Sujo – Achille (Fedora Corpse)
One of my favorite dudes finally gets his jams pressed to wax. Somehow Sujo hasn’t blown up yet (although his recent collab with Sun Hammer seems to be doing pretty well) but hopefully this new LP on Fedora Corpse will change that. Kahane is Sujo’s most clear vision to date, finding a stupendous midpoint between bleak blackened noise geeks Locrian and Jesu’s near-patented metalgazing. This is fucking outstanding work, insanely lush, sweet melodies eclipsed by crushing chaos, grim static capable of summoning the darkest demons, pink drones blissing out in the clouds, crumbling walls of destructive industrial noise, a swarm of stuttering percussion like Pyramids on broken stilts, absolutely massive, beautifully triumphant, & fucking devastating. This is screaming at you to let it melt your hi-fi. Don’t disappoint.
Robert Hampson – Suspended Cadences (Three) (Editions Mego)
Robert Hampson (MAIN, Loop, etc) conjuring up some stellar drone here. Two side long pieces painting broad minimal strokes, layers of smooth & gritty tones subtly wavering, slowly shifting between petrifying, blissful, & nauseating, the calm cheap cialis here before the storm, the dread of anticipation, sounds of the night before a plague of locusts sweeps your town, physically churning your guts, smothered by the dense looming drones, static hardly building but perpetually existing & evolving. Quite masterful, quite essential.
Ragana – B.N.F. (self released)
Two ladies from Washington that bring some serious fucking heaviness. Not sure if there’s a scene over there where this type of insanity is the norm and I just haven’t heard it yet, but All’s Lost is impossible to peg. They’re doing something totally original and it’s the fucking best. Some sort of black sludgy screamo garage that just melts my heart. Sweet hooks & melodies run through a fuzz filter, blistering screams, massive riffs next to atmospheric tremolo, blast beats forgone for everything but, depressing lyrics and a permeating darkness to knock it out of the park. Not really weird on a song by song basis but put together this is a wholly twisted beast. Best of all it’s cheap as shit. Digital is PWYW, tapes or CDs a mere $5, and they have some killer shirts for the same amount. I fuckin love these guys. Now just gimme some vinyl.
Lisa/Liza – Black Out (self released)
Download Ancient Edge
/purely intimate/
/shining voice obscured by clouds/
/melted harmony/
Kapustin Yar – Dirge (Land Of Decay)
GodDAMN this is some heavy shit. Antonio Gallucci coming from every genre out there and conjuring up something wholly new & awesome. Trithemius takes industrial to a new level, incorporating black ambient, metalgaze, noise, darkwave, and anything else that’s bleak & destructive, tossing in some twisted spaciness because obviously. Ear bleeding bass that hits harder than your speakers can handle, huge walls of heavenly nightmarish static, a massive lumbering nightwalker lost in an urban wasteland, tearing down skyscrapers and generators, a cacophony born from a decayed post-nuclear Earth, faulty machinery humming in the distance with vocals buried in the chaos or hissed & distorted beyond recognition, black hole terrors, drifting in space drugged out of your fucking mind, feeling your every atom warp the fabric of spacetime, your body swallowed by the heaviness. 100% amazing record. Then again, I expect nothing less from the untouchable Land Of Decay.
Jenks Miller answered some questions for me. He prefaced them with: “I’m not being dismissive when I answer ‘I don’t know’ … just being honest.”
What is the best way to die?
I don’t know.
How do you think you’ll die?
I don’t know.
What makes you happy?
Sound, nature, new ideas, good people, my dog.
How can you die happy?
I don’t know.
How close have you come to death?
I’m not entirely sure. The distance in auto accidents and illness.
What does kindness mean to you?
Acting on a sensitivity to needs and desires outside of your own.
Where do you find love?
Sound, nature, new ideas, good people, my dog.
When were you most afraid?
In the time before I had accepted my whole Self, I was afraid of my shadow.
How do you listen to music?
On a CD or record player, with an open heart. I try to find something I can appreciate in whatever sounds I am hearing. I tend to spend time with sounds I haven’t heard before, those that push me outside of my comfort zone and want to be explored.
In response to those of your asking for a regular roundup of shit I’ve been listening to and digging but not reviewing, I’m starting a regular roundup of shit I’ve been listening to and digging. They’ll be short minimixes with little commentary and maybe occasionally cohesive in some way. I’ll be playing with the delivery, so please let me know what you do/don’t like. Do you want everything zipped or single track downloads? Do you want one long stream or individual streams? Just gimme some feedback.
This time around I threw together some techno/anti-techno/ambient techno/technoise tracks that are pretty fucking sweet. I know 8 songs isn’t exactly mini but I doubt it’ll usually be this robust. Anyway, have at it, and hopefully you’ll grace your ears with some new hotness.
Download Minimix: Technovember
Emptyset – Collapse (from Collapsed)
Grischa Lichtenberger – Uu78 (from And. IV (Inertia))
NHK’Koyxeи – 703 (from Dance Classics Vol. II)
Nina Kraviz – Best Friend (from Nina Kraviz)
Juju & Jordash – Backwash (from Techno Primitivism)
Lee Gamble – DTI (from Diversions 1994-1996)
Pete Swanson – Pro Style (from Pro Style)
Sensate Focus – X (from Sensate Focus 2.5)
Ondelette – You Are Lightning (Discrete Spectrum)
Download Patient Afternoon
/soft rhythmic shimmer/
/focus on warm clarity/
/cloud meditation/
Robert Frost – The Witch Of Coös
Download Robert Frost Reads His Poetry
The master himself reading his own poetry, recorded in the comfort of his home in Cambridge the Spring of ’56. A fantastic choice of poems, most poignantly philosophical, read in the bleak & honest manner that only comes from living eighty years. I’ve posted “The Witch Of Coös” for streaming/download on its own because 1: it’s fucking awesome and 2: it’s Halloween times. Also, once I realized Frost sounds like Ice King, I fell head over heals.
Trepaneringsritualen – Osiris, Slain & Risen (Release The Bats)
The first vinyl outing of Thomas Ekelund’s (aka Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words) other dark project. An occult worshiping, devastatingly bleak horror of a record, oozing Death from its decrepit core, this is black ambient risen from hellish bogs, clouded in an industrial wasteland with echoing vocals shouted through pea soup fog and a brain vaporizing bass rumble deeper than the darkest Sunn O))) drones, the ritual sounds of undead shamans captured in a crypt for millennia and unleashed upon your unworthy soul. Deathward, To The Womb pushes ambient to its fucked & depraved limits. Sold out at the sadly defunct Release The Bats, perhaps available elsewhere, but already re-released on cassette courtesy to the fine folks at both Black Horizons & Merz Tapes.
Sujo & Sun Hammer – OSD (Inam / Music Ruins Lives)
Two of the awesomest noise dudes joining teams for a record of absolutely killer fucking drones. Fistula takes on the minimal and the harsh, devastating abrasion and delicate clicks, working in both of Sujo’s & Sun Hammer’s own styles. This is a massive album, huge walls of speaker shredding noise that soothe the inner beast, blissed out darkness, a desolate, frozen tundra that hasn’t seen snowfall in months, white noise that turns in on itself, unnerving high end with bleak industrial feedback, hints of Sujo’s metalgaze balanced out with Sun Hammer’s bleak subtleties, these guys work incredibly well together, pushing for sounds neither have done on their own, coming up with something that’s a shining star in both of their catalogues. In short, fucking essential. Sujo’s home label Inam is taking care of the CD, out any day now, and Music Ruins Lives is indulging all you tape nerds sometime in the near future.
This is the start of a new thing on Anti-Gravity Bunny. Inspired by the pleasure I got from interviewing Jon Mueller about Death Blues and from Root Blog’s Q&As, I decided I should be asking artists about shit that I want to hear them talk about. Since this is the first time these questions have been asked, I may alter them in the future.
Kyle Bobby Dunn is my guinea pig in this. He’s a fucking champ. Look out for his upcoming album of jaw dropping beauty & delicate gloom, In Miserum Stercus, out soon on Komino. It’s stunning.
What is the best way to die?
I’d presume during sleep is the best way to go out. Whatever you might be the least aware of since you’re ‘not supposed’ to have control over it…
How do you think you’ll die?
Hopefully jumping from a huge cliff in the Canadian rockies. Lots of scotch would be involved though so that might get to me first.
What makes you happy?
Good food, good drink, long trips, French women, good clothes, great films, nice sounds, old instruments, smell of firewood, fine cheeses, strong coffee, good sleeps, bathing, trees, lakes..
How can you die happy?
Maybe a nice quiet beach in France with a strong sense of finality.
How close have you come to death?
Too often really.
What does kindness mean to you?
I don’t think I know anything about kindness, most of it has made me quite sad. An attempt to understand is ok, but it’s still hard.
Where do you find love?
Wherever I can, usually can’t.
When were you most afraid?
I am too constantly afraid.
How do you listen to music?
In many different formats but it seems I’ve gotten quite into the headphones whilst walking around and doing stupid self-indulgent type things.
Sarin Smoke – Atmen Ein (MIE)
Not like yall haven’t heard about this yet but I’m just doing my due diligence so it reaches as far & wide as possible. This is a fucking hellbeast of a record. Tom Carter & Pete Swanson teamed up for some 6 string feedback & tortured electronics that sound like they’re being spawned from the core of the goddamn sun. Swanson’s new technoise aesthetic is found all over this, just sans beats, and Carter’s guitar is either jamming the best Americana sprawl or throwing on a Swanson suit and making the strings completely indistinguishable from the electronics. Superb drones salvaged from the Dust Bowl and left out to bake in Death Valley, crusted over in a layer of caustic bliss, scorched alarm calls & nauseous jet engine hum, star worshipping reverb & meditative resonance, the enjoyment factor on Vent is through the fucking roof. So insanely good. Definitely don’t want to miss this.
Side note: Tom Carter has some crazy medical bills from when he got pneumonia while touring overseas earlier this year. A fund was set up to help ease the financial pain, The Robert Thomas Carter Irrevocable Trust, which you can just flat out donate to, but you can also just buy this record. All proceeds from Vent will go to the Trust, so buy a few copies to give out as birthday gifts or something.
Treha Sektori – Solvah (Cyclic Law)
Newish solo project of Dehn Sora (from Sembler Deah with Amenra dudes) that’s some seriously dark & stormy shit. It blends euphoria and terror into a doomed black ambience that’s fitting October just perfectly, fallen angelic choirs sounding like if Xela scored Argento, haunted snippets of rewound vocals done so tastefully, relying totally on airflow and barely buy cialis from canadian pharmacy using his vocal chords at all, elegiac drones & glacial drums that hang in the air forever, a crystal clear blackness from the deepest caverns, industrial drone that discards all shreds of cheese and transcends to a new level of horror, this is done so fucking right, so refreshing, so goddamn awesome.