Locrian – Chalk Point (Fan Death)

 
Locrian have found themselves firmly in the “If you haven’t heard them yet STOP EVERYTHING” category. Every album they put out seems like it’s the best thing they’ve ever done. Which is true. But I don’t know how they do it. And The Clearing is no different. It is literally the best thing they’ve ever done. It’s massively evil & evilly massive. Sticking with the genre mixing (doom, noise, metal, ambient, everything else) but making sure to throw a hefty dose of BLACK all over it. Although this time around they’ve juiced on the electronics, ground up some psych in there as well, and upped the bleak shrieks to a more noticeable level, maybe because everyone’s been digging on The Body lately?

The first track is like a blackened Barn Owl, opening with a lurching looped piano and moving to streamlined feedback, slow thunderous drums, and cult monk moaning. Evil. Massive. Then shit gets even bigger, a fury of blast beats, power electronics, and horrific howling. Totally massive. Bringing things down for the third track with depressed acoustics laid over a rumbling feedback, sparse drums, eeriness abound, less massive, just as evil. The final sidelong piece is a motherfuckin burner, Goblin like pulsed electronics, everything seething a wretched tension, foreboding as hell, some awful shit on the horizon. Slow, methodic, and as evil as it gets. Building but never getting anywhere, relentless tension. Like running up the down escalators of hell, finally getting to the top and finding Locrian screaming at you with an eternal wall of speakers behind them and they kick you in the face back down. Unbelievably massive & evil & fucking AWESOME. Do not miss this.

Mirror To Mirror – Moment Of Clarity (Cylindrical Habitat Modules / Jugular Forest)

 
Alex Twomey has been running around making music as/with 1958-2009, Persimmons Pomegranate, Deep Jew, and Black Irish, and overseeing the Jugular Forest label, so, unsurprisingly, this is his first foray as Mirror To Mirror on the sweet vinyl. Here You Leave Today is full of charming synth sequences that fade in and out of static sky drone, pure & heavenly. It’s like a pastel oil slick, blue, pink, green, gold, all the parts identifiable but swirled together into homogenous ultra-harmonies. Ambient pop fit for a Renaissance Court, jesters juggling, candy eating, 100% playtime. Unwavering drones, settled in the front of your head, opening up new levels of consciousness, stunned sun hypnosis, in-fucking-credible. Seriously wonderful stuff on here. Can’t get enough.

High Aura’d – Untitled (Side A) (YDLMIER)

 
More YDLMIER greatness, this time from thee mighty High Aura’d pumping out another year end contender. Boston’s number one guitar drone champ puts out his best album yet. Silky smooth feedback segues perfectly into toothy grit, a hundred layers of threatening underwater bliss, swirling in a tide pool of shimmering black gold, deep dark harmonies beaching themselves in the moonlight. Soaring Windy & Carl euphoria, brief Fahey picks, and a wall of absolute beauty. Too much of everything, if this were any more awesome I might die. Mooncusser fuckin throws it down.

Local note: there’s a YDLMIER tape release show on Friday Saturday night at Yes Oui Si. High Aura’d is playing with Patrick Emm, Symtomatic, and Eugene The Jeep at 8pm.

Morgan Evans-Weiler – Together (Part 1) (YDLMIER)

 
Boston dude on a Boston tape label, a perfect fit for each other. Morgan is a fuckin beast with his violin & electronics. Harsh drones and furious scratchings on four tracks, “Alone” and “Together” with two parts each. The “Together” tracks are of the droney variety, squawking a hole in your head with nerves of steel, blown out & blurted, the most enjoyable nails on a chalkboard I’ve ever heard. “Alone” has him going to fuckin town on his violin, medieval pliers torture, the nastiest violin shredding a la Mick Barr. I wouldn’t be surprised if he needed a new violin after each song, it sounds like he is literally destroying it. Slowly, pulling & stretching until it’s a crumbled pile of washed up noise. Too fucking cool.

Millipede – Destroyers And Usurpers (Dead Pilot)

 
It’s been way too long since Millipede (aka Joseph Davenport) has put out a full length (only a year but still) and he comes back on a new label (previously on Install) and with some trendy cover art (ignore it if it’s not your thing but either way I don’t think it says too much about the sound. Just imagine it’s a version of the Triforce because this dude started out making Zelda inspired noise). Truly fantastic sounds on here. Scathing & grating guitar harshness, a Neil Young worshiper getting high on Skullflower, Love Is A Stream taken to the next Holy Noise level, My Bloody Valentine recording on the surface of the sun. Nearly impenetrable grit with glorious melodies shining through, Davenport clearly honing his skills, diving deeper into the bliss birthed from cacophony. If you’ve followed Millipede through the full blooms on Death Mountain, this is the next stop on the journey and an absolutely necessary one at that. Noobs take a seat and learn how it’s done.

Emuul – Big Clouds (Digitalis)

 
Seriously one of the best synthed drone records this year. Full of amazing euphoric sounds from one of the most underrated dudes in the house. Sequenced dreams and meditative bliss, almost lethal in its beauty. Tracks that bleed melancholia, a Disintegration Loop in reverse, or rather a Disintegration Loop that doesn’t disintegrate. Blurred & blown out drones that breathe heavy, swaying in the breeze, scorched at the edges. The optimistic moments immediately proceeding heartache, heavy gray clouds ready to weep at any moment. Looped for an eternity, dynamics thrown out the window, everything zen. 5 increasingly longer segments, culminating in a 20+ minute piece of unadulterated electronic perfection.

White Reeves – II (Dynamo Sound Collective)

Crazy 20 minute tape of electronic weirdness from two of the Hunted Creatures dudes, Ryan Emmett and Micah Pacileo. The A side is a deep blurry mess of warped unease, mad scientist lab experiments spouting bubbles & sparks, anti-harmonies swirl in hallucinatory fashion, finishing in an incomprehensible monologue from some angry dude. The B side saunters around a starry lake, chill as hell with twinkling toy machines & blissful heartbeat, caught in a droney loop of murk. The totally cracked side of the Creatures boiled to its essence.

Fuck Friends – Too Drunk To Tattoo (self released)

 
Download Vomit On The Bible And Kickflip The Cross

Philly’s newest (so this isn’t new I guess whoops) black punk, courtesy of the dude from Lonesummer. A lot like Lonesummer, instead of infusing noise with black metal (or is it the other way around?), he’s destroying punk with a raw BM bomb. Gritty & brutal as fuck. Tinny walls of guitars, mumbling blast beats, and incomprehensible vocals. Songs titled “Straight Edge For Satan” and “Busted Lips And Bent Records” you kinda know what you’re getting yourself into. It’s like if The Frogs attended Satan School, their harshest songs run through an acid bath, then coated in shattered glass & angst. Not quite a joke because it’s too fucking cool, but not taking itself too seriously either. Awesome as hell. Pay what you want for this beast and maybe it’ll be reincarnated on a cassette.

Jefferson Pitcher – The Invisibility Of Animals (Tape Drift)

 
Essentially a Pitcher guitar album but he’s joined by a buncha pals like Boston’s Mike Bullock who takes aim with his contrabass, and previous collaborator Christian Kiefer helps out with pianos n banjos n such. So now it’s a delicate guitar record with a heavy dose of ambient concrete. Click & crunch, field recordings, mumbled whispers, resonating, shaking, all adding to the overwhelming beauty. Pitcher’s guitar is slow, buy cialis safe online calculated, and wide open, like Malick’s Days Of Heaven with an understated intensity and long takes of waving wheat fields glowing in the sun. Now The Deer came out at the beginning of the year and I still haven’t heard anyone talking about it. This is criminally underrated, a shining centerpiece on 2011’s mantle (with some seriously sweet packaging, each one with a different photo Pitcher took in Spain housed in a vellum envelope).

William Bowers – Night Moves On Shallow Ground (Haute Magie)

 
Synthed out electro-semi-acoustic “post modernism.” j/k there’s nothing really post modern about this. Still pretty fucking cool though. Blade Runner-esque city-soundscapes, exceptionally soundtracky and occasionally danceable. Like a slice from an awesome theme to a bad 80s movie, caught in a loop and repeated for minutes on end for maximum spacing outing, total kosmische sprawl with field recordings of who knows what and drones from harmonic thrones, ambient pianos meld seamlessly with glitches electronics, mixed fidelities throwing grit & crunch into an otherwise smooth & creamy tune. A bleary album of strange awe & slight bewilderment. Yup. Pretty fucking cool.