideas of convention. In each track discomfort, overcoming, decay, lure, attraction and beauty inhabit an axis of equal reign where multitudes thrive.’

As a taster for Scaffolded Dawn, they’ve landed a video for the track ‘Ranine Copper’. With hints of The Walking Dead, it’s suspenseful, disturbing, and very, very dark.

We love dark here at Aural Aggravation, so we are immensely proud to premiere this video. Brace yourselves.

AA

a2598828774_10

Smote – Songs From The Free House

Posted: 6 October 2025 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
0

Rocket Recordings – 17th October 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

The thing that particularly stands out in the bio for the latest Smote album is this: ‘Daniel Foggin has spent the majority of his adult life working as a landscape gardener, frequently pursuing his trade in conditions of either baking heat or freezing cold and, as he puts it “more often covered in mud than not”. Yet the primal, meditative aspects of this work, the act of communing with nature, its histories and its depths have fuelled his art on a profound level. As Daniel himself relates; “I think the music is a direct reflection of this feeling that I haven’t quite managed to define yet, it is dirty and hard but there is an overwhelming comfort to it.”’

It’s something artists rarely mention: they have day jobs. Perhaps there’s an element of shame in it for some. Maybe it detracts from the mystique. Or it could be that it’s considered a detraction from the pitching of the latest creation. But it’s a truth rarely spoken: most musicians, and artists in any medium, have day jobs and have to make time for their creative work. Tours have to be negotiated with work, taken out of annual leave, often juggled with family responsibilities. Sleevenotes by Joe Thompson of Hey Colossus and Henry Blacker is the most open narrative on the realities of this I’ve read to date, and at times the exhaustion crawls from the pages. As such, it’s refreshing that Foggin not only acknowledges his day job, but recognises it as a significant influence on his creative work. And why not? The most engaging art is drawn from life, after all. Much as it would be a more ideal situation that artists could make their living from art, at the same time, there is perhaps greater value in art created by those who live in ‘the real world’ rather than floating, detached, elevated above it in some kind of bubble.

The words ‘Free House’ make me automatically think of pubs, which perhaps says more about me than the artist, of whom we learn that ‘In the world of Smote, going further out means going inward. Less a metaphysical journey into inner space, more a physical journey into the ground itself, converging with its roots and vibrations. What’s more, a journey right to the heart of its principal architect’s daily experience’.

A cottar is a farmer, and with the album’s first piece, we’re plunged into a deep, surround-sound immersive dronescape, There are many layers to it: reverberating voice, trilling flute, sonorous synths, distant percussion… and it builds, and builds, growing into a hypnotic swell before finally breaking into a slow, weighty post-metal riff that twists and turns with spectacular force, hammering with the force of Pale Sketcher by the six minute mark. It has the weight of sodden earthworks, and conveys the hard exertion of ploughing and tilling, as it descends into a speaker-shredding wall of distortion.

‘The Linton Wyrm’ brings heavy Nordic connotations as it plods on, and on, over the course of a rousing nine and three quarter minutes. It’s not so far removed from the epic force of Sunn O))), but equally Wardruna, a band who evoke earthiness and the essence of pagan spiritualism – not about worshipping mythical gods, but celebrating a connection with nature on a level which is almost primal, and isn’t readily articulable through words: it’s something which transcends language.

Single cut ‘Snodgerss’, which clocks in at under four minutes is both representative of the album as a whole – and not. With its trilling flute and thunderous slow riffery, it incorporates some of the leading elements, but in a way which is considerably more accessible, not least of all with its folk leanings, and presents them in a condensed format. That said, it’s an intense piece, which offers no let-up.

The ten-and-a-half-minute ‘Chamber’ is slower, heavier, dronier, and encapsulates the true essence of the album as a whole, building on a low, resonant throb before the introduction of mournful woodwind. As graceful and soulful as it is, it connects with a primitivism which reaches to the core, a place beyond linguistic articulation. This is the sound of forests, of hills, of streams and moorlands.

The final track, ‘Wynne’ hammers the album home in a squalling blast of overloading guitar and powerful oration propelled by thunderous percussion. It’s mighty, and beyond, seven and a half minutes of blinding intensity which concludes an album that’s varied but unswerving in its density and force. You can truly feel the earth move.

AA

a1730365911_10

Soma Crew / Deathlounge / The Expression – The Black Horse, York, 2nd October 2025

Posted: 4 October 2025 in Live, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
0

It’s that time of year again, when the nights draw in, it rains nearly every day, and people start coming down with bugs and viruses. Consequently, JUKU have been forced to pull out of tonight’s double header, which is disappointing in extremis. A powerhouse live act wo we don’t get to see often enough, they promised to provide the perfect contrast to Soma Crew’s psychedelic drone. But alas, it was not to be on this occasion. This did, however, provide an opportunity for The Expression to step up and open the evening.

If ever one was looking for proof of just how healthy the York scene is right now, this is it. There are new bands of outstanding quality copping up all the time, none of whom are run-of-the-mill indie acts. It’s also worth noting how many of the bands in York aren’t all just blokes, either. And at the risk of repeating myself to the point of tedium, this is why it’s worth going to the free gig in pubs, the five-quid gigs in local venues, and turning up for all the acts. JUKU’s absence afforded the absolute revelation of The Expression.

DSC04006DSC04018

The Expression

They showcased a set of well-realised, tight compositions which brought together elements of dreamy shoegaze, and blistering post punk, propelled by rolling drums. The final song started gently but swelled into something altogether more solid, more riffy, calling to mind The God Machine. Despite battling issues with mic feedback, and nerves jangling just below the surface, they came across well and kept it together to relay some magical moments of chiming, mesmerising picked guitar, with vocals which at times were reminiscent of All About Eve’s Julianne Reagan. Definitely a band to keep on the radar.

DSC04036

The Expression

I really so wanted to like Deathlounge. They have a great name and a great premise. Previous outings had shown real promise, too, not least of all their EP launch, despite what felt like an overly ambitious and overlong set. But tonight, they sparked, but simply failed to ignite. They sound rough, and it’s nothing to do with the PA. First and foremost, it’s the singer who’s the weakest link, but their lack of coherence is the real issue. They do melodic hardcore without the melody. Or the hard. The guitarist thinks he’s in Fugazi, while the bassist wants to be in Jamiroquai. The whole thing is a bit of a mess.

DSC04046

Deathlounge

Soma Crew always seem to start with a slow, sparse number, and sound a bit trepidatious, awkward, uncertain. And tonight is no exception. I find myself thinking ‘ooh, is this even in key?’ With a substitute drummer, and Soma Crew being Soma Crew, the set is off to a slow, hesitant-sounding start, but building to a surging swell, a monolithic throbbing drone. I’ve drawn the comparison to Black Angels before, and the parallels are never more apparent tonight. With three guitars plus bass, and with everything but the vocals coming straight from the backline, they’re loud, and the sound fills the small space and then some. When they hit their stride, they’re phenomenal. Toward the end of their set they drop ‘Roadside Picnic’ and the sound is simply huge, and this, this is why we’re here.

DSC04051DSC04053

Soma Crew

The Dwarfs Of East Agouza – Sasquatch Landslide

Posted: 20 September 2025 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Constellation – 3rd October 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

The third album by The Dwarfs Of East Agouza (Maurice Louca (Lehkfa), Alan Bishop (Sun City Girls, Sublime Frequencies), and Sam Shalabi (Land Of Kush) promises ‘a focussed set of rhythmic psych-trance free/improv’.

As their moniker and the album’s title suggests, they demonstrate a collective interest in urban myths, the strange, the embroidered and embellished tale, perhaps spun with a twist of esoteric mysticism, but at the same time, aren’t entirely serious about it all. That is by no means to imply they’re not serious about the music they make, even when the pieces have titles like ‘Goldfish Molasses’, ‘Saber Tooth Millipede’, and ‘Swollen Thankles’. Because it is possible to be intense and serious and at the same time retain a capacity for humour, a sense of the absurd.

Sasquatch Landslide is an album that’s knowingly ‘out there’, but at the same time, it’s clearly the work of a collective who are completely immersed in the world they’re creating through a conglomeration of sounds which border on the transcendental. Elongated, quavering drones and an array of percussion merge in a haze to forge loose, yet curiously intense grooves. The aforementioned ‘Sabre Tooth Millipede’ is a full-on wig-out jazz frenzy played with the psychedelic loopiness of Gong as their most far-out, and at the same time, amidst the twanging and clattering, there’s something of the spirit of The Master Musicians of Joujouka about it. For an added addling bonus, there are tempo changes galore, and some parts where there are multiple tempos crossing one another simultaneously as the players seemingly detach from this physical realm into different plains of consciousness, separate from one another yet still connected by some kind of telepathy. Because however weird and disjointed it gets, somehow it works.

‘Double Mothers’ goes spaced-out, haunting, and atmospheric. On the one hand, it’s one of the most overtly jazz pieces on the album, but the wandering, reverb-soaked saxophone weaves its way through a nagging twang of a distinctly Eastern influence, while a pulsing heartbeat rhythm creates an underlying tension.

Single cut ‘Titular’ is busy and adds an easy listening, lunge-like organ trill which is completely at odds with the hectic hand drums and frenzied fretwork. They really cut loose on the ten-minute ‘A Body to Match’, stretching things out in all directions – tempo, texture, detail, serving up a pan-cultural smorgasbord of noodlesome improvisation. There, they slowly pick apart the component elements, a slow-motion explosion or deconstruction of the composition, each part slowly moving further from the rest. ‘Goldfish Molasses’ slowly melts, a plodding beat reminiscent of ‘What A Day’ by Throbbing Gristle provides the spine for this slow, pulsating Industrial thudder, where a woozy bassline undulates in the background, and incidental noises and chattering yelps fill the space behind some indecipherable vocal.

Sasquatch Landslide is big on warped, looping drones and layers of intricacy upon layers of intricacy, which weave a shimmering sonic cloth that ripples and shifts before the eyes – and ears. Time itself bends and stretches, taking on an almost elastic quality as the threads unravel to reveal new layers and dimensions. One can feel the instrumentation expanding outwards into infinity – and infinite reverb – in the same way that the universe is continually expanding, only in an accelerated timeframe. For all of its abstraction, Sasquatch Landslide provokes quite visual interpretations of the sounds emanating from the speakers. I expect to have very strange dreams tonight after this.

AA

08 - The Dwarfs Of East Agouza cover art

Watch: ‘Dan’s Love Song’ by Agriculture

Posted: 17 September 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

The forthcoming full-length from Los Angeles–based band Agriculture, The Spiritual Sound, traces a narrative arc through extremes.  The album is largely a fusing of the visions of its two principal songwriters: Dan Meyer and Leah Levinson.  Though distinct, their voices converge in a singular spiritual grammar—one that defines the totality of The Spiritual Sound, not as separate parts, but as one unified expression.

Dan writes like someone clawing toward the divine through noise, channeling Zen Buddhism, historical collapse, ecstatic grief. Leah’s songs move differently: grounded in queer history and AIDS-era literature, amid the suffocating fog of the present, they carry the weight of survival as daily ritual. Dan takes the lead on their next release, a quieter moment amongst the chaos. About the track, he says;

“This is a love song to a future child. It is so moving to me that even though this child does not exist in the form of a child yet, all of the matter that will one day make up their being is already in the world. And of course this is true of all things that have ever existed. So even though I’m talking about a kid that I want to have one day, I’m really talking about the principle that everything is totally connected.”

AA

Agriculture’s formation mirrors their duality. What began as a loose collaboration between Kern Haug and Dan Meyer in the Los Angeles noise scene evolved into a shared pursuit of the sublime through heavy music. With the additions of Richard Chowenhill and Leah Levinson, the project solidified into the band’s current form. The ecstatic black metal foundation that was laid on 2022’s The Circle Chant expanded into something more precise and far-reaching on their 2023 self-titled full-length, and deepened further with 2024’s Living Is Easy: a record that embraced devotional intensity and radiant heaviness in equal measure.

Agriculture’s writing process is built on dismantling and revision of self. Dan and Leah bring songs to the band and then allow them to be pulled apart and rebuilt communally: reshaped through conflict, repetition, and deep trust. Richard adds guitar melodies and solos, and Kern constructs rhythms which are sometimes familiar but often unconventional. Finally, with Richard producing, the final form of each song is realised through intense collaborative work in the studio. Although a time consuming and ego-frustrating process, this allows the band to find the spirit of the songs not through inspiration, but through persistence.

Yet, even in its most ambitious moments, The Spiritual Sound remains rooted in the ordinary and in the day-to-day relationships between the people who made it. Gas station snacks. Inside jokes. Sleeping on floors. Playing shows in rooms that smell like mildew. The spirit here isn’t abstract, it’s live. This is spiritual music that starts with imperfect gear and a long-in-the-tooth tour van.

Agriculture doesn’t offer salvation. The Spiritual Sound isn’t a map out of the fire. What it offers instead is presence: a confrontation with the moment, however unbearable, however divine. It insists that meaning is still possible, even in a world hell-bent on reducing everything to content, and where suffering itself can be conducive to recovery. As the Buddhist saying goes: “the only way out is in.”

AA

agriculture_river8copy-990451000004513c

Photo credit: Milan Aguire

AGRICULTURE LIVE DATES 2025:

Sep 17  Kortrijk, BE — Wilde Westen
Sep 18  Haarlem, NL — Patronaat

Oct 8  Brooklyn, NY — Union Pool (Record Release Show)

Oct 27  San Antonio, TX — Paper Tiger $
Oct 28  Austin, TX — Mohawk $
Oct 30  Atlanta, GA — Masquerade $
Oct 31  Saxapahaw, NC — Haw River Ballroom $
Nov 01  Silver Spring, MD — The Fillmore $
Nov 02  Philadelphia, PA — Union Transfer $

Nov 04  Louisville, KY — Zanzabar
Nov 06  Oklahoma City, OK — 89th Street
Nov 08  Albuquerque, NM — Launchpad
Nov 09  Phoenix, AZ — Valley Bar
Nov 11  Denver, CO — Hi-Dive
Nov 13  Salt Lake City, UT — The State Room
Nov 14  Boise, ID — Neurolux
Nov 16  Seattle, WA — Madame Lou’s
Nov 18  Vancouver, BC — Fox Cabaret
Nov 19  Portland, OR — Mississippi Studios
Nov 21  Sacramento, CA — Cafe Colonial
Nov 22  San Francisco, CA — The Chapel
Dec 04  San Diego, CA — Soda Bar
Dec 05  Los Angeles, CA — Lodge Room

$ with Boris

Older Entries
Newer Entries