★Utech Records
Lift
'It was on a night when sleep simply would not come, not matter how long I sprawled on the grass or how many pages of my book I leafed through. The black shaggy 'thing' expelled all the breath in its body. Phu phu phuu. And as it did so, something glowed softly at the crown of its head. Ahh, what a beautiful light! I should put a hat over it to stop it flying away. The black shaggy thing took his favourite hat, the one he had hung from a tree branch, and popped it onto his head. Perfect. Hirotom…
Live Young, Die Fast And Leave An Exquisite Corpse
"Rumble // feedback // electricity. Only sound. The guitar is not dead. It is still humming and I believe in it. Copper wound is copper wound, today and yesterday. Magnets are magnetic, today and yesterday. Wood is wooden, today and yesterday. Electricity is electric, today and yesterday. These things shift in their own time and on their own basis. They are not forced and in my own capacity, I do not force them. The editor's role is Advocate. The rattle you hear, that is the energy and the idea.…
Shivers-Voids
David J. Smith (Guapo, Miasma & The Carousel Of Dead Horses) releases a second set of recordings as The Stargazer's Assistant. Following The Other Side of the Island on Aurora Borealis, Shivers and Voids is a union of instrument, voice and tape. A soundtrack left waiting for the right film to accompany it through the dark. Sweeping, intricate, sometimes ominous, yet always exuding a warmth of emotion. Ancient forests, vast plains, billowing clouds, rusted metal hulks, wet rock walls, lights flic…
Asmodai
The forsaken mother has birthed a godhead. A triune declaration of intent rich in the beliefs of the Tabula Smaragdina and Solomonic Magic. Asmodai-Sammael reigns as the king of impurity spreading his blackened sovereignty like so much tar upon the heart of man. And as all things were by the contemplation of one; so all things arose from this one thing by adaptation.
La Nuit Electrique
Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards, Hototogisu) rears Zaimph's vile head once again on La Nuit Electrique. A raspy, delicate instrumental passage begins like a crippled music box. Elegant and soporose. Blackened guitar and amplification apprise the rest. Acrid feedback hangs in the air and vocal modulations clot inside dark rivers of current. The night electric
Nysa
Nysa represents a compendium of turbulence and singularities. The sound for drunken states on mythic mountains. A studio reshaping of several live performances with custom computer programs, gestural input devices, and circuit-bent electronics. It was assembled throughout 2006 in Providence and mixes human aktions with the performance systems: Needles(s), High, Maenads, and Augur. Each system utilizes a physical approach for exploring the hidden and creating the esoteric with digital audio. Hand…
Aphotic Leech
Aphotic Leech is the first movement in a series of ever changing modes which make up what Half Makeshift has slowly become. A bath of heavy drone and bitter piano chords strewn over top of subtle glitch work and manipulated percussion, Aphotic Leech trades malice for despair and shuns any probable hope. Created in November of 2006 from austere piano pieces, string fragments, a live percussion specimen and other various arrangements, this piece grew to be much larger than originally intended thro…
Schwarzhagel
Klangmutationen are an mystery. More could be said about what their music isn't than what it is. Hailing from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the underground experimentalists pierce the veils of Eastern and Western music. Recalling early sets on FMP as well as the Takayanagi-Abe axis of Japanese free music, Schwarzhagel is the sound of a spirit falling past its own life after death, forever
Trembled
Trembled has returned, triumphantly. Released by Utech Records (046) in the summer of 2006 on limited cdr. The principal live recordings from Toronto have been remixed-remastered and include a rare performance of Swans 'No Cure for the Lonely'. The core of the release, though, is 'Tremble', a cascading improvisation of drift and atmospherics revealed to audiences on an occasional basis. The track is telling of the fluidity with which Nadja create and why the band has become so highly regarded. '…
s/t
Jaime Fennelly-oscillators, bass drum, electronics. Chris Forsyth-guita. Shawn Edward Hansen-EMS synth, the brothers zoto. Chris Heenan-contrabass clarinet. Recorded at Improvised & Otherwise Festival, Brooklyn, NY, 5-7-06 by Seth Misterka (track 1), Experimental Intermedia: A Festival With No Fancy Name, NY, NY, 3-13-05 (track 2. )'Minimal, evocative low-level evacuation of space-time ala the lurkingest MEV sides, AMM, Space Machine et al from a group that features Jaime Fennelly on sine wave o…
Kurtlanmak-Damascus
ames Plotkin began his musical career as the guitarist for metal band Old with vocalist Alan Dubin. The two would cross paths again under the guise of Khanate. In the interim Plotkin would become involved in projects ranging from guitar bent soundscape and grind to free improvisation. His body of work spans format and label, recording for Avant, Hydra Head, Asphodel, Earache, Southern Lord and Archive among others. Whether writing, performing, or producing, his output has been invariably unique …
Amplicon
Runhild Gammelsæter (Thorr's Hammer, Sunn0))), Khlyst) releases her first solo recording. The purpose was to create something organic sound with and about life. A lonely thing, like life, arisen from void. Stillness and a microphone, vocal chords. An idea, thoughts, a goal. Sounds of cycles of life and death, birth and cessation, described with terminology from physics, chemistry and biology. Creating by amplifying an infinitely small idea Ð creating an Amplimer, an Amplicon. Amplicons are piec…
indirmek
James Plotkin unveils his second solo release in as many years. Indirmek presents two distinct facets of his musical work. The first track, Afyon (opium) lies closest to Plotkin's trademark drift. In essence, a guitar track stretched to limitless possibility. An elemental fury contained, dissected and entrusted to a NYC audience for their consideration in the spring of 2007. Amfetamin (amphetamine) is a second recording from NYC, performed in the fall of 2006. The track is considerably more imme…
kunado
Japanese vocalist and instrumentalist Sachiko (Overhang Party, Vava Kitora, Kosokuya) looses a second, white-hot solo release. Her brilliant debut You Never Atone For on There/Musik Atlack rode gilded wings straight to the heart of the psych sun. The journey continues with Kunado. A tincture of Taj Mahal Travellers, wispy oscillations and lysergic vocals bathes the recording in delicate atmosphere as Sachiko's sonic attack leaves vicious and harrowing results. A listen not soon forgotten.The Ute…
The Sound of Defekt Skulls and Intense Cranium Contact (Feedback
The Year of the Skull. The Skull Defekts, represented by Henrik Rylander and Joachim Nordwall, were invited in late September 2006 by the Chicago non-profit organization Lampo to make their U.S. debut. With them they brought recorded sounds from their home on the Swedish west-coast Gothenburg. A city breathing culture, it is also Sweden's most important export harbor. While spending close to a week in Chicago, Rylander and Nordwall carefully prepared a piece to be presented on the Lampo event on…
Spaghetti Western Rainbow
Hailing from the land of the rising snow, Lasse Marhaug has become one of the most commanding and respected sound artists in Norway. As a musician and composer he has contributed to cd, vinyl and cassette releases for labels throughout Europe, Asia and America. Aside from solo work, Marhaug contributes to several ensembles including Nash Kontroll (iDEAL) and a large Jazkamer unit (Smalltown Supernoise) with black metal legends Enslaved. Having collaborated with artists from varying fields of mus…
Last ten meters
First release from French guitarist Johannes Buff. An attempt to disect the methodology he explores with guitar. Using a single sound source and unprocessed field recordings Knell invoke rich beauty and obsessive melodics. A luminous patina reveals vague, underlying threat. Drone as a catalyst of frequency and time. Nothing to understand through listening, only to gaze
