[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 1801 through 1850 of 2272.

A noisy/ambient one, in a digipak.

So lovely. Another AQ-fave by this AQ-fave Japanese composer. "You Cannot Open The Door Because It Is Already Open" is moody, abstract piano improv, recorded in an abandoned Russian castle, which provides the mysterious background ambiance.

Japanese composer/experimentalist (and AQ fave sound artist) Koji Asano is known not only for the quality of his work (almost always quite excellent) but for the sheer quantity of his releases over the last few years -- sixteen of 'em as of today, more if you count limited edition cd-rs -- which run the creative gamut from gorgeous piano meditiations, to computer noise, to chamber music, to rock guitar improv. Also unique about Koji is that ALL his music has been released on his own label, Solstice (now based, as he is, in Spain). And as if to cement Koji's reputation as a prolific composer, now Solstice presents the simutanous release of four new cds, comprising one extensive composition of abstract electro-acoustic drone, entitled "The Last Shade of Evening Falls". Now if there's one thing that drone-lovers can agree on, is that you never want 'em to end -- so what could be better than the over four and a half hours of this piece? Each disc is over an hour long, one track. Now it's not at all pure drone all the way through, that's but a part of the equation. Over the course of these four cds, Koji utilizes all sorts of slow groaning burbling tones, higher-pitched distortion, moaning echoes. His sounds are derived from violin and contrabass -- not that you'd guess, although you can tell they're from something "organic". Koji wrote music for those instruments that was recorded in Japan by his Koji Asano Ensemble, and then he spent the long dusks of a week in Barceleona near the time of the summer solstice to reconstruct and recompose the piece in his computer, processing and manipulating the original recording. Overall, "Last Shade" is dark, textural work that's going to take us longer than the running time to come to fully digest -- but what we've heard so far has been lovely. We're selling the cds seperately but obviously you need to get all four! However, a capsule review of "1/4" is that it's relatively more "melodic" than the other discs, and establishes a murder-mystery sense of tension as well.

In the wake of Jesu, and about a million other shoegazey bliss-metal combos, it's a little surprising that Asbsestoscape is the first band to take that blown out dreamy heaviness to an entirely new place. Well okay, maybe not entirely, but this, the debut cd-r by this mysterious one man band is actually quite refreshing, and a handful of folks we trust are proclaiming this their record of the year. And we can see why. In a nutshell, imagine sweeping post rock epics, merged with crumbling distorted blissed out metalgaze, but now lace the whole thing with skittery programmed rhythms, bursts of stuttery jungle, stretches of shuffling downtempo grooves, it's pretty fucking great. And the sound, deconstructed, can result in two different equations, one: a metal band, a slow, fuzzy dreamy metal band, mixing in cool jungle rhythms, or two: an electronic outfit, jungle or drum and bass or whatever, incorporating guitars and post rocky melodies. Either way, the results are sublime. But this juxtaposition, while cool, is not enough to sustain an entire record. Thankfully, Asbestoscape has a deft hand with composition too, the tracks here are dark and minor key, grand and majestic, epic and super dramatic. Instrumental of course, but never boring, the textures and melodies and rhythms more than enough to keep it interesting. It's easy to hear bits of Jesu, Mono, Explosions In The Sky, Mogwai, Nadja, but those sounds get their own unique twist, the deal sealed by flurries of spastic drum splatter, or mechanical minimal almost industrial rhythmic crunch. There are long slow building epics, the jangly guitars, shot through with high end streaks, underpinned by thick swells of muted heaviness, all held together by crystalline frameworks of programmed skitter, there are huge chugging metallic riffs gradually blurred into shimmering squalls of blissy buzz, some gorgeous slow burning dirges, that almost sound like a slowed down, prettier Godflesh (doing it almost better than Jesu), simple glistening stretches of stripped down post rock, wreathed in prismatic guitar jangle and a deep droney low end that sounds almost like strings, there's even a track that sounds like a post rock-ed chunk of dubstep. But it all works, and while in lesser hands the programmed rhythms could sound forced and gimmicky, they don't here, not only do they manage to sound organic, they also become an integral part of the Asbestoscape sound. The more we listen to this, the more we dig it. And thankfully, as Jesu moves more and more toward M83's eighties retro revival, albeit heavier (a move we're not at all opposed to, btw) it seems like Asbestoscape are here to fill that void, in addition to offering up a new take on the post rock / metal sound that should have fans of any of the above mentioned bands freaking out big time.

MPEG stream: Arctic
MPEG stream: Mono
MPEG stream: Ashen

Thanks to AQ pal Matt for the low down on this slab of pre-Sleep heaviness, long out of print singles finally available again, collected on a single cd: We used to see Asbestosdeath in the very early '90s around the Bay Area,�at the East Bay punk institution 924 Gilman and various punk rock parties. They released two singles, the latter on the Minneapolis label�of anarcho-punk stalwarts, Profane Existence. The band that evolved into Sleep -- who fans would like to think of as a�"doom" or "stoner" band today -- was actually more akin to the then crust-influenced Neurosis, Christ on Parade and various UK anarcho and�post-Discharge bands. Slowed waaay down, of course. At the time, liking Asbestosdeath was a seriously guilty pleasure. Their worship�of Neurosis and Melvins was obvious. If you liked the sound of those bands -- and lots of people did -- this band was not all that surprising.�Highly enjoyable, but not groundbreaking. Upon re-recording slower and more polished versions of these tracks for�Sleep's debut album "Volume 1," they officially entered the arena of the�world's slowest, heaviest bands... a field then dominated by the Melvins�and perhaps Drunks with Guns but soon to be populated by the likes of�Eyehategod, Grief, Buzzov-en and Earth, among many. Over time, they definitely got better. Their songs got more interesting. And they�added wizards. And doobies. And the rest is history. Sonically, these tracks belong squarely alongside Neurosis' The Word As�Law and Melvins recordings up to Bullhead. They're gritty and more�aggressive than what you'd expect. But they still sound fresh, and the�arrangements have a sparse, atmospheric quality that typifies the�aesthetic of most of the bands on Southern Lord today.

MPEG stream: Nail
MPEG stream: Scourge

Along with the Pentemple cd/lp reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, this Ascend record had also been floating in limbo, as we wanted to bring in an alternate import version, but like with Pentemple, the wait got way longer than we expected, and we realized what a huge drag it was that we had yet to list either of these, both of which we dig a LOT, so yeah, it's been out forever, you probably have it already, but on the off chance, someone out there never picked this up, or even worse, was waiting for us to review it (sorry!), here it is, the long awaited (at the time) collaboration between Greg Anderson of SUNNO))), Engine Kid and others, and Gentry Densley of the late great Iceburn. Since this record was released, Densley went on to form Eagle Twin, also on Southern Lord (and recentlyl reviewed by us in timely fashion) the seeds of which can be heard here, but Ascend is its own strange dark beast. The guitars are massive and thick and slow, the sound is dense and doomy, but the arrangements are something else, jazzy really, with horns moaning and bleating within the buzz and rumble, a lurching lumbering bit of blackened funereal doom jazz maybe? The sound is most definitely SUNNO)))-y, all about the slabs of crumbling distortion, but then things get super weird, all twangy and Morricone-esque, with some growled evil Tom Waitsian vox, only to have the sound shift to a a weird pounding slow motion almost garage sounding dirge, with wild lysergic leads, and moaned mantra like chanted vocals, that definitely remind us of Om, or for an even more obscure reference, Skin Yard at 16 rpm. The closer "Dark Matter" is a perfect mix of all the songs, spacious skeletal twang gives way to lugubrious tarpit riffing, some blissed out ambient shimmer, rife with sitar like buzz, sprawling out into a gloomy crawl and eventually erupting into a Melvinsy dirge, the vocals becoming more and more distant, practically melting into the guitars, becoming another layer of buzz, finishing off with a 3 minute crush of weirdly psychedelic Harvey Milk like pummel. Definitely a weird record, groovy, jazzy, heavy, psychedelic and doomy, but somehow it works, Ascend are way out on the fringe of the doomdronesludge sound, still close enough to appeal to metalheads in need of nothing more than buzz and pound, but far enough out to make this one of the cooler weirder records to come out of a scene that is often a little too similar sounding.

MPEG stream: The Obelisk Of Kolob
MPEG stream: Ample Fire Within

A double-disc live recording by the amazing extreme improv duo of guitarist Stephan Jaworzyn (ex-Skullflower, ex-Whitehouse) and drummer Tony Irving (Derv), as broadcast by San Jose's KFJC live via ISDN from their home of London, England. Noisy, heavy, "out" guitar explorations/explosions don't come much better. Highly recommended for fans of Derek Bailey, Harry Pussy, Keiji Haino, etc.

We weren't really sure what to expect from this record really, we were initially struck by the very un- black metal like metallic red and gold cover art, and rumors that this new German black metal band did in fact feature members of aQ beloved Katharsis (which did later prove to be true). But really all it took was the first couple tracks, the opener a haunting intro of sorts, all creepy blackened drones and strange industrial clatter, chanted gurgled vocals, the sound like it was recorded in some huge stone crypt, eventually guitars surface, and drums too, but instead of immediately launching into a wild blast of black buzz, the guitars build slowly, the drums pound, a weird majestic smoldering blackened post doom perhaps, turning into some classic metal, emotional minor key leads over true doom dirge, while black metal guitars swirl ominously in the background like black storm clouds on the horizon, a fantastically tense opener, that finally does explode into some frantic furious black chaos, and we're in total avant black heaven, the sound definitely situating itself somewhere amidst the black pantheon of Deathspell Omega / Katharsis / Funeral Mist / Necros Christos / Teitanblood, you get the picture, the riffs are slipper and gnarled, the drumming is inhuman and frenzied, the vocal a hellish howled belch, everything wreathed in frozen haunted atmospheres, the tracks rife with classic metal riffing, all manner of strange sounds, hysterical shrieks, bizarre samples, disembodied voices, machine-like clatter, but it's all blurred into a heaving wall of epic black crush, with a production that's MASSIVE and makes everything sound so utterly epic and punishing, but beyond the sound, the songs are incredible, the riffs some of the best we've heard, the sort of riffs you'll find yourself humming days later, the songs laced with melancholy melodies and twisted leads, wild psychedelic squalls that add a whole new dimension to the black buzz. Just listen to the sample for "Grey Light Sibling", pretty much everything we could want... and that main riff, holy shit, the strange soaring transcendental trill, the intense mournful melody, the super distorted almost industrial drum pound, we find it difficult to not just listen to that track over and over... Definite contender for black metal record of the year (even though technically it came out last year), and some super sweet packaging.

MPEG stream: Open Hearts
MPEG stream: Grey Light Sibling
MPEG stream: Consolamentum

Killer guitar/drums free improv mayhem from members of Skullflower and Derv, circa early '90s.

We were pretty surprised to discover that this new one sided 12" from Iowa doomlords Aseethe, whose Reverent Burden lp we raved about back in 2011, consisted of a single sidelong track based *entirely* on riffs from The Conjurer record by SF's own BARN OWL! Sounds pretty much custom made for aQ, a dirgey sludge/doom band covering/reinterpreting the music of a woozy twang flecked doom folk duo? And while we may have been expecting some crushing downtuned ultra-doom onslaught, Aseethe go the opposite route, offering up instead a reverent homage to Barn Owl, evoking a similarly haunting darkly psychedelic mood, with a smoldering glacial intro, all deep thrum and woozy shimmer, it's not really until a few minutes in that one of those riffs surfaces, and it definitely sounds like a Barn Owl riff, dusky and languid, a little twangy, drifting soporifically before the drums surface, a laid back lope, doomy, but not crushing, more a sort of slowcore dirge, with a spacious, cavernous production, streaked with feedback here and there, very much like a slightly doomier Barn Owl, with just a bit of extra buzz and rumble, and a thick blackened background drone that runs throughout, super haunting and hypnotic and very cool. Fans of Barn Owl will definitely dig, as will anyone into minimal, slow and low psychedelic heaviness. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, one sided lp with a silkscreened B side, housed in super swank hand screened sleeves, each one hand numbered. WARNING: It seems like a sort of noisy pressing, with a bit of crackle on the few copies we checked out, so if you're super persnickety, or a super audiophile, maybe steer clear, but if you're like us, and a little crackle only makes it sound better, than grab one quick before they're gone...

First we've heard from this doom drone trio from Iowa, and it's definitely right up our alley. How could it not be when two members are credited with "drones", and one with "contact mics", in addition to the usual metallic instrumentation? Not your run of the mill doom/drone we're thinking� A smoldering blackened ambience starts things off, all haunting creaks and whirling winds, distant guitar buzz and abstract strum, the build ultimately culminates in some seriously pummeling and lumbering doomic plod, the crashes and churning riffage spaced way out, leaving plenty of room for long stretches of heavily layered guitar buzz and blurred expanses of low end shimmer. The vocals are deep and bellowed, and everything is subtly infused with a bit of melody, but those melodies seem to bleed into the blackness surrounding them, each track a haunting downtuned black doom creep. The B side pushes the drone element even further, so dirgey and slow that the doom almost seems to transform into drone right before our ears. Occasionally interrupted by little blasts of extra riffage, and driven by some abstract drum pound, the song lumbers monstrously, eventually the drums taking up less space, the crashes happening less often, causing the second half of the B side to lean heavy on the drone and drift, lulling you into a druggy haze before exploding with another blast of blackened doomic churn. The sort of stuff that will definitely appeal to fans of Monarch and Whitehorse and all that sort of slo-mo crush. Super sweet packaging, thick heavy jackets, nice thick vinyl, each record with an old parchment, with the original writing, but also augmented with a more modern stone rubbing. WARNING, the jackets got a little beat up in transit, so if you need absolute collector nerd perfection, you're out of luck...

Juan Brujo of Brujeria brings us a series of 13 Demoniaco recordings, each fronted by a different member of the underground Brujeria clan. Each Demoniaco album will bear the name of the Demoniaco chosen. Brutal hardcore mexican murder metal. 13 supposed true stories of gnarly horror sickness. a social comentary of sorts. offered in the meanest hardcore metal. The first of this series is led by ASESINO. The band consists of Asesino on guitar, Grenudo on the drums, and the newest addition to this death squad, Maldito X on bass and vocals.

RealAudio clip: Asesino
RealAudio clip: Rey De La Selva

Somehow this is the fifth full length from these North Carolina psychedelic stoner heavies, but it's the first one we've heard, which is a bummer cuz Blood Drive is a doozy, a killer classic rock / hard rock / Southern rock / stoner rock hybrid, big groovy riffs, hooks galore, crushing drumming, soaring vocals, everything spacey and fuzzed out, psychedelic, and super melodic, the sort of stuff that should be HUGE, in a perfect world. To our ears this sounds a bit like a weird mix of Raging Slab and Kyuss, but with plenty of the laid back wasted psych of outfits like Dead Meadow and Psychic Ills, and as much as we love grim, damaged blackness, and avant minimal dronemusic, and all the other fucked up stuff we listen to, sometimes it's tough to beat straight up, super catchy, big riffing heavy rock, which this most certainly is. The sound slips effortlessly from woozy doomy groovy stoner rock, to mathed out proggy noise rock (check out "Castlestorm"), to dense swirling psychedelia ("Scrappy's Trip" sounds almost like Janes Addiction if they had happened in nineties Seattle, which we can guarantee is a VERY good thing), to swampy apocalyptic dirgery ("Blues For Bama" which starts out sounding like Woven Hand, before blossoming into something much more epic and metallic), to spacey druggy trippiness ("Earthwalk"), to epic almost arena rock sounding hook heavy crush ("Stargazin") that sounds like Torche crossed with old Queens Of The Stone Age, and once again has us wondering why these guys aren't a way bigger deal. And we're so grateful that we're finally almost finished with our reviews for this list, cuz after a couple spins through Blood Drive, we're counting the minutes 'til we're done so we can go for number three (and four, and five and...)! PS. Vinyl version includes a bonus track NOT on the cd!

MPEG stream: Avalanche
MPEG stream: Blood Drive
MPEG stream: Day's Work

The world can always use another great metal magazine. Sure we've got Terrorizer, Decibel, Salt and Rock-A-Rolla and definitely a few others, each with their own slant, and specific focus, but heck, there's plenty of amazing metal music happening so we'll always welcome another mag, and being the music nerds we are, we just love reading about bands and of course reading record reviews! Thus we have Asgard Root, who specialize in "black metal / doom / dark ambient / drone / philosophy / literature / dark art" and indeed their inaugural issue is chock full of all of the above, and the list of the contents practically screams aQ! Exclusive interviews with Wolves In The Throne Room, Ludicra, Abigor, Orthodox, Elysian Blaze, Forgotten Tomb and new-to-us UK doom outfit The River. Also an interview with Alex Kurtagic, the man who runs Supernal Records, and the mastermind behind weirdo black metal outfit Benighted Leams! Plus there are tons of record reviews, lots of cool creepy photos, artwork and poetry, so obviously a labor of love, and the fact that they love lots of the same kind of stuff we do, makes this well worth investigating. The layout is a little strange, but sure it will tighten up in the future, but a very small complaint, considering all the kick ass stuff in this first issue. We're already looking forward to the second...

The return of Asgard Root! An upstart metal magazine, whose first issue we raved about a while back, and who with the publication of their second issue are definitely ready to give the big boys at Decibel and Terrorizer a run for their money. Way bigger than the first issue, this volume is jam packed with tons of amazing metal bands, black, cult and obscure, lots of aQ faves, some non metal groups, as well as reviews and photos and art. It's a massive and heavy (both literally and figuratively) tome, that should definitely be required reading for the heavy-sounds inclined aQuarians out there. Depressive black metallers Austere, recent aQ black metal faves Coldworld, raw Canadian cult Akitsa, an interview with Swedish black one man horde Arckanum, Mortiis (!), post black metallers Janvs, melodic black metal outfit Agolloch, mysterious black horde Paragon Belial, post industrialists Allerseelen, UK depressive black metallers Lyrinx, Canadian neo folk black metal outift Musk Ox, rune reader Freya Aswynn, Wallachia's favorite albums, Norwegian legends Enslaved, English steampunk black metallers A Forest Of Stars, gloomy gothic metal group Yussuf Jerusalem, ex-Lycia singer David Galas, UK one man black metal band Caina, Dead Raven Choir (!!), Swedish gloom pop metal masters Lifelover and lots of reviews, magazines, demos, albums, and more more. Definitely recommended.

From the seemingly infallible Paradigms label, who in the past have brought us amazing releases from (we're gonna have to stop doing this, pretty soon the list of killer Paradigms releases will be longer than most reviews): Hjarnidaudi, Amber Asylum, Throne Of Katarsis, Blueprint Human Being, Utlagr, the Angelic Process, Titan, Jarboe and that amazing Walking With Ghosts compilation. Avid readers of the list should probably own all of those by now. Each one totally unique and amazing in its own way. This time around we have two more releases just as unique and amazing, the post rock avant doom of Woburn House, reviewed elsewhere on this list, and this disc of droning doomed classical beauty from Icelandic composer Hallvardur Asgeirsson. It's hard to know exactly how to describe this. That Icelandic sound is there. You can certainly here bits of Sigur Ros, that sort of dramatic dreaminess, but it's way more abstract. Almost like some twentieth century classical minimalism played by Sigur Ros, or even the other way around. Strings soar and drift, weaving melancholy sadscapes of sound, the whole thing wrapped in gauzy streaks of industrial noise, buzzing metallic shimmer, high keening tones, crackling hiss, fuzzy low end rumbles. It could almost be a track from some nonexistent Kranky records tribute to Schonberg. Dark and droney enough to appeal to the usual suspects, but at the same time this is ABSOLUTELY classical music. Mainly piano and strings, but occasionally accompanied by operatic vocals and various percussion, these pieces are alternately minimal, abstract, droney, dense, dreamy and doomy. In fact, track six is simply titled "Doom" and is most definitely doom, with a guitar / bass / drums / contrabass lineup replacing the more traditional classical arrangement, but it somehow manages to still sound classical, albeit, with a heavier dirge element. The final track, the nearly 19 minute "Vitisvelar" takes the super spare sound of modern classical minimalism, mixes in strange fanfares, as well as some driving propulsive rhythms, the result being a very cinematic sound, like the action scenes from some lost sixties spy move. So cool! Unlike most of the Paradigms releases, which come in cardboard sleeves wrapped in hand stamped, brown paper, this disc is in a white DVD case, with black and white printed insert...

MPEG stream: Doom
MPEG stream: Seasons In Black
MPEG stream: Die Blume Des Lebens

Latest blast of tranced out black buzz from this Arcata horde, and quite possibly their best, which is saying a lot considering how much we've dug pretty much every goddamn thing they've released. We were actually lucky enough very recently to see these guys play in the middle of the night, in the middle of the forest, barely lit on a stage in the middle of nowhere, beneath millions of stars, and it was seriously transcendent, their songs less 'songs' and more sort of movements, organic fields of dense droned out sound, totally mesmerizing and utterly hypnotic, the sort of buzzing blackness that simultaneously inspires frenzied headbanging AND lulls you into a glorious torpor. We were sprawled out on a big rock right in front of the stage, and the sound was overwhelming, we were totally entranced, and that vibe is perfectly reproduced here. the band infusing their raw black buzz with more melody then ever, but without losing any of the furious blackened energy that made their music so compelling. Two side long tracks, the first, beginning all washed out and shimmery, before exploding into a crushing avalanche of sound, one that's super psychedelic and weirdly produced, with at least one passage that sounds like the thundering of horses' hooves orchestrated into dense squalls of buzzing black noise. And of course for all the tranced out stretches of blurry buzz, there are sprawls of lumbering doomic churn, of roiling tribal drum driven drones, even some Caretaker-ish drift, all gauzy and woozy and hauntingly lovely. The B side too, begins with a long intro, of super melodic, minor key guitar, slow smoldering riffage, over chiming tones, and strange industrial rumbles and pulsations, and this time, instead of exploding into buzzing blackness, the sound blossoms into a loping doom, all spidery distorted guitars, and pounding double kick drumming, although that moody doom does eventually burst into more furious blackness, a churning heaviness that seems to somehow be both doom and black metal at the same time. more midtempo than blast, but the energy is pure grim blackness, laced with soaring melodies, and punctuated by super dynamic arrangements, and unexpected textural and compositional shifts. Some darkly emotional, seriously next level blackness, that while perhaps best enjoyed under the stars in the middle of a deep dark forest, sounds pretty goddamn good right here. On black vinyl, limited to 800 copies, includes an insert and a download code.

MPEG stream: Bloodlands
MPEG stream: Dirge / Purgation

A brand new record from Arcata black metallers Ash Borer, and more importantly, their first album with a title! Elsewhere on this week's list you'll find a review of the recent vinyl reissue of AB's debut 2009 demo, which we mistakenly listed last time as being the vinyl version of their 2011 full length (the confusion due mostly to both records being self titled and having nearly the same artwork). On Cold Of Ages, the band continue to hone their sound, still delivering their black buzz missives in the form of lengthy sprawling epics, the shortest here clocking in at 11+ minutes, the longest 18 minutes. And as on previous records AB are masters of crafting majestic longform blackbuzz epics - "Descended Lamentations" opens the album with a long stretch of softly pulsing ominously minor key synths, over a barely there rhythmic churn, wreathed in clean guitar swirl, and a gauze of crumbling distant buzz, haunting and harrowing, the song proper doesn't kick in until three minutes in, but when it does, it's a furious thick, heavily layered blasting blur, rife with all manner of melody, and surrounded by a strangely shoegazey halo of soft focus production, that smoothes some of the edges and gives the sound more of a washed out vibe, which suits the music for sure. Dizzying and cyclical, woozy and psychedelic, halfway through the track shifts to a more midtempo pound, before blissing out completely, unfurling a sort of droned out abstract doomic dirge, which gradually builds back to the initial buzzing blackness. "Phantoms" starts off all midtempo and minor key, a Buzumic riff swaddled in thick swirls of layered guitars and howled vox, everything again washed out and strangely sun dappled and glimmery, but like all these songs, the music is constantly shifting, here it flits to churning chug, to furious buzzing tangle, to soaring almost black metal Godspeed and finally to hushed delicate ambient dronescape. "Convict All Flesh" is the longest track here, and starts off with an ominous and stately riff, suspended in the ether, before it's joined by more guitars, creating a strangely psychedelic layered raga like ur-drone, which is soon dragged into motion by a creeping doomdirge rhythm, everything swaddled in distant synth swirl, slowly building to a seriously furious bout of black buzz, and throughout the rest of the track seasawing back and forth, although the best bit is the middle stretch where the group weds a furious blast beat to the doomy opening guitar creep, and an equally doomy chiming guitar melody, piling layer upon layer of buzz and crumble, creating a strange bit of black psychedelia that hover somewhere between furious blast and abstract drift, which could have (and maybe should have) gone on forever, but instead it eventually swallowed up but a billowing cloud of blackened static riffing, a haunting droned out coda. Finally, the record finishes off with "Removed Forms", starting off all tripped out almost dubby guitar melodies, choral female vocals, drifting over a dark expanse of almost Barn Owl like sinister dusky twang, before exploding into a blur of brittle high end buzzing blast, mesmerizing and almost looped sounding, before splintering into a creeping Burzumic dirge, and building to a dense, mathy, layered final movement, the various elements peeling away, leaving, thick slabs of buzz drenched guitar to churn in a dark droned out finale.

MPEG stream: Descended Lamentations
MPEG stream: Removed Forms

We mistakenly listed this two weeks back as a repress of the 2011 full length by these Arcata black metallers, due in no small part to the fact that up until their brand new full length (Cold Of Ages, reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), all of their releases were self titled, and often featured no artwork except for the band logo. So, to correct ourselves: this record is in fact, an lp reissue of the group's two song 2009 demo, originally released as an insanely limited cassette. Two side long epics, each as heavy on the post rock and the black metal buzz, the A side starting off with a loping slow build minimal intro, before eventually exploding into a droned out blast, the lo-fi recording giving the sound a washed out almost shoegazey vibe, which would definitely remain a big part of their sound. Even the blasting buzzy parts super melodic, the song occasionally breaking down into long stretches of minimal drift, rife with spidery clean guitar melodies, the track working its way to a killer chugging old school classic metal sounding outro. The flipside begins with some soaring high end guitars, drifting over loping slo-mo riffage, and chiming harmonics. Like the A side, it soon splinters into a full on blown out black blast, laced with wild proggy drumming, and woozy sing songy melodies. The breakdown in the middle a chugging bit of midtempo churn, again beneath soaring melodies, slowly building back up to a final blast of melody infused black buzz. Still some of our favorite Ash Borer material, and definitely already displaying a fully formed sound, that would only become more full realized with every release. Housed in a super swank letter pressed jacket, and yeah, very likely EXTREMELY LIMITED.

MPEG stream: Drukne
MPEG stream: Untitled

What is it with bands not naming records? We're all for the 'self titled' record, but when they're ALL self titled, it gets a little confusing. By record number two or three at least start numbering 'em, fer chrissakes. Anyway, another rad reissue of a tape from this West Coast avant black metal horde, that was so limited on its initial release, we never managed to even see a single copy. Originally put out in a run of 150 copies on Psychic Violence, this is our, and quite possibly your, first exposure to this monumental chunk of progressive blackness, opening with a lumbery dirgey doom, that pounds and creeps, beneath anguished wails, before exploding into some of the most intense and emotional black metal we've heard, due in some part we would imagine to the structure and the melody, unlikely for most black metal, in fact, it almost sounds like post rock sped way up and blackened, soaring and hauntingly melodic, majestic and moody, these blasts are separated by still more emotional sonic stretches, midtempo sprawls of soaring guitar trills, and angular math rock riffs, all wreathed in black beneath grim howled vokills, before closing with a blast of frenzied riffage and a final movement of dirgey weirdly melodic doomic plod. The B side starts off all shimmery synths and smoldering angular guitar melodies, before launching into another stretch of frantic blasting buzz, here alternating between furious blackness, blissed out reverbed psychedelia and churning mathy doom, the record epic and constantly shifting, but woven together into a single epic movement, the final part of which might be the best bit on the record, a slow build blackened post rock, that eventually explodes into a totally epic blowout of blackened Godspeed-style majesty. LIMITED TO 777 COPIES, pressed on 160 gram red vinyl, housed in super swank matte black gatefold sleeves, printed on the front and back in red metallic foil.

Got the last copies ever of this killer split, direct from the bands, limited to just 100 copies, released to coincide with their just wrapped up Summer tour, and which teams up Ash Borer from Arcata with Fell Voices from Santa Cruz. A seriously brutal and kick ass Northern California USBM match up for sure. We've raved about Fell Voices before, but this is the first we've heard from Ash Borer, who sound pretty perfect alongside their sonically similarly brethren, offering up a 21 minute side long black metal epic, that slips smoothly from soaring, frenzied majestic black metal riffery, to woozy, loping, but still super distorted and raw, post rock flecked doom, to swirling black ambience, to lumbering spaced out psychedelic drift, lacing shimmery sheets of washed out guitar over plodding minor key melancholy, before building gradually back into a dense tribal crush, and then finally another bout of thrashing black buzz. Fell Voices fill up their side of the tape, with another single sidelong jam, and much like last year's self-titled lp, unfurls a dark, brooding epic bit of blackness, beginning with a cloud of looped muted riffage, streaks of burnished feedback, slowly swelling and swaying, stretched out into some serious droniness, before some warped minor key guitar melodies, and buried in the mix blast beats surface, not turning the song into blasting blackness, instead just adding some strange texture to that deep black drone, the song wavery and woozy, until finally the band kicks in full bore, but even then, it's not typical black metal, it's super mathy, and intricate, lots of dynamics, all spaced out, guitar harmonics drifting over insanely dense drumming, and riffage so blurred and black, it almost just sounds like pulses of blacknoize. The song seems to coalesce into a driving blast of murky black thrum, bits of melody surfacing from the blurred black expanse, super tranced out and hypnotic and most importantly, especially in a genre like black metal, totally twisted and unlike almost any other BM we've heard. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, each one hand numbered. Already out of print. Last copies EVER!

Another ultra brief blackened missive from the blacknoiserock duo Ash Pool (half of which just so happens to be noisemaker Prurient), after a totally mindblowing cassette on�Tour De Garde. Ash Pool spew forth some sort of primitive and raw thrashing blackness, a strange hybrid of black metal and noise rock. Blasting furiously one moment, loping along almost melodically the next. On the tape, the damaged demented sonic assault was peppered with brief bits of melody and jangle, all of which are even more evident on this brand new single.� Side A is an ultra raw grimy black sludge stomp, murky and fuzzy, the vocals howled and blown out, so much so that they send the meters even more into the red, swallowing all the other sounds whole, a pounding relentless groove, almost like a blackened Brainbombs. But even at its most brutal, Ash Pool can't seem to help letting weirdly melodic riffs and stretches of jangle guitar slip into the otherwise harsh and hateful proceedings. So much so that here and there the sound is almost poppy, but it's easy to miss as everything is so slathered in grimy production and gritty distortion. The B side begins with just jangly guitar and simple tribal drumming, surprisingly pretty, a loping shimmering smear of tranquil poppiness, that is of course eventually totally obliterated by a wash of black thrash and buzzing sludge....

The return of East Coast USBM duo Ash Pool featuring Dominick Fernow of Prurient, which is what usually has people expecting something WAY noisier, along the lines of WOLD or Nekrasov or something, a sort of white noise infused with elements of blackness and buzz, but in fact the sound of Ash Pool is way more "poppy" than you might expect, aligning itself with the raw black energy of groups like Akitsa. Ash Pool definitely used to traffic in ultra raw, primitive BM, but on For Which He Plies The Lash, things seem to have taken a turn, with a more polished sound and some distinctly more accomplished songwriting, that includes some awesomely off kilter riffing, and lots of what the fuck weirdness. Take the opening track "Holocaust Temple", which begins with a killer start/stop lurch, before exploding into full on manic buzz frenzy, but then there's some crooned clean vocals, that remind us of Borknagar, a weird juxtaposition for sure, but it works, it's just totally changes the vibe, as the music and the harsh vox are relentless and almost looped sounding, pounding away. The song shifts gears, and veers into a seriously poppy stretch, with some awesome guitar playing, and crazy catchy melodies, sounding a bit like In Flames gone black metal, and then suddenly, the song grinds to a halt, and they kick out this crazy folky / polka riff, and the songs becomes almost jaunty, the vocals even more maniacal, the bass bloopy and woozy, the whole song a sort of black waltz, before lurching into the home stretch with a blast of venomous black fury. Holy shit, so awesome, and so fucking weird. And the rest of the record follows suit. "A Sacrifice Consumed By Fire" begins with a hysterical shriek before slipping into a warped doomy lumber, that eventually becomes more and more jagged, and furiously blastingly obtuse. "Big Bang Black Metal" is downright black 'n' roll, with a super rocking groove, and monstrous grunted vox, as well as a tripped out bridge, all Eastern sounding, with a weird temp change and spidery melody. The whole record is one awesome musical mindfuck, equal parts troo grim heaviness, warped poppiness, sludge doom driven chug, and out there what the fuck, but all deftly woven into one seriously cohesive chunk of fucked up blackness. And as if to just seal the deal, the record closes with quite the confusional two-fer, the downtuned shriek laden seasick creep of "Moon Rose Over Sobibor", slipping from doomic lumber, to stuttery chug and back again, before finishing off with the oddly titled "On The Rings Of Saturn Adam And Eve Conceive Cain" which is mostly a filthy slab of midtempo grimness, oh except for that one part where the song cuts out suddenly, leaving a weird, swirly sci-fi organ driven pound, which then underpins the next stretch of soaring majestic riffage, before the band finally leap back into the fray, finishing off with a stretch of frantic frenzied freaked out heaviness. Fucking awesome stuff. And definitely not where we expected Ash Pool to head next, but these guys just keep getting better and better, and we're pretty sure For Which He Plies The Lash is probably gonna be a contender for black metal record of the year...

MPEG stream: Holocaust Temple
MPEG stream: A Sacrifice Consumed By Fire
MPEG stream: Big Bang Black Metal

From the demented man behind the abrasive noise assault of Prurient comes the blackened buzz of Ash Pool. And holy shit is this some of the best stuff we've ever heard in a while. Fans of stuff like Bone Awl and Ancestors will freak for this. It's not just the songs but the sound. Simple riffing, but recorded super hot, and drums so high in the mix they pulse and throb all thick and distorted, vocals harsh and hateful that swallow all the other sounds whole. The riffs are killer, old school but blown out and noisy as fuck. When the band locks into a black blast, it's almost an impenetrable droning buzz, but then out of nowhere the band will shift gears into some weird super melodic bridge, or some midtempo groove. A seemingly impossible blend of melancholy melodiousness, buzzing black thrash and super saturated ultraviolent noise rock. Awesome.

Oh man, have we been dying for this, more blown out primitive super raw black metal fury from the man who is Prurient and who also runs the kick ass Hospital Records store and label. Like past Ash Pool releases, this is super fast, super heavy black metal informed by noise music, drawing on bands like Akitsa and Ildjarn, but filtered through a decidedly modern noise based mindset. The strange thing is, how goddamn poppy and melodic and catchy this stuff is. You would think just the opposite what with the noise pedigree and all, but fuck it if this isn't some of the heaviest, buzziest, most furious, and catchiest black metal EVER. Two short sharp blasts, the first, begins just how we would hope, raw frantic riffing, the guitar super distorted and buzzy, the drums distorted and blown out, the vocals howled and shrieked, everything totally saturated and in-the-red, but there's plenty of midtempo chug chug chug to balance out the furious blasts, and a few seconds in, it's impossible to ignore how catchy it is, the main hook is a killer, melodic, stick in your head catchy, but somehow it doesn't take away from the blackness or the grimness at all. Poppy, yet buzzy and black. The flip side follows suit. Raw, feral, blown out, black, but the guitars start sounding weirdly NWOBHM, unfurling weird little harmonies amidst all the buzzing and blasting, the arrangement a lurching start and stop, weird and mathy and fucked up and totally black, but those guitars sound like they were lifted out of an Iron Maiden song, and the thing is, it's a fucked up hybrid that should absolutely not work, but it does, and it's part of what makes Ash Pool so good. These two songs will only tide us over for so long, we NEED another full length. Cool black and white covers, blue vinyl. And yeah, probably crazy limited.

Finally! The first proper full length from these NY based, ultra sick, primitive black metal noise merchants. Everything we've heard so far we've dug like crazy, a single and a tape, each filthy and dripping with blown out black buzz and pounding punkish riffing. This full length is more of the same, and if anything ups the ante sonically.� Meaner, heavier, thrashier, filthier, more raw and primitive and blown out, and like the other records, still poppy and weirdly catchy. This is most definitely black metal, but a crushing primitive D-beat style BM, following a similar sonic path as fellow black hordes Bone Awl, Ancestors, Akitsa, Malveillance and the like.� Ash Pool is one part blacknoise outfit Prurient, so you knew there was gonna be noise, but the noise here is deftly harnessed into roiling black riffs and blasting beats, woozy, dizzying seasick blasts of relentless pound, furious and fierce, the production thick and blown out, in the red, crumbling distortion and murky reverb everywhere.� But this isn't just the same song over and over, set the instruments to blast and let the record play out. No these songs are varied and bizarre, occasionally epic and dramatic, sometimes so fast and brutal it borders on pure noise, sometimes a Brainbombs style caveman pound, sometimes a weird minor key mathrock jam, always appropriately blown out and noisy, but now and then the songs veer into strange, creepy, almost pretty territory, a slow and loping doomic lurch, with minor key melodies that manage to be mournful and funereal but still jagged and buzzy. Winding melancholic lopes that just sort of meander and chug abstractly. But it's never long before the tracks splinter into jagged shards, with the song exploding into another stretch of raw toxic pummel, the�vocals doused in FX and convulsing wildly atop the relentless riffage. And every once in a while, the band lock into some crazy melodic groove, and for a brief moment you almost forget you're listening to some harsh and hateful black noise outfit.� Hard to explain how great this stuff is, it all manages to be so visceral and intense, emotional and depressive, melodic with losing it's flesh-peeling edge, so sonically varied without losing it's focus, the slow songs are perfect bridges between the speaker shredding streaks of black brutality, but even when things are chaotic and on the verge of collapse, the songs still manage to be catchy and melodic and heavy as fuck.�

MPEG stream: Sin Of Life
MPEG stream: Crucifixion Fantasy
MPEG stream: Vices Triumph Over Wisdom

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. Two albums on one disc, this reissue features the talents of krautrock legends Manuel Gottsching, Klaus Schulze, Rosi Mueller, Dieter Dierks and others. Cosmic stuff, the title of the first (twenty-minute) track says it all: "Freak 'n' Roll".

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SORRY.

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. Following last week's Join In/Starring Rosi, another Ash Ra Tempel 2-on-1 reissue, more cosmic krautrock exploring light and darkness, space and time (with the help of acid guru Timothy Leary on Seven Up).

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Cool early '80s seems more like '70s American prog act with a few heavy tracks.

If David Axelrod produced an Alice Coltrane record, the results might sound something like Dorothy Ashby's 1968 breakout recording, Afro-Harpin'. Of course that's not giving credit where credit is surely due. Dorothy Ashby was on the scene way before Alice Coltrane and she was the first artist to front a jazz combo with the harp in the early fifties inspiring Alice Coltrane to take it up after moving on from the vibraphone. And though David Axelrod is better known nowadays, Richard Evans isn't some nobody producer, having created, along with fellow producer Charles Stepney, the richly textured soulful sound of Chicago's Cadet Records. A sound that relied more heavily on strings, flutes, and vibes rather than horns, and that along with some tribal percussion and hypnotic beats underscored some of the most diverse and underrated soul recordings of the late sixties (Rotary Connection, Ramsey Lewis, Fugi, Marlena Shaw and Soulful Strings). Eccentric Soul indeed! From the opening off-kilter Theremin and drum breaks on "Soul Vibrations", you know we're in for a truly different kind of soul-jazz record. By the time the flutes and harp kick in, we're well under Ashby and Evans spell. A cool summery cocktail of majestic funkiness that will satisfy every groovy nerve in your body. Comprised mostly of original compositions with the exception of a couple of then-contemporary standards like "The Look of Love" and Theme From Valley Of The Dolls", there are some tracks that settle into a nice soft lounge vibe without ever getting cheesy. In fact the Hammond organ solo on "The Look of Love" finishes the album quite nicely. Having recorded three amazing break-filled and heavily sampled records for the Cadet label, we hope we will be hearing more of Miss Ashby's harp grooves again real soon. Recommended!

MPEG stream: Soul Vibrations
MPEG stream: Afro-Harping
MPEG stream: Little Sunflower

Man, are we ever so excited to get this title, Dorothy Ashby's third and most originally authorial album with Richard Evans, The Rubaiyat of Dorothy Ashby. Based on the mystical poetry of the eleventh century Persian astronomer, Omar Khayyam, Ashby has created ten original compositions that feature an array of far eastern instrumentation and for the first time, her voice. Sung and recited, sometimes in bewitched multi-vocal incantations, the mystical vibe is heightened by electrified harp, distorted kalimba and koto but grounded in the driving percussive and bass grooves of Richard Evans' majestic production which evokes Egyptian, Middle Eastern and Pan-Asian sensibilities. The opener, "Myself When Young," has the cinematic power of a James Bond ballad. Her voice, commanding but never over-powering, becomes more intriguing and mysterious as the album progresses, immersing us deeply into the esoteric cosmos of her muse. A truly magical record and it can't be recommended enough!

MPEG stream: Myself When Young
MPEG stream: Wax & Wane
MPEG stream: Joyful Grass & Grape

Verve singer solo.

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We weren't at all familiar with this German dronelord / bliss-drift technician, but we got an email from him, describing himself as a "romantic drone musician", so really how could we resist? While we may have been skeptical and first, this really is some romantic dronemusic, longform sprawls of lush layered shimmer, deep resonant thrum, a slow-motion swirl of constantly shifting overtones, tracks laced with melancholy melodies, or underpinned by heaving slabs of rumbling low end, but everything smeared into something ethereal and gauzy and abstract. The track "9" alone is worth the price of admission, a haunting, heavenly, smouldering sonics, pocked with a repeating beacon like tone. Over the course of the track, that tone gradually sinks into the lush, lustrous surroundings, more and more layers being revealed, the sound getting ever richer, more majestic and dreamlike. Streaks of high end come swooping in, bleeding into the soft, gentle pulsations, the vibe somewhere between Sunroof! and Stars Of The Lid, or maybe Vibracathedral Orchestra covering Reich or Riley. At any point it seems like the sound has reached a saturation point, but then somehow, there are more melodies, more layers, and the sound is in constant flux, drifting easily from sun dappled raga drift to something more ominous, a deep rumbling thrum, and back again, it's dizzying and heady, like the best drone music, it seems to envelop not just your ears, but your whole body. There's a brief bit of hushed tranquility near the end, before the gorgeously cacophonous coda, that sounds orchestral, a psychedelic squall that sounds like a million Arvo Part pieces playing at once. Awesome! And that's just ONE song. Elsewhere, the sound gets moody and cinematic, like a lost score to some classic noir, or dense and bombastic, sounding like a prettier, less in your face, Our Love Will Destroy The World, a strangely robotic bit of mesmeric churn, that also reminds us a bit of a heavier, dronier Pierre Bastien or Strotter Inst. And there is in fact some heaviness happening, some gut rumbling, rib cage rattling low end, that sounds like it's gonna destroy your speakers, often blossoming into wild swirls of static, but it's more than balanced by the sweet stretches of whispery drift, and gauzy glimmer. Some tracks drift into spacey psych folk territory, albeit way more abstract, while others devolve into murky churns, that sound like some lost post industrial drone-dirge experiment, and of course, all of those disparate elements are somehow fused into a strangely cohesive whole. Fantastic stuff, that definitely leaves us wanting more. LIMITED TO JUST 50 COPIES!!! It's likely that when we run out we won't be able to get more. Each tape is unique, every one designed by a different artist.

MPEG stream: 9
MPEG stream: Feet
MPEG stream: C.I.G.
MPEG stream: O

Another gorgeously subdued missive from one of our favorite cd-r labels, Mystery Sea. Each release somehow fits into the label's focus on "night-ocean drones" whether literally, sonically, conceptually or spiritually. And every disc impeccably designed and packaged, the artwork as much a part of the art as the music inside.� This installment (one of two on this week's list) comes from the East Coast, Massachusetts to be exact, from a one man band�known only as Asher. One of the better-known artists to release a record on Mystery Sea, Asher, focuses on field recordings, processed and manipulated into fantastic minimal microlandscapes of sound, creating textures and melodies, spreading found sounds and bits of generated music into long-form, slow-moving near static drones. But closer examination reveals all sorts of subtle rhythms, and constantly changing tonal colors, deep swells and distant shimmers, keening slivers of amp skree, but smeared into glistens rather than glares, the sounds of people and things, barely visible through the glorious blurry fuzz. Really quite lovely. Very close listening is definitely required, but the listener will be suitably rewarded by a beautiful and haunting otherworld of sound.�

MPEG stream: Partly Framed In Sunlight
MPEG stream: The Blue Gently Linked

Intentional or otherwise, Asher Thal-Nir and Ubeboet (also known as Miguel Tolosa) have created a near perfect soundscape for winter. While Cell Memory is not nearly as isolated and grim as the classic Thomas Koner records that looked to Greenland for inspiration, the hushed noises and barren drones of Cell Memory capture a similarly cold environment. The album is split almost evenly between two near 20 minute tracks. "Alter" echoes a muted howl across a billowing mass of radio snow, nocturnal hallucinatory gestures, and soft focus noise, all of which has been muffled into a long-stare miasma of ghostly repetitions flickering against a fog-laden horizon line. While the mood of "Alter" has something akin to being awakened at 3am by a snowstorm, the second track "Nullus" is more of a subterranean, bunker recording, with flecks of static dropping on the cavernous subharmonic drones like seeped water from the ceiling into a massive concrete cistern. Electrical murmurings and accreted layers of smeared textures ebb and flow against the near constant background hum. Beautifully chilling impressionism that would fit very well next to Jonathan Colecough, Mirror, Murmer, Bernhard Gunter, Steve Roden, and the aforementioned Thomas Koner. As with all of the Wind Measures Recordings, Cell Memory comes in an elegant folio, letterpressed by WMR's Ben Owen. It's a professionally duplicated cd-r and is limited to 150 copies.

MPEG stream: Alter
MPEG stream: Nullus

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MPEG stream: The Suffering Mists
MPEG stream: Forest Funeral

Another awesome Supernal release from a few years back that we never managed to review until now. Loyal AQ list readers should already be intrigued just based on the fact that some of our all time favorite black metal records and dark ambient drones have come courtesy of Supernal, Benighted Leams, Drudkh, Hate Forest, Dark Ages, Fall Of The Grey Winged One, Contra Ignem Fatuum and on and on. We're happy to report that Ashes fall into that category of black metal we just can't ever seem to get enough of, that freaked out midtempo, stumbling, damaged, demented, outsider black metal. Imagine Benighted Leams if they were a little dronier and a little more ambient, leaning a bit more toward Burzum instead of Darkthrone. Weird warbly melancholy acoustic guitars, wavering keyboard ambience, totally fucked up drumming, spastic and stumbling, totally damaged drum programming, all wrapped in a blissed out stumbling black metal buzz, and topped off with some of the most fucked up vocals EVER, a guttural, super processed, creepy insectoid gurgle. Hymn To A Grey Sky is tracked as a single 47 minute track, which is usually annoying, but in this case, we can't imagine NOT listening to the whole thing at once. Long expanses of distant keyboards and simple martial drumming, buzzing loping Burzumic buzz with circusy keyboards way down in the mix, more of those creepy vocals draped over the top, dizzying confusional double bass drum programming, dreamy soft focus drone interludes, a big stretch right in the middle of the record of nature sounds, running water, insect buzz, birds chirping, rustling leaves before stumbling back into a killer midtempo buzz drenched black metal dirge, complete with muted classical guitars, some weird dark ambient In The Nursery style timpani and synthesizers, drifting into an almost new age coda to yet another one of the weirdest slabs of damaged blackness to come our way!

MPEG stream: Excerpt 1
MPEG stream: Excerpt 2
MPEG stream: Excerpt 3

Final release from longtime aQ favorites Ashes, a one man black metal band from the UK, whose particular brand of metal was decidedly damaged and demented. But a lot has changed in the 2+ years since Hymn To A Grey Sky. Here's how we described that record: Weird warbly melancholy acoustic guitars, wavering keyboard ambience, totally fucked up drumming, spastic and stumbling, totally damaged drum programming, all wrapped in a blissed out stumbling black metal buzz, and topped off with some of the most fucked up vocals EVER, a guttural, super processed, creepy insectoid gurgle. Sounds good. It is good. In fact one of our favorite discs on the always kick ass Supernal label. But here we are a few years on, and while many of those elements are still present in Ashes' sound, it's not nearly as fucked up or freaked out, which is not necessarily a bad thing, just different. The opening track is a chunk of lilting acoustic folk, urgently strummed acoustic guitar, fluttering flute, a very dark and dreamy intro, until track two kicks in, and we're off! The rest of the record is a series of buzzing midtemo blasts of Burzumic lope, super simple riffs, the drums equally simple, pounding relentlessly, the vocals a more traditional demonic rasp, that sometimes turns into more of a hissy shriek, and even occasionally a Viking-like croon, in the background keyboards soar majestically, the melodies grandiose and epic, and thankfully the drums still have a bit of stumble in them, and the riffs seem to always break into a more dynamic weird sort of chug, before resuming their droning buzz. A gorgeous buzzing soundworld of foresty blackness, very reminiscent of Woodtemple and Graveland, but even more stripped down and simple. And then there's the last song. Which sounds like NOTHING on the rest of the record, but is so weird and epic and doomy and gorgeously fucked up, we sort of wish there was a whole record of stuff like this. The drums a slow motion plod, the guitars not so much riffing as a constant blackened blur, thick whirring rumbling distorted bliss, totally washed out and dreamy, and so so so divinely droney. Then the vocals, a soaring clean croon, not growly or evil in the least, totally melodious and epic, singing a gorgeous hook, buried in the mix. Folks into all that new shoegaze black metal will go nuts for this track, almost worth it just for the one song alone, even though the rest of the record is pretty fantastic. This marks the final release by Ashes, who are as of now defunct, but let's hope the man behind Ashes is working on new music, and let's hope it sounds like this final chunk of black bliss.

MPEG stream: Yggdrasil
MPEG stream: Fenrir Unbound
MPEG stream: A Darker Horizon

Another gorgeous collection of blissed out ambience from local label Time Released Sound, this one from a TRS vet, Mr. Wil Bolton, whose Quarry Bank release was a big hit around here, and who in Ashes Of Piemonte, is teamed up with another like minded soundmaker by the name of Lee Anthony Norris. The two together have conjured up a broody bit of haunting minimalist drift, one that's not that far removed from what we're discovering is a sort of "Time Released Sound SOUND", and while each band has their own distinct take on THAT sound, at its core, it's typically an ethereal, ephemeral ambience, neo-classical dronescapery that's softly psychedelic, hushed and mysterious, almost new agey at times, an electronic flecked dreaminess that blends organic and machine generated sounds into something lush and lovely. Winter's Fire though takes that TRS sound and darkens it a bit, adding an overcast patina, the sound more grey and rainswept, low tones rumbling and shimmering beneath crystalline flecks of glimmering melody, hazy swaths of voice like synth floating weightless above softly thrumming chordal swells, the sound almost choral in places, very cinematic, wistful and melancholy, a weary, washed out sprawl of delicate moody mesmerism, drifting spectrally through field recordings of rainfall, mysterious echo drenched samples, and ghostly voices, all of which seem to fade eerily into the gauzy shimmery backdrop Bolton and Norris so effortlessly weave. Fans of other Time Released Sound releases will most definitely not be disappointed, but folks into sounds darker and dronier, might just want to give this one a try, a perfect mix of hushed haunting ambience, ominous cinematic soundscaping and dark droning drift. As with all Time Released Sound releases, Winter's Fire comes in two versions, one a pricey ultra deluxe package, and less expensive standard one. The deluxe version this time around consists of a stamped and printed page from a 100 year old apothecary's ledger, complete with all the original hand written prescriptions, the page has tiny twigs woven into it, and the whole thing is tied with antique string, to which is attached an old brass clothespin. All of that is then housed in an antiqued envelope, printed and distressed with ash, ink and pastels, then hand stamped and sealed with wax. WOW. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, we have but a handful. The Standard version is less limited and comes housed in a simple printed paper sleeve, slightly smudged and distressed.

MPEG stream: Isola
MPEG stream: Under The River
MPEG stream: Ordained By Winter's Fire

[ aquarius records catalogue — A ]