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Anabasis and Gargrim the Liar - Two Worlds
Waerloga are clearly the prime movers in both in the establishment and the defining of the 'Dark Fantasy' soundtrack. With Two Worlds the potential for variations on this theme are explored and realized with a subtle degree of flair and passion. Anabasis begins proceedings with the first of the two full-length CDs, 'The Challenge' which appropriately follows in the spirit of Xenophon's eponymous journey-tale by drawing it's narrative inspiration from the last six stanzas of Browning's Childe Roland... (which also inspired Stephen King's Dark Tower stories). As 'The Challenge' is structured as a soundtrack, of sorts, it naturally lacks a visual narrative from which to act as a common denominator between conductor and audience. Hence, the music itself is called upon to supply both drama and mood within the context of the chosen narrative. Anabasis has competently approached this difficulty and the opening tracks establish the work through string and wind arrangements that create an expanse of swelling sounds while moving to build a sense of tension and movement. The instrumentation used throughout the composition is keenly mannered, each instrument is used to compliment and interweave, never dominate. This is evident in the middle section of tracks such as ' Enchanted Forest' and 'Distant Stronghold' where the music colours the imagined landscape, characters and events in lieu of any lyrical narrative. Towards the close of 'The Challenge' choral and solo voices are introduced deftly fading into instrumentation or capturing a mood, but never lingering beyond their welcome. Uplifting phrases and the introspective guitar strings draw down the curtain on a work that while acknowledging influences such as Liszt or Strauss never seeks to repeat them. 'The Challenge' is a serious piece of composition and exhibits the obvious maturity of it's creator in producing a thematic vein of music that conveys a tale of anger, deceit and retribution. This is the essence of high-fantasy and Anabasis has thrown down a very proficient gauntlet in the form of 'The Challenge'.
The more mysterious Gargrim the Liar is the second 'book' of Two Worlds. Here, the full-length CD, 'Stories of Long Forgotten' seems to draw from the steam-punk fantasy world of Warhammer, particularly in respect of the 'City-state of Miragliano'. Within such a recognized fantasy template any attempt at an accompanying soundtrack may rise or fall heavily. 'Stories of Long Forgotten' soars. From the opening field-recordings of birdsong there is a sense of open spaces and untamed expanses. The overwhelming strength, which is immediately apparent on 'Stories of Long Forgotten' is the employment of choral voices, not set apart from other elements in the compositions but rather, the voice is recognized as an instrument in itself and as such interflows throughout the music to produce captivating pieces that are highly emotive and stirring. There are some reminders of Enya's soundtrack for The Celts but here any similarity is nullified by the sweeping arrangements that quickly put the aforementioned work into shade. At times the narrative of the music is driven forward by percussive phrasing and the accompaniment of strings which pervades the resultant sounds with a richness that serves to voice the tale. 'Stories of Long Forgotten' is a very strong piece of work that wraps many emotions together through incredibly expressive compositions. Again, there are subtle nods to influences such as Leone on 'No Way Out' but Gargrim's music retains its originality and complexity serving to propel the listener into a world apart in a manner that few other composers are capable of.
Waerloga have obviously taken great care in the aesthetic presentation of this double CD release and produced a sumptuous eight page booklet to accompany it. The artwork is another highlight as Waerloga have secured John Howe's piece that he produced in the 1980's for the cover of Robert Holdstock's utterly brilliant Mythago Wood. Two Worlds benefits from the fact that the two composers never overlap in style and composition so both works are separate in realization and sounds, allowing the audience to delve into either world which are distinctive to one another. This is a very mature release both in structure and vision that opens a great deal of potential for the future of the 'Dark Fantasy' soundtrack. For more information go to www.waerloga.com or www.myspace.com/gargrimtheliar or www.myspace.com/anabasishome (review by Michael Cunningham)
Big Cocky Man Sinweldi - Is Europe Dying?
Big Cocky Man Sinweldi (BCMS): It's an attention grabber, certainly and the image of a wounded warrior on the cover of the CD conjures a sense of ambiguity. Yet, what of the music that forms Is Europe Dying?? Therein lies the surprise, or maybe not to those already familiar with BCMS. For the music exists in lust sweeps of duel acoustics of which the rhythm and melodic chords are clean and crisp, at times shining with a technical flourish. What is almost immediate with the album is the strong ear for subtle melodies that the artists are so obviously gifted with. While residing more in the genre of Neofolk rather than driven martial tones the musical compositions are deft and very well structured. The keyboard adds to lushness of the acoustics and, in places, (the accordion and harmonica are also employed sparingly and appropriately in places) which may have preempted a move to more stripped-back sounds now being explored by some long established Neofolk artists. 'Rendez Vous' is a good example: the duel acoustics warmed by keyboards, some slight choral sounds and the whole mix evenly balanced to evoke a rich, well layered composition. These aspects are repeated throughout many of the tracks: 'Is Europe Dying?', 'The Colour of the Wind' and 'Song for Clementine' producing strong sensibilities of sound that succeed in terms of musicianship and orchestration. Within the album the lyrics are never smothered, whether delved by song or spoken they retain subtle observations and questions that resound within the geo-political chronologies of Europe. Is Europe Dying? is a surprising album on a number of levels and is awash with fresh and vibrant sounds that promise much for the artists, a reinvigoration of the genre is seeded herein and that fact is down to the talent of BCMS. Is Europe Dying? is an important album because it lifts the spear higher above the heads of many pretenders. For more information go to www.myspace.com/bigcockyman or www.skullline.de (review by Michael Cunningham)
Forms of Things Unknown - Black Trenchcoats and Swastikas 'n shit
Don't worry about the title, the swastika adorned toilet roll or the laughing Hitler collages nor even the typography stolen from a Death In June release Forms of Things Unknown are only trying to confuse you. The peculiarly named Ferrara Brain Pan is neither a 3rd Reich rock'n'roller or misaligned neo-folker. It's all a perverse type of humour for the multi-instrumentalist performer and composer of this acoustic / electronic experimental project.
Black Trenchcoats... formed from demos, outtakes and compilation tracks after a lengthy self-imposed hiatus following the release of his first CD, Cross Purposes. Black Trenchcoats... takes on experimental music with a heavy emphasis on orchestral woodwind instruments featuring prominently in his compositions.
A number of tracks display his dexterity with wind instruments such as 'Vallåtar' with its wailing sax and sustained haunting notes based on the Swedish vocal tradition of kulning. 'Elegy' performed on the bass clarinet captures a sombre mordant tone. It like 'The Fifth Path', a solo harmonium drone piece, is almost funereal in its execution.
'Cobblestones', meanwhile, is a mediaeval styled composition performed on soprano recorder with an overdubbed accompaniment of bowed psaltery, while the closing track, 'Burial Of The First Toy', is an interpretation of the main title theme to Alexandro Jodorowsky's surreal western El Topo. Here the windswept atmosphere is eschewed for an unaccompanied tenor recorder rendition.
Black Trenchcoats... gets stranger on the electronic tracks. 'Interrupted By Interior Design' is delivered in two parts. Part I: Speculum (for Marcel Duchamp) is a strange one comprising of fizzing textures, low drone hum, looped breathing, with intermittent snatches of voices and samples, and electronic tones and pulses. The samples lead to 'Part II: From Here To Parker Posey', where with less emphasis on edit cuts, Part II opens with Latin conga rhythms, low sax blurts and snippets of a jazz standard. The entire piece is riddled with voice samples, including Salvador Dali and Marcel Duchamp, and is reminiscent of the sonic collage work of Nurse With Wound. Naturally it sits nicely alongside 'Shave 'Em Dry 'Till The Cows Come Home' the Forms of Things Unknown contribution to the Nurse with Wound competition to remix the track 'Two Shaves and a Shine' from the constituent parts offered on the extra disc of An Awkward Pause. From a looped bass line, a wailing sax is added alongside more wailing voices and a roll call of musical artists - an inane list, perhaps in response to the feted Nurse With Wound list that accompanied their first release.
'Blue Light' has nothing to do with Leni Riefenstahl and more to do with the gas pilot light that provides the constant muffled roar that underpins this construction of broken glass and smashed crockery, looped rhythmic noise and assorted found voices and squawking birds. While 'Blue Light' is an example of FOTU's ability to create music from chaotic slice and dice 'Quadrilateral' is much more minimal offering 14 minutes of restrained ambience. It's a quietly mesmerising piece of looped humming, rotating tones and repetitive bleeping that shares an affinity with Coil's Time Machines project. Another surprising turn for FOTU can be found on 'Mesozoica', a collaboration with Ure Thrall that lurches into dark ambient territory to the strains of dark droning, quiet pounding and subdued atmospheric flute playing.
Black Trenchcoats... was compiled, as the subtitle indicates, from Demos, Outtakes and Rarities: 2003 - 2006. As Ferrara Brain Pan points out in the liner notes this period was marked by personal turmoil and sporadic creative attempts with the most basic of equipment. And while this lacks cohesion, there's an inordinate amount of ideas that though not fully realised won't do this experimental composer any harm. Interested readers may care to seek out Cross Purposes, the first proper FOTU album that has just been reissued in an expanded format by the same label. For more information go to www.formsofthingsunknown.com or www.pimalia.net
Retarder - Enquiries
Retarder is the solo-project of Lloyd James of Naevus, the modernist folk punk outfit he fronts alongside Joanne Owens. Within the confines of Naevus the sparse arrangements allow the voice and ambiguous lyrics of Lloyd James to become the focal point. Retarder allows Lloyd James to break free of these confines, resulting in an album that is wilfully experimental and much broader in scope, though several tracks carry echoes of Naevus. Enquiries is split between improvisations and instrumental tracks and some wonderful moments of experimental post-punk. This isn't the first time Lloyd James has stepped outside of Naevus. With Marc Blackie of Sleeping Pictures he records as Lark Blames, whose spontaneous electronic improvisations are much closer to Retarder than anything Naevus has released.
'Dancing', a feisty piano instrumental piece, opens Enquiries with pummelling chords and discordant brass section. It's a curious track and not an obvious starting point for the first solo-release from the Naevus singer. Neither is 'Tongue In the Wind' with it synthesizer swirl and spacey effects and some hollow scraping sounds plundered from some treated stringed device. 'Dead Numbers' is awash with shards of discordant sounds and serated seepings anchored to a rudimentary solid bass throb. The formless structure is miles apart from the melodic and filmic sounds of 'Superman's Cave' where Lloyd teases some spirited playing from the synthetic brass over sombre keyboards. In many ways the above moments are quite inconsequential as they are just improvisations and instrumental. Interesting they may be but they're not half as appealing as Retarder's forays into post-punk experimentalism. This really is where Retarder come into their own.
'Modern Evening' picks up on the earlier experimental tracks with stuttered distorted electronic layers, to which Lloyd's treated spoken vocals and isolated guitar strum and rattling cymbals start to take shape culminating in something resembling a heavily distorted electronic version of Naevus, sloping off in acoustic guitars. Even better is 'Turn That Light Off' where Lloyd's drawn out layered monotone vocal works against the jerky rhythms and scraping guitars. It's stop-start structure and angular guitars are firmly in an experimental post-punk mould. 'Modern Evening' and the closing 'Chalk Is Valuable, Keep It In Your Hand' both revolve around repetition, with 'Chalk Is Valuable ...' being decidedly more abstract. Sluggish, disjointed slabs of guitar and drums, overlayen with clipped vocals,alternating between "chalk" and "hand", bookending a section of loose bass playing and a distant poem recital, before returning to the repetitive snatches of guitars and voice. I'm hearing something post-industrial and Swans in its slow paced repetitive structure.
And while it's apparent Retarder isn't an extension of Naevus, there's no disputing the fact that 'Farmer Duncan' is very Naevus like, with it chiming acoustic guitars and simple keyboard melody and Lloyd's warm, relaxed voice delivering a cryptic tale about Farmer Duncan and his mysterious "magic beans".
Naevus fans are advised to approach with caution as if Enquiries was an attempt to step far away from his day job as Naevus it was successful. The fluid and formless experimental and instrumental tracks here will be difficult for those more accustomed to Naevus, but the experimental post-punk moments are a sheer delight. Let's hope Retarder continue in this direction as an entire album like this would be more than welcome as it is Enquiries remains an item of curiosity. For more information go to www.touretterecords.com or www.myspace.com/touretterecords
Svarrogh - Yer Su
Svarrogh, the Bulgarian outfit lead by Dimo Dimov, return with their fifth album, Yer Su. On their previous release, Balkan Resistance, Svarrogh moved into folk realms. The folk music continues here but Yer Su also sees Svarrogh revert to their black metal roots resulting in an album of European folk music shot through with blistering black metal inspired guitars and barking vocals. The cental theme running through Yer Su concerns the earth-water spirit from the little known ancient Bulgarian belief system of Tangra.
For Yer Su Dimo Dimov has enlisted a number of musicians, primarily Valentina from Der Feuerkreiner, Marcel P of Allerseelen and Kostas from Defile Des Ames, amongst others. Svarrogh share many similarities with others on the Ahnstern label, an outlet for an agglomeration of progressive folk outfits comprising Allerseelen, Sangre Cavallum, Sturmpercht, Werkraum that almost constitute a micro-scene that stretches outwards to include US acts such as Waldteufel and Changes.
The opening track, 'It's Getting a Murk' is like an incantation to pagan spirits as it creates a mystical atmosphere from traditional instrumentation such as mandolin and flute with organ and massed singing voices. It's a moment of quiet reverence before 'The Old Mill', which revives their former life as a black metal outfit. Here Svarrogh accompany their surging black metal with traditional folk instrumentation. It's a curious combination of electric guitar, ringing mandolin, with rhythmic chanted voices and rough growled voices, with flourishes of flute and piano adding further sound.
It's something of a template for the current Svarrogh sound one they return to frequently on Yer Su. On 'I Call You From The Mountain' the electric guitar remains in the background allowing the wailing vocals and vibrant mandolin to take centre stage. In no way is Yer Su a black metal release but the influence is strongly felt on 'Eternal Flame' where the riffing really comes to the fore between passages of vibrant folk strum.
The key track on Yer Su is 'Holy Water, Earth', a combination of female spoken vocals and the key invocation of "Wake up earth, Wake up stone, Wake up sky, Wake up water! I will be sky then, I will be stone then, I will be earth then, I will be water then!" delivered repeatedly in whispered and growled tones by Dimo Dimov. The music features sprightly performed mandolin playing and wailing bagpipes, that breaks into Valentino's spoken verse over heavy piano stabs and the sound of rocks being beaten together before being reprised as acoustic black metal.
I enjoyed the sound of 'Wine of the Late Winter' where gruff vocalisations are set against striking metal percussion and reverberating heavy piano chords, while underneath a drone becomes increasingly distorted while the voice remains solemn and deeply harmonious.
'The Last Pine Trees' and 'Samodiva' are much more melodic with folk strum and Dimov's cracked growl, moving through passages of spoken voice and guitar pluck, returning to the folk strum and tuneless broken rasp, and back again to the charming spoken voice. 'Samodiva' is folky too with passages of chugging black metal inspired riffs culminating in handclaps and a snaking clarinet score. Much more buoyant and jaunty is 'Water Sounds, Overcomes' with flute and clarinet melodies accompanying the quick folk strum and harsh rhythmic vocals.
Every track on Yer Su is joined by female vocals, bells, rippling water and sound of crushed snow underfoot providing some sort of continuity to Svarrogh's disparate musical turns. Yet there's little let-up on Yer Su as each track is heavily orchestrated, and the production seems quite muddy. Svarrogh are much respected but the combination of folk and black metal elements from Svarrogh isn't as convincing as the synthetic loops of Allerseelen, or the traditional folk sounds of Sturmpercht or Sangre Cavallum, or as appealing as the folk sound of Werkraum. What do you expect from a group that look like black metallers and perform on mandolins though? For more information go to www.geocities.com/ahnstern or www.steinklang-records.at
David E. Williams - Every Missing Duck Is A Duck Missed
Funny, as much as pain and loss and death have proven to be a wellspring for popular songs - cancer, or leukaemia in the case of David E. Williams, has never featured prominently in the canon of the "death disc". As fatality in pop songs go cancer, unlike suicide, car crashes and untimely death, has never been a big seller.
Unfortunately for David E. Williams, at least, leukaemia plays a central role in Every Missing Duck Is A Duck Missed. David's partner Jennifer Bates succumbed to leukaemia in May 2007 and ...Duck... was inspired by the grief and futility following her death. David E. Williams is no stranger to death and taboo subjects. His work is riddled with references to death, disease and sickness. ...Duck... deals with death and the pain of loss and it remains very much a David E. Williams release - with the blackest of black humour except this time his attention is turned inwards, and he himself becomes the main subject.
'Save A Chair for Jennifer' conjures up eighties electro pop with its drum machine rhythm and layered synths with multi-tracked vocals delivering some heartbreaking words of thwarted dreams as he deals with the pain of grief. His loss is unmistakeable here. The same goes for the following track, 'Here Comes The Cold Narrator', where amidst minor piano chords he retells the final moments of Jennifer Bates, as she lay in a hospital ward, life ebbing away. The directness of the approach here is devastating. Williams "cold narration" slips towards the end of the second verse where in indignant tones he rises, quite admirably, to the questions surrounding the disposing of his beloved's clothing before closing on a verse of poetic brilliance. It's a testament to his worth as a songwriter.
And as uncomfortable as these are for the listener, later tracks become much more awkward airing issues that only those directly, like me, touched by illness and death could fully grasp. The troubling question 'Do I Love You As Much As I Did When You Weren't Sick?' takes the pop song into uncharted territory. 'The Unconscious Is Cold' is terribly sad and brutally honest raising an issue that is rarely if ever mentioned. Both tracks see Williams' piano arrangements bolstered by electric guitar and drums. 'Do I Love You...' even features a guitar solo, while 'The Unconscious Is Cold' slides from a gentle piano ballad to a soaring ensemble piece comprising spiralling guitars, violin score and the swirl of the Hammond organ.
The glorious sunshine pop of 'Kill Yourself In Cape May' truly catches you off-guard with its singalong chorus: "You died way horribly. Yeah, you died way horribly." You inevitably find yourself singing along just as it hits you what you're singing. It's a perfect example of William's perverse humour. Fortunately he doesn't milk it and it appears only once, opting to bow out on a harmonica solo.
Dressed up as a piano ballad with massed harmonies, 'Hymn To The Genius of Idi Amin' tells of the African dictator's evil eccentricities. It is sheer bad taste but in the context of ...Duck..., it provides a moment of light relief. As does 'Suicide Bomb' a lovely duet with Lisa Sunshine where William's provides an exaggerated drawl over piano and sixties styled organ stabs. This along with the following track, 'Summer Wasn't Made For You And Me', are perhaps some of Williams' finest melodic moments. With its forlorn piano score and clarinet 'Summer Wasn't Made For You And Me' was written especially for pale faced lovers who prefer the shade. The astute listener may recognise the music from 'I Was A Fool In Love', the Ethel Mermaid' contribution to the David E. Williams' tribute compilation, The Appeal of Discarded Orthodoxy.
Things don't really get lighter on the cover versions either. 'Ich Hatt' Einen Kameraden', a 19th century German folksong sung by war veteran song for fallen comrades, and 'Hello, Young Lovers', the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein showtune, are cast in a new light given Williams' bereavement. The song from the King and I is a moving moment with Williams in full voice, over ringing keys and interestingly it's the final words sung on ...Duck... as Williams opts to close on two instrumentals. The final piece 'Closing Suite For My Deceased' reprises many of the earlier tracks arranged into a pleasing medley. It displays his musical dexterity with sugary melodies and clarinet solos while it could easily be regarded as schmaltzy within the context of ...Duck... it is truly bittersweet.
On ...Duck... Williams has enlisted an extended cast of musicians, including Thomas Nöla and members of Oval Portraits, Radio Eris, Void Vision, Black Landlord alongside his main collaborator Jerome Deppe to flesh out his musical vision. David E. Williams has released a number of great records but ...Duck... is his most cohesive and consistent album. It's one that I, as a fellow widower, can appreciate and wallow in. "Tragedy renders the monster human" read the press release and as sad and as brutally real as it is, this is the David E. Williams release to own. The great tragedy of Every Missing Duck Is A Duck Missed is that Jennifer Bates will never hear it. For more information go to www.davidewilliams.com or www.eskimofilms.com
Various Artists - Sacral Symphony
EE Tapes have just released a compilation of meditative drone music compiled and mixed by Eugeny Voronovski of Cisfinitum. Sacral Symphony sits alongside their Table For Six compilations showcasing various forms of ambient music. This time, however, the contributors are working around the theme of sacred music. The result is an album of quiet, contemplative music that more often than not uses church bells, organ or choirs as a basis for sound manipulation. The first two acts formerly recorded - or maybe they still do - as Maeror Tri. 'Dageraad' from 1000Schøen blends jangling percussion with soft wafts of droning melody, while towards the end ringing bells and deeper drones penetrate. Troum are much more pensive with soft tones, swirling atmospheres and quiet churning disembodied voices. As it progresses 'Palas Tyn' gets decidedly deeper with dark drones and lighter synth layers. 'Autumn Ritual' from Cisfinitum is a hauntingly beautiful slice of soft ambient electronics. There's something almost classical in its construction as it slowly unfurls layers of melancholic ambience. The standout moment on Sacral Symphony comes from Rapoon with 'One Last Breath', consisting of sound manipulations and treatments of the Kyiv Chamber Choir and scaled samples of his own voice to create an almost otherworldy ghost ambience. It's quite unlike anything I've heard before and I'm pleased to be reacquainted with the former Zoviet France member. The final track comes from the Ukraine based project First Human Ferro, and veers towards dark ambient territory with deep, dark droning and reverberating effects that manages to sound like it was recorded inside a church. Choral music pierces the droning for a significant part of the track, though remaining surrounded by electronic effects and sympathetic droning.
With each of the five tracks lasting a good 15 minutes or so, each act has ample opportunity to flesh out their sound constructions, from which compiler Eugeny Voronovski mixes admirably. Sacral Symphony is packaged in a 7-inch cardboard sleeve in an edition of 300 copies. Released at the tail end of 2008 there really can't be many left now. For more information go to www.myspace.com/eetapes or www.eetapes.be
Standing In Two Circles
The Collected Works of Boyd Rice, edited by Brian M. Clark
Without doubt Boyd Rice is the most divisive of acts from the industrial music era. To some he's an acclaimed noise musician from the first wave of industrial music. To others he's an arch prankster and cultural scavenger whose writings were key to the appeal of the Re/Search publications on Pranks, Incredibly Strange Films and subsequent Incredibly Strange Music volumes whose influence would eventually filter through into mainstream. And over the past few years he's proved to be an adept historian researching the Grail mysteries. However to most he remains tainted by his predilection and proselytising of a might is right philosophy, in writings, numerous interviews and through his martial industrial noise released under the name NON.
Standing In Two Circles compiles most of Boyd Rice writings. They range from illuminating essays on Mondo films, entertaining appraisals of celebrity pop records, and tiki culture, to quirky travelogues, including Lawrence Welk's Country Club, a community of elderly residents set-up by the veteran television actor, trips to Disneyland's exclusive Club 33, and the bizarre Christian amusement park, the Holy land Experience in Florida.
Recollections of friendships with notorious figures such as Charles Manson and the late Anton LaVey, the Church of Satan founder, are discussed. Here Rice speaks with candour about his prison visits to the notorious cult leader, his discussions and how Manson named Rice Abraxas, in reference to the Gnostic deity representing balance between good and evil. Rice's initial fascination with Manson waned as the reviled "cult leader" increasingly displayed a contradictory personality. Rice recalls the bullet incident that resulted in him being removed from Manson's visit list. Rice's relationship with Anton Szandor LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, never floundered and Rice writes with a fondness for his mentor and friend, The Doctor, regaling the reader with short anecdotes about their enduring friendship cut short by LaVey's unexpected death in 1997.
But by far the most controversial are the numerous essays that expand and detail his Social Darwinist viewpoint, a philosophy based on the Warrior ethic and Nature's Eternal Fascism - themes that would become standard fare amongst the neo-folk and Satanic fraternities. Many of these are taken from 'Physiosophy', an unpublished collection of essays elucidating Boyd Rice's worldview in the mid-nineties. These writings on 'God and Beast', 'Power, Nature, God and Man' and 'Attributes of God' read like treatises in the tradition of Ragnar Redbeard, one of Boyd's revered men of steel. Much better is Rice's 'Dystopia' essay where he applies his take on evolution to contemporary America in a bold, frank and frightening essay that posits a convincing argument where, as Rice states, "we are presently witnessing rampant dysgenics and ever-increasing dystopia".
In recent years Boyd Rice has become an obsessive researcher of the Grail mysteries. Standing In Two Circles doesn't include his investigative essays on his research - for that you'll need to get hold of The Vessel of God that compiles his essays first published in Dagobert's Revenge - it does include short pieces on blood mysticism and ancestral recall and Boyd's own quest to discover his genealogy that dovetails with his Grail research.
Brian M. Clark's extensive biographical essay covers all Rice's artistic endeavours from his experimental noise output as NON (Rice was, in fact, the first signing on Daniel Miller's Mute label), his extensive involvement and subsequent fallout with the editors of Re/Search, largely due to his dubious associations and increasing interest in Satanism and fascism. In between times he became a vociferous spokesperson for the Church of Satan, and founded the Social Darwinist think-tank, The Abraxas Foundation. These streams all seeped into his work as NON, which picked up on the aesthetics of fascism with Rice attired in military garb, flanked by kettle drums and banners emblazoned with the Wolfsangle rune, an ancient symbol that symbolised the polar opposites of his philosophy, to represent NON. Rice also began working with like-minded artists such as Death In June and Blood Axis.
He remained difficult to pin down though. With Rose MacDowall of Strawberry Switchblade, as Spell they recorded 'Seasons In The Sun', a wonderful collections of songs about love and death. He became a member of the Partridge Family Temple, a colourful bunch dedicated to the worship of the characters of the 70's TV show. While in Denver he designed and furnished a tiki bar, Tiki Boyds, which became the preferred drinking den of Rice and his Modern Drunkard colleagues until it was dismantled by Boyd and friends following objectionable treatment from the establishment's management.
Rice was also a sometime actor with roles in the independent film Nixing The Twist, and a major role in the Australian independent movie Pearls Before Swine (alongside Douglas P. of Death In June). He appeared in Allison Anders' Grace of my Heart but his scenes were deleted from the final cut. His own film shorts Black Sun and Invocation were abstract and experimental boasting NON soundtracks.
Rice was a contributor to many publications, including Seconds and the Modern Drunkard magazine, and especially Dagobert's Revenge which published his numerous essays on the Grail mysteries before ceasing publication after an acrimonious fall-out.
More recently he co-founded the UNPOP ART movement with Shaun Partridge and Standing In Two Circles editor Brian M. Clark. The UNPOP ART group involves a disparate group of American artists, writers, musicians and filmmakers - including Jim Goad, Nick Bougas, Adam Parfrey - who deal with "the application of decidedly unpopular concepts via popular - often fun - media." Currently he is working with Giddle Partridge, as Boyd and Giddle, the glam-pop outfit who in their manifesto, 'Toward The Plastic', state that "Glamour and fun are revolutionary principles tools of the new alchemy and keys to a parallel reality..."
Brian M. Clark doesn't flinch from the more dubious aspects of Boyd Rice's career. Space is allocated to discuss his appearance in a Sassy photoshoot with the leader of the American Front, and his volatile relationship with Lisa Carver, editor of the zine Rollerderby, with whom he sired a child. Clark also manages to put forth a balanced account surrounding the accusations of fascism that are forever levelled at Rice.
Neither does Rice shirk from his own unsavoury antics. 'Burning The Ice' recalls a predation ritual which traverses a fine line between the sinister and prankish. While in 'After Hours With Boris' Rice relates several escapades of adolescent hooliganism with a bunch of criminal friends.
He's funny too. There's a diary of on-tour antics with Albin Julius that reads like an itinerary of the homes of three fascist leaders: Hitler, Mussolini and D'Annunzio, and 'One Night In Barcelona a hilarious account of bullfighting, bourbon and absinthe resulting in Boyd's involvement in a live strip show!
Outside of music Boyd Rice has been active in the visual arts. A number of his surreal and abstract photographs and paintings from the seventies, including examples of his experimental, manipulated halftones and documentary photographs, are displayed alongside his fetish photography produced in collaboration with Sean Hartgrove that appeared on his Receive The Flame CD. With the exception of his obscured fetish photography, they unlike his music are relatively pedestrian and are of historic interest only.
The final section of Standing In Two Circles compiles Boyd Rice's lyrical output from his recorded output as NON, with his friends, his collaborations with Death In June and his numerous guest work with artists such as Current 93, Blood Axis, and Luftwaffe. They range from the misanthropic to the whimsical, the Gnostic to the nasty with many adapted from the philosophical writings of Ragnar Redbeard, Carl Jung, Marquis de Sade to the poetry of Rod McKuen amongst others.
Whatever your opinion of Boyd Rice there's no denying his cultural scavenging has had a subtle influence on popular culture, resulting in a renewed interest and reappraisal of tiki and exotica culture, girl groups, Mondo and cult films and much besides. The essays in Standing In Two Circles illustrates Rice's unique take on these neglected and forgotten gems of a bygone culture. Standing In Two Circles is indispensable to those with an interest in Boyd Rice. It is unlikely to cause his detractors to reappraise their opinion or make him a household name but as Standing In Two Circles demonstrates Rice has produced a compelling and disparate body of work that continues to exert a subtle influence on both the so-called underground and popular culture. Ultimately he remains both God and Beast. For more information go to www.creationbooks.com or www.boydrice.com
French readers may care to note that Camion Noir have just published a French language version of Standing In Two Circles, The Collected Writings of Boyd Rice edited by Brian M. Clark. For more information go to www.camionnoir.com In other news a new version of Hatesville is in the works. Giddle and Boyd are still working on their first album. No! a new book by Boyd Rice is due for publication soon.
Out now from 6Comm is Like Stukas Angels Fall, a retrospective album featuring recent recordings of tracks originally recorded during Patrick Leagas's last months with Death In June and in the early period of 6Comm. Like Stukas Angels Fall features 16 tracks including new versions of the Death In June tracks 'Torture Garden' and 'Carousel' with new vocal sections. Like Stukas Angels Fall, together with a forthcoming second album next year, covers much of 6comm's deleted original vinyl and CD releases, which will never be re-issued again in their original format. Like Stukas Angels Fall is released in a gold foil blocked digipak.
6comm will be performing live at the Wave Gothic Treffen festival in Leipzig, Germany on May 30, with a show scheduled for Barcelona, Spain on June 6. Freya Asywnn's and 6Comm's performance of Fruits of Yggdrasil will take place at the Camden Underworld, London on September 19. This is a one-off ritual performance. Of The Wand and the Moon and Schrage Musik will also be performing. For more information go to www.hagshadow.net or www.myspace.com/6comm66
Throbbing Gristle make several European performances this month. On June 17 they make their first ever performance in Scotland at the Tramway, Glasgow under the title Apparition Foretold - An evening with Throbbing Gristle. This event is celebrate the forthcoming August exhibition by the Tramway and the UK premirer of a large scale collaborative sound sculpture piece with international visual artist Cerith Wynn Evans (White Cube Gallery) entitled “A=P=P=A=R=I=T=I=ON” (2009). June 19 marks The European Premiere of Throbbing Gristle performing a live soundtrack for Cerith Wyn Evans film The Sky Is As Thin As Paper Here together with other TG sound works. Cerith Wyn Evans will be in attendance. On June 21 Throbbing Gristle return to London's Heaven Club for A Crisis In Taste, a late afternoon performance with S.C.U.M. In the evening they perform a second show. For more information go to www.throbbing-gristle.com
Knifeladder, the organic industrial outfit featuring Andrew Trail, Hunter Barr and John Murphy, have just released their new album Music/Concrete, their first release since The Spectacle in 2006. Music/Concrete features shuddering machine loops overlaid with frenetic metal percussion, power ambient soundscapes melting into epic defiant anthems. Music/Concrete uses traditional hand played electronics and instrumentation to realise a thoroughly contemporary vision of rebirth and decay. Music/Concrete is released on Cold Meat Industry. For more information go to www.coldmeat.se
Knifeladder return to the live arena with a performance at the Beat Club Dessau, Germany on May 1. Other acts on the bill include Genevieve Pasquier, The Music Wreckers and Mezire. For more information go to www.myspace.com/knifeladdermusic
The Equinox Festival, a 3 day media arts festival dedicated to spiritual discovery and mystical tradition takes place in London between June 12-14. The Equinox Festival exists to provide a cross cultural platform for the exhibition of creative and innovative approaches to spiritual discovery. The festival comprises lectures / presentations, music performances, ritual performances and film screenings. Comus will be performing their seminal album First Utterance in its entirety, and Peter Christopherson's Threshold HouseBoys Choir play a rare London show. The line-up for this year's festival includes:
Music performances from: Comus, John Zorn, Aethenor ( featuring Daniel O'Sullivan (Mothlight, Gaupo), Stephen O'Malley (Sunn O)))), Vincent de Roguin (Shora), and Kristoffer Rygg (Ulver), Adi Newton's T.A.G.C, Z'EV, Dieter Muh, Pietro Riparbelli, Pestrepeller (featuring Edwin Pouncey /Savage Pencil), HATI, Kinit Her, Burial Hex, James Ferraro, Rob Mazurek, Chaos Majik
Ritual Performances from: Arktau Eos, Barry William Hale's NOKO, Raymond Salvatore Harmon
Lecture/Presentations from: Ralph Metzner, Erik Davis, David Beth, Philip Farber, Aaron Gach, Edwin Pouncey, Paola Igliori, Masamba Fall, James Curcio, Carl Abrahamsonn, Kendall Geers, Matt Wiley
More artists are to be added to the line-up. The Equinox Festival will take place at the Conway Hall and Camden Centre in London on June 12-14. Tickets are on sale now. For more information go to www.equinoxfestival.com
Prurient and Wilt collaborate on a new vinyl release Blood of the Lamb. Blood of the Lamb follows their 2007 collaboration, Bottomfeeding Whore, released on cassette by Turgid Animal. Blood of the Lamb is released in an ultra-limited, hand-numbered edition of 100 copies on black vinyl with silkscreened metallic sleeves folded over solid white LP jackets. A numbered, silkscreened, poster is also included. For more information go to www.myspace.com/officialbloodyminded
Steinklang Records have a number of new and impending releases. Von Thronstahl return with Germanium Metallicum, an album of martial industrial described as a musical revelation about old Europe between rebirth and death, freedom and slavery, uproar and revolution. An apocalyptic journey featuring guest-musicians, like Plastique of Welle Erdball and Natcha Von Wynn (erotic starlet from Switzerland), Troy Southgate (H.E.R.R.) and Andreas D. (Parzival). Germanium Metallicum combines the sounds of the band's early works with the composing quality of Sacrificare and the intension and power of Bellum Sacrum Bellum. Germanium Metallicum comes in a chrome-foiled 6-side digipack with booklet. Also available is a boxset edition in a golden-printed structure-cardboard box containing the regular CD, a poster, a metal-pin and a additional 3-inch mCD. The Von Thronstahl side-project The Days of the Trumpet Call have their Purification CD reissued in a remastered edition with new artwork. Dark and Neoclassic soundscapes with many voice-samples, recorded at the same time as the first two Von Thronstahl albums. Purification is released as a digipak edition.
Vinterriket release Horizontmelancholie, an album of melancholy and chilling atmospheres as a tribute to the darkest side of mother nature. Haunting and cold electronic soundscapes are mixed with atmospheric acoustic guitars and clean vocals. The whole album is featured as music CD and DVD on one disc. Tethrippon join the ranks of Ahnstern with an album full of the Ancient Hellenic Spirit. Tethrippon is the chariot of Apollon Hellenic God of light and this album features lyrics sung in intellectual-Greek, a very complex language! Tethrippon is available as a digipak CD or as a wooden boxset edition in an edition of 150 copies containing a DVD-R with 3 videoclips, a live video a photo gallery and more. A horse iron is fixed to the wooden box. For more information go to www.steinklang-records.at
Marc Almond has announced dates for a UK tour. The shows will feature songs from his new album, Orpheus In Exile, as well tracks from his back catalogue and some old favourites. The dates are as follows:
October 29 - Birmingham Alexandra Theatre
October 30 - Manchester Academy 2
November 1 - London Roundhouse
November 3 - Bournemouth Opera House
November 4 - Leeds Grand Theatre
Orpheus In Exile is scheduled for release in September. Tickets are on sale now. For more information go to www.marcalmond.co.uk
Antony and the Johnsons will play a series of unique concerts in collaboration with symphonies across Europe this summer. Featuring large format orchestras presenting arrangements developed by Antony and Nico Muhly and conducted by Rob Moose. More dates are to be added but confirmed shows are listed below:
June 21 and 22 - Amsterdam , Holland - Holland Festival at Royal Theatre Carré with the Metropole Orchestra
July 3 and 4 - Manchester , UK - Manchester International Festival at the Opera House with the Manchester Camerata
July 21 - Lyon, France - Les Nuits de Fourviere with the Opera de Lyon Orchestra
July 28 - Rome , Italy - Cavea at Il Parco della Musica with the Rome Sinfonietta
August 9 - Oslo, Norway - Oslo Jazz Festival with the Oslo Opera House Orchestra
August 14 - Gothenburg, Sweden - Way Out West Festival with the Gothenburg Symphonic Orchestra
For more information go to www.antonyandthejohnsons.com
Cultural Amnesia have their Enormous Savages retrospective vinyl release reissued on CD as Enormous Savages (Enlarged). Originally released on vinyl in 2006 on Anna Logue Records, Enormous Savages is the first part of a collection of tracks that were released on cassette between 1981 and 1983. Some of those songs were even co-written by Jhonn Balance of Coil! A mix of synth pop, analogue electronica and rhythmic Industrial, Cultural Amnesia fit in somewhere between Cabaret Voltaire and Portion Control with an added playfulness. An 80's classic ready to be re-discovered and loved! Plus: a selection of bonus tracks old and new, some from a very recent date that show you how CA sound in 2009! The companion release Press My Hungry Button is a featured album on compulsiononline. Enormous Savages (Enlarged) CD is released on Klanggalerie. For more information go to www.klanggalerie.com
Cold Spring have new releases from Z'EV, Rose Rovine E Amanti and Anni Hogan as well as a batch of welcome reissues. Kickabye from Anni Hogan, originally released as a 12-inch on Doublevision - as Annie Hogan Plays Kickabye makes its first appearance on CD. Kickabye features Nick Cave, Marc Almond, Foetus, Budgie and Gini Ball, with production by Jim "Foetus" Thirwell. 10 extra tracks from the same period are included on the first CD. The second CD features tracks from the same period, featuring Yello with production by Barry Adamson. Digitally remastered with 4 new and exclusive song versions. Sum Things from Z'EV transports the listener deep into their long forgotten memories of the primal forces at the dawn of creation with 6 tracks based on a single sound source. This release reflects Z'EV's take on the "dark ambience" genre. Demian is the new album from Rose Rovine E Amanti featuring 10 tracks of Neo-Folk-Rock with a Mediterranean sensibility.
Werkraum have their debut album Unsere Feuer Brennen! reissued as a jewel cased edition with two extra tracks and new artwork. Unsere Feuer Brennen! is a powerful mixture of martial industrial, Neofolk, ambience and neo-classical with contributions from Lady Morphia and Harvest Rain. Folkstorm have their Victory Or Death and Sweden albums reissued. And don't forget the release of My Horns Are A Flame To Draw Down The Truth from TenHornedBeast, featuring radical remixes from their debut album The Sacred Truth with two totally new tracks. For more information go to www.coldspring.co.uk
Temple Music have just released their new album Incompleteness, using the theorem of the Czech mathematician Kurt Gödel and the doctrine of anamorphosis to compose and fashion an album of 4 interconnected and complementary tracks that somehow look both forward and back; that juxtapose the old and the new into an organic whole of both sacred and temporal instruments - Indian harmonium and shruti box, plucked and hammered dulcimers, bodhrans, mosenos, various flageolets, synthesisers and keyboards, guitars, bass, Tibetan bells and singing bowls - 4 drifting shards of ethereal and sometimes frightening beauty, rose petals on the snow that are finally revealed to be tiny, perfect drops of crystalline blood... Temple Music are Alan Trench (ex-World Serpent) and Stephen Robinson (ex-The Beloved ). Tracy Jeffery of Orchis, Cunnan and SQE guests on two tracks. Incompleteness is released on Shining Day/ Faria in an edition of 500 copies housed in an art sleeve with 4 inserts. For more information go to www.shiningday.pl or www.faria.ru
Coming Soon from Old Europa Cafe is Pain Implantations from Stratvm Terror a reissue of their second album originally released on Malignant Records in 1998. Stratvm Terror is Peter Andersson of Raison d'être and Tobias Larsson of Ocean Chief. This edition features two additional tracks and new artwork. K. Meizter of Beyond Sensory Experience returns with Tetraphobia. Following Travelling Light, Dark Matters and the Horologium collaboration Eight Studies in Transition, K. Meizter's new release develops even more unsettling atmospheres of reflection and alteration. Future releases include Leonidas from A Challenge of Honour, an archive release of previously unreleased material from this neo-classical outfit. The Ain Soph singer Marcello Fraioli working under the name Spectre releases his second solo album, 10 Pezzi Facili, showcasing his Italian / Mediterranean sound with one Ain Soph cover and three others. Death Pact International featuring a collaboration between the Grey Wolves, Con Dom and Wertham issue the Siege CD box. Siege features power electronics and old school industrial in a box containing art and literature. A special edition boxset featuring an exclusive mini CD recorded at London's Hinoeuma club, pins, a poster and other additional material is also being planned. For more information go to www.oldeuropacafe.com
The Ship of Fools Club organised by Tursa and Kaparte Promotions and held on a boat on the River Thames returns on July 12 with performances by Naevus and Andrew King. The event takes place at Bar and Co, Temple Pier, London. For more information go to www.myspace.com/shipoffoolsclub
IANVA, the Italian neo-futurist outfit, are working on a new album. Italia: Ultimo Atto will be released as a digibook edition featuring 70 minutes of powerful new music.
Items for review: Compulsion, PO Box 19577, Kilbarchan, Johnstone, PA10 2WX, Scotland, UK
Anabasis and Gargrim the Liar - Two Worlds
Waerloga are clearly the prime movers in both in the establishment and the defining of the 'Dark Fantasy' soundtrack. With Two Worlds the potential for variations on this theme are explored and realized with a subtle degree of flair and passion. Anabasis begins proceedings with the first of the two full-length CDs, 'The Challenge' which appropriately follows in the spirit of Xenophon's eponymous journey-tale by drawing it's narrative inspiration from the last six stanzas of Browning's Childe Roland... (which also inspired Stephen King's Dark Tower stories). As 'The Challenge' is structured as a soundtrack, of sorts, it naturally lacks a visual narrative from which to act as a common denominator between conductor and audience. Hence, the music itself is called upon to supply both drama and mood within the context of the chosen narrative. Anabasis has competently approached this difficulty and the opening tracks establish the work through string and wind arrangements that create an expanse of swelling sounds while moving to build a sense of tension and movement. The instrumentation used throughout the composition is keenly mannered, each instrument is used to compliment and interweave, never dominate. This is evident in the middle section of tracks such as ' Enchanted Forest' and 'Distant Stronghold' where the music colours the imagined landscape, characters and events in lieu of any lyrical narrative. Towards the close of 'The Challenge' choral and solo voices are introduced deftly fading into instrumentation or capturing a mood, but never lingering beyond their welcome. Uplifting phrases and the introspective guitar strings draw down the curtain on a work that while acknowledging influences such as Liszt or Strauss never seeks to repeat them. 'The Challenge' is a serious piece of composition and exhibits the obvious maturity of it's creator in producing a thematic vein of music that conveys a tale of anger, deceit and retribution. This is the essence of high-fantasy and Anabasis has thrown down a very proficient gauntlet in the form of 'The Challenge'.
The more mysterious Gargrim the Liar is the second 'book' of Two Worlds. Here, the full-length CD, 'Stories of Long Forgotten' seems to draw from the steam-punk fantasy world of Warhammer, particularly in respect of the 'City-state of Miragliano'. Within such a recognized fantasy template any attempt at an accompanying soundtrack may rise or fall heavily. 'Stories of Long Forgotten' soars. From the opening field-recordings of birdsong there is a sense of open spaces and untamed expanses. The overwhelming strength, which is immediately apparent on 'Stories of Long Forgotten' is the employment of choral voices, not set apart from other elements in the compositions but rather, the voice is recognized as an instrument in itself and as such interflows throughout the music to produce captivating pieces that are highly emotive and stirring. There are some reminders of Enya's soundtrack for The Celts but here any similarity is nullified by the sweeping arrangements that quickly put the aforementioned work into shade. At times the narrative of the music is driven forward by percussive phrasing and the accompaniment of strings which pervades the resultant sounds with a richness that serves to voice the tale. 'Stories of Long Forgotten' is a very strong piece of work that wraps many emotions together through incredibly expressive compositions. Again, there are subtle nods to influences such as Leone on 'No Way Out' but Gargrim's music retains its originality and complexity serving to propel the listener into a world apart in a manner that few other composers are capable of.
Waerloga have obviously taken great care in the aesthetic presentation of this double CD release and produced a sumptuous eight page booklet to accompany it. The artwork is another highlight as Waerloga have secured John Howe's piece that he produced in the 1980's for the cover of Robert Holdstock's utterly brilliant Mythago Wood. Two Worlds benefits from the fact that the two composers never overlap in style and composition so both works are separate in realization and sounds, allowing the audience to delve into either world which are distinctive to one another. This is a very mature release both in structure and vision that opens a great deal of potential for the future of the 'Dark Fantasy' soundtrack. For more information go to www.waerloga.com or www.myspace.com/gargrimtheliar or www.myspace.com/anabasishome (review by Michael Cunningham)
Big Cocky Man Sinweldi - Is Europe Dying?
Big Cocky Man Sinweldi (BCMS): It's an attention grabber, certainly and the image of a wounded warrior on the cover of the CD conjures a sense of ambiguity. Yet, what of the music that forms Is Europe Dying?? Therein lies the surprise, or maybe not to those already familiar with BCMS. For the music exists in lust sweeps of duel acoustics of which the rhythm and melodic chords are clean and crisp, at times shining with a technical flourish. What is almost immediate with the album is the strong ear for subtle melodies that the artists are so obviously gifted with. While residing more in the genre of Neofolk rather than driven martial tones the musical compositions are deft and very well structured. The keyboard adds to lushness of the acoustics and, in places, (the accordion and harmonica are also employed sparingly and appropriately in places) which may have preempted a move to more stripped-back sounds now being explored by some long established Neofolk artists. 'Rendez Vous' is a good example: the duel acoustics warmed by keyboards, some slight choral sounds and the whole mix evenly balanced to evoke a rich, well layered composition. These aspects are repeated throughout many of the tracks: 'Is Europe Dying?', 'The Colour of the Wind' and 'Song for Clementine' producing strong sensibilities of sound that succeed in terms of musicianship and orchestration. Within the album the lyrics are never smothered, whether delved by song or spoken they retain subtle observations and questions that resound within the geo-political chronologies of Europe. Is Europe Dying? is a surprising album on a number of levels and is awash with fresh and vibrant sounds that promise much for the artists, a reinvigoration of the genre is seeded herein and that fact is down to the talent of BCMS. Is Europe Dying? is an important album because it lifts the spear higher above the heads of many pretenders. For more information go to www.myspace.com/bigcockyman or www.skullline.de (review by Michael Cunningham)
Forms of Things Unknown - Black Trenchcoats and Swastikas 'n shit
Don't worry about the title, the swastika adorned toilet roll or the laughing Hitler collages nor even the typography stolen from a Death In June release Forms of Things Unknown are only trying to confuse you. The peculiarly named Ferrara Brain Pan is neither a 3rd Reich rock'n'roller or misaligned neo-folker. It's all a perverse type of humour for the multi-instrumentalist performer and composer of this acoustic / electronic experimental project.
Black Trenchcoats... formed from demos, outtakes and compilation tracks after a lengthy self-imposed hiatus following the release of his first CD, Cross Purposes. Black Trenchcoats... takes on experimental music with a heavy emphasis on orchestral woodwind instruments featuring prominently in his compositions.
A number of tracks display his dexterity with wind instruments such as 'Vallåtar' with its wailing sax and sustained haunting notes based on the Swedish vocal tradition of kulning. 'Elegy' performed on the bass clarinet captures a sombre mordant tone. It like 'The Fifth Path', a solo harmonium drone piece, is almost funereal in its execution.
'Cobblestones', meanwhile, is a mediaeval styled composition performed on soprano recorder with an overdubbed accompaniment of bowed psaltery, while the closing track, 'Burial Of The First Toy', is an interpretation of the main title theme to Alexandro Jodorowsky's surreal western El Topo. Here the windswept atmosphere is eschewed for an unaccompanied tenor recorder rendition.
Black Trenchcoats... gets stranger on the electronic tracks. 'Interrupted By Interior Design' is delivered in two parts. Part I: Speculum (for Marcel Duchamp) is a strange one comprising of fizzing textures, low drone hum, looped breathing, with intermittent snatches of voices and samples, and electronic tones and pulses. The samples lead to 'Part II: From Here To Parker Posey', where with less emphasis on edit cuts, Part II opens with Latin conga rhythms, low sax blurts and snippets of a jazz standard. The entire piece is riddled with voice samples, including Salvador Dali and Marcel Duchamp, and is reminiscent of the sonic collage work of Nurse With Wound. Naturally it sits nicely alongside 'Shave 'Em Dry 'Till The Cows Come Home' the Forms of Things Unknown contribution to the Nurse with Wound competition to remix the track 'Two Shaves and a Shine' from the constituent parts offered on the extra disc of An Awkward Pause. From a looped bass line, a wailing sax is added alongside more wailing voices and a roll call of musical artists - an inane list, perhaps in response to the feted Nurse With Wound list that accompanied their first release.
'Blue Light' has nothing to do with Leni Riefenstahl and more to do with the gas pilot light that provides the constant muffled roar that underpins this construction of broken glass and smashed crockery, looped rhythmic noise and assorted found voices and squawking birds. While 'Blue Light' is an example of FOTU's ability to create music from chaotic slice and dice 'Quadrilateral' is much more minimal offering 14 minutes of restrained ambience. It's a quietly mesmerising piece of looped humming, rotating tones and repetitive bleeping that shares an affinity with Coil's Time Machines project. Another surprising turn for FOTU can be found on 'Mesozoica', a collaboration with Ure Thrall that lurches into dark ambient territory to the strains of dark droning, quiet pounding and subdued atmospheric flute playing.
Black Trenchcoats... was compiled, as the subtitle indicates, from Demos, Outtakes and Rarities: 2003 - 2006. As Ferrara Brain Pan points out in the liner notes this period was marked by personal turmoil and sporadic creative attempts with the most basic of equipment. And while this lacks cohesion, there's an inordinate amount of ideas that though not fully realised won't do this experimental composer any harm. Interested readers may care to seek out Cross Purposes, the first proper FOTU album that has just been reissued in an expanded format by the same label. For more information go to www.formsofthingsunknown.com or www.pimalia.net
Retarder - Enquiries
Retarder is the solo-project of Lloyd James of Naevus, the modernist folk punk outfit he fronts alongside Joanne Owens. Within the confines of Naevus the sparse arrangements allow the voice and ambiguous lyrics of Lloyd James to become the focal point. Retarder allows Lloyd James to break free of these confines, resulting in an album that is wilfully experimental and much broader in scope, though several tracks carry echoes of Naevus. Enquiries is split between improvisations and instrumental tracks and some wonderful moments of experimental post-punk. This isn't the first time Lloyd James has stepped outside of Naevus. With Marc Blackie of Sleeping Pictures he records as Lark Blames, whose spontaneous electronic improvisations are much closer to Retarder than anything Naevus has released.
'Dancing', a feisty piano instrumental piece, opens Enquiries with pummelling chords and discordant brass section. It's a curious track and not an obvious starting point for the first solo-release from the Naevus singer. Neither is 'Tongue In the Wind' with it synthesizer swirl and spacey effects and some hollow scraping sounds plundered from some treated stringed device. 'Dead Numbers' is awash with shards of discordant sounds and serated seepings anchored to a rudimentary solid bass throb. The formless structure is miles apart from the melodic and filmic sounds of 'Superman's Cave' where Lloyd teases some spirited playing from the synthetic brass over sombre keyboards. In many ways the above moments are quite inconsequential as they are just improvisations and instrumental. Interesting they may be but they're not half as appealing as Retarder's forays into post-punk experimentalism. This really is where Retarder come into their own.
'Modern Evening' picks up on the earlier experimental tracks with stuttered distorted electronic layers, to which Lloyd's treated spoken vocals and isolated guitar strum and rattling cymbals start to take shape culminating in something resembling a heavily distorted electronic version of Naevus, sloping off in acoustic guitars. Even better is 'Turn That Light Off' where Lloyd's drawn out layered monotone vocal works against the jerky rhythms and scraping guitars. It's stop-start structure and angular guitars are firmly in an experimental post-punk mould. 'Modern Evening' and the closing 'Chalk Is Valuable, Keep It In Your Hand' both revolve around repetition, with 'Chalk Is Valuable ...' being decidedly more abstract. Sluggish, disjointed slabs of guitar and drums, overlayen with clipped vocals,alternating between "chalk" and "hand", bookending a section of loose bass playing and a distant poem recital, before returning to the repetitive snatches of guitars and voice. I'm hearing something post-industrial and Swans in its slow paced repetitive structure.
And while it's apparent Retarder isn't an extension of Naevus, there's no disputing the fact that 'Farmer Duncan' is very Naevus like, with it chiming acoustic guitars and simple keyboard melody and Lloyd's warm, relaxed voice delivering a cryptic tale about Farmer Duncan and his mysterious "magic beans".
Naevus fans are advised to approach with caution as if Enquiries was an attempt to step far away from his day job as Naevus it was successful. The fluid and formless experimental and instrumental tracks here will be difficult for those more accustomed to Naevus, but the experimental post-punk moments are a sheer delight. Let's hope Retarder continue in this direction as an entire album like this would be more than welcome as it is Enquiries remains an item of curiosity. For more information go to www.touretterecords.com or www.myspace.com/touretterecords
Svarrogh - Yer Su
Svarrogh, the Bulgarian outfit lead by Dimo Dimov, return with their fifth album, Yer Su. On their previous release, Balkan Resistance, Svarrogh moved into folk realms. The folk music continues here but Yer Su also sees Svarrogh revert to their black metal roots resulting in an album of European folk music shot through with blistering black metal inspired guitars and barking vocals. The cental theme running through Yer Su concerns the earth-water spirit from the little known ancient Bulgarian belief system of Tangra.
For Yer Su Dimo Dimov has enlisted a number of musicians, primarily Valentina from Der Feuerkreiner, Marcel P of Allerseelen and Kostas from Defile Des Ames, amongst others. Svarrogh share many similarities with others on the Ahnstern label, an outlet for an agglomeration of progressive folk outfits comprising Allerseelen, Sangre Cavallum, Sturmpercht, Werkraum that almost constitute a micro-scene that stretches outwards to include US acts such as Waldteufel and Changes.
The opening track, 'It's Getting a Murk' is like an incantation to pagan spirits as it creates a mystical atmosphere from traditional instrumentation such as mandolin and flute with organ and massed singing voices. It's a moment of quiet reverence before 'The Old Mill', which revives their former life as a black metal outfit. Here Svarrogh accompany their surging black metal with traditional folk instrumentation. It's a curious combination of electric guitar, ringing mandolin, with rhythmic chanted voices and rough growled voices, with flourishes of flute and piano adding further sound.
It's something of a template for the current Svarrogh sound one they return to frequently on Yer Su. On 'I Call You From The Mountain' the electric guitar remains in the background allowing the wailing vocals and vibrant mandolin to take centre stage. In no way is Yer Su a black metal release but the influence is strongly felt on 'Eternal Flame' where the riffing really comes to the fore between passages of vibrant folk strum.
The key track on Yer Su is 'Holy Water, Earth', a combination of female spoken vocals and the key invocation of "Wake up earth, Wake up stone, Wake up sky, Wake up water! I will be sky then, I will be stone then, I will be earth then, I will be water then!" delivered repeatedly in whispered and growled tones by Dimo Dimov. The music features sprightly performed mandolin playing and wailing bagpipes, that breaks into Valentino's spoken verse over heavy piano stabs and the sound of rocks being beaten together before being reprised as acoustic black metal.
I enjoyed the sound of 'Wine of the Late Winter' where gruff vocalisations are set against striking metal percussion and reverberating heavy piano chords, while underneath a drone becomes increasingly distorted while the voice remains solemn and deeply harmonious.
'The Last Pine Trees' and 'Samodiva' are much more melodic with folk strum and Dimov's cracked growl, moving through passages of spoken voice and guitar pluck, returning to the folk strum and tuneless broken rasp, and back again to the charming spoken voice. 'Samodiva' is folky too with passages of chugging black metal inspired riffs culminating in handclaps and a snaking clarinet score. Much more buoyant and jaunty is 'Water Sounds, Overcomes' with flute and clarinet melodies accompanying the quick folk strum and harsh rhythmic vocals.
Every track on Yer Su is joined by female vocals, bells, rippling water and sound of crushed snow underfoot providing some sort of continuity to Svarrogh's disparate musical turns. Yet there's little let-up on Yer Su as each track is heavily orchestrated, and the production seems quite muddy. Svarrogh are much respected but the combination of folk and black metal elements from Svarrogh isn't as convincing as the synthetic loops of Allerseelen, or the traditional folk sounds of Sturmpercht or Sangre Cavallum, or as appealing as the folk sound of Werkraum. What do you expect from a group that look like black metallers and perform on mandolins though? For more information go to www.geocities.com/ahnstern or www.steinklang-records.at
David E. Williams - Every Missing Duck Is A Duck Missed
Funny, as much as pain and loss and death have proven to be a wellspring for popular songs - cancer, or leukaemia in the case of David E. Williams, has never featured prominently in the canon of the "death disc". As fatality in pop songs go cancer, unlike suicide, car crashes and untimely death, has never been a big seller.
Unfortunately for David E. Williams, at least, leukaemia plays a central role in Every Missing Duck Is A Duck Missed. David's partner Jennifer Bates succumbed to leukaemia in May 2007 and ...Duck... was inspired by the grief and futility following her death. David E. Williams is no stranger to death and taboo subjects. His work is riddled with references to death, disease and sickness. ...Duck... deals with death and the pain of loss and it remains very much a David E. Williams release - with the blackest of black humour except this time his attention is turned inwards, and he himself becomes the main subject.
'Save A Chair for Jennifer' conjures up eighties electro pop with its drum machine rhythm and layered synths with multi-tracked vocals delivering some heartbreaking words of thwarted dreams as he deals with the pain of grief. His loss is unmistakeable here. The same goes for the following track, 'Here Comes The Cold Narrator', where amidst minor piano chords he retells the final moments of Jennifer Bates, as she lay in a hospital ward, life ebbing away. The directness of the approach here is devastating. Williams "cold narration" slips towards the end of the second verse where in indignant tones he rises, quite admirably, to the questions surrounding the disposing of his beloved's clothing before closing on a verse of poetic brilliance. It's a testament to his worth as a songwriter.
And as uncomfortable as these are for the listener, later tracks become much more awkward airing issues that only those directly, like me, touched by illness and death could fully grasp. The troubling question 'Do I Love You As Much As I Did When You Weren't Sick?' takes the pop song into uncharted territory. 'The Unconscious Is Cold' is terribly sad and brutally honest raising an issue that is rarely if ever mentioned. Both tracks see Williams' piano arrangements bolstered by electric guitar and drums. 'Do I Love You...' even features a guitar solo, while 'The Unconscious Is Cold' slides from a gentle piano ballad to a soaring ensemble piece comprising spiralling guitars, violin score and the swirl of the Hammond organ.
The glorious sunshine pop of 'Kill Yourself In Cape May' truly catches you off-guard with its singalong chorus: "You died way horribly. Yeah, you died way horribly." You inevitably find yourself singing along just as it hits you what you're singing. It's a perfect example of William's perverse humour. Fortunately he doesn't milk it and it appears only once, opting to bow out on a harmonica solo.
Dressed up as a piano ballad with massed harmonies, 'Hymn To The Genius of Idi Amin' tells of the African dictator's evil eccentricities. It is sheer bad taste but in the context of ...Duck..., it provides a moment of light relief. As does 'Suicide Bomb' a lovely duet with Lisa Sunshine where William's provides an exaggerated drawl over piano and sixties styled organ stabs. This along with the following track, 'Summer Wasn't Made For You And Me', are perhaps some of Williams' finest melodic moments. With its forlorn piano score and clarinet 'Summer Wasn't Made For You And Me' was written especially for pale faced lovers who prefer the shade. The astute listener may recognise the music from 'I Was A Fool In Love', the Ethel Mermaid' contribution to the David E. Williams' tribute compilation, The Appeal of Discarded Orthodoxy.
Things don't really get lighter on the cover versions either. 'Ich Hatt' Einen Kameraden', a 19th century German folksong sung by war veteran song for fallen comrades, and 'Hello, Young Lovers', the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein showtune, are cast in a new light given Williams' bereavement. The song from the King and I is a moving moment with Williams in full voice, over ringing keys and interestingly it's the final words sung on ...Duck... as Williams opts to close on two instrumentals. The final piece 'Closing Suite For My Deceased' reprises many of the earlier tracks arranged into a pleasing medley. It displays his musical dexterity with sugary melodies and clarinet solos while it could easily be regarded as schmaltzy within the context of ...Duck... it is truly bittersweet.
On ...Duck... Williams has enlisted an extended cast of musicians, including Thomas Nöla and members of Oval Portraits, Radio Eris, Void Vision, Black Landlord alongside his main collaborator Jerome Deppe to flesh out his musical vision. David E. Williams has released a number of great records but ...Duck... is his most cohesive and consistent album. It's one that I, as a fellow widower, can appreciate and wallow in. "Tragedy renders the monster human" read the press release and as sad and as brutally real as it is, this is the David E. Williams release to own. The great tragedy of Every Missing Duck Is A Duck Missed is that Jennifer Bates will never hear it. For more information go to www.davidewilliams.com or www.eskimofilms.com
Various Artists - Sacral Symphony
EE Tapes have just released a compilation of meditative drone music compiled and mixed by Eugeny Voronovski of Cisfinitum. Sacral Symphony sits alongside their Table For Six compilations showcasing various forms of ambient music. This time, however, the contributors are working around the theme of sacred music. The result is an album of quiet, contemplative music that more often than not uses church bells, organ or choirs as a basis for sound manipulation. The first two acts formerly recorded - or maybe they still do - as Maeror Tri. 'Dageraad' from 1000Schøen blends jangling percussion with soft wafts of droning melody, while towards the end ringing bells and deeper drones penetrate. Troum are much more pensive with soft tones, swirling atmospheres and quiet churning disembodied voices. As it progresses 'Palas Tyn' gets decidedly deeper with dark drones and lighter synth layers. 'Autumn Ritual' from Cisfinitum is a hauntingly beautiful slice of soft ambient electronics. There's something almost classical in its construction as it slowly unfurls layers of melancholic ambience. The standout moment on Sacral Symphony comes from Rapoon with 'One Last Breath', consisting of sound manipulations and treatments of the Kyiv Chamber Choir and scaled samples of his own voice to create an almost otherworldy ghost ambience. It's quite unlike anything I've heard before and I'm pleased to be reacquainted with the former Zoviet France member. The final track comes from the Ukraine based project First Human Ferro, and veers towards dark ambient territory with deep, dark droning and reverberating effects that manages to sound like it was recorded inside a church. Choral music pierces the droning for a significant part of the track, though remaining surrounded by electronic effects and sympathetic droning.
With each of the five tracks lasting a good 15 minutes or so, each act has ample opportunity to flesh out their sound constructions, from which compiler Eugeny Voronovski mixes admirably. Sacral Symphony is packaged in a 7-inch cardboard sleeve in an edition of 300 copies. Released at the tail end of 2008 there really can't be many left now. For more information go to www.myspace.com/eetapes or www.eetapes.be
Standing In Two Circles
The Collected Works of Boyd Rice, edited by Brian M. Clark
Without doubt Boyd Rice is the most divisive of acts from the industrial music era. To some he's an acclaimed noise musician from the first wave of industrial music. To others he's an arch prankster and cultural scavenger whose writings were key to the appeal of the Re/Search publications on Pranks, Incredibly Strange Films and subsequent Incredibly Strange Music volumes whose influence would eventually filter through into mainstream. And over the past few years he's proved to be an adept historian researching the Grail mysteries. However to most he remains tainted by his predilection and proselytising of a might is right philosophy, in writings, numerous interviews and through his martial industrial noise released under the name NON.
Standing In Two Circles compiles most of Boyd Rice writings. They range from illuminating essays on Mondo films, entertaining appraisals of celebrity pop records, and tiki culture, to quirky travelogues, including Lawrence Welk's Country Club, a community of elderly residents set-up by the veteran television actor, trips to Disneyland's exclusive Club 33, and the bizarre Christian amusement park, the Holy land Experience in Florida.
Recollections of friendships with notorious figures such as Charles Manson and the late Anton LaVey, the Church of Satan founder, are discussed. Here Rice speaks with candour about his prison visits to the notorious cult leader, his discussions and how Manson named Rice Abraxas, in reference to the Gnostic deity representing balance between good and evil. Rice's initial fascination with Manson waned as the reviled "cult leader" increasingly displayed a contradictory personality. Rice recalls the bullet incident that resulted in him being removed from Manson's visit list. Rice's relationship with Anton Szandor LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, never floundered and Rice writes with a fondness for his mentor and friend, The Doctor, regaling the reader with short anecdotes about their enduring friendship cut short by LaVey's unexpected death in 1997.
But by far the most controversial are the numerous essays that expand and detail his Social Darwinist viewpoint, a philosophy based on the Warrior ethic and Nature's Eternal Fascism - themes that would become standard fare amongst the neo-folk and Satanic fraternities. Many of these are taken from 'Physiosophy', an unpublished collection of essays elucidating Boyd Rice's worldview in the mid-nineties. These writings on 'God and Beast', 'Power, Nature, God and Man' and 'Attributes of God' read like treatises in the tradition of Ragnar Redbeard, one of Boyd's revered men of steel. Much better is Rice's 'Dystopia' essay where he applies his take on evolution to contemporary America in a bold, frank and frightening essay that posits a convincing argument where, as Rice states, "we are presently witnessing rampant dysgenics and ever-increasing dystopia".
In recent years Boyd Rice has become an obsessive researcher of the Grail mysteries. Standing In Two Circles doesn't include his investigative essays on his research - for that you'll need to get hold of The Vessel of God that compiles his essays first published in Dagobert's Revenge - it does include short pieces on blood mysticism and ancestral recall and Boyd's own quest to discover his genealogy that dovetails with his Grail research.
Brian M. Clark's extensive biographical essay covers all Rice's artistic endeavours from his experimental noise output as NON (Rice was, in fact, the first signing on Daniel Miller's Mute label), his extensive involvement and subsequent fallout with the editors of Re/Search, largely due to his dubious associations and increasing interest in Satanism and fascism. In between times he became a vociferous spokesperson for the Church of Satan, and founded the Social Darwinist think-tank, The Abraxas Foundation. These streams all seeped into his work as NON, which picked up on the aesthetics of fascism with Rice attired in military garb, flanked by kettle drums and banners emblazoned with the Wolfsangle rune, an ancient symbol that symbolised the polar opposites of his philosophy, to represent NON. Rice also began working with like-minded artists such as Death In June and Blood Axis.
He remained difficult to pin down though. With Rose MacDowall of Strawberry Switchblade, as Spell they recorded 'Seasons In The Sun', a wonderful collections of songs about love and death. He became a member of the Partridge Family Temple, a colourful bunch dedicated to the worship of the characters of the 70's TV show. While in Denver he designed and furnished a tiki bar, Tiki Boyds, which became the preferred drinking den of Rice and his Modern Drunkard colleagues until it was dismantled by Boyd and friends following objectionable treatment from the establishment's management.
Rice was also a sometime actor with roles in the independent film Nixing The Twist, and a major role in the Australian independent movie Pearls Before Swine (alongside Douglas P. of Death In June). He appeared in Allison Anders' Grace of my Heart but his scenes were deleted from the final cut. His own film shorts Black Sun and Invocation were abstract and experimental boasting NON soundtracks.
Rice was a contributor to many publications, including Seconds and the Modern Drunkard magazine, and especially Dagobert's Revenge which published his numerous essays on the Grail mysteries before ceasing publication after an acrimonious fall-out.
More recently he co-founded the UNPOP ART movement with Shaun Partridge and Standing In Two Circles editor Brian M. Clark. The UNPOP ART group involves a disparate group of American artists, writers, musicians and filmmakers - including Jim Goad, Nick Bougas, Adam Parfrey - who deal with "the application of decidedly unpopular concepts via popular - often fun - media." Currently he is working with Giddle Partridge, as Boyd and Giddle, the glam-pop outfit who in their manifesto, 'Toward The Plastic', state that "Glamour and fun are revolutionary principles tools of the new alchemy and keys to a parallel reality..."
Brian M. Clark doesn't flinch from the more dubious aspects of Boyd Rice's career. Space is allocated to discuss his appearance in a Sassy photoshoot with the leader of the American Front, and his volatile relationship with Lisa Carver, editor of the zine Rollerderby, with whom he sired a child. Clark also manages to put forth a balanced account surrounding the accusations of fascism that are forever levelled at Rice.
Neither does Rice shirk from his own unsavoury antics. 'Burning The Ice' recalls a predation ritual which traverses a fine line between the sinister and prankish. While in 'After Hours With Boris' Rice relates several escapades of adolescent hooliganism with a bunch of criminal friends.
He's funny too. There's a diary of on-tour antics with Albin Julius that reads like an itinerary of the homes of three fascist leaders: Hitler, Mussolini and D'Annunzio, and 'One Night In Barcelona a hilarious account of bullfighting, bourbon and absinthe resulting in Boyd's involvement in a live strip show!
Outside of music Boyd Rice has been active in the visual arts. A number of his surreal and abstract photographs and paintings from the seventies, including examples of his experimental, manipulated halftones and documentary photographs, are displayed alongside his fetish photography produced in collaboration with Sean Hartgrove that appeared on his Receive The Flame CD. With the exception of his obscured fetish photography, they unlike his music are relatively pedestrian and are of historic interest only.
The final section of Standing In Two Circles compiles Boyd Rice's lyrical output from his recorded output as NON, with his friends, his collaborations with Death In June and his numerous guest work with artists such as Current 93, Blood Axis, and Luftwaffe. They range from the misanthropic to the whimsical, the Gnostic to the nasty with many adapted from the philosophical writings of Ragnar Redbeard, Carl Jung, Marquis de Sade to the poetry of Rod McKuen amongst others.
Whatever your opinion of Boyd Rice there's no denying his cultural scavenging has had a subtle influence on popular culture, resulting in a renewed interest and reappraisal of tiki and exotica culture, girl groups, Mondo and cult films and much besides. The essays in Standing In Two Circles illustrates Rice's unique take on these neglected and forgotten gems of a bygone culture. Standing In Two Circles is indispensable to those with an interest in Boyd Rice. It is unlikely to cause his detractors to reappraise their opinion or make him a household name but as Standing In Two Circles demonstrates Rice has produced a compelling and disparate body of work that continues to exert a subtle influence on both the so-called underground and popular culture. Ultimately he remains both God and Beast. For more information go to www.creationbooks.com or www.boydrice.com
French readers may care to note that Camion Noir have just published a French language version of Standing In Two Circles, The Collected Writings of Boyd Rice edited by Brian M. Clark. For more information go to www.camionnoir.com In other news a new version of Hatesville is in the works. Giddle and Boyd are still working on their first album. No! a new book by Boyd Rice is due for publication soon.
Out now from 6Comm is Like Stukas Angels Fall, a retrospective album featuring recent recordings of tracks originally recorded during Patrick Leagas's last months with Death In June and in the early period of 6Comm. Like Stukas Angels Fall features 16 tracks including new versions of the Death In June tracks 'Torture Garden' and 'Carousel' with new vocal sections. Like Stukas Angels Fall, together with a forthcoming second album next year, covers much of 6comm's deleted original vinyl and CD releases, which will never be re-issued again in their original format. Like Stukas Angels Fall is released in a gold foil blocked digipak.
6comm will be performing live at the Wave Gothic Treffen festival in Leipzig, Germany on May 30, with a show scheduled for Barcelona, Spain on June 6. Freya Asywnn's and 6Comm's performance of Fruits of Yggdrasil will take place at the Camden Underworld, London on September 19. This is a one-off ritual performance. Of The Wand and the Moon and Schrage Musik will also be performing. For more information go to www.hagshadow.net or www.myspace.com/6comm66
Throbbing Gristle make several European performances this month. On June 17 they make their first ever performance in Scotland at the Tramway, Glasgow under the title Apparition Foretold - An evening with Throbbing Gristle. This event is celebrate the forthcoming August exhibition by the Tramway and the UK premirer of a large scale collaborative sound sculpture piece with international visual artist Cerith Wynn Evans (White Cube Gallery) entitled “A=P=P=A=R=I=T=I=ON” (2009). June 19 marks The European Premiere of Throbbing Gristle performing a live soundtrack for Cerith Wyn Evans film The Sky Is As Thin As Paper Here together with other TG sound works. Cerith Wyn Evans will be in attendance. On June 21 Throbbing Gristle return to London's Heaven Club for A Crisis In Taste, a late afternoon performance with S.C.U.M. In the evening they perform a second show. For more information go to www.throbbing-gristle.com
Knifeladder, the organic industrial outfit featuring Andrew Trail, Hunter Barr and John Murphy, have just released their new album Music/Concrete, their first release since The Spectacle in 2006. Music/Concrete features shuddering machine loops overlaid with frenetic metal percussion, power ambient soundscapes melting into epic defiant anthems. Music/Concrete uses traditional hand played electronics and instrumentation to realise a thoroughly contemporary vision of rebirth and decay. Music/Concrete is released on Cold Meat Industry. For more information go to www.coldmeat.se
Knifeladder return to the live arena with a performance at the Beat Club Dessau, Germany on May 1. Other acts on the bill include Genevieve Pasquier, The Music Wreckers and Mezire. For more information go to www.myspace.com/knifeladdermusic
The Equinox Festival, a 3 day media arts festival dedicated to spiritual discovery and mystical tradition takes place in London between June 12-14. The Equinox Festival exists to provide a cross cultural platform for the exhibition of creative and innovative approaches to spiritual discovery. The festival comprises lectures / presentations, music performances, ritual performances and film screenings. Comus will be performing their seminal album First Utterance in its entirety, and Peter Christopherson's Threshold HouseBoys Choir play a rare London show. The line-up for this year's festival includes:
Music performances from: Comus, John Zorn, Aethenor ( featuring Daniel O'Sullivan (Mothlight, Gaupo), Stephen O'Malley (Sunn O)))), Vincent de Roguin (Shora), and Kristoffer Rygg (Ulver), Adi Newton's T.A.G.C, Z'EV, Dieter Muh, Pietro Riparbelli, Pestrepeller (featuring Edwin Pouncey /Savage Pencil), HATI, Kinit Her, Burial Hex, James Ferraro, Rob Mazurek, Chaos Majik
Ritual Performances from: Arktau Eos, Barry William Hale's NOKO, Raymond Salvatore Harmon
Lecture/Presentations from: Ralph Metzner, Erik Davis, David Beth, Philip Farber, Aaron Gach, Edwin Pouncey, Paola Igliori, Masamba Fall, James Curcio, Carl Abrahamsonn, Kendall Geers, Matt Wiley
More artists are to be added to the line-up. The Equinox Festival will take place at the Conway Hall and Camden Centre in London on June 12-14. Tickets are on sale now. For more information go to www.equinoxfestival.com
Prurient and Wilt collaborate on a new vinyl release Blood of the Lamb. Blood of the Lamb follows their 2007 collaboration, Bottomfeeding Whore, released on cassette by Turgid Animal. Blood of the Lamb is released in an ultra-limited, hand-numbered edition of 100 copies on black vinyl with silkscreened metallic sleeves folded over solid white LP jackets. A numbered, silkscreened, poster is also included. For more information go to www.myspace.com/officialbloodyminded
Steinklang Records have a number of new and impending releases. Von Thronstahl return with Germanium Metallicum, an album of martial industrial described as a musical revelation about old Europe between rebirth and death, freedom and slavery, uproar and revolution. An apocalyptic journey featuring guest-musicians, like Plastique of Welle Erdball and Natcha Von Wynn (erotic starlet from Switzerland), Troy Southgate (H.E.R.R.) and Andreas D. (Parzival). Germanium Metallicum combines the sounds of the band's early works with the composing quality of Sacrificare and the intension and power of Bellum Sacrum Bellum. Germanium Metallicum comes in a chrome-foiled 6-side digipack with booklet. Also available is a boxset edition in a golden-printed structure-cardboard box containing the regular CD, a poster, a metal-pin and a additional 3-inch mCD. The Von Thronstahl side-project The Days of the Trumpet Call have their Purification CD reissued in a remastered edition with new artwork. Dark and Neoclassic soundscapes with many voice-samples, recorded at the same time as the first two Von Thronstahl albums. Purification is released as a digipak edition.
Vinterriket release Horizontmelancholie, an album of melancholy and chilling atmospheres as a tribute to the darkest side of mother nature. Haunting and cold electronic soundscapes are mixed with atmospheric acoustic guitars and clean vocals. The whole album is featured as music CD and DVD on one disc. Tethrippon join the ranks of Ahnstern with an album full of the Ancient Hellenic Spirit. Tethrippon is the chariot of Apollon Hellenic God of light and this album features lyrics sung in intellectual-Greek, a very complex language! Tethrippon is available as a digipak CD or as a wooden boxset edition in an edition of 150 copies containing a DVD-R with 3 videoclips, a live video a photo gallery and more. A horse iron is fixed to the wooden box. For more information go to www.steinklang-records.at
Marc Almond has announced dates for a UK tour. The shows will feature songs from his new album, Orpheus In Exile, as well tracks from his back catalogue and some old favourites. The dates are as follows:
October 29 - Birmingham Alexandra Theatre
October 30 - Manchester Academy 2
November 1 - London Roundhouse
November 3 - Bournemouth Opera House
November 4 - Leeds Grand Theatre
Orpheus In Exile is scheduled for release in September. Tickets are on sale now. For more information go to www.marcalmond.co.uk
Antony and the Johnsons will play a series of unique concerts in collaboration with symphonies across Europe this summer. Featuring large format orchestras presenting arrangements developed by Antony and Nico Muhly and conducted by Rob Moose. More dates are to be added but confirmed shows are listed below:
June 21 and 22 - Amsterdam , Holland - Holland Festival at Royal Theatre Carré with the Metropole Orchestra
July 3 and 4 - Manchester , UK - Manchester International Festival at the Opera House with the Manchester Camerata
July 21 - Lyon, France - Les Nuits de Fourviere with the Opera de Lyon Orchestra
July 28 - Rome , Italy - Cavea at Il Parco della Musica with the Rome Sinfonietta
August 9 - Oslo, Norway - Oslo Jazz Festival with the Oslo Opera House Orchestra
August 14 - Gothenburg, Sweden - Way Out West Festival with the Gothenburg Symphonic Orchestra
For more information go to www.antonyandthejohnsons.com
Cultural Amnesia have their Enormous Savages retrospective vinyl release reissued on CD as Enormous Savages (Enlarged). Originally released on vinyl in 2006 on Anna Logue Records, Enormous Savages is the first part of a collection of tracks that were released on cassette between 1981 and 1983. Some of those songs were even co-written by Jhonn Balance of Coil! A mix of synth pop, analogue electronica and rhythmic Industrial, Cultural Amnesia fit in somewhere between Cabaret Voltaire and Portion Control with an added playfulness. An 80's classic ready to be re-discovered and loved! Plus: a selection of bonus tracks old and new, some from a very recent date that show you how CA sound in 2009! The companion release Press My Hungry Button is a featured album on compulsiononline. Enormous Savages (Enlarged) CD is released on Klanggalerie. For more information go to www.klanggalerie.com
Cold Spring have new releases from Z'EV, Rose Rovine E Amanti and Anni Hogan as well as a batch of welcome reissues. Kickabye from Anni Hogan, originally released as a 12-inch on Doublevision - as Annie Hogan Plays Kickabye makes its first appearance on CD. Kickabye features Nick Cave, Marc Almond, Foetus, Budgie and Gini Ball, with production by Jim "Foetus" Thirwell. 10 extra tracks from the same period are included on the first CD. The second CD features tracks from the same period, featuring Yello with production by Barry Adamson. Digitally remastered with 4 new and exclusive song versions. Sum Things from Z'EV transports the listener deep into their long forgotten memories of the primal forces at the dawn of creation with 6 tracks based on a single sound source. This release reflects Z'EV's take on the "dark ambience" genre. Demian is the new album from Rose Rovine E Amanti featuring 10 tracks of Neo-Folk-Rock with a Mediterranean sensibility.
Werkraum have their debut album Unsere Feuer Brennen! reissued as a jewel cased edition with two extra tracks and new artwork. Unsere Feuer Brennen! is a powerful mixture of martial industrial, Neofolk, ambience and neo-classical with contributions from Lady Morphia and Harvest Rain. Folkstorm have their Victory Or Death and Sweden albums reissued. And don't forget the release of My Horns Are A Flame To Draw Down The Truth from TenHornedBeast, featuring radical remixes from their debut album The Sacred Truth with two totally new tracks. For more information go to www.coldspring.co.uk
Temple Music have just released their new album Incompleteness, using the theorem of the Czech mathematician Kurt Gödel and the doctrine of anamorphosis to compose and fashion an album of 4 interconnected and complementary tracks that somehow look both forward and back; that juxtapose the old and the new into an organic whole of both sacred and temporal instruments - Indian harmonium and shruti box, plucked and hammered dulcimers, bodhrans, mosenos, various flageolets, synthesisers and keyboards, guitars, bass, Tibetan bells and singing bowls - 4 drifting shards of ethereal and sometimes frightening beauty, rose petals on the snow that are finally revealed to be tiny, perfect drops of crystalline blood... Temple Music are Alan Trench (ex-World Serpent) and Stephen Robinson (ex-The Beloved ). Tracy Jeffery of Orchis, Cunnan and SQE guests on two tracks. Incompleteness is released on Shining Day/ Faria in an edition of 500 copies housed in an art sleeve with 4 inserts. For more information go to www.shiningday.pl or www.faria.ru
Coming Soon from Old Europa Cafe is Pain Implantations from Stratvm Terror a reissue of their second album originally released on Malignant Records in 1998. Stratvm Terror is Peter Andersson of Raison d'être and Tobias Larsson of Ocean Chief. This edition features two additional tracks and new artwork. K. Meizter of Beyond Sensory Experience returns with Tetraphobia. Following Travelling Light, Dark Matters and the Horologium collaboration Eight Studies in Transition, K. Meizter's new release develops even more unsettling atmospheres of reflection and alteration. Future releases include Leonidas from A Challenge of Honour, an archive release of previously unreleased material from this neo-classical outfit. The Ain Soph singer Marcello Fraioli working under the name Spectre releases his second solo album, 10 Pezzi Facili, showcasing his Italian / Mediterranean sound with one Ain Soph cover and three others. Death Pact International featuring a collaboration between the Grey Wolves, Con Dom and Wertham issue the Siege CD box. Siege features power electronics and old school industrial in a box containing art and literature. A special edition boxset featuring an exclusive mini CD recorded at London's Hinoeuma club, pins, a poster and other additional material is also being planned. For more information go to www.oldeuropacafe.com
The Ship of Fools Club organised by Tursa and Kaparte Promotions and held on a boat on the River Thames returns on July 12 with performances by Naevus and Andrew King. The event takes place at Bar and Co, Temple Pier, London. For more information go to www.myspace.com/shipoffoolsclub
IANVA, the Italian neo-futurist outfit, are working on a new album. Italia: Ultimo Atto will be released as a digibook edition featuring 70 minutes of powerful new music.