Anti-Gravity Bunny

Owlfood – Drift Towards Her (Behind The Door)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

 
An excellent Boston trio that’s been hiding in the shadows for too long, hopefully this killer new LP will get them the attention they deserve. Destroyers Of The Moon is some dark moody shit, twisting doom drone and neo-folk gloom into sprawling blackened pagan jams, shamanistic chants à la Charalambides spoken over haunted strings and buzzing guitars, a pitch black night spent in the desert, opening the gates to the underworld and conjuring spirits to rain death, acoustic whispers in the smoke with the thrum of fear lurking beneath, dreams interchanged with reality in the throws of hypnosis, a delicate melancholic record of harrowing black folk, beautiful & exceptionally original, only 250 pressed up on the band’s newly minted label, you definitely don’t want to miss out on this.

Nocht The Only Ghouls – Sleeping Bär-geist (Vwyrd Wurd)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

 
Nocht The Only Ghouls. Weird stuff! I think it’s their debut release, but at the very least it’s the first from Vwyrd Wurd, and it’s on vinyl and PWYW at Bandcamp. This conjures some dark days, super fine black folk, lonely guitars emanating from empty attics, overgrown graveyards absent of color, slow & meticulous, sparse & haunted, with subtle electronics, nearly non-existent vocals, and hidden percussion. The electronics become more apparent as the album progresses and by the end of it, it’s turned into more of a dark ambient/drone. Awesome as fuck, an original album of dusty midnight rituals to add to the increasingly large but still sadly small pile of neofolk.

Jakob Battick & Friends – Than Even The Night (self released)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

 
So it has come to this, the final nail in the Jakob Battick & Friends coffin. Originally a limited physical release in 2010, Battick decided to re-release Painful Places for free on Bandcamp as a farewell. Well, this couldn’t be a more fitting finale as this is as fucking sad as it gets. Melancholic and bittersweet, stripped down to its bones, just a couple slow guitars with Battick and and his friends filling in the spaces with their voices, Battick’s rich & resonating, super intimate, like you’re right there with him in a cold, empty church attic. This is the bleakest, most minimal folk you’ve ever heard, Battick can take a few chords and turn them upside down, into something previously unknown, and his voice makes everything incredibly tragic but still uplifting, like he’s fucking Atlas with the weight of the world on his shoulders for infinity, singing to the world that there’s nothing to worry about ’cause he’s fucking got it, death, death, more death, and it’s all ok because nothing matters. So yeah, this is really fucking good, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t grab a gratis copy. Here’s hoping that Battick isn’t done making music and he’s just retiring the “Friends.” The world would certainly be worse off if he was done for good, so lets make this a public plea for more Battick creations. We (I) need it.

Clint Heidorn – 2 (Ashes Ashes)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

 
A new dude self releasing his first album on vinyl with killer packaging, you should already be paying attention. Heidorn is making some stellar tunes on Atwater, channelling a sparser Dirty Three or a dustier & less gloomy Jakob Battick. Truly awesome stuff here. I see it getting labeled a lot as black folk and even black ambient, and I guess, for lack of a better word, I might as well. But this isn’t black. It’s hardly even dark. Somber? Certainly. But this doesn’t conjure any woodland specters or rain the plague down on your soul. It’s an earthy minimalism, guitars, strings, reeds, and a slew of noisemakers echoing in the trees, sprawling out over the leaves on the forest floor. Chill as fuck and absolutely amazing. But I just can’t see the whole haunted spin on this. And as rad as it is using “tree bones” to adorn your hand tinted record jackets, I’m not a big fan of the upside cross imagery. Especially here, where it seems to be pleading its case instead of representing the sound. But clearly Heidorn created Atwater with dark intentions, so I’m not hating. I’m just not on board with the theme. I see Atwater in my own way, and it’s super fucking cool.