Hot on the heels of the release of their sophomore full-length Atlas last Friday, May 27, Swedish forest rockers BESVÄRJELSEN have launched a new driven and steaming video for the track ‘The Cardinal Ride’.
We dig it. Watch it here, and stream the album below:
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UK electronic quartet CODE earned their stripes in the electronic scene of the early 1990s and were championed by the likes of John Peel, John Digweed and Kiss FM presenters Colin Dale and Colin Faver. Their debut album, The Architect, was issued on the Third Mind label in 1995 just as that company folded, but has often been cited as a cult classic. Its follow-up, Ghost Ship, finally arrived in late 2020 after a 25 year journey and was enthusiastically received by critics and fans.
Like that album, Continuum has been assembled by remodelling material from archived studio sessions and sounds like it could have been made yesterday. Emotionally engaging and exquisitely produced, it is timeless music that, although carrying traces of influences such as Kraftwerk, The Blue Nile, Talk Talk, David Sylvian and Depeche Mode, also has a romantic techno intensity all of its own.
‘Acheron’ is the second single to be teased ahead of the album. An instrumental, it sits in contrast to its predecessor, ‘Pleasure’, which was a slinky slice of pop existentialism. Acheron is known in Greek mythology as the ‘river of lost souls’, although sci-fi fans are likely to be more familiar with ‘Acheron LV-426’, one of three moons orbiting the gas giant Calpamos. It was here that a crew member of the USCSS Nostromo first discovered the eggs of a species of alien that would go on to spawn a highly successful movie franchise.
CODE had embraced the tactile nature of analogue tech from the outset and often jammed ideas as their DAT machine recorded, with each band member presiding intently over one or more pieces of kit, including their pre-MIDI SH101 and Korg PolySix synths, slightly newer Roland drum pads, guitar, 16 channel mixing desk and cassette deck. One of these sessions saw them focus on a version of an existing piece entitled ‘Atlantic’, with the resulting new track being entitled ‘Acheron’.
The band explain that “the challenge was to retain the warmth and idiosyncrasies of the original recording whilst subtly enhancing definition and clarity. This primarily involved reshaping the original nine minute jam into a more concise form whilst enhancing key elements to create a more dynamic soundscape.”
‘Acheron’ appears on the CD and digital formats of Continuum, with the 2xLP release featuring a remixed/remastered version of ‘Atlantic’, which had been included on their debut album.
Watch the video here:
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French Progressive metal collective Tranzat have just revealed a music video for a new song from their third album Ouh La La, which was released last month Klonosphere Records.
Formed in 2015 in Brest, France, for reasons beyond comprehension, Tranzat self-produced their first two records, 2016’s Hellish Psychedelia and 2018’s The Great Disaster, this one with the support of Black Desert Records.
The group—Manuel Liegard (guitar/vocals), Nicolas Galakhoff (bass), Benjamin Arbellot (guitar), and Thomas Coïc (drums) have opened for international bands such as Kadavar, Shining (NO), Mos Generator and Mass Hysteria, and have toured with Angelus Apatrida on the French Motocultor Night Fever Tour.
The band’s new album Ouh La La was recorded at The Apiary studio (Birds in Row, Plebeian Grandstand), and boldly explores genres, subgenres, and subgenres of subgenres to offer up honest, eclectic, unpredictable and playful music that will appeal to fans of Faith No More, Devin Townsend, Mastodon, and Dillinger Escape Plan.
Watch the video here:
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The latest release from the darkly delicious mind of Raymond Watts aka PIG is ‘Baptise Bless & Bleed’, a brand new EP awash with religious lyrical fervour and riffs that could effortlessly crush a tank.
Teased in early May, the relentless juggernaut of a title track opens proceedings and is followed onto the dancefloor by ‘Speak Of Sin’, which sounds like an instant PIG masterpiece and of which Watts says “I wanted to brew up a song of bounteous horrors and delights for the barren of belief, bathed in the brutality and beauty of pure electronic savagery.” The song sports a matching video, with Watts simply explaining: “Who else to turn to but Ed Finkler? His acid soaked visuals are the perfect balance to burn your eyeballs like a sacred heart will seduce the soul.”
Things then take a turn for the sublime as ‘Tarantula’ sinks its pernicious fangs deep into the psyche, clasping the listener tight in its electronic web, while closing out the release is the slower but no less ecclesiastic ‘Shooting Up Mercy’, an epic paean to the cosmic joke that is human existence.
Accompanying these four new slices of PIGgish playfulness on its 12” vinyl format are three bonus extended versions added to the digital release to fully sate your fix.
The beginning of the end or the end of the beginning? ‘Baptise Bless & Bleed’ completes PIG’s tarot quadrilogy, a tragedy in four parts that also includes the earlier volumes ‘Sex & Death’, ‘Pain is God’ and ‘Drugged Dangerous & Damned’.
Providing blessings, but hopefully not the bleeding, on this particular release are regular PIG collaborators Steve White, En Esch and Michelle Martinez.
As with the other releases in the set, Watts has determined that presentation is paramount, and the spellbinding physical edition of ‘Baptise Bless & Bleed’ comes on opulent 12" white vinyl in a die cut custom sleeve that houses a printed inner sleeve and three brand new tarot cards.
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Buñuel have shared the video for Killers Like Us album track "It’s All Mine." The video is a visceral display of mercilessness and aggression, with the band performing live in an empty room which can barely contain their energy.
Speaking of the song, vocalist Eugene S. Robinson says, "A kind word and a gun gets your video a lot further than just a kind word… Heavily influenced by film, and mindful of the ways in which film affects life, and life is affected by film, this video needed to recall the fact that musical art for us is probably a little bit more and not so much less of a life and death deal. The funny part was, when trying to get the insurance for the video shoot they were very worried about crowds. And when they HEARD the music they were very worried about ‘dangerous things’. So I had to assure them that there were no dangerous things on set. So, yeah, basically I lied. Which they should have understood is precisely what I’d do in that instance."
The noise in their music is reflected in the erratic figure (of actor Mattia Azzarelli) drawing scratchy charcoal pictures, footage of which is spliced between shots of the band. This haphazard assortment of imagery is expertly crafted by director/editor Duccio Brunetti and director of photography Niccolò Arcostanzo.
About the song the director comments, "When I first heard “It’s all mine” by Buñuel I felt that the song was about something that was “trapped in a cage”. I tried to translate this rage, those vibes that came from their music, into a cinematic experience: I elaborated their meticulous sound into a “bloody” vision that I hope the audience will never forget."
Watch the video here:
EUROPEAN AND UK TOUR DATES:
02/07 – Arcella Bella, Padova (IT)
03/07 – Fluc, Wien (AT)
04/07 – T3 – Kultúrny Prostriedok, Bratislava (SK) – NEW
05/07 – Cassiopeia, Berlin (DE)
07/07 – La Bulle Café, Lille (FR)
08/07 – Cafe Oto, London (UK)
09/07 – Supersonic Fest, Birmingham (UK)
10/07 – The Prince Albert, Brighton (UK)
11/07 – Crofters Rights, Bristol (UK)
12/07 – Glazart, Paris (FR)
13/07 – Le Bamp, Brussels (BE)
14/07 – La Grenze, Strasbourg (FR)
15/07 – Humbug, Basel (CH)
16/07 – Freakout Club, Bologna (IT) NEW
Crease is the debut full-length album of deconstructed electroacoustic postpunk songcraft by Montréal guitarist and producer Kee Avil, whose touchstones range from Scott Walker and Coil to Fiona Apple; (early) PJ Harvey and (later) Juana Molina to Eartheater, Pan Daijing and Smerz—or like Grouper produced by Matmos.
Chiselled twitchy minimalist guitar, sinuous electronics, industrial and prepared-instrument micro-samples, furtive rhythmic propulsion, all galvanised by the anxious intimacy of finely wrought lyricism/vocals: Crease is one of those debut records that excites a wide range of peerless references precisely because it’s so compelling and convincing in its own idiosyncratic originality, vision, detail and execution.
Ahead of some extensive touring, Kee Avil has unveiled a video for album track ‘Drying’. Watch it here:
20.05 Vigo ES Radar Estudios
21.05 Lugo ES Liberdades Sonoras
24.05 Leeds UK The Brudenell*
25.05 Glasgow UK The Hugs and Pint*
26.05 Nantes FR Whine Nat White Heat
27.05 Dublin IE Pepper Canister Church*
29.05 Manchester UK The White Hotel*
30.05 London UK Oslo*
31.05 London UK Oslo*
01.06 Vienna AT Replugged
02.06 Prague CZ Underdogs
03.06 Brussels BE Les Ateliers Claus**
04.06 Antwerp BE wunderkammer x de studio
*with Suuns
**with Horse Lords
~
Canada / Spring
10.06 Toronto ON TONE
11.06 Ottawa ON Pique Summer Edition
17.06 Montreal QC Suoni Per Il Popolo – official Crease release show
25.06 Vancouver BC Vancouver International Jazz Festival
~
Europe Summer / Fall
10.08 Berlin GE A l’Arme
13.11 Utrecht NL Le Guess Who?
And more to be announced.
Industrial band Panic Lift continues the unraveling of its themed EP release cycle with the band’s first release of 2022 titled Stitched.
This four song EP features two new songs titled ‘Every Broken Piece’ and ‘Bitter Cold’ with remixes from Mechanical Vein and Tragic Impulse.
Lyrically, “Every Broken Piece” and “Bitter Cold” continue with the familiar themes of stress, coping, and concerns of self-image. Hardcore Panic Lift fans may remember “Every Broken Piece” from Panic Lift’s lockdown shows in 2020 that were broadcast online during the height of the COVID19 Pandemic.
For Stitched, Panic Lift explores a harsh ebm sound more stylistically similar to their landmark debut record , Witness To Our Collapse. James Francis explains “I’ve always tried to find a happy medium between what I’m doing now, and where I started” he continues “but now that I’m doing smaller releases, I have the ability to experiment with different styles without having to worry much about how they fit with the rest of my catalog.”
Watch ‘Every Broken Piece’ here:
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Italy’s Red Rot is the new extreme metal band of Luciano Lorusso George and Davide Tiso, formerly of Ephel Duath, and their debut Mal de Vivre, is a relentless opus of technical beauty and bludgeoning grace.
Dubbed after a French expression to describe a sense of profound discontentment, the idea of losing the taste for life, Red Rot’s Mal de Vivre was written, recorded and mixed between October 2020 and May 2021 as the world was reeling in the throes of pandemic. Featuring eclectic drummer Ron Bertrand and bass virtuoso Ian Baker to flesh out their powerhouse of cutting-edge extreme metal, Red Rot are an emerging force to be reckoned with.
The seventeen songs in Mal de Vivre are musically intense, raw and passionate, but with a multi-faceted elegance that envisages Red Rot appealing to fans of radical and heavy music right across the spectrum. Engorged with elements of Death Metal, Doom and Thrash: Mal de Vivre sounds like a twisted blend of the roots of early Morbid Angel and Paradise Lost with the experimental discord of Voivod and the hardcore clash and klang of bands like Converge. Lorusso’s lyrics on Mal de Vivre explore themes of mental illness, psychological deviance, rage, gloom and paranoia, all delivered with agonized and emotional conviction. Davide Tiso further illustrates their themes and origins in his concept for Red Rot by explaining:
“When it was time to give a name to the music coming up, I thought about two elements: something sulphuric, malignant in its essence, combined with the idea of rot.
I found out that the Red Rot present in the vegetable tanned leather of old books that remain stored and untouched in humid locations is a result of binding components turning into sulphuric acid. This idea of old knowledge left rotting into itself created sulphuric essence clicked with me. It took quite a long time for me to start playing rotting sounding music: my career started playing sophisticated jazzy sounding metal. Now I feel I added sulphur to my music and Red Rot is the result of it. Apparently the damage caused by red rot is irreversible, I like to think that Red Rot’s music could do the same”.
Red Rot have also shared the video for first single "Ashes” directed by Niklas Sundin. Watch it here:
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Cruel Nature Recordings
Prefacing the deluxe edition of their most recent album, Functional Music, expanded to include tracks from the Hyper-Suburb EP, Russian new wave experimentalists Dvanov have offered up aa video single for ‘Уварово (Uvarovo)’.
The St Petersberg-base band started out as Voda-i-Ryba back in 2013, before changing their name.
And what a time to be a Ukrainian—supporting, anti-war band in Russia, and what a time for Dvanov: ‘Уварово (Uvarovo)’ is the last release with vocalist Vlad Kilin and marks what they call ‘the beginning of a new stage in the Dvanov’s life,’ adding ‘In these songs, the cultural memory of revolutions and childhood memories of anxious summer nights collide with the ghosts of modern capitalism. There are the evening and the ringing of endless fields behind the walls of supermarket, cicadas crackle and there’s nowhere to go. We are releasing this at a tragic time when our country has waged an imperialist war. No war! ‘
‘Уварово (Uvarovo)’ is a crazed, beat-driven frenzy of oddness, a bit noisy, a bit industrial, a bit electro, a lot wtf.
Oh, and all proceeds from the sale of Functional Music are going to a Ukraine crisis support charity – which makes it extra-functional.
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PENCEY SLOE are now premiering the video clip ‘Smile to Zero’ as the first single taken from the dreamgaze rockers’ sophomore full-length Neglect, which has been slated for release on August 19.
The band comment: “At first you think that the comfortable zone of emptiness is your friend, until it grabs you so hard that your mind twists and locks itself up”, writes singer and guitarist Diane Pellotieri. “It was important to create a video in a dimension other than reality as we all embody a virtual profile these days. The repetitive movements of the characters and their aesthetics echo the underlying problem of the digital age that is imposed on us. I view surrendering to the virtual space as a self-surrender. The video’s characters are gradually drawn into a horror, which does not even frighten them anymore. I see the same mechanism in real world situations like depression or dependency.”
Watch the video here:
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Pic by Nicolas Di Vincenzo
Aural Aggravation 