Father Murphy’s final album is a triumph of sacred vocal music steeped in post-industrial sensibility. (out on AVANT! Records)
With this requiem, they lay their project to rest, but for me, the journey begins. I’m working my way back through their oeuvre for sure.
Leaf (Home Normal, 2016) by Stefano Guzzetti: autumnal, romantic, beautiful. Piano, string quartet, clarinet, electronics.
Calls to mind instrumental Nature and Organisation and Ben Houge’s Arcanum soundtrack.
Nortt’s blackened funeral doom has been a mainstay for years now. Their latest album Endeligt (Avantgarde Music, 2017) is despondent, introspective.
It offers you a hand. Sit down next to it. Bow your head.
Dust in the wind.
As featured on Tuesday’s mix, åmßêrVVåvê§ brings us some lovely naturewave on Organics (tape out on Power Lunch).
Soft beats and synths, birds, water, crickets, aesthetic.
Nature only exists in places like this!
Not getting enough of Primitive Knot’s crusty metal-through-synthpop anytime soon.
Decanting the Dream-Gore is as weird as it sounds. Occult, twisted, and syrupy. The tape is sold out, but do check this one out anyway.
I’m grooving pretty hard on Daniel Saylor’s jazz electronics, as featured on Spring Rain (2017, Bedlam Tapes).
A seamless blend of synthesized and live instruments, with freewheeling upbeat tracks, as well as more ambient interludes.
Sayohimebou stands for hyper-inventive electronics and future funk. CRYSTALあいまい is their latest album, out on the esteemed Business Casual.
A trip through an ethereal neon nightlife, through twisted mirrors and across fuzzy channels. 👌
Servants of the Apocalyptic Goat Rave (sic!!!) is where gabber/breakcore and black metal meet. That’s two hard af genres so you better come prepared.
Queen of Darkness is short but sweet. Sweet like the blackest, teeth-rottingest licorice imaginable.
Not one but TWO soul-crushing death industrial albums came out on Cyclic Law this spring.
Both Dødsmaskin and Nordvargr deliver grim soundscapes, pounding machine beats and Norwegian / Swedish lyrical meditations, respectively.
Short, loud, powerful blast of anarchist black/death metal. Woodland Tomb are taking no prisoners on their latest self-titled EP.
Quick, smash that button! Oh, and the fash, too, while you’re at it.
Got this CD for free a while ago: it’s actually pretty rad.
TRIX venue got local Antwerp metal, hardcore, and hiphop groups to collab; a heavier homage to the original “Walk This Way”.
Worth it for the multilingual eng/fra/ara/nld experience alone.
Revisiting ella guro ‘s lovely LP ZERO from last year.
Spacious, glitchy electronics, soft planetary ambiences. Relaxing, but not exactly soothing. Fascinating, drawing you forward towards inner space.
Ill Considered bring some REAL proper heavy jazz on this Camden live recording. One of those registrations that makes you wish you’d been there, grime, sweat, and all.
The first track, swinging, reaches clear heights. On the second track, though, they get DIRTY. Sax, guitar, bass, and all. Superb percussion bits too.
Would namedrop Yusef Lateef here, though there may be closer resemblances out there.
Late nite chillwave with ll nøthing ll on dreams of tomorrow.
Sometimes you just gotta tune out a bit, lie back, let stuff be stuff.
And that cover is to die for.
Dense, sludgy dark ambient on Eximia’s Visitors (2018, Cryo Chamber)
Unfathomable aliens descend upon Earth, carrying with them the sound of thick storms and swamps.
No melodies, just weighty textures and enveloping drones.
Sonnborner by Nadja is out this week on Broken Spine.
Extended drones on the massive first track, both soothing and heavy, give way to prime headbanging material on “Sunwell”, and other doomy compositions. Engrossing stuff!
Gorgeous, hushful, sparse guitar improv works on Chiodi by the Covarino / Incorvaia duo, out at the end of this month on Preserved Sound.
Full review in the next issue of Ex Abyssō.