The fourth installment of “Bach Eingeschaltet” by Canadian guitar-drone hero Aidan Baker (Nadja) is a double-edged sword: his interpretations of the maestro are both the closest to the originals, almost academic in execution, and in the end the most deconstructive. The live arrangement for electric guitar of the famous cello suite 'Prelude' slowly but surely drowns in a mist of effects abuse, while the epic and lush metal-drone version of a menuet is carried away by Nadja-esque lumbering guitar chords in streams of boundless distortion. Packaged in a cardboard foldout sleeve and limited to just 166 (!!) hand-numbered copies on clear silver grey vinyl.
"Styx" is the most mainstream work in the Cyclotimia discography. The music is free of their usual experimental and academic explorations; here the emphasis is made on the rhythms. Eleven compositions depict the sickly technogenic reality of the planet wrapped by networks of global capital, media glamour and ideological obsessions. In ancient Greek mythology the Styx was the embodiment of primeval dread and gloom, from which the first living creatures emerged. This was a personification of the underworld river whose pestilent currents seclude life from death. Similarly to this mythic river, currents of credits, percent, funds, financial quotations, capital issues, barrels of oil and advertising spaces flow on the Cyclotimia album to the accompaniment of hard, sterile and atmospheric electronic music. Recommended for fans of Skinny Puppy, Clock DVA, Laibach, Front Line Assembly. Ltd x 500 copies.
UK 10.50£
Europe 11.50£
World 12.50£
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ENDVRA - 'Black Eden' CD (Red Stream)
Reissue of the long deleted classic, originally released in 1996. Endvra are electronic soundscape alchemists Christopher Walton (TenHornedBeast) and Stephen Pennick (Ontario Blue), combining synths with (un)healthy doses of Crowley, Lovecraft and psychedelic chemical enhancement. Nothing in the Dark Ambient category has ever emerged to dethrone this work of sinister aural mystery. "Black Eden" is a HP Lovecraft tale set to music: medieval devil worship and sabbat dancing invoking preternatural beasts which inhabit the realm of Cthulhu and are spoken of in the fabled "Necronomicon". A truly horrifying masterpiece. "Gold Edition".
UK 11£
Europe 12£
World 13£
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ENDVRA - 'Elder Signs' 2 x CD (Red Stream)
Red Stream have resurrected the dead souls of these primal recordings and added to them rare, exclusive bonus material to produce an album that documents the early years of Endvra. An exhaustively massive compendium of Dark Ambient hallucinogenic madness for unholy rites by the mysterious cult with Stephen Pennick (Ontario Blue) and Christopher Walton (TenHornedBeast). Endura present 2 discs bursting at the seams with 144 minutes of psychologically disturbing music to consume absinthe & open your veins with! The Elder Sign has risen. Absolutely essential!
UK 16£
Europe 17£
World 18£
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GNAW THEIR TONGUES - 'All The Dread Magnificence Of Perversity' CD (Crucial Blast)
Picking up where 2008's "An Epiphanic Vomiting Of Blood" left off, Gnaw Their Tongues is back with nine new tracks of fearsome blackened orchestral chaos and abstract horror that still sounds like little else out there. An even heavier bass-assault compared to the other releases, and this is easily the heaviest Gnaw Their Tongues release yet. This monstrous, noxious bottom-end roar that skulks and slithers throughout the album suggests a foul fusion of Abruptum's black chaos and Leonard Rosenman's most nightmarish film scores, piled in towering heaps of sadistic noise, warped orchestral strings, degraded samples, shrieking voices, and punishing lurching doom draped in suffocating atmosphere. This album plunges even deeper into a black pit of cinematic horror, sexual perversion and shapeless heaviosity. Hardback digifile.
Reissue after 7 years in a lavish 6 panel digipak with new artwork featuring silver print. "Nekronology" is a compilation of mournful musical selections from director Jorg Buttgereit's infamous films, 'Nekromantik', 'Nekromantik 2', and 'Der Todesking', performed by Hermann Kopp. The idea behind the music was to create a dreary atmosphere through a raw, ritualistic sound. You can hear Kopp's signature violin groans, and moog snythesizer during scenes such as the bathtub suicide, the rabbit being skinned alive, and the necrophila sequences.
UK 11£
Europe 12£
World 13£
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LUNAR ABYSS DEUS ORGANUM - 'Tryakusta' CD (Vetvei)
This new album from the St. Petersburg project is the result of 3 live performances from July 2010: in the art studio Vmeste featuring Kshatriy; a morning concert at the "Zelenogorsky Festival of Ambient Music"; and a meditative sound performance at Vmeste. Incredibly deep multi-layered Drone Ambient with plenty of colourful patterns. A dense self-observing stream. Ltd x 485 hand-numbered copies in a 6-panel outsize sleeve.
CD reissue of Denmark-based Nortt's epic 1999 demo. In the spirit of early atmospheric, depressive Black Funeral Doom acts like Burzum. Xasthur and Mortiis, "Graven" is a collection of depressive, horrifying tone poems rather than a simple series of songs, progressing deeper and darker into cavernous sonic wastelands. "Graven" is akin to what the sound of death would be like; Nortt is the ferryman, ever eager to offer passage.
UK 11£
Europe 12£
World 13£
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NORTT - 'Ligfærd' CD (Red Stream)
Throughout its duration, "Ligfaerd" relentlessly smothers the listener in layers of ghostly atmosphere, but the decidedly doom-oriented black metal component is still present. Nortt's basic sound is made up of morose synths and piano, barely human snarls, ponderous drumming, despondent fuzzed-out guitars and other string laments - all tied in chains almost too heavy to bear. It all sounds like some barren ghost town somewhere between this world and another; the last funeral before your own has just taken place, and half-imagined church bells echo in your mind as a reminder that your miserable journey is coming to an end.
UK 11£
Europe 12£
World 13£
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RAVEN'S BANE - 'Misery Preserved' CD (Red Stream)
Obscure and deep ritual chamber ambient from Demoncy member Ixithra (USA). Eerie midnight dark sounds with endless drones and satanic hallucinations. Raven's Bane is a morbid consummation of rumbling black ambient and ritualistic metamorphosis. Mesmerizing and minimal misery! This is the call from the depths! This is the call from the depths! Digest with Dapnom, Karna, Kerovnian etc.
UK 11£
Europe 12£
World 13£
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RAVEN'S BANE - 'Sorrow Breeds' CD (Red Stream)
Reissue of the long-sold out release from 2001 (Ltd x 100 copies, Live Bait Recording Foundation) Obscure and deep ritual chamber ambient from Demoncy member Ixithra (USA). Eerie midnight dark sounds with endless drones and satanic hallucinations. Raven's Bane is a morbid consummation of rumbling black ambient and ritualistic metamorphosis. The halls of your mind will lie grim with fortitude! Digest with Dapnom, Karna, Kerovnian etc.
UK 11£
Europe 12£
World 13£
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RICHARD FRANCIS - 'Together Alone, Together Apart' CD (CMR)
"The building blocks of 'Together Alone, Together Apart' by New Zealand's Richard Francis are 'sound moments': sonic interludes of a dozen or so seconds of environmental sound, whose subtle arrangements and cross-contaminations are the springboard for the compositions found here. Given the quiet volumes, sounds at the threshold of audibility are presumably those which have captured his imagination. A soft hiss and variable low end frequency introduce the first untitled track, with small crackles, glitches and echoes sporadically breaking through. The second is considerably more dramatic, with a flapping rhythm emerging from a grounded hiss like a moth's wings beating against glass. The final track is almost undetectable, even with headphones, and strengthens the connections between Francis's work and the reductive strategies of Bernhard Gunter or John Hudak..." [Wire]. Ltd x 300 copies in a digifile with inner sleeve.
Scott Hull (Pig Destroyer, Agoraphobic Nosebleed) has been gradually revealing another side of his musical persona over the past few years; an obsession with cinematic soundscaping and dark evocative film scores, mutant electronic textures and pitch-black isolationism. On this second Audiofilm 3" CD, Scott creates a much more frantic and energetic soundscape, this one alive with minimal bass-shuddering pulses and tone manipulations, layered swarms of insectile electronic chitter, swells of shadowy ambience, brain-melting plasma blasts, and vast tectonic drones. A brief but amazing dose of abstract dark ambient/noise that will appeal to fans of Bastard Noise, Astro, and freaked-out 70's sci-fi synth soundtracks. Ltd x 1000 copies in a mini gatefold sleeve with artwork from Seldon Hunt.
Finnish veterans of Funeral Doom Metal: Skepticism's album "Stormcrowfleet" is huge, like an impressive vast monument... all songs move incredibly slow and create a very dark and depressive feeling that is beyond anything you've ever imagined. Tragic and epic doom for souls that weep for the darkest Doom and funeral marches! This is the epitome of tragedy!
UK 11£
Europe 12£
World 13£
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STEEL HOOK PROSTHESES - 'Atrocitizer' CD (Malignant Records)
2nd CD proper from the Texas Power-Noise duo! While "Atrocitizer" will probably not be considered SHP's most aggressive release, it is unquestionably their most unsettling and creepy. 10 tracks and 50 minutes of death industrial in it's purest form, dripping and oozing with sinister intentions, and full of grim electronics, unnerving pulsations, and cold frequency spasms that swarm from a fetid pit of malevolence. Add in a steady stream of ultra menacing , processed vocals and nightmarish samples, and surely you have one of the more disturbing releases ever to be released on Malignant. Presented in a 6-panel digipak.
UK 11£
Europe 12£
World 13£
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THE DAUGHTERS OF CONCEPTUAL SEX DEATH - 'The Daughters Of Conceptual Sex Death' CD (Muzamuza Records)
Another rare release from this Newcastle label, this time around the one and only album from obscure UK experimental / noise group The Daughters Of Conceptual Sex Death. "This release lies within the experimental realm, controlled, distorted-ambient soundscapes. The sonic attacks are used to punctuate the floaty keyboards and streams of swirling drones. Looped sounds hypnotise and draw you into a world of processed and dissected ambiences" (Bizarre). Ltd x 500 hand-numbered copies in a heavy PVC archive sleeve with 2 inserts.
UK 12£
Europe 13£
World 14£
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VA - 'Apocalyptic Streams' CD (Apocaltyptic Radio)
Dark Ambient, Power Electronics, Noise and Experimental music from: Antracot, Atrox, Brechen, Errare Humanum Est, Kadaver, Moral Fraktal, MX Nihil, N.Strahl.N, Noiseconcrete, Praying For Oblivion, Steel Hook Prostheses, Tod Durch Arbeit, Vronthor and Wach. Ltd x 250 hand-numbered copies in an outsized, hand-assembled digipak.
UK 10.50£
Europe 11.50£
World 12.50£
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VA - 'With Eyes Wide Open For A Brighter Future' CD (House Of The Last Light)
Subtitled "9/11 - In Memory And In Myth", these 11 tracks are offered both in memory and in doubt of the events of 11 September 2001. Industrial, Noise, Ambient, Power Electronics and Experimental from international artists: 15 Degrees Below Zero, As All Die, Brainquake, Circle Six, Clear Stream Temple, Ctephin, .cut & One Figure, Kadaver, Thee Virginal Brides & Cheerleader69, MichaelThomasJackson, Sound 00. "History Has To Repeat Itself. In Memory Of In Myth". Ltd x 500.
UK 5£
Europe 6£
World 7£
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VISIONS - 'Summoning The Void' CD (Cyclic Law)
Visions is the Dark Ambient project of Frédéric Arbour (Cyclic Law boss). Following in the footsteps of "Lapse" (2005), "Summoning The Void" offers a deeper and more refined rendering of previously explored themes. This is unmistakably VISIONS, but a notch above in terms of spaciousness, musicality and profound spirituality. Passages that are more solemn and austere give way to ritualised motifs where voices from the void whisper words beyond words. Calm drifts bearing a more aerial and streamlined quality emerge, from which shards of light cut through the massive pitch-black backdrop where a bulging red sun awaits in the distance, endlessly and slowly consuming itself. Beyond that, nothingness. Void. A world and non-world of infinite proportions, a macrocosmic voyage through the hidden and intangible vastness of all... for we are stardust. Ltd x 1000 copies in an outsize embossed sleeve.
WHITE HETEROSEXUALS - 'Modern Heterosexuality' SINGLE SIDED 12" (At War With False Noise)
What we have here are three tracks of old-style power electronics, reminds me particularly of Sutcliffe Jugend's "When Pornography Is No Longer Enough" album. Very minimal in places, with periods of lull interspersed with piercing explosions, static bursts, and constant weird, heavily processed vocals. Lyrics are very stream-of-consciousness stuff, and the delivery is bang-on, incredibly jarring stuff. Completely at odds with a lot of PE acts around today who tend to go for the muscular beefed-up US-style approach, this is very much more in the old Come Org vein, aesthetically in the musical delivery. Ltd x 300 copies with old school xerox artwork and lyric sheet. Note: Single-sided vinyl.
UK 9.00£
Europe 12.50£
World 16.00£
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WINTERBLOOD - 'Le Fredde Ali Del Inverno' CD (Frozen Landscapes Records)
Debut album from this Italian act, formed in Firenze in 1996, but on ice until now. 3 tracks (47 minutes) of pure sombre Dark Ambient, inspired by astral projections, initiations, untouched places, arcane geometries, solitude and frozen landscapes. "...their debut album meanders on its dark journey through crystalline streams and misty mountains utilising its dark ambient confines to noble and magisterial effect. The mood created is often one of immense loss and tragedy; time stands still while silent mourners stand, heads bowed in dark flowing cloaks, hands clasped in a futile bid to deny the cold. The synths never sound overworked, employed with the idea of giving each composition a life of arboreal quality - slow, noble, and wise. Obvious comparisons could be drawn with Vinterriket but Winterblood have their own quality and I feel hugely optimistic about their future" (Asgard Root). Ltd x 500 copies.
Subtitled "9/11 - In Memory And In Myth", these 11 tracks are offered both in memory and in doubt of the events of 11 September 2001. Industrial, Noise, Ambient, Power Electronics and Experimental from international artists: 15 Degrees Below Zero, As All Die, Brainquake, Circle Six, Clear Stream Temple, Ctephin, .cut & One Figure, Kadaver, Thee Virginal Brides & Cheerleader69, MichaelThomasJackson, Sound 00. "History Has To Repeat Itself. In Memory Of In Myth". Ltd x 500.
