Posts Tagged ‘Earth’

PAK40 / Teleost / ATKRTV – The Fulford Arms, York – 4th December 2025

Posted: 5 December 2025 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

It’s a cold and very wet Thursday night in December. The kind of night that would validate the narrative that music venues go bust because they’re not supported, and people want to see bands they know over local acts and so on – if the place had been quiet. But there’s nothing quiet about tonight., in terms of turnout or decibels. Ok, it’s not rammed, but it’s respectably busy, and as for the volume… These guys take it all the way to eleven.

The promoter’s strategy of booking a local / student / uni band to open up is one that rarely fails, and there’s a significant turnout early doors for ATKRTV. It helps that they’re good, albeit an acquired taste and not your average uni band. Operating in the classic power trio format, their primary inspirations are clearly US noise rock and grunge – there’s a bit of the Jesus Lizard here, a dash of Sonic Youth and Shellac there – as well as UK 90s noise that makes nods to the likes of Fudge Tunnel and Terminal Cheesecake – but there’s a lot going on, with hints of avant jazz in the blend, too. They’re a bit rough round the edges, but there is a musical style which is forgiving of this, and the jagged jarring juxtapositions of squalling guitar work with some meaty bass work evidences a technical ability beneath the surface of the feedback-strewn tempest. And while the banter might need some work, the songs are a glorious angular explosive racket, and they give them a hundred percent. And this is why it’s always worth getting down early doors. Every headliner was a support act once, after all.

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In my recent review of that debut album, Atavism, I commented on how the challenge would be for them to replicate the live sound in the studio. This is because their life sound is simply immense. There really is no other word for it. And this is not volume simply for the sake of it: this is volume as an expression, volume which renders the music physical, volume without which certain frequencies and tonalities, so integral to their sound, would not be achievable. Their performance in this same venue back in February was spellbinding, and I came tonight in the hope of replicating that experience. And oh yes, I did, and then some: Teleost seemed to take things to the next next level tonight.

Theirs is a subtly different take on the whole droning doom / stoner form, incorporating almost folky elements in the way that more recent Earth albums do. And instead of being solely about bludgeoning riffery – and hell, there’s plenty of that – there’s a rare attention to detail, not just in the delicate picking and soft cymbal splashes in the quieter moments, but in the full-spectrum sonic experience they conjure. And yes, conjure is the word: this is a world of magic made with a mystical blend of musicianship, amps, pedals, and something else quite indefinable. The way Leo Hancill uses a standard guitar, played through a substantial but not extravagant pedal set and two amps, to cover the range of both guitar and bass is spectacular in itself, but what really makes their sound unique, and it’s so easy to lose yourself in the timbre and texture, the way the sounds reverberate against one another to create this sensurround experience.

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Teleost

Once again, I find myself truly mesmerised by Cat Redfern’s ultra slow drumming. What’s most remarkable is how effortless she makes it appear. Granted, her sticks are batons, but she is still an immensely hard hitter please with absolute precision. Yet she plays with an order of serenity, her expression calm, almost a smile, although it’s clear that’s behind this is intense concentration, and perhaps an element of telepathy between herself and Leo. Certainly the intuition between pair is remarkable, and no amount of rehearsal alone can achieve this level of tightness. The way they navigate the peaks and troughs, spinning elongated quiet passages, where they reduce everything to a hushed hum and the tinkle of a cymbal before bringing in a cataclysmic riff with pinhead precision is nothing short of phenomenal. And for all the noise, the experience is remarkably calming.

Before Teleost, there was PAK40. But with basis / vocalist Andy Glen now resident in Germany, and Leo Hancill living in Glasgow, activity from this former York duo is now extremely rare. That they’re touring with Teleost, having released a new EP simultaneous with the Teleost album makes economical sense, but also represents a significant feat of co-ordination.

It’s not difficult to identify the origins of Teleost when listening to pack 40. They’re certainly slow and heavy. But their style draws more overtly on the Sabbath-based doom sludge template, and there much more overtly metal. In places, they present a sort of blackened New Age metal hybrid. There’s also something more direct about their drum / bass combination. But oh, that bass. The thick, tearing distortion when the riffs kick in are agonisingly close to brown note territory: you feel your ribs rattle and your skin quivering.

In contrast to Cat Redfern’s zen drumming, Leo drums with his face, and in contrast to Hanclil’s slow nodding guitar style, Andy Glen goes all out with some unrestrained headbanging as he unleashes the most pulverising bass riffs. PAK40 are harder, and more abrasive. And this is why the double-header works: for all of their similarities, the two bands bring different shades of heavy. And they’re both intense, physical forces.

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PAK40

I babble some shit to people on the way out. I think I got away with it, because everyone is equally dazed. We’ve been blitzed, blown out of our minds and shaken out of our skins tonight by a musical experience that borders on transcendental. It’s a cut above your average wet Thursday night in December, for sure.

Teleost – Atavism

Posted: 28 November 2025 in Reviews, Albums
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1st December 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Since relocating to Glasgow, Teleost have been forging ahead, first with the release of the Three Originals EP at the start of the year, and now, bookending 2025 – which has seen the duo venturing out live more often – with their full-length debut. And it’s definitely got length: five tracks spanning a full fifty minutes. But it’s got girth, too. Atavism is everything they promised from their early shows – amplified. In every way. With five tracks, and a running time of some fifty minutes, Teleost have really explored the epic space they conjure with their monolithic, crawling riffery, pushing out further than ever before – and with more gear than ever before.

Despite there only being two of them, you have to wonder how they fit all that kit into a studio, let alone a van. They’re not quite at the point of Stephen O’Malley – who had to play to the edge of the stage at the Brudenell when playing solo in Leeds some years ago because the backline barely fit – but at the rate they’re amassing equipment, it’s probably only a matter of time. But this isn’t the accumulation of stuff for the sake of it: this is a band obsessed with perfecting its sound, and then going beyond and taking it to the next level. Volume is integral to that, in the way that it is for Sunn O))) and Swans – and again, not for its own sake, but for the purpose of rendering the sound a physical, multisensory experience. And also because volume facilitates the creation of tones and frequencies simply not possible at lower volumes.

The challenge for any band who rely on these quite specific conditions live is to recreate not only the sound, but the sensory experience, the full impact, when recorded. Recording compresses, diminishes, boxes in and packages something immense, compacting it to something… contained, confined, in a way that a live show simply isn’t. Live, there is movement, there is the air displaced from the speakers, there are vibrations, there is an immediacy and margin for error, all of which are absent from that ‘definitive’ documented version.

‘Volcano’ conjures atmosphere in spades, a whistling wind and tinkling cymbals delicately hover around a softly-picked intro, before a minute or so in, BAM! The pedals go on and the riff lands, and hard – as do the drums. Slow, deliberate, atomic detonations which punctuate the laval sludge of the guitar, which brings enough low-end distortion to bury an entire empire. The vocals are way down in the mix and bathed in reverb, becoming another instrument rather than a focal point. The pulverizing weight suddenly takes an explosive turn for the heavier around the mid-point, and you begin to fear for your speakers. How is this even possible? They do pair it back in the final minutes, and venture into the earthy, atmospheric, timbre-led meanderings of Neurosis. By way of an opening, this twelve minute track is beyond monumental.

They may have accelerated their work rate, but certainly not the tempos of their tunes: ‘Bari’ – which may or may not hark back to the band’s genesis, when they performed as Uncle Bari – rides in on a wall of feedback and then grinds low and slow. They really take their time here, with ten full minutes of jarring, jolting riffery that’s as dense as osmium. Turn it u and you can feel the hairs in your ears quiver and your cells begin to vibrate.

Where Teleost stand apart from other purveyors of slow, droning doom is in their attention to those textures which are grainy, thick, and each chord stroke hits like a tsunami making land reach, a full body blow that almost knocks you off your feet.

But for all of the annihilative volume and organ-bursting weight, Atavism is not an angry or remotely violent record: these are compositions concerned with a transcendent escape, and this is nowhere more apparent than on the mid-album mellow-out, ‘Life’, which offers strong parallels to more recent Earth releases. A slow, hypnotic guitar motif is carried by rolling cymbal-dominated drums. I find myself yawning, not through boredom, but relaxation – until four and a half minutes in when they bring the noise once more, and do so with the most devastating force.

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Penultimate track, ‘Djinn’ is contemplative, reflective at first and then goes on an all-out blow-out, seemingly more intense and more explosive than anything before it. While growling droning rumbling is the album’s defining feature, there does very much feel like there’s an arc of growing intensity over its course. Here, the vocals feel more skywardly-tilted, more uplifting in their aim to escape from the planet, and closer, ‘Canyon’ returns to the mesmeric, slow-creeping Earth-like explorations before slamming all the needles into the red. The result is twelve minutes of magnificent calm juxtaposed with earth-shattering riff heaven.

The fidelity is fantastic, the perfect realisation of their head-blastingly huge live sound captured. The chug and trudge cuts through with a ribcage-rattling density, and there is nothing else but this in your head. You mind is empty, all other thought blown away. It’s a perfect escape. And this is – at least in its field – a perfect album.

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The Spectral Light – Obliteration – Album review and EXCLUSIVE VIDEO STREAM

Posted: 16 July 2025 in Albums, Recommended Streams and Videos, Reviews, Singles and EPs
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Cruel Nature Records – 1st August 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

If ever an album was appropriately titled, this is it. Obliteration is from the Sunn O))) / Earth end of the slow and heavy spectrum, with everything low and grinding and dense and seeping along at a snail’s pace – but it’s also so very different. The eleven-and-a-half-minute ‘Teeth’. which raises the curtain on this colossal work, trudges along, thick and murky, the guitars like sludge, overlaid with the most haunting, ethereal vocals, like spirits ascending to the heavens – or perhaps more accurately, fleeing the molten torment of the volcanic pits of hell. The quieter passages ripple gently, but there’s something off-key and off-kilter that proves unsettling, a discordance which isn’t quite right.

The album is described as ‘a visceral, atmospheric journey shaped by improvisation, deep literary roots, and a shared affinity for both crushing heaviness and ghostly ambience’, with the notes going on to add that ‘vocalist and instrumentalist Amanda Votta draws lyrical inspiration from classic rock icons and poets alike – Led Zeppelin, Stevie Nicks, Carl Sandburg’s poems ‘Alone’ and ‘The Great Hunt’, along with Sylvia Plath.’

If none of the influences are immediately apparent, it’s likely because influence can be subtle, more a process of osmosis and assimilation rather than being about emulation. Drawing influence from Led Zep doesn’t have to equate to epic solos and using ‘baby’ a thousand times. And so it is that The Spectral Light suck all of those influences into a swirling vortex.

The churning ‘Branch’ is wild: ZZ Top on acid, Led Zep in the midst of a breakdown, riffs played at a thousand decibels through shredded speakers and melting amps. But it also spins into cracked post-rock territory over the course of its disorientating nine minutes.

Make no mistake: this is a monster: ‘Moonsinger’ warps and bends and it’s emotionally gutting in ways that are difficult to articulate. It touches the core of the very soul. The title track is defined by a dense, metallic churn… and yet there is still a delicacy about it. It’s dark, disturbing, ugly, and yet… beautiful. There is nothing else quite like this. And the dark, airless trudge of Obliteration feels like a black hole… and I find myself being dragged into its eternal depths.

Ahead of the album’s release, we’re privileged to be able to offer a video exclusive for the album’s final track and choice of lead single, ‘Whisper Surgery’. You might want to pour a big drink for this one.

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Teleost – Three Originals

Posted: 16 March 2025 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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3rd January 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Only the middle of March and I’m running behind on releases, so my apologies to Teleost for letting this one slip down the pile, especially as I’d been looking forward to it for some time. Even their earliest live shows, Before rebranding as Teleost, the duo, consisting of Leo Hancill and Cat Redfern, showed a rare musical chemistry, resulting in music of huge, immersive power. Recent shows, such as their recent York homecoming show with Cwfen, demonstrated that they have reached a whole other level of almost transcendental drone, a place where sound becomes a physical force.

But the challenge for any band who are so strong as a live unit, is how successfully can that be translated via the record medium. To commit the sound to tape – or digital recording – is in some way to compress and contain it, to reduce it to two – or even one – dimension. A recording is essentially a listening experience, without the visual element, without the klick drum or the low frequences vibrating your ribs, and all of the other stuff. So how have Teleost faced up to that challenge? Remarkably well. No doubt recording the guitar and drums live has helped retain the huge sound of the live experience. No slickening, studio polishing, just that huge sound caught in real-time, and Pedro at The Audio Lounge in Glasgow has done a remarkable job, clearly understanding what the band are about.

Three Originals opens with the ponderous grind of ‘Forget’, where a sustained whistle of reverby feedback is rapidly consumed by the first thick, sludgy chord: the distortion is speaker-decimatingly dense, and there’s so much low-end you feel it in the lower colon. It’s pure Sunn O))), of course, but then the ultra-heavy drums crash in and the vocals start… Hancill’s approach to singing is very much about rendering his voice an additional instrument rather than the focal point, and the elongated enunciations convey an almost abstractly spiritual sensation.

The first time I saw Earth was following their return with Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I, and I spent the entire show completely hypnotised by Adrienne Davies’ slow drumming. It was an experience I shall never forget: it was if time slowed down, and empires could rise and fall between each beat. I haven’t experienced anything similar since, until Teleost. And once you’ve had such a powerful visual experience in a musical context, it’s not only impossible to forget it, but it becomes integrated with hearing the band. And so it is that on listening to Three Originals, I find myself reliving that experience. It’s clear where Teleost draw their influences, but in amalgamating that low, slow drone of Sunn O))) with the more nuanced, tectonic crawling groove of latter-day Earth, they offer something that is distinct and different.

The seven-and-a-half-minute ‘Ether’ blasts in and the sheer density of that guitar is pulverizing. It simply does not sound like two people, let alone that it’s one guitar and no bass. There’s a delicate mid-section consisting of a clean guitar break before the landslide of distortion hits once more. Final track, ‘Throwaway’ is anything but, another sprawling, seven-minute monster dominated by gut-churning sludge and yawning yelps of feedback, while the vocals drift plaintively in the background.

Three Originals is without doubt their strongest work to date, my only complaint being that it simply isn’t long enough. But then, if each track was fifteen minutes long, it still wouldn’t be. In the field of doomy droney heaviosity, Three Originals is in a league of its own.

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Teleost / Cwfen / Makhlon – The Fulford Arms, York, 6th February 2024

Posted: 7 February 2025 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

On arrival, it looks like Nu Jorvik have pulled and been replaced by Makhlon, and at somewhat short notice, but it’s hard to grumble when you’ve got three heavy bands for six measly quid and the headliners are guaranteed to be worth double that on their own.

There’s lots of leather, studs, long coats, and long hair in the gathered crowd, it turns out those sporting corpse paint – perhaps not entirely surprisingly – belong to the first band who are straight-up black metal.

Makhlon’s singer has Neil from The Young Ones vibes. He’s about 7ft tall and wearing a Lordi T-shirt, but snarls full-on Satanic rasping vocals from behind his nicely-washed jet-black hair. The lead guitarist and front man swap roles for the last two songs – both of which are epic in scope, with some nice tempo changes, and they really step up the fury. It’s quite amusing to see him clutching a notebook in the arm which is thrust forward and enwrapped in a spike-covered vambrace, and checking the lyrics, as if it’s possible to decipher a single syllable. But this is all good: time was when York was wall-to-wall indie, folk, and Americana. Now… now we have homegrown acts like this, and the thing with black metal is that it only works when the band and its members are one hundred percent committed to the cause. These guys are, and while they may be fairly new, they’re tight, they can really play, and they give it everything.

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Makhlon

Cwfen – pronounced ‘Coven’ – aren’t Welsh, but in fact Scottish, and this is their first trip south of the border. It seems that since relocating to Glasgow, Teleost have been making some good friends. And Cwfyn are good alright… Woah, yes, they’re good. They are heavy, so heavy, as well as melodic but also ferocious. There’s a lot going on, all held together by a supremely dense bass. The ‘occult metal four- piece’ may be the coming together of artists who’ve been around a few years, but the fact they’ve only been playing as a unit for a couple of years is remarkable, as they really have everything nailed. They’re both visually and sonically compelling: Siobhan’s fierce presence provides an obvious focal point, but the way everything melds instrumentally is breathtaking. The third song in their five-song set slows things, and brings some nice reverb and chorus textures. Piling into the penultimate song, the crushing ‘Penance’, which features on their debut release, they sound absolutely fucking immense. The closer, the slow-burning, slightly gothy ‘Embers’ is truly epic. With their debut album in the pipeline, this is a band to get excited about.

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Cwfen

I’m already excited about Teleost, and the fact that there’s such a turnout on a cold Thursday night says the people of York are extremely pleased to welcome them home. Having knocked about in various bands / projects previously, with Cat Redfern fronting Redfyrn on guitar and vocals, before pairing with Leo Hancill to form Uncle Bari, who would mutate into the ultimate riff-monster that is Teleost, they departed for Glasgow, leaving a uniquely Teleost-shaped hole at the heavier end of the scene.

Absence not only makes the heart grow fonder, but it’s apparent they’ve spent their time getting even more immense since they left.

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Teleost

They’re a band to watch with your eyes closed. Not because they aren’t good to watch, but because their sound is so immersive. Teleost have perfected that Earth-like tectonic crawl. Imagine Earth 2 with drums and vocals. Or, perhaps, Sunn O)))’s Life Metal with percussion. Each chord hangs for an entire orbit, the drums crash at a tidal pace, and with oceanic, crushing weight. Somehow, Leo Hancil’s guitar sounds like three guitars and a bass, and it looks like he’s actually running through two or even three separate cabs. It’s not quite Stephen O’Malley’s backline, but it’s substantial. And you’re never going to get a sound like that just going through a 15-watt amp, however you mic it up. They play low and slow, and Cat plays with drumsticks as thick as rounders bats, yielding a truly thunderous drum sound. In fact, to open your eyes is to reveal a mesmerising spectacle: two musicians playing with intense focus and a rare intuition, and Redfern’s slow, deliberate drumming is phenomenal, and the whole experience is completely hypnotic. They play over the scheduled time, and then, by popular demand, treat us to an encore with an as-yet-unreleased song. Everyone is absolutely rooted to the spot, currents of sound buffeting around us.

Teleost’s influences may be obvious, but they’re at the point where they’re every bit as good as their forebears. The future is theirs. But tonight is ours. We can only hope they visit again soon.

Mari Boine – Alva

Posted: 11 September 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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By Norse Music – 6 September 2016

Christopher Nosnibor

It was reading Naomi Kline’s Doppelganger recently that I truly came to appreciate the way in which western colonialism has annihilated indigenous cultures. I have no real defence for my ignorance, although it’s most apparent that the version of history we receive from virtually any source you care to name is slanted, skewed, almost to the point of revisionary fabrication. The fact that so many countless indigenous cultures have been erased or so diminished so as to be rendered invisible has become normalised and recounted as a process of ‘civilisation’ or ‘improvement’ renders the wider world oblivious to the brutality of fact.

And so it was that reading the text which accompanies Mari Boine’s latest release struck me with a heightened impact, and it’s worth quoting for context:

‘Like so many people impacted by colonisation which we see throughout the world today and throughout history, the Sámi people of Norway (Sweden, Finland and Russia), have been oppressed and deprived of their distinct indigenous culture and language since the 17th century. Mari’s music aims to convey a sense of oppression and frustration, anger and sorrow, which stems from this history. On Alva specifically, a Northern Sámi word which translates to energy, determination or willpower, Mari’s compelling use of traditional joik singing bores through layers of history, imploring the Sámi people to

‘Bring out, breathe out the stories

that ask to be told

With your light feet

trespass the border of time’

This release, we learn, sees Mari Boine ‘blending ancient traditions and resonating with a message of respect for the earth. Alva is not just an album – it’s a journey into the very soul of Sámi heritage, brought to life by one of the world’s most compelling and visionary artists.’

And indeed it is. The thirteen songs on Alva – which translates as ‘willpower’ – possess a palpable sense of spirit, of – for wont of better words as I fumble around in a weak effort to articulate – heritage, culture. Even where it’s not possible to comprehend the words themselves, the music, and Mari’s voice speak, and do so on an instinctive, human level.

You see, colonialism – and our capitalist society – was / is based on division, a narrative of ‘us’ and ‘them’, with an othering of indigenous peoples as being lesser. The fact the world as is – particularly in the last few years, and particularly on social media, which has increasingly become a cesspit of division and self-centredness – means a lot of us have lost sight of the fact that fundamentally, we have more in common than we have separations, and division is another instrument of control exercised by those who strive to hold power in this capitalist society. When society tells us that the only way becomes dog-eat-dog (and migrant-eat-dog, and cat, becomes a topic in a presidential debate), it’s apparent just how fucked-up things have got, and how far we’ve come from living in harmony with symbiosis with the planet.

Alva doesn’t evoke ‘simpler’ times by any stretch. In fact, I suspect what may prove unexpected for many is just how timeless – and at the same time, contemporary – Alva sounds. ‘Dánsso fal mu váhkaran’ manages to infuse an airy, folksy song with a tinge of funk and a buoyant, almost Eurovision groove, while ‘Várjaliviĉĉet min vuolláneames brings bold, ceremonial beats, and ‘Anárjoh’ gáttis’ is expansive and atmospheric, and again, percussion-driven. But there’s an air of fluidity, of naturalness, of something at once earthy and above the earth which lingers around the delicately-poised melodies.

Alva is graceful, life-affirming, meditative, transportative, and magical.

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Musique Infinie – Earth

Posted: 14 February 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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Hallow Ground – 7th February 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Silent movies provide a perfect inspiration for musical scores: unencumbered not only by pre-existing scores, but also dialogue or incidental sound, they offer a completely blank canvas and space for musicians to fully explore – and articulate – the mood of the movie, the moments of drama, to become both immersed in and enhance, even create, atmosphere.

Following the split of Siouxsie and the Banshees in 1996, Steven Severin devoted much time to writing scores for old movies, and performing them as live soundtracks in movie theatres, and I was fortunate to catch him in around 2012 when touring Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1932 Vampyr. It was a powerful and haunting experience, and one which clearly brought new dimensions to a very old film.

In the same vein, Musique Infinie – the collaborative project of Manuel Oberholzer a.k.a. Feldermelder and Noémi Büchi – present an improvised score for Alexander Dovzhenko’s groundbreaking 1930 silent movie Zemlya (Earth) created for the 24th edition of the VIDEOEX festival for experimental film.

For those unfamiliar – such as myself, the crib notes inform that ‘Frequently cited as a masterpiece of early 20th century filmmaking, the movie deals with the collectivisation of Ukraine’s agriculture.’

Now, the movie clearly holds up on its own to be so revered and still revisited almost a century on, but what of the soundtrack? How does it hold up without the visuals which inspired it?

The soundtrack is divided into two movements of roughly similar duration – ‘Creation’ (14:25) and ‘Destruction’ (12:54). It begins with big, bold, sweeping symphonia, synthesised choral soarings atop majestic, broad-sweeping synth tones. There is a palpable sense of grandeur, and with deep string sounds resonating low beneath big, emphatic surging drones, this feels immense and so strongly cinematic that it’s hard not to be caught up in the tide. A sudden droning downturn marks a temporary change of mood before we’re brought out into calmer waters and begin to regain our breath around the five-minute mark. Robotic, industrial glops and bleeps undulate and oscillate, cresting through the smooth surface. Over time, the piece transitions between organic-sounding orchestral manoeuvres to altogether more space-age sounding synthscapes, before fading rapidly at quite an interesting intersection.

‘Destruction’ – as one might well expect – steps up the drama and the dynamics, but perhaps less expectedly becomes more overtly electronic, with stuttering, glitching disturbances and cold, dark waves blasting in, bending and warping. At times haunting, disconsolate, others foreboding and unsettling, this is certainly the more challenging half of the album. But on the one hand, while it’s more exciting, in some respects, it’s also less fulfilling. Partly, it’s because of the way in which the organic-sounding strings rub against the more overtly electronic sounds, and as much as this juxtaposition and interplay is essential to the compositional form, it sometimes feels like a clash whereby the pair are seeking to achieve two separate ends. Given its improvised nature, this is perhaps to be expected, and the overall flow of the album as a whole is marked by moments of convergence and divergence.

There’s also the nagging sense of just how contemporary this feels in contrast to the visuals the sound is designed to accompany, although without being able to observe the intended setting, it’s difficult to fairly judge the level of success here.

One could – and probably should – see the film, and should also watch it with this accompanying it, as intended – but that isn’t this release, which must be judged on its audio content alone. And taken apart, in isolation, Earth is a stimulating and dynamic work, and one which demonstrates that Musique Infinie aren’t afraid to test themselves and to test boundaries, and to create a powerful and dramatic listening experience.

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Khanate – Khanate (reissue)

Posted: 11 December 2023 in Albums
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Sacred Bones – 1st December 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

The unexpected and unannounced arrival of Khanate’s fifth album, some seventeen years after they declared that they were calling it a day, and fourteen years after the release of the posthumous Clean Hands Go Foul caused quite a stir in certain circles – predominantly those occupied by black-clad beard-strokers. Although this is very much a stereotype, I’m reminded of the time I went to see Sunn O))) at The Sage in Gateshead on the same night one of Cheryl Cole’s X-Factor protégé’s was performing in the foyer of the three-stage venue. Incongruous doesn’t come close, and suffice it to say, I wasn’t hard to tell who was there for the ultimate lords of drone-doom and who was there for the cheesy mass-market commercial cash-in shit. There were a lot of beards and leather coats.

The reason Khanate are such big news on the underground is that the band is comprised of James Plotkin, Stephen O’Malley, Alan Dubin and Tim Wyskida, and according to their bio, ‘Together, they make terrifying music.’ Between their formation in 2001 and separation in 2006, they managed to find time out from their main projects to record four monumental albums, and the release of To Be Cruel earlier this year came with the announcement of the reissue of all four, both digitally and physically. And so this brings us to the first of these, their eponymous debut.

The press release sets the expectation, for those unacquainted or unfamiliar, telling of how ‘The cramped corner of hell that Khanate takes the listener to, sonically and psychologically, has almost nothing in common with the doom bands that populate stoner-oriented music festivals across the globe. Khanate is doom as a foregone conclusion, as merciless atmospheric pressure, as a blunt object to crack you over the skull with, slowly, repeatedly, and forever.’

Having only released some demos and their debut ØØ Void, Sunn O))) had yet to really break by the time Khanate came out, and in some ways, they beat Sunn O))) to the mark on launching blasting longform drone to the masses, with an album that featured just five tracks spanning a fill hour. And their colossally expansive duration is matched every inch of the way by the sonic brutality.

The album arrives in a squall of feedback before intestine-crushing low-end chords crash in and grind hard, immediately unsettling the lower colon. Thew gnarliest, most demonic vocals shriek amidst the raging infernal wall of noise, dredged from the molten mantel of deep down below. ‘Pieces of Quiet’ is punishing in every way, but not least in that while its devastating, annihilative work is done after about five minutes, it pounds and grinds on well past the thirteen-minute mark.

In context, doom and drone had both crawled out of the depths a good few years before, and with Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version in 1993, Earth had defined a new form of metal with what will likely stand for all eternity as the ultimate heavy drone work. And yet, these guys believed they could add something further to this – and they were right. Drums, for a start. And vocals.

‘Skin Coat’ is every bit as nasty as the serial killer enthusiast title implies, the guitars mangled to fuck, combining to optimal effect the snarling nastiness of the most blackened of black metal and the sludgiest, most gut-churning doom, with 23bpm drum crashes at the crawling pace of Cop-era Swans. It’s dark and its overtly unpleasant, snarling subterranean oozing tar-thick blackness which crawls like larva and destroys everything in its wake.

‘Torching Koroviev’ is simply a brief interlude which fleetingly opens a portal into hell, before the eighteen-minute ‘Under Rotting Sky’ brings what is arguably the definitive representation of Khanate, again, a squall of feedback prefacing a shredding wall of downtuned and overdriven guitar, billowing and thick with a sludge-like density. It is, of course, an absolute copy of the Sunn O))) model, but with demonic vocals echoing, anguished and wracked with eternal pain through the crushing mesh of noise. It’s fearsome, deranged, the crazed vocal screaming into the abyss. There is no rational or clear way of exploring this: it’s scary, and there is no other way to look. This is the final pulverisation, pacing the way for the album’s brutally dark last track. ‘No Joy’ is appropriately titled, and as heavy as it gets. I crawl, cracked, from the crushing drone experience and as long an hour as nature evaporates from my weary body Slowly the lack-hole darkness takes its grip and begins to crush the very life from my limbs.

This album is twenty-two years old. Yes: twenty-two years. And yet it hasn’t aged a day or even a second. While so much music – particularly rock and metal – has aged and sounds of its time, Khanate froze time when they came together, and the result was like nothing else – and still stands to this day.

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Thraa – Into Earth

Posted: 27 September 2022 in Albums
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2nd September 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

UK duo Thraa consists of Sally Mason and Andi Jackson, whose bio states that ‘Working without the constrictions of a traditionally structured song, this duo improvise around meditative drones, combining Sunn 0))) influenced guitars with soaring vocals. Making single take recordings, they capture an organic sense of sound that has cavernous textures with minimalism at heart.’

In some respects, this debut EP brings us full-circle in terms of drone evolution, and it’s fitting in the most appropriate, and planetary sense. The most successful and celebrated purveyors of drone, Sunn O))) famously took their moniker as a reference to drone/ doom progenitors Earth, who will, in certain circles, be forever remembered for the tectonic grind of their epic second album, Earth 2, from 1993, which contains just three tracks spanning some seventy-three minutes, with nothing but guitar and bass feedback stretching out, crunching along at a glacial pace and carrying the weight of entire continents. It’s hard to believe that this release will ever be surpassed for all that it is, with two of the three tracks stretching out around the half-hour mark with no shape or form, only an endless, grating, grumbling grind. Into Earth connotes a return to base material, a slow collapse, even a decay into compost form, but also hints at a sonic slide toward this territory carved out by the original and definitive drone act some twenty-nine years ago.

Thraa intimidated at the shape of things to come in June with the release of ‘Move Among Them’, which is the first of the EP’s four tracks. It’s swampy, sparse, beginning with an awkward, gurgling, wheezing, a kind of tentative snuffling grunt in the bass region before soaring, sculpted feedback howls and churns metallic—tinged clouds of scraping ambience. It probably sounds like a contradiction on paper, but hear me out: the screeding layers blur into a whirl without definition and tumble into a vortex of abstraction, and in doing so, create the sound closest to that early Earth whorling wall I’ve heard from any other band.

The title track lacks even more overt form, spurs of guitar feedback screeching as it breaks loose from the dense, rippling wall of undifferentiated noise. There are strong elements of Metal Machine Music here, but it’s around the midpoint that a slow, rhythmic piano emerges, along with a haunting understated vocal from Sally that’s half-buried beneath the noise of explosions and / or tidal waves. It’s both dolorous and ethereal, and BIG | BRAVE comparisons aren’t out of place here, either.

Everything coalesces after the subdued scrape and low-end rumblings of ‘Elgon’ on the seventeen-minute finale ‘Over Warm Stones’. Nothing different happens as such: there is only more, in terms of duration, and in terms of atmosphere. The snaking, rattling notes that swell and shimmer provide a sparse, textured backdrop to a quivering, evocative vocal performance.

Into Earth may not offer anything new, per se, but does provide a strong contribution to the canon of emotive, evocative ambient drone / doom which features vocal, which in this instance are essential to the experience, and it’s an experience which is compelling, immersive, heavy as hell and at the same time heavenly, before it collapses into a landslide of feedback that stretches out to the horizon.

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Watch: ‘Stratum’ by Jana Irmert

Posted: 2 May 2022 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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In the magical volcanic landscapes of Lanzarote, Jana Irmert found images for the ideas, moods and feelings that fueled the work on the tracks of What Happens At Night: For me this release is a window through which I could express my thoughts and feelings about our planet in turmoil. Starting out from a point of hopelessness, my fascination with travelling into Deep Time and learning about geologic ages grew. After all, what will be left of us will only be a delicate layer in the rock.“

‘Stratum’, named after the word used in geology for a single layer of sediment, attempts to dissolve time and space, merging the abstract and the concrete. The volcanic landscapes, which are very young from a geological perspective, thereby become a place where human existence plays only a marginal role.

Watch the video here:

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Jana Irmert _ Stratum _ video still 2

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