★Utech Records
Urania
From the opening pulse through the flourish of its conclusion, Urania is an auditory capsulization of outer space. Like the magazine it draws its title from, strains of evil, surrealism, and technological grandeur exist in an oxygenless environment. Urania is the sound of various futures, from modular analog synth textures to bizarre, unidentifiable soundtracks created with alien technology. From idyllic utopian societies to scorched, apocalyptic lands, Architeuthis Rex examine the myster…
Delusion Of Hope
With an eldritch terror that could just as easily be from another dimension as the darkest ocean comes the latest release from Ural Umbo, Delusion of Hope. Feedback and melody barely escape from the murky crevices, tinged with a sense of grinding tension. Sharp, acidic percussion slices through the blackness with violent urgency, while electronic blasts and organic drones entwine and ensnare. Some dim instinctive memory vaguely resurrects a shadowy scene wherein black drums roar madly, and monst…
New dominions
This collaborative release brings together two of the most exciting artists operating at the forefront of the underground. The groups' willingness to explore new sounds, textures, and moods sets them apart from other artists operating in heavy music. New Dominions may be the most intense and brooding releases by either group. The album consists of two extended tracks. 'The Gift' begins the record with slowly building layers of bowed and looped percussion, harsh vocals, glistening tremolo guitars…
Malpais
Malpais is the first collaborative effort between William Fowler Collins and Gog. With both musicians based in the American Southwest (WFC in New Mexico and Gog in Arizona), the music is layered with hallucinatory visions of abandoned mines, atomic bomb blasts, genocide, and space travel. The listener is taken to a place that feels as though it could be the surface of the moon or a scorched earth strewn with bone dust and ash. Photograph by Max Aguilera-Hellweg.
The Persistence of Meaning
New York duo of Joshua Convey and Luke Krnkr. Blistering, overdriven shards of noise obscure the almost entirely hidden melodies. These musical moments are few and far between, as The Persistence of Meaning is more about reveling in destruction and decay, emphasizing raw feedback and hollow, rhythmic loops that shamble like the walking dead. Dirges from the deepest ossuaries can almost be heard, pained notes buried by locust swarms of static. While occasionally the pair engage in erratic Krautro…
Ecotono
“The word Ecotono is built from two roots. Eco (oikos/casa) and tono (tonos/ tensión). An ecotono, or ecotone, is a habitat created by the juxtaposition of distinctly different habitats; an edge habitat; or an ecological zone or boundary where two or more ecosystems meet. It is a transition area between two distinct habitats, where the ranges of the organisms in each bordering habitat overlap, and where there are organisms unique to the transition area. An ecotone region provides conditions of b…
Surface of the Earth
Gunn Amps and Smashed Guitars. Surface of the Earth was recorded live to cassette, using two microphones in a wooden community hall in Wellington, New Zealand. The lp was gathered from two or three recording sessions in 1994/95. Back then we used to book out the hall for a couple of days, set up our gear and then record everything. It was a very atmospheric room for recording. Tony and Donald would put their guitars through their two old Gunn valve amplifiers and get to work. Tony often used thi…
The Crystal World
LP version. A marked change had come over the forest, as if dusk had begun to fall. Everywhere the glacé sheaths which enveloped the trees and vegetation had become duller and more opaque. The crystal floor underfoot was occluded and gray, turning the needles into spurs of basalt. The brilliant panoply of colored light had gone, and a dim amber glow moved across the trees, shadowing the sequined floor. At the same time it had become considerably colder.The Crystal World, the third studio album f…
Terre Paroxysm
Terre Paroxysm is Daniel Menche's second release for Utech Records and a continuation in his bringing back the vehement nature of sound. A pure acoustic-electronic recording of storms: wind, ice and rain. The field recordings were captured by Menche and densely mixed and treated in a manner to create a sense of the earth sleeping then cracking open with violent emotion. An air of electronics crackles and slides around the storm recordings in a way that only can be described as acoustic-electro. …
Point of Convergence
Trapped on an ocean of disparate languages, sound gravitates towards meaning, escaping the obsolescence of mother tongues by denying the slow decay of time. In the biblical tale of the Tower of Babel, God punishes the tower builders by scattering them across the earth, unintelligible to each other. As they departed their blissful prison of same-think, they became drunk with new songs, washing down their newfound 'auditory cheesecake' with sectarian babble. In as much as their speech had be…
Apparitions
Bleak analog electronics and voice from Justin K Broadrick. Apparitions is a dark, insalutary recording of sub bass throb, scathing frequencies and sheets of feedback unleashed with the ferocity of early power electronics sides. A material electric attack from places unknown. Photographs by Paul Lee. Edition of 500."
A Natural History Of Failure
Emotional distance. Scientism. Abuse. Greed. Love. Self destruction. A study of modern, alienated, forced-individualists, wired together in our hell. Initially a collection of high-volume live pieces by Unks and Graham, this work was crafted into album form with contributions from a group of like-minded friends who performed together during the tours of the same name in 2009. Weapons-grade Trogotronic electronics utilized throughout. Four-panel poster sleeve. Photograph by Olli Kekäläinen…
Mubomuso
Mubomuso is a neologism, made up from two extant words. Mubo suggests the unadorned and unaffected, while muso means to be in a state without thought or preplanning. All parts of the release lead the listener towards the consideration of a very specific topic Ð namely, war and violence, and the deeper connections to human nature. Stripped of the clothing of civilization, etiquette and socialization, we slowly become aware of reactions and purposes that exist deep within us embedded comma…
Finstrenis
ALUK TODOLO are a recondite creature: part okkult black metal fiend & part snide kraut menace. Dry, spare percussion grievously mines the scrapes, shrieks, & shimmer of mutated guitar & bass. Recently feat. at 2009's WFMU Fest in Brooklyn, NY
Emanations of a New World
Vivian Wang and Leslie Low, both of The Observatory, recount childhood memories of mythological fantasy theme park called Haw Par Villa. First called Tiger Balm Garden, the odd but colorful attraction contained a strange mix of characters and familiar tales from Chinese mythology and folklore, mixed in with earthy depictions of modern life and the Chinese concept of hell. The mutual love and dread of the park is told over eight recordings. Voice, guitar, percussion and other traditional i…
Peradam
In Rene Daumal's Mount Analogue, a peradam is described as a clear and extremely hard stone, a true crystal. It is so transparent that it is nearly impossible to see. To discover a peradam was always the result of an inner act. At said moment in time, the stone's brilliance might catch the eye of one who seeks the truth. Most peradams were found on the rough and dangerous trails up the mountain. Peradam is the result of Marcia Bassett (Zaimph, Hototogisu) and Jenny Grf (Harrius, Metalux) collabo…
Reflex
Reflex is the fifth solo album by Switzerland's Reto Mder (Ural Umbo, Sum of R, Pendulum Nisum) as RM74. A creepy, paranoid record of sinister melody and complex structure. Electronics, organ, synthesizer, guitars and other instrumentation drifts in and out of bizarre atmospherics. The tracks gain emotional resonance as they move among vexing swells of dense, rotting psychedelia. Presented in a heavy matte sleeve printed with dark metallic ink. Includes fold out insert. Photograph by Phill…
Received in Studio Dental, Gothenburg
For the recording, Henrik Rylander and Joachim Nordwall of drone operators The Skull Defekts got together with the performance and noise duo The Sons Of God - consisting of conceptual artist and self-proclaimed king of the Kingdoms of Elgaland-Vargaland Leif Elggren and electro-acoustic sound artist Kent Tankred. The place for the meeting was Rylander's Studio Dental and the album was received in one night. the process developed immediately and there was no struggle to find a common idea of soun…
Dark as the sea
'Architeuthis rex. Leviathan. King. Magnificent sea dweller and haunter of the dreams of Italian artist Antonio Gallucci. Dark of the Sea is that dream, each of the seven recordings an aperture into a horrific underwater world filled with the fear of what lies outside. Together, the album is a kaleidoscope of Don Cherry's Brown Rice, backward masked King Tubby acetates, strange strings, outer space broadcasts of unholy funeral rites, Native American percussion and metaphysical drone. Illustrati…
Ural Umbo
Ural Umbo is Reto Mder (Sum of R, RM74) and Steven Hess (Fessenden, Haptic) electrifying internal music through a broad spectrum of instrumentation. Horns, piano, organ, harmonium, bass guitar, strings, electronics, drums and percussion guide the formation of black, subliminal melodies and slow feedback accompaniments. Each piece consumes the organic and dynamically balanced process that created it. With a nod to 1960s horror movie scoring Mder and Hess displace sound from the veil of the supern…