The immense success of Psychonaut’s Pelagic debut album Unfold The God Man, which has been repressed 3 times throughout the pandemic and sold close to 3000 vinyl copies to date, has proven that Psychonaut are a force to be reckoned with.
The three gentlemen from Mechelen, Belgium now return with a ferocious and muchly anticipated concept album that proclaims the formation of a new world through the acceptance of a new human identity.“We’ve always been interested in religion, spirituality and philosophy,” explains vocalist/guitarist Stefan de Graef about the music of Psychonaut. “We’ve meditated together, had long discussions about the nature of life, and we share a common vision.”
Now, with the release of their sophomore album Violate Consensus Reality on 28th October (Pelagic Records), the Belgian three-piece take you on a visceral trip into our collective human consciousness. A journey marked by explosive riffs, soaring vocals and intricate yet catchy compositions.
An impressive album which cements PSYCHONAUT’s standing as aspirants to the throne of the contemporary European progressive / post metal community. On new single ‘All Your Gods Have Gone’ the band add,
"This track is one of the shortest and heaviest tracks we’ve ever written. We don’t usually allow ourselves to put too much anger into our songs because we try to focus on the positive, but this album made us realize that it can actually be a very healthy thing to give into your anger from time to time. There’s no use in ignoring it because that only makes it grow. The lyrics to this track were very cleansing and healing to write in that way.”
Watch the animated video now created by Eric Lempens:
AA
Violate Consensus Reality engages the senses in a way that is quite rare for concept albums, it is raw and brutal, unlike the lofty concept albums of yore with their endlessly repeating motifs and needlessly complex song structures. It stands in a long tradition of activism in music, but it also deconstructs this tradition by taking its loud and admonishing tone and providing it with a thoughtful base rooted in philosophy and spirituality.
With music deeply rooted in communal meditation sessions, psychedelic metal outfit Psychonaut are a unique entity in the Belgian metal scene and beyond. The mantric title track of their upcoming second album, which they have now shared, sees the trio once more aligned in body and mind as they appeal to the listener with a 9-minute atmospheric slow burner. Their stature is once more affirmed by Amenra’s Colin H. van Eeckhout, who ushers the track to an unforgettable climax.
The immense success of Psychonaut’s Pelagic debut album Unfold The God Man, which has been repressed 3 times throughout the pandemic and sold close to 3.000 vinyl copies to date, has proven that Psychonaut are a force to be reckoned with.
The three gentlemen from Mechelen, Belgium now return with a ferocious and muchly anticipated concept album that proclaims the formation of a new world through the acceptance of a new human identity. “We’ve always been interested in religion, spirituality and philosophy,” explains vocalist/guitarist Stefan de Graef about the music of PSYCHONAUT. “We’ve meditated together, had long discussions about the nature of life, and we share a common vision.”
Now, with the release of their sophomore album Violate Consensus Reality on 28th October (Pelagic Records), the Belgian three-piece take you on a visceral trip into our collective human consciousness. A journey marked by explosive riffs, soaring vocals and intricate yet catchy compositions.
An impressive album which cements PSYCHONAUT’s standing as aspirants to the throne of the contemporary European progressive / post metal community.
“We distance ourselves from a system that is based on the idea that humanity is fundamentally bad and needs protection from itself in the form of a hierarchy,” continues De Graef about PSYCHONAUT’s latest album. “By no longer subscribing to the notion that we are all separate beings in a separate world that is dead and pointless, we embrace the vision of a new civilisation that is rooted in the idea that we are part of a living, sacred universe.” Likening our present state of separation to “an island on oceans grown, designed to bear unpredictable wrath,” the band accompanies their denunciation by punishing riffs and heavily syncopated rhythms, grabbing you by your guts and taking you on a turbulent journey.
Violate Consensus Reality engages the senses in a way that is quite rare for concept albums, it is raw and brutal, unlike the lofty concept albums of yore with their endlessly repeating motifs and needlessly complex song structures. It stands in a long tradition of activism in music, but it also deconstructs this tradition by taking its loud and admonishing tone and providing it with a thoughtful base rooted in philosophy and spirituality.
With music deeply rooted in communal meditation sessions, psychedelic metal outfit Psychonaut are a unique entity in the Belgian metal scene and beyond. The mantric title track of their upcoming second album, which they have now shared, sees the trio once more aligned in body and mind as they appeal to the listener with a 9-minute atmospheric slow burner. Their stature is once more affirmed by Amenra’s Colin H. van Eeckhout, who ushers the track to an unforgettable climax.
Private Collection is Karin Park at her purest, rawest and most beautiful essence: an album stripped down to the core of her mesmerizing voice and the haunting sound of the pump organ. An introvert and intimate album that shows her not just as a stellar musician but as a mother, a wife and a humble human being.
Karin Park has been referred to as the Scandinavian Nico for her persona, and dark ambient legend Lustmord called her a “force of nature”. However, despite a Eurovision song contest entry, a year of sold out shows as the lead in Les Miserables in Oslo and performances alongside Lana Del Rey and David Bowie, Karin’s talents have still remained somewhat under-exposed for the really broad public. This might change now, with a stunning new album and an extensive European tour with A.A. Williams this fall.
“This record is very much a journey in solitude that I’ve been longing to make,” Karin tells us about her seventh studio album. Consisting of nine re-recordings – with radically different instrumentation – of classic tracks from her impressive back catalogue, as well as the newly written opener «Traces of Me», Private Collection is the quintessential expression of Karin Park’s artistry.
“These are my favourite songs from 20 years of writing, re-recorded as I hear them now. Many of these versions are how I play them live, alone with my synths, mellotron and organ.” Joining her on some tracks are her husband Kjetil Nernes (Årabrot) on guitars and Andrew Liles (Nurse With Wound) on synths, as well as Benedetta Simeone on cello. Otherwise, Private Collection is indeed a very private affair.
First single ‘Opium’ is a tale of overwhelming passion, the melancholic heaviness of a love that engulfs and consumes. The ambient backdrop is an ocean of longing and the delicate, sparse piano shimmers on the surface above. Parks’ stunning vocals, intimate and sirenic, will carry you to the depths to be crushed. Watch the live video version here:
Is there anyone Lustmord hasn’t collaborated with, or otherwise touched (metaphorically) in some way?
Lustmord, aka Welsh-born Brian Williams embarked on his musical career back in 1980: that’s a forty-two year span now, and the range of artists he’s collaborated with while forging a staggering output of solo releases is beyond staggering. Having emerged from the early industrial milieu and the circlers of Throbbing Gristle, Coil, and SPK, of which he was a member for a time, Lustmord is generally hailed as the progenitor of the dark ambient genre.
A tribute / covers album feels appropriate, then, and the selection of contributors to The Others – Lustmord Deconstructed includes Ulver, Enslaved, Godflesh, Zola Jesus, Katatonia’s Jonas Renske, Jo Quail, The Ocean, MONO and more.
It’s noteworthy that the tracks are credited to ‘Lustmord &…’ as if in collaboration – but then again, isn’t any cover a collaboration of kinds, albeit distant and disconnected? A meeting of minds across time and space.
And so, ahead of the release of The Others – Lustmord Deconstructed, Zola Jesus has shared her cover of ‘Prime’, from the 2020 album Stockholm, recorded live in 2011 and released in 2014. She comments, “As a longtime fan of Lustmord’s work, the opportunity to combine landscapes was like a dream. I’m so inspired by the space and stillness within his music. I wanted to experiment with his way of keeping music on a slow boil, mostly to challenge my own propensity for maximalism.”
It’s certainly a departure from ZJ’s usual style of epic, string-soaked theatrical dramatics, but at the same time, it has all of the rich atmosphere you’d expect. Her gothic, operatic vocal is very much kept in check here, echoing ethereally around a dark rumbling growl of abstraction is melded to a heartbeat. It’s tense, and channels a dark energy that’s almost spiritual. It’s the haunting, otherworldly sound of decay, of tremors from the depths of an ancient sepulchre. It’s mystical, magical, and magnificent.
Few groups of artists are destined to bring real innovation into a stagnating scene… but every once in a while a band comes along that takes the known ingredients and assembles them in a new way that makes sense – so that listening to their music, you’ll find yourself wondering: why haven’t I heard this before? In 2021, that band was French neo-classical post-rock ensemble BRUIT ≤. Pronounced as \’brü-ē\ [French, literally, noise].
“With their stunning debut, French art rockers Bruit have dropped an early contender for album of the year“, Prog Magazine exclaimed when the album was digitally released on Bandcamp in April 2021, and Neige from ALCEST found it to be "the best post rock I heard in a really long time“. We couldn’t agree more, but it would curtail this album’s scope, grandeur and vision if it were contextualized solely within the post rock world. It certainly does ft in there — but BRUIT ≤ are more than that, BRUIT ≤ are a class of their own.
Fast forward to 2022 and the band have signed to Pelagic Records who will reissue The Machine Is Burning And Now Everyone Knows It Could Happen Again on vinyl for the very first time on 22nd April.
To coincide with the release the band have also shared a stunning live video for ‘Industry’. Directed by Toma Turbain and Bruit ≤, you can watch the video here:
Emerging from the ashes of a number of French major label pop bands in 2016, BRUIT ≤ was born from the desire of the members to escape the nauseating world of music big business and to return to a pure process of creation without artistic constraints or commercial expectations. Initially the band performed their creative research and sonic experiments solely in a studio setting, but time has shown that the ensemble’s artistic vision could not be limited to the recording environment alone. In the world of BRUIT ≤, spontaneous experimentation, thoughtful composition and the aspect of performing in order to create are different but inevitably inseparable techniques of working on the same fabric: the black magic that is creating music. Artistic Identity comes from reconciling these different techniques and approaches of working on and with that fabric, and to understand this better while listening to this album, it helps to make yourself aware that one half of the musicians is classically trained, while the other half is not and barely knows how to read notes.
The shifting to and fro between theory and practice, between research and performance and between thought and action are ultimately also reflections of the band’s fiercely activist mindset. The social and environmentalist themes that this record is orbiting around are epitomized in aphoristic spoken word passages from the French far left geneticist Albert Jacquard on the album opener “Industry”, or from the 2011 documentary If a Tree Falls: a Story of the Earth Liberation Front in “Amazing Old Tree”, where the speaker claims that environmentalists are often called ‘radical’… ‘however, the reality is that 95% of the standing native forest in the United States has been cut down. It’s not radical to save the last 5%, what’s radical is logging 95%“.
However, the emotive power of The Machine is Burning… stems not from the topical use of quotes, but from the act of creating overwhelming beauty through contrast between beauty and noise. BRUIT ≤ have everything a quintessential post-rock act needs to have, from an excessively long album name to drawn out compositions driven by atmosphere, and from samples of dramatic spoken word recordings to immaculate climaxes led by soaring, delay-soaked guitars. However, for those willing to look past the genre tropes, there are subtle moments where the band effortlessly fows from atmospheric post-metal to free jazz, and from folktronica to neo-classical avant garde improv.
BRUIT ≤ can only be fully understood through their attitude rather than their musical influences, from the environmental agenda to the group’s staunch boycot of Spotify because of the platform’s notoriously sad payouts for musicians and their CEO Daniel Ek’s recent investments in the arms industry… In that, the group is firmly nested in the tradition of political instrumental rock bands like GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR, and the tumultuous yet wordless sound of the revolution that they stand for is indeed somehow related to BRUIT ≤’s own musical landscape. However, there are distinct differences between the two: The Machine is Burning… is stylistically more diverse and feels more like a carefully constructed affair with a focus on compositional finesse rather than the element of improvisation, compared to the Canadian collective’s lengthy tunes which slowly gain intensity through repetition and layering. The Machine is Burning… is also a record which despite its bleakness and its moments of immersive sadness somehow always retains a glimmer of hope, leaving the listener with a faint feeling that now everyone knows it CAN happen again.
Greece has spawned countless instances of criminally underrated music acts in diverse genres ranging from black metal to electronic to avant garde pop music, and the sophomore album of modern progressive metal act Playgrounded titled ‘The death of Death’ is yet another striking example.
“Where did this come from?” you will find yourself wondering, while absorbing the stunning intensity and musical prowess on display. From the perfection of the production and the inherent innovation in defining heaviness by means of not only downtuned guitars, but also elements of electronica are the pillars of an intriguingly idiosyncratic, incredibly mature sound.
Hailing from Greece, but spending most of their time in the Netherlands, the musical pedigree of the members of Playgrounded is quite unprecedented in the metal/rock underground. Main composer and producer Orestis Zafeirou is a graduate from the Institute of Sonology of the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague, a department focused on electronic music education and production research. Additionally, he works in a synth factory. Vocalist and co-producer Stavros Markonis graduated from the Amsterdam conservatoire and is an award-winning composer for film and TV. Bass player Odysseas Zafeiriou and guitar player Michael Kotsirakis both work as computer engineers, while drummer Giorgos Pouliasis is a graduate from the Rotterdam Conservatoire, as well as a drum teacher and a popular session musician in Greece as well as in the Netherlands.
Starting out in 2007, Playgrounded have been together for over 15 years, playing both national and international tours, while also opening for bands like Riverside and even Nine Inch Nails in Amsterdam. Their first EP Athens (2012, Casket Music) portrays an already mature band playing modern prog rock influenced by Tool and Deftones. Their debut full-length In Time With Gravity (2017) shows the band in full flux, experimenting with extended compositions as well as influences from influential contemporary electronic music acts like Modeselektor and Moderat.
Playgrounded’s sophomore album lives up to the aspiration of its lofty album title. The death of Death is music that results from mastery rather than lacklustre exploration and experimentation. The album was recorded at MD Recording Studios by Nikos Michalodimitrakis, long collaborator of Stavros in film productions. Mixing was handled by C.A.Cederberg (Leprous, Shining, and more) in Kristiansand, NO, while the album was mastered by George Tanderø (Madrugada, Satyricon, Jaga Jazzist, and more) in Oslo, NO.
Guitarist Michael Kotsirakis comments on the album’s title track which the band shared today,
"The death of Death" is a study of unity in opposition, a disclosure of contradictory aspects of reality, an expression of their mutual relationship. For the occasion of sharing this first taste of the album with the world we worked closely with director Dimitris Anagnostou and director of photography Yannis Karabatsos, the duo that we came to know from the award-winning short film Mare Nostrum for which Stavros composed the score. The director’s idea about a "study of movement" using early cinematography techniques drew inspiration from Orestis’ dialectically composed lyrics and was eventually adapted into the clip’s script. We felt that Karabatsos’ sinister photography was the perfect means to explore the song’s contradictions… black and white, direction and diffusion, alienation and struggle, stillness and life.”
Watch the video for ’The death of Death’ here:
AA
Demonstrating a profound understanding of the glitches they produce, Playgrounded evoke a sense of the uncanny closely related to the cut-up movie fragments of sound artists like the German Orson Hentschel. “We start with dynamic sound design structures, most of the times initiated by Orestis,” explains guitarist Michael Kotsirakis. “We then work in pairs expanding the musical space and creating variations and flourishes. Sometimes the lyrics and vocals will dictate a change in quality, other times it’s one of the instruments. After many ideas are on the table Stavros and Orestis sit together and propose a song structure. After this loop has been repeated over and over we have a very good idea of all the parts. That’s when we hit the rehearsal space and refine the details.”
The result is a collection of songs that reveal Playgrounded as composers in the act of decomposition. The memorable guitar riffs and vocal melodies serve as gateways to a deeper layer of glitchy synth textures and liquid drumming, until the perspective of radical decomposition consumes one whole. “The shortest sound units become extended themes,” explains main composer Orestis Zafeirou. “Steady rhythmical blocks interact with unstable ones. Noise becomes tone and melody. Sonic grains gather to form masses, masses dissolve into a single entity. With every repetition, comes change.”
On The death of Death, Playgrounded analyse and take apart their surroundings, reducing reality to its smallest components, subsequently converting them into sound to create a new platform – a representation of reality from which they build their artistic vision. In essence The death of Death is dialectical, a study of unity in opposition. A disclosure of contradictory aspects of reality, an expression of their mutual relationship. From these contradictions the band manages to construct a brooding world of dark magnificence. The death of Death has the appeal of a film score that slowly starts to haunt you as the movie progresses. The more you listen to it, the more its sublime beauty becomes apparent.
Pilgrimage of the Soul is the 11th studio album in the 22-year career of Japanese experimental rock legends, MONO set for release on 17th September (Pelagic Records)
Recorded and mixed – cautiously, anxiously, yet optimistically – during the height of the COVID- 19 pandemic in the summer of 2020, with one of the band’s longtime partners, Steve Albini, Pilgrimage of the Soul is aptly named as it not only represents the peaks and valleys where MONO are now as they enter their third decade, but also charts their long, steady journey to this time and place.
Continuing the subtle but profound creative progression in the MONO canon that began with Nowhere Now Here (2019), Pilgrimage of the Soul is the most dynamic MONO album to date (and that’s saying a lot). But where MONO’s foundation was built on the well-established interplay of whisper quiet and devastatingly loud, Pilgrimage of the Soul crafts its magic with mesmerising new electronic instrumentation and textures, and – perhaps most notably – faster tempos that are clearly influenced by disco and techno. It all galvanizes as the most unexpected MONO album to date – replete with surprises and as awash in splendor as anything this band has ever done.
MONO began in Japan at the end of the 20th Century as a young band equally inspired by the pioneers of moody experimental rock (My Bloody Valentine, Mogwai) and iconic Classical composers (Beethoven, Morricone) who came before them. They have evolved into one of the most inspiring and influential experimental rock bands in their own right. It is only fitting that their evolution has come at the glacial, methodical pace that their patient music demands. MONO is a band who puts serious value in nuance, and offers significant rewards for the wait.
Watch the music video for first single ‘Riptide’, a film by Alison Group now:
Year Of No Light have revealed their latest single, ‘Alètheia’, described by the band as ‘a double movement of light and darkness before burning our memories on the altar of the void’. The track is taken from their new album Consolamentum set for release via Pelagic Records on 2nd July.
Listen to ‘Alètheia’ here:
Pelagic Records are releasing not only their new album Consolamentum but also a wooden box set, to celebrate the band’s 20th anniversary, containing their entire discography of 5 studio albums, several split EPs, and the collaboration with Belgian composer Dirk Serries from the ‘Live At Roadburn’ recordings, on 12 vinyl records.
Year of No Light have shared the harrowing new video for ‘Réalgar’, written and directed by Corentin Schieb, Mathias Averty & Célia Le Goaziou. The track, described by the band as, ‘a mineral dive in the interzone, a journey between several realities and a confrontation with our inner demons’, is taken from their new album “Consolamentum” set for release via Pelagic Records on 2nd July. Watch the video now:
Pelagic Records are releasing not only their new album “Consolamentum” but also a wooden box set, to celebrate the band’s 20th anniversary, containing their entire discography of 5 studio albums, several split EPs, and the collaboration with Belgian composer Dirk Serries from the ‘Live At Roadburn’ recordings, on 12 vinyl records.
YEAR OF NO LIGHT’s lengthy, sprawling compositions of towering walls of guitars and sombre synths irradiate a sense of dire solemnity and spiritual gravity, and couldn’t be a more fitting soundtrack for such grim medieval scenarios. But there is also the element of absolution, regeneration, elevation, transcendence in the face of death. Consolamentum is dense, rich and lush and yet somehow feels starved and deprived.
It comes as no surprise that ever since the beginning of their career, the band have had an obsession for the fall of man and salvation through darkness. The term “consolamentum” describes the sacrament, the initiation ritual of the Catharic Church, which thrived in Southern Europe in the 12th – 14th century – a ritual that brought eternal austereness and immersion in the Holy Spirit.
“There’s a thread running through all of our albums”, says the band, collectively “an exploration of the sensitive world that obeys a certain telos, first fantasized ("Nord") and reverberated ("Ausserwelt"), then declaimed as a warning ("Tocsin"). The deeper we dig, the more the motifs we have to unveil appear to us. Yes, it’s a bit gnostic. This album is invoked after the Tocsin, it’s the epiphany of the Fall”.
Nordic pop diva Karin Park of Årabrot adds her ethereal, mournful voice and keys to the primordial sound of legendary electronic pioneer Lustmord for this sublime and poignant collaboration. Alter is a ritual of our times and ‘Hiraeth’ is the new single.
Watch the video here:
AA
On the pair’s frst collaborative work, the nine tracks that make up ALTER are every bit as heart-wrenching as they are terrifying, mining new sonic territory, it is a fascinating study of light and shade that delves deep into vast uncharted darkness. Their ability to create atmosphere on the album opener "Hiraeth" is second to none, perfectly assembling a harrowing backdrop for Park’s lilting sound of longing. From there, Park’s vocals add all of the emotional depth and power found in names like Kate Bush, Maynard J Keenan and Elizabeth Frasier, perfectly playing against Lustmord’s waves of dark drama and creating a wholly unique record that recalls Dead Can Dance, Massive Attack and Portishead at their greatest.
Considering Park’s credentials, it might be surprising that a collaboration with Lustmord would fit so seamlessly. Utilizing a sound comprised of elements of industrial, synth pop and more, the celebrated Swedish solo artist and member of Norwegian rock band Årabrot utilizes experimentation in her work, blazing trails and bringing to mind the work of her peers The Knife, Scott Walker, Robyn, Depeche Mode and Burial with her darkly-rich compositions. Multiple winner of Norway’s Spellemann award, Park co-wrote the Norwegian entry for the 2013 Eurovision, fnishing fourth overall. But it is the sensibility of the sacred music of her youth that Park adds to ALTER, contributing a powerful vocal that guides the listener through the cavernous, mystical depth of their collaborative work.
”Lustmord is the Gustave Doré of music", Karin Park offers pensively. "Painting magical pictures with a sound that is so vast, it gives space for your own imagination.” Brian Williams grew up in North Wales, beginning his musical career as Lustmord in 1980 and becoming a pivotal fgure and pioneer in the early industrial music scene in the UK.
A former member of SPK during arguably their most crucial era, Williams went on to work with Throbbing Gristle members Chris & Cosey and appeared on early albums by Current 93 and Nurse With Wound amongst others. After relocating to Los Angeles in 1993, Williams worked on dozens of motion picture soundtracks including The Crow, Underworld and Paul Schrader’s First Reformed, as well as on several video game, television scores and solo albums. Williams has also contributed to and collaborated with artists as varied as the Melvins, Clock DVA, Jarboe, John Balance of Coil, Clock DVA, Paul Haslinger (Tangerine Dream), Wes Borland (Limp Bizkit), Puscifer and more, including Grammy Award-winners Tool from their much acclaimed efforts 10,000 Days and Fear Inoculum.
Alter is set for release on 25th June (Pelagic Records).
Aural Aggravation 