Posts Tagged ‘narrative’

Watch: ‘About The End Of The World (FULL ALBUM – Official Music Video Saga)’ by Darkplace

Posted: 27 October 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Darkplace is a mysterious new Swedish dark dream pop/post-punk group whose just released debut album, ‘About The End Of The World’, is a conceptual work inspired by the bleak landscape of the Stockholm suburbs that birthed them.

Centred around an alternative reality – or is it just a grim present and future? – the album has been unveiled gradually via a series of videos based on animated digital paintings for several of its tracks.

Four singles have been issued ahead of the album, with the introductory ‘Arken över Hesselby’ (The Ark Over Hesselby) presenting the outskirts of a city haunted by an unknown aerial presence. Its follow-up, ‘Fearmonger’, offered an apocalyptic scenario with sirens wailing and a lone soldier fleeing the prying ‘eye in the sky’ of a mysterious airship. The third, ‘Cars’, was the first to feature vocals and saw the story move on to a man travelling north following cryptic messages written on motorway signs. ‘This Is Loud’ saw the plot thicken and bring the story full circle…back to the beginning and Hesselby…with another stunning visual to accompany it.
A video for the track ‘The End’ has been made available to celebrate the release of the album and can be seen HERE. The band cryptically comment that “when the Monuments switch on you can taste metal and your ears pop. Working from home became vital for people who lived close to them. GPS’ seem slightly off. Is it because of interference from them? My regular walks also seem to differ in distance.”

A 25 minute video for the full album can be seen here:

Although rooted in late 80s/early 90s indie styles, Darkplace incorporate a variety of other genres into their sound. However, for the members of this highly secretive group, it is not just about the music. They perceive themselves as more an art project that happens to be exploring and commenting on the state of the world through their chosen mediums of music and video.

The majority of the tracks on the album are short instrumentals that were written with specific storyboards in mind, with the group revealing that: "We started creating the art before we had the music in most cases, so the tracks were written as soundtracks to the animation.”

The art itself is a multi-layered process that involves photography, sculpting, oil painting, digital editing and animation. Using apps like Nomad Sculpt to create it before exporting scene specific angles and imported into Procreate to be painted, they add: “we use oil paintbrushes and paint over the photo. It is layers upon layers and it gets messy. Exporting gets even messier since we want depth in the scenes and need to export them in layered depths. A few scenes in this project have been animated frame by frame and it has taken almost two years to complete.”

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Paul K – The Space Between

Posted: 23 September 2022 in Albums
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21st October 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

It’s been almost three years since Paul K delivered Reconstructed Memories. Listening to The Space Between, it becomes apparent why. Pandemic or nay, this is an ambitious and complex album which sees Paul return to the territory explored on 2018’s The Fermi Paradox and go the whole hog on devising and scoring a vast conceptual progressive work that’s heavily invested in narrative as it traces what he outlines as being a story ‘about an astronaut who has volunteered for a one way journey through space to pass through the Heliopause and is set maybe 30/50 years in the future.’

Space is both the backdrop and the story, in many ways, and the fascination it holds is something that transcends words or even rational explanation. Perhaps the fact that the sheer enormity and infiniteness of space is beyond our comprehension is a major factor in our space obsession. And however far and deep we probe, I suspect we will never truly be capable of assimilating the universe, especially as we, as a species, struggle to comprehend that we do not exist at its centre.

In classic sci-fi form and echoing 2001: A Space Odyssey, the concept behind the story is that the astronaut’s sole companion is an AI robot that becomes sentient during the journey, before the astronaut eventually dies and the robot continues the journey alone.

As Paul explains, ‘Each track plots the journey from liftoff looking back at the Earth (True Splendour) to the debilitating effect of years alone in space (Pareidolia) and is also related to the love and loss the astronaut has felt in his life’.

Understatement is the album’s defining feature. While it is unquestionably ambitious and incorporates cinematic arrangements, and notably choral-sounding vocals, the instrumentation is subtle and layered.

‘True Splendour’ makes for a gentle introduction and very much sets the tone. The Space Between keeps the drama and pomp to a minimum, and instead, the mood is contemplative, almost subdued, as strolling basslines wander sedately through soft washes of sound. Percussion is minimal, and low in the mix.

‘Sleep Within’ is perhaps the album’s most conventional ‘rock’ composition, but there’s a subdued, soporific overlay to its mid-pace melodic drift, although the reflective, wistful ‘Spektr’ has a certain solidity to it. In contrast, ‘Artifact’, the point at which the AI assumes autonomy, is almost vaporous, a soft piano reverberating among wispy sonic contrails.

The Space Between is an album that functions on numerous levels simultaneously, although they’re not all necessarily obvious. But it’s not imperative to follow the narrative to appreciate the detail; the album works in a way that not only creates space, but conveys space, the eternal distance, the vast emptiness… we are all lost and floating. But some are more lost than others. Welcome to The Space Between.

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Watch: ‘Deal3r’ by Male Tears

Posted: 9 August 2022 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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California darkwave duo, Male Tears has just unveiled their latest single, ‘Deal3r’. The song plays into the themes of an upcoming record that speaks on the abuse and hypocrisy of city night life.

‘Deal3r’ tells the story of the ultimate example of ‘style over substance.’ It’s the tale of an important person; a ‘legend’ embraced by the ‘scene’. But beneath the ‘image’ and artistic craft, lies an individual empty and shallow; a hypocrite and drug dealer whose true identity was hidden under the skin of the community.

The song is intended to be an aggressive dance-pop track pulling from darkwave and EBM influences. Filtered through the lens of 90’s pastiche and acid house, ‘Deal3r’ is a departure from the band’s established 80’s new wave sound.

Watch the video here:

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DEAL3R cover

Gintas K – Nervus Vagus

Posted: 10 November 2021 in Albums
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gk rec – 31st October 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

I have a sort of anguish-tinged relationship with artists who I admire who are super-prolific. First and foremost, I hold the utmost respect, where it’s not just the occasional creative burst, but a way of working that means they can maintain an almost endless stream of creativity and output. The anguish, selfishly, comes from the awareness that their output pisses on mine and my aspirations – and while I am of course aware that quantity is no real measure of anything, the ability to simply produce, relentlessly, is something that provokes, if I’m honest, a degree of envy. How do they do it? How do they have the headspace? How do the even have the time?

Gintas K is an artis whose work I’ve been covering for quite some time now, and I’ve long-marvelled at his output. Having come to understand his process over this time, and having watched some of the videos of his improvised recording sessions, the means of production is a significant factor in his ability to produce so much output. But that is by no means to say that he’s tossing out any old thing, and when it comes to his album releases, there are always multiple elements and sources involved, and if there isn’t specifically a theoretical element that’s integral to the process, there’s nevertheless a theoretical aspect in the mix.

For this album, ‘an electroacoustic music work that consists of stretched granular motives during the entire piece’, there are ‘voices and stories told by people of different ages and gender’, where ‘Stories blossom out of humorous fairytales told by 5 years’ child, stories about death, narrations of mindfulness, stories about consequences of WW2, deportation during Stalin regime and life in Siberia.’ It’s a mish-mash that features abstract voices in the most disturbing way. Then again, GK has a knack for the disturbing as well as for extranea.

There’s a lot of that to find here on Nervus Vagus. The album is dominated by GK’s trademark bubblebath of bloops and gloops, fizz and fuzz, and it’s often difficult to tell what’s going on. This kind of abstract mish-mash of electronica is difficult to process. ‘Rising’ is a whiplash blizzard or blips and blops, while on ‘A Dream. Relatives Story’ the dank atmosphere is hard to penetrate, and while the album may be abrim with stories, following any form of narrative is nigh on impossible. That’s no obstacle to enjoyment or appreciation of the work, though, provided you’re not averse to chaos and cacophony, and besides, the notion that narrative should be linear, or even cogent, is outmoded and based on the construct of linearity, which is by absolutely no means representative of lived experience or perception in real-time. Linear narrative exists simply to enable us to process things more readily, to simplify, and to make us feel more comfortable by imposing order on disorder. But that comfortable, ordered way is not the reality.

Gintas K’s chaotic concoction is a slice of life. Granular bubbles and extraneous noise dominate as ambient drones undulate, eddy and swirl into an uncomfortable mess of awkward noise. There are rumbles of thunder amidst the endless froth of microtones that cloud the brain and claw at it. The whole experience is quite bewildering. Sound familiar? Feel like life? It may not sound exactly like life as you know it but Nervus Vagus is likely to be uncomfortable because it’s real and interrupts the mediated flow of linear perception. But believe me, it’s good.

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Watch: ‘Kinks of the Heart’ by Årabrot

Posted: 17 February 2021 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Born of the long dark winters of Norway Årabrot was too black for metal and too avant-garde for punk so it forged its own path. Hewn from empty roads and the cold impenetrable depths of the fiords of its home.

A Norwegian Gothic, tales sung and stories told in screams and whispers. With its steel guitar, a steely gaze a sneer and a Stetson, Årabrot is the bastard offspring of Billie Holiday and Elmore James. It is The Velvet Underground if Johnny Cash was a member and Nico was able to sing. It is Camus, Sartre, Poe and Burroughs cut-up and regurgitated in an unholy erotic mass. It is all the great bands you haven’t even heard of. It is you. It is here it is now and there are other bodies to bury. Årabrot is not fucking around.

Årabrot is Kjetil “Tall Man” Nernes and Karin “Dark Diva” Park. They live in the Swedish countryside with their two children in the old church that they own. Rock’n roll is their religion.

Discussing the new video for ‘Kinks of the Heart’, Kjetil comments, “’Kinks Of The Heart’ and ‘Hailstones For Rain’ is one narrative in two parts. It is the tale of Årabrot, preachers of rock’n roll. The videos are shot in the church where we live and its surroundings, our neighbours and friends as the congregation. Karin is 8 months pregnant. If you want to know what Årabrot is all about this is where you want to start. Brilliantly directed by Thomas Knights and Kassandra Powell of Obscure Film Collective.”

Watch the video here:

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Årabrot’s 9th full-length album Norwegian Gothic sees the band collaborate with Lars Horntveth (Jaga Jazzist), cellist Jo Quail, Tomas Järmyr (Motorpsycho), Anders Møller (Turbonegro, Ulver) and Massimo Pupillo (Zu).

A stellar production by Jaime Gomez Arellano (Black Eyed Peas, Paradise Lost, Hexvessel, Oranssi Pazusu) makes this the quintessential Årabrot record. Commenting on latest single ‘Kinks of the Heart’, Kjetil adds,

‘There is a certain beauty to living in the countryside- there’s clear crisp air, fresh water, splendid sunsets. Every day we see wild animals coming down from the forests that surround us. There is a freedom attached to all that. The other day I went out of the church where we live and found a dead crow on the porch. It was only the head, its eyes gorged out and it had a huge claw stuck in its neck. There is also a brutality to nature which is ever-present out here. It is this duality Cormac McCarthy so masterly puts into words. It is also what Kinks Of The Heart is about.’

While the 20 years history of the band is a story of change and correlation, it would be too simple to

break this creative duality down to the stereotypical dichotomy of the yin and the yang… and if one attempted to do so, it would turn out to be quite difficult to determine which of these forces would be represented by which individual.

A chubby child from a Christian family, growing up in a small Swedish village and years spent in a Missionary school in Japan made Karin desperate to break away from narrow thinking. And she used her only advantages to do so; her unique voice and personality. By the age 15 she had moved away from home to find her place in music After studying at Stockholm Music Conservatory, a Norwegian poet took her to Norway where she started her pop career, this was followed by a move to London to write songs, and working as a model.

After five albums, a few Grammy’s, writing a Eurovision entry for Norway and hits for other artists and performances with Lana Del Rey and David Bowie, Karin returned to the village of her youth and bought the church where she first sang in front of an audience as a child. She turned the church into where they rehearse and record, surrounded by pianos, organs and hundreds of old bibles that the church left behind when the congregation stopped.

The clerical environment has proven to be an excellent creative tapestry for a band whose lyrical focus orbits around sex, death and defiance.

Kjetil Nernes was diagnosed with malignant throat cancer in 2014, in the middle of a tour. Instead of heading in for surgery right away, the band finished a full European tour first, "Every night of that tour was like the last show ever“, Nernes comments, "It was really strange. When a doctor calls and says, ‘you’re terribly sick’, it’s surreal. You go into this phase where life is more vivid and more real, in a weird way. We’ve done so many shows through the years and sometimes it’s a little like going to the factory to do a job. But with an axe hanging over your head you perceive the world differently.“

But the axe did not fall, and after successfully recovering from cancer, Årabrot are now stronger than ever.

The band has collaborated with procuders like Billy Anderson and Steve Albini, and musicians like Ted Parsons (Killing Joke/Swans), Sunn O))))’s Stephen O’Malley, and Kvelertak’s Erlend Hjelvik. They have composed music for silent movies like “Die Niebelungen” and “Doctor Caligari”, and have teamed up with The Quietus founder John Doran on his spoken word tour. Their album “The Gospel” was named “Album of the Year” by The Quietus.

Norwegian Gothic is released 9th April (Pelagic Records).

AR

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