Just received giant package of music I ordered last months. Nearly went bankrupt, but hey, who needs money if there’s such music! Here we go: Monstrare / Wilt – “Graveflowers” split CD from the canadian Angle.Rec. label. This one is quite interesting cd, it’s not just dark ambient, but with interesting twists to minimal and noisy bits. Spacious atmospheres and electro rustles create interesting worlds on Monstrare part. And Wilt shows solid power electronics here wich destroys world around with its heavy pounding noises. Good CD.
Continuing with north american music. Two splits featuring New Risen Throne. New Risen Throne / Locust Reign – “Prophets From The Abyss”. This one is proper darkambient. NRT part there is more general with underground hue. I mean earth underground like sewers and such. Locust Reign part sounds more cosmic and sci-fi bound, bringing some exciting darkness. Still, there are low-fi sounds that remind me of some abandoned computers and programs humanity forgot. Interesting release, dropping you in the urban/digital dimensions full of ghosts of dead computers and malfunctioning AI.
New Risen Throne / Cruel Harvest – “Shadows over Humanity”. NRT’s part is some kind of postapocalyptic darkambient. Along with the darkness that this music spreads you’ll hear remains of human voices and music. As if they’re flying over the ruined cities struggling to return to life to no avail. I’d call Cruel Harvest part of the cd dark funeral ambient. It’s very black sounding, death atmosphere is on every track there. Add here the quote from Carl Panzram memoirs and you’ll get the idea of the cd – black death and desolation.
Next goes my favourite power electronics act from usa – Control with the cd “Natural Selection”. As any other Control’s CD this one is the same soul destroying hammer. Very deep bassy background and devastating power electronics layer above, everything is pulsing like some giant fearsome killing machine. Extremely distorted vocals sound like some razor or the weapon of that machine. This one is proper power electronics every PE fan must have!
Now moving to Swedish releases. Lithivm – “Threshold to Disharmony”. This is side project of Gustaf Hildebrand. I’ve got his other cds of the cosmic dark ambient which are good enough. With Lithivm he aligned music to more industrial feel like abandoned factories and metal scraps all over. CD cover helps to tune one’s mind for proper music consumption. In the music you’ll hear some weird speeches and even woman screams. They add some cruelty to the music but I’d like to disable them because they distract from the main theme, but that’s just me. Good thing is that those vocal treatmens aren’t on every track. Anyway, this one is solid release with variety in tracks, and if you love aesthetics of the destroyed and abandoned industrial objects this one is for you.
Next goes not one but two CDs featuring good old Nordvargr: Goatvargr – “Goatvargr” is his collaborative effort with the american project Goat. This album perfectly blended black metal influences and black ambient. Two masters of either genres made something fresh and evil sounding. The level of satanic sound on this cd is as high as on MZ.412 – “Infernal Affairs”. Together with power noise you’ll hear distorted guitars and dark ritual rhythms. It’s good to see HNB collaborates with alot of people creating interesting blends every time not just creating something on his own repeating himself. Very evil and black CD, recommended!
And the final CD I’ve got is the old release of Folkstorm – “Hurtmusic”. Very well done power electronics! Good that I’ve noticed it and ordered it. I liked its low-fi sound and military atmospheres. Together with pounding noises you’ll hear samples of the old WWII marches, sounds of battles and radio transmissions. It all creates dusty and old atmosphere of the war. Also good fact is that this record was done by HNB together with his woman Mrs Nordvargr. What could be better to have a woman who shares the same musical views with you and also helps creating dark and evil music! That’s the real dream that came true :)
Tech bit: I’ve bought pretty nice headphones recently, I just wanna recommend them to anyone who’s into music. Sennheiser HD 280 Pro, these are very quality piece of equipment! The sound is properly balanced on all freqs, you don’t hear outside world at all and you can wear them by hours, they’re that comfortable. The phones I wanted for quite some time!
