The Wheel of the Year

IMBOLC (02 February 2012)

2012-02-11T00:00:00.003+01:00

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

HENNIX CATHERINE CHRISTER

THE ELECTRIC HARPSICHORD

Original Issue: 2010 Die Schachtel (DSART10)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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from Boomkat:

This latest addition to Die Schachtel's sublime Art Series is a largely neglected masterpiece from Swedish-born composer Catherine Christer Hennix, a disciple of LaMonte Young and Pandit Pran Nath during the 1970s. Although her music is largely unknown - even among the experimental music community - those who've been exposed to Hennix's work tend to rank her among the elite of American minimalist composers of the twentieth century.

The Electric Harpsichord (recorded in 1976) is talked about with the highest reverence by the avant-garde's cognoscenti, with Glenn Branca describing it as "a pure perfect piece of music" and "a work of transcendent power". Having embarked on her compositional career in the 1960s studying the techniques of Xenakis and Stockhausen, Hennix's musical bearing was jolted somewhat by the Nuits du Fondation Maeght festival in 1970, where she first encountered LaMonte Young and Hindustani raga master Sri Faquir Pandit Pran Nath. Over the course of the ensuing decade, Hennix would study with both these men, and to many the piece reproduced on this disc is her magnum opus.

Made using keyboards tuned to just intonation and a tape delay feedback network based on Terry Riley's notion of the "time lag accumulator", the piece is a thing of sparkling psychedelic chaos, achieving that magical dichotomy between apparent narrative-shirking motionlessness and eternal flux. For all its droning stability on a 'macro' level, The Electric Harpsichord's continually recombining layers ensure it remains ceaselessly shifting in 'micro' terms. Significantly, none of this gets out of hand and you can still make out the individual pitches ebbing and flowing within the sound mass. Paying close attention reveals some incredible oceanic movements within the sound waves, and repeat listens reap considerable rewards. This recording lasts twenty-five minutes, though in the strictest terms it should be considered as only a fragment of what the composition represents; in conceptual terms The Electric Harpsichord would be an endless, perpetual entity. In support of the music itself, this release comes in a box that opens to reveal a 60-page booklet containing two LaMonte Young pieces written especially for this edition, plus an extensive essay by Henry Flynt (a close friend of Hennix) as well as some illuminating, if highly technical and abstract background text from Hennix herself, who reproduces excerpts from her "notes on the composite sine-wave drone over which The Electric Harpsichord is performed".

This utterly absorbing and highly involved passage is just the thing to show drone music naysayers who think it's all just somebody holding a note for a really long time. An essential release, presented with all due reverence and care by Die Schachtel.

FULL WOLF MOON (09 January 2012)

2012-02-02T00:00:00.000+01:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL

CHI VAMPIRES

Original Issue: 2004 Celebrate Psi Phenomenon (1008)

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

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from Stylus Magazine:

campbell Kneale’s Birchville Cat Motel project has seen many a release, and—as befits a prolific solo artist unencumbered by a withering public gaze—not all of these releases have been great. Most contain scattered highlights that make them well worth owning, but a strident ten-minute patch often dampens the proceedings. Most albums would fold with a ten-minute drag, but Birchville Cat Motel has a way of making ten minutes seem like one, and one great minute seem like thirty.

Obviously I’m a sucker for Birchville Cat Motel. So what? That doesn’t make Chi Vampires any less incredible. Campbell Kneale stretches bagpipes to their absolute limits. He drags the Sunn O))) power sludge sound under the New Zealand sun, burning it to a tarred crisp. He amplifies the white noise of everyday modern life into an unrelenting dirge. What brings it all together? Oh, the drone, my friends. He makes music that pummels and uplifts, often at the same time.

What separates Chi Vampires from most of the works in Kneale’s oeuvre is its consistency. Not one minute of Chi Vampires feels excessive or indulgent. It hovers between accessibility and noise pain without falling into the traps of either. Though even an uninitiated listener weaned on a steady diet of indie pop can find something to like here, Birchville Cat Motel veterans will likely agree that Chi Vampires is among his best.

The heart and soul of the record is the 30-minute epic “Buckling Metal Snowflakes.” Describing this track in any detail feels hopeless and totally beside the point. Kneale’s sound is otherwordly and seemingly sourceless—without referents in music, literature, life, or whatever other little blurb we critics latch on to for lack of musical vocabulary. The track envelops the listener, pulling the mind over peaks of angelic sound and into gurgling swamps of fetid air and sour water. The track feels like the condensed history of something I cannot understand.

“Cold Herds Travel” doesn’t let up either. This one is a little shorter and more positive, driven to euphoric highs by the blaring church organ sounds composing the bulk of the track. Over the course of ten minutes, it repeats itself in all the right ways and eventually replaces thought as the language of life, if only for a little while.

While title track “Chi Vampires” doesn’t consume the time of “Buckling Metal Snowflakes,” it’s equally powerful. The song starts out soft and pastoral, pairing a plinking piano with a hovering high-pitched drone. A calm jaunt through a sunny field after the rigors of an emotionally involving album, right? So sorry—an absolutely punishing, stoner-metal drum blast drops in after two minutes followed by some of the most damaging, elongated riffs under the sun. Those familiar with Kneale’s Black-boned Angel project or the aforementioned Sunn O))) will know what I’m talkin’ ’bout here. But the plinking piano never quite surrenders to the metal assault. The song eschews the doom of the sludge metal gods for a more ambivalent and resonant emotional tone.

In short, Chi Vampires is great. Perhaps I should have said only this. Birchville Cat Motel has a way of making language feel utterly insignificant.

Bryan Berge

YULE (21 December 2011)

2012-01-11T00:00:00.000+01:00

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

CARETAKER (THE)

PERSISTENT REPETITION OF PHRASES

Original Issue: 2008 Install (INST002)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

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from Boomkat:

James Kirby's work as The Caretaker has always dealt with the suggestion of haunted memory and the obscuring of temporal motion, and this latest album makes that more explicit than ever, with titles that reference amnesia, Alzheimer's, past life regression and other such memory misfires and short circuits.

Musically, this album might be compared to Philip Jeck's manipulated vinyl tracts, featuring similarly oceanic swells of crackle and dust, with faded pianos or big band sounds wafting wraith-like across the mix.

After conjuring the sinister atmospherics of The Shining with his debut album Selected Memories From The Haunted Ballroom, The Caretaker has been chasing this idea of sound leaving its indelible mark on a space and time, so consequently these creepy, semi-dissolved musical passages sound no more tangible than shadows, and the album for the most part comes across as some sort of séance held via wax cylinder.

Arguably the most accomplished and rewarding Caretaker album to date, Persistent Repetition Of Phrases is an album you'll want to snap up fast - there's only 500 of these in circulation...Highly Recommended.

LAMMAS MOON (05/14)

2011-12-24T00:00:00.000+01:00

VARIOUS ARTISTS

LAMMAS NIGHT LAMENTS VOLUME 05
(A Collection Of Wyrd-Folk Music From 1966-1980)

Original Issue: www.theunbrokencircle.co.uk/

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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Tracklist (courtesy of http://www.dlc.fi/~hhaahti/Levyt/levyt_kok2.html):

the wicker man: the landlord’s daughter
the incredible string band: invocation
donovan: the voyage of the moon
fairport convention: reynardine
clive’s own band (C.O.B.): solomon’s song
pearls before swine: rocket man
leonard cohen: last year’s man
sandy denny: bruton town
magna carta: elizabethan
steeleye span: lovely on the water
mourning phase: damn your eyes
mythos: oriental journey
perry leopold: the dawning of creation
the woods band: january shows
bread love & dreams: butterflyland
tir na nog: our love will not decay

FULL COLD MOON (10 December 2011)

2011-12-19T00:00:00.001+01:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

MINEO ATTILIO

MAN IN SPACE WITH SOUNDS

Original Issue: 1962 World's Fair Records (LP-55555)

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

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from All Music Guide:

Recorded in 1951 but only released in conjunction with the 1962 Seattle World's Fair as the musical accompaniment to the Bubbelator, a transparent, spherical elevator that carried as many as 150 passengers, Attilio Mineo's Man in Space with Sounds remains one of the most foreboding and complex records in the cosmic exotica canon.

A dark, dissonant exploration of interstellar travel rooted in the avant-garde ethos of Cage and Stockhausen, this is music that's alien not only in its presentation but also in its orientation, fusing traditional instrumentation and sound effects to the point that one becomes indistinguishable from the other.

Electronic elements pulse, hum, and sputter their way to complete domination of Mineo's sonic palette, depicting a bleak, sterile future where mankind gives way to machinery. Two versions of the LP were released, one with World's Fair voice-over narration and the other without, and the former is all the more chilling for its seeming ambivalence to technology's awesome power.

FULL BEAVER MOON (10 November 2011)

2011-11-10T00:00:00.002+01:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

KEYES NORAH

SONGS TO CRY BY FOR THE GOLDEN AGE OF NOTHING

Original Issue: 2004 Dual Plover (PBD-703)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

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from Blunt:

"This CD is absolutely off its chops, or at least this woman seems to be. If a cackling old witch playing a spooky organ and caterwauling extremely depressing tunes while accompanied by violins and auto harp is your Sunday cup of tea, then I’m sure you’ll adore the quite disturbing sounds of Nora Keyes. You think Joanna Newsom or the Dresden Dolls make some freaked out shit, Los Angeles born Nora kills them for sheer peculiarity. She’s the bastard child of Anton LaVey and Kate Bush and apparently she’s riding her broomstick down for the Big Day Out. Oh…you should be scared all right." - matt reekie.

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from Soundplay:

"If the girl from The Ring had an organ stuck in the well with her, this is the kind of music she would make. Not the remake either, the original Japanese version...it’s heaps scarier. Nora Keyes has released her debut album on the eccentric Sydney label dualpLOVER, and to put it bluntly, it’s frightening. Songs to Cry by is a concept album interwoven with themes of life, death, suffering and (surprise, surprise) transcendence. Full of haunting melodies, gloomy lyrics and a sinister, even bloodcurdling vocal styling, it’s definitely not for the faint hearted. As her organ plays on, we’re confronted with the many paradoxical incarnations of Nora Keyes. She appears both ominous and pure, wicked and beautiful. Clearly, Keyes experiments with her range, shifting from an angelic falsetto to witch-like howling and cackling. There’s a duality, a sense of familiarity juxtaposed against that of the unknown, like that of a dream. Maybe this fiendish witch has appropriated sounds from my nightmares? ‘Cauliflower’ is haunting – the drone of the organ fading through a series of twisted harmonies. While Nora’s vocal range is altogether astounding, it is at times painfully evocative. On ‘My Child’, Ms Keyes howls: “my child eat your little, cold, piece of meat and your soggy brussel sprouts / because you have nothing / in a puddle of urine / not your own.” Positively disturbing, these lyrics create striking visual imagery. ‘Old Pal’ – which, coincidently, is a Jimmie Rodgers cover – is the lightest track on the album, as Keyes breaks into a possessed, but strangely effective, form of yodelling. In ‘The Show is Over’, Nora shapeshifts yet again, this time adopting a childlike quality to her voice. But more or less, this banshee seems to float on some dark rain cloud, eerily overseeing an ominous world of cruelty and bedlam. This is truly original stuff from a lass who apparently grew up in a haunted house. Maybe that explains it. Regardless, organs are really, really creepy. Period." - Cassandra Kiely

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

from NO-FI:

"This is Nora Keyes' (of The Centimeters) new solo album and it is everything I hoped it would be. The best way to describe it would be if you were digging through a crate of old 78s and found a dusty old album in the back covered with earth and leaves with songs by a woman who has probably spent a lot of time alone in a shack before recording her music. The recording itself really does have the feel of a much older recording with vocals that sound like they were recorded at the same studio that did recording for those old black and white Popeye cartoons. I love all the songs on this album, but I think my favorites are "Small Apart" (which I saw her perform at a Centimeters show before with a bunch of her teeth blacked out which added to the effect of her creepy cackling during the song), "Look At You, You're Ugly", and her cover of a Jimmy Rogers yodelling song called "Old Pal" (which I would love to direct a video for...it would be neat to see Nora in a 50s style cowgirl outfit). Other people performing music on this album are Creekbird, Rebecca Lynn, and Ray Day of The Centimeters and Dame Darcy (whose weird episode of Blind Date I finally saw today) on Autoharp and Saw. This is not "normal" music by any means so get this if you are looking from something so different from mainstream music today that it may as well be from outer space. This is good music for taking a bath or doing work in the toolshed." - Chris Beyond.

SAMHAIN (31 October 2011)

2011-11-02T00:00:00.001+01:00

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

MORTIIS

ÅNDEN SOM GJORDE OPPRØR

Original Issue: 1995 Cold Meat Industry (CMI.31)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

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from http://www.metal-archives.com/:

Onward from the slower, majestic predecessor, Fodt Til A Herske, Mortiis continues to bring you on a journey with the epic releases he has created. With Anden Som Gjorde Oppror, he is able to continue with his musical anticipations. Unlike the slower, more emotionally connected predecessor, the sophmore album of Mortiis shows a different side. You can just picture marching into a battle with this music being the ambience to surround you with every step you take upon the frostbitten grounds.

Words can hardly describe Mortiis. As in the first full-length release, Mortiis continues to create music that's like the soundtrack of a majestic film setting. Though unlike the first one with the mere castle standing within your vision, Mortiis decides to bring a more epic warlike theme to the second full-length release. You'll feel ready to march into battle to slay the enemies. Unlike most warlike opus' you find, this release is more natural form of the warlike atmosphere that remains to keep you on the edge of your seat with passion for the true beauty that music can create and allow you to visualize.

Mortiis again is able to define the true wonders that music can create upon the souls. Showing the more natural sounds of atmospheric brilliance through his early works. With the heavy, more furious sides of music. Possessing very harsh surroundings in a medieval visualization, and then to persue a light more peaceful side. Even with war, there must be peace. Mortiis is able to capture both sides of the spectrum through this second journey known as Anden Som Gjorde Oppror. Mortiis is also able to conclude both epics with a climatical ending that reaches much higher plateus each time.

This album cannot be denied as a brilliant work of art. Mortiis is able to display every feeling in a manner so clear with this release. From the more angered emotions, to the victorious feelings, to the darker emotions still lurking in the shadows. Everything in put together into the perfect formation to show all aspects of the story being told. Much like Fodt Til A Herske, Anden Som Gjorde Oppror was able to tell a story with not a dry moment. All of it remains a beautiful essence of the true art behind his musical brilliance.

There is no questioning of Mortiis' creations. This album is clearly parallel to Fodt Til A Herske with the true feeling of Mortiis lying right inside the undertow, but at the same time has a soul of its own that is sometimes hidden under the shadows of Mortiis's first release. Everyone will remember his very first masterpiece, but this one shows an equally, if not more powerful beast as Mortiis is able to mature his sound. When in comparison with the predecessor it's clear that Mortiis has evolved through the time between the two releases as he makes a more complete feel with this second album. It can no longer be shadowed and break out of the cacoon as it brings its own spirit into existance with two new epics which keep the body of Mortiis' music, while expanding the horizons into the very peaks of each mountain, and higher into the heavens of musical beauty, power, and epic brilliance.

LAMMAS MOON (04/14)

2011-10-24T00:00:00.002+02:00

VARIOUS ARTISTS

LAMMAS NIGHT LAMENTS VOLUME 04
(A Collection Of Wyrd-Folk Music From 1966-1980)

Original Issue: www.theunbrokencircle.co.uk/

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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Tracklist (courtesy of http://www.dlc.fi/~hhaahti/Levyt/levyt_kok2.html):

the wicker man soundtrack: the maypole song
the strawbs: in amongst the roses
tickawinda: go your way
westwind: robin hill
gryphon: the unquiet grave
perry leopold: the journey
these trails: psyche I / share your water
magic carpet: the dream
mormos: number five in the book
magna carta: white snow dove
skybird: snow cloud
the peelers: ramblin’ robin
waterfall: and for you
melton constable: river lane
oberon: nottanum town
heron: the wanderer
incredible string band: air
mr fox: all the good times

FULL HARVEST MOON (12 October 2011)

2011-10-22T00:00:00.001+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

ALQUIMIA

COATLICUE "GODDESS OF THE EARTH"

Original Issue: 1992 Musica Onirica (MOCD 002)

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

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from All Music Guide:

Latin music is fused with futuristic electronics by Mexican-born Alquima. While her basic tracks feature vocals and piano, Alquima enhances her recordings with layers of looped vocals, electronic processors, sound effects, samples, synthesizers, gongs and bells.

The result is a sound that combines the musical traditions of Latin America with influences of rock, pop, avant-garde, classical and improvisational music. According to Audion magazine, "Alquima aims to dazzle, entrance , relax and excite, and, does so on all counts."

Alquima's debut album, Coatlicue: Goddess of the Earth, released in 1992, featured a nine-part title track and five individual pieces. Her second album, Wings of Perception, released in 1995, was inspired, by what she told an interviewer, "my experiences in the Yucatan region of Mexico, the mysticism of the ancient temples and my reading of the works of Carlos Castaneda."

Alquima recorded her third album Dead Tongues in 1996 with Mexican composer Jose Luis Fernandez Ledesma, who played Fender Rhodes, synthesizers, percussion, voices, shells, flutes and electronic sounds. The daily Mexican newspaper called Dead Tongues, "the best Mexican album of its kind this decade." Alquima divides her time between studying music and mysticism in London and composing and recording in her own studios in London and Mexico City.

Craig Harris

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from New Gibraltar Encyclopaedia Of Progressive Rock:

Alquimia is from Mexico, though she now lives and records in the UK. Her music is inspired by Mexican/Central American occult and pagan influences, including Mayan religion and Carlos Castaneda. I have several of her albums, and they vary quite a bit from one to the next. Most of them have in common a "tribal" feel with lots of hand drums, rattles, wood blocks and other ancient-sounding rhythmic devices.

Coatlique is her first and her most experimental album (of those I've heard at least). There are those who might say "this isn't music at all!" This is more along the lines of sound collage, though she sings with a vocal timbre somewhere between Gilli Smyth and Enya, from ethereal and lofty to trancing chants. The tribal drums and percussion are most prevalent on this album, along with an array of synthesized groans, klangs, hissing and percussive sounds designed to elicit emotions ranging from elation to skin-crawling.

This is an excellent album and should be of interest to most prog fans who don't need too much melody to satisfy them. Those who only like symphonic or neo-prog style progressive music will probably be bored.

MABON (21 Semptember 2011)

2011-10-03T00:00:00.001+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

FORSETI

ERDE

Original Issue: 2004 Goeart/Grunwald (No Number)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

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₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

from Heathen Harvest :

Forseti has presented me one of the greatest reviewing challenges I've faced in years: "Erde." This is a good thing. I've not encountered an album that I've enjoyed so much, so intensely, from the start for quite some time. The last time I enjoyed a release this much, and felt so moved by it, was when I got a demo tape of Michael Gira's Angels of Light album "Mother." Ironically, it leaves me lacking any real adequate words to describe it. Simply: I like it! There's no single reason why I like "Erde" so much. The guitar work is excellent, not presumptuous or incompetent. The voice is controlled, serious, and comforting at the same time. Pacing throughout the whole release is impeccable; there is so much here to enjoy I don't want to break the album down into various analyses or tracks. Doing such a thing, I feel, would be a discredit to the listening experience. I can't help but admit, however, that "Erdennacht" is the best track on "Erde." There is no doubt about this.

Erde's packaging and presentation are superb. Printing, textures, and design are all top grade. I love seeing a product that artist, label, and distributor all take pride in. They all match the aesthetic and the sonic feel of the album. Guests on "Erde" include Ian Read and B'eirth among many others. Unless I miss my bet, with a few more albums and some more exposure, Andreas Ritter—Forseti's creator and core—is going to go places. This album will remain on my player for some time to come. I can only hope his next album is at least this good. If you are going to buy only one Neo-Folk album this year make it "Erde."

FULL CORN MOON (12 September 2011)

2011-09-17T00:00:00.003+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

LOUYOT YVES

SAC DE PEAU ...

Original Issue: 1978 Private Release (P.A.I 004)

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

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Do not forget to take a look at the comments section :-)

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from http://www.folkyfreak.lautre.net/:

This cover is really the most percussive one that i meet !! There’s no doubt about content , this is true french Acid Folk at his highest level . I really enjoy this lp recorded by the autor in his living room in 1978 .

Arranges by Jean Webert safe for some titles , this is the fourth album of Yves Louyot , believer , morphopsychologist , educateur , and writer.

His voice and his guitaristic style are very close from french poet Georges Brassens with more darkness feel . Back band with one famous french guest Charlelie Couture play piano , churh organ with decay ,bouzouki , and there’s too on, some songs fragile female vocals . This recording is a breath of truly. We can consider it like a modern bible.

FULL STURGEON MOON (13 August 2011)

2011-08-22T00:00:00.002+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

CAMERATA MEDIOLANENSE

CAMPO DI MARTE

Original Issue: 1996 Discordia (Disc 093 CD)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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Do not forget to take a look at the comments section :-)

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from Old Europa Café:

This album was released back in 1996 and is still one of the very best Neoclassic albums ever ! True European music!

The quality of Camerata in their music stile is unique and no other group was able to achieve such results …

Fanfare, Drums, super wonderful Vocals especially the female ones, Cembalo plus other classic instruments, simply majestic sounds and exquisite compositions !

LAMMAS (01 August 2011)

2011-07-30T00:00:00.001+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

DER BLUTHARSCH

THE TRACK OF THE HUNTED

Original Issue: 2000 WKN (WKN 10)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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Do not forget to take a look at the comments section :-)

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from Stereo Invaders (Google Translation from Italian :

"The trace of the man who is prone to hunting," fate, oppression, predeterminism, escape, violence, foreboding, anxiety, grief, all this is contained in the title of the album and the music it contains. In perfect consistency with the ideal artistic vision and content by Albin Julius, Der Blutharsch. Dark ambient, martial neofolk with drifts; Titanism atavistic, primal well-commented that it would corrupt the exploits of Roman patricians, or the exploits of the heroic classicism of Prometheus, in constant struggle with adverse fate and divinity. If someone is pushed to label as "sacred music" that consists of Julius would certainly shocking and unorthodox in his thinking, but not so far away from the essence of true. Many ethnic and popular music (folk) got the basics of the Austrian composer to write this "TTOTH". We are in the presence of the usual track list (10) untitled; "let the music do the talking" to put American and undoubtedly contributes to donate so much mystery also the right atmosphere to the project Der Blutharsch. For those wishing to necessarily references, except the understanding that Albin Julius is very unique, I could mention a few moments of Death in June (with which our works well) and Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio, although compared to the Swedes there is less room for the esoteric and the occult here, however, the greater the interest in the human comedy, made of misery and nobility, power and submission. Albin plays and manipulates samples like no other, creating real works of symphonic ambient neofolk post-industrial, able to lift the soul of the listener and land at the same time. The track number 9 in particular is a sample (shown in full) of a 30s song in German, probably a song that he met his fortune under the Nazis. Fascist and neo-Nazi epithets are often saddled with Julius, so in the past prevented him from concerts in Israel, and this is largely due to the use of iconography and issues close to the Third Reich by Julius. A course nothing is worth the net claim against the person concerned, or his firm will be able to play in the land of David.

LAMMAS MOON (03/14)

2011-07-23T00:00:00.004+02:00

VARIOUS ARTISTS

LAMMAS NIGHT LAMENTS VOLUME 03
(A Collection Of Wyrd-Folk Music From 1966-1980)

Original Issue: www.theunbrokencircle.co.uk/

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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Do not forget to take a look at the comments section :-)

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Tracklist (courtesy of http://www.dlc.fi/~hhaahti/Levyt/levyt_kok2.html):

the wicker man soundtrack: corn riggs
mandy morton & the spriguns: witchfinder
caedmon: sea song
moonkyte: way out hermit
steve ashley: candlemas carol
spirogyra: an everyday consumption song
fuschia: shoes and ships
owen hand: the garden
shide and acorn: watching a seagull
broselmaschine: godanken
emtidi: saat
langsyne: morning
pentangle: lyke-wake dirge
wizz jones: magical flight
nick drake: black eyed dog
incredible string band: my name is death
carol of harvest: somewhere at the end of the rainbow

FULL BUCK MOON (15 July 2011)

2011-07-14T00:00:00.001+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

PALESTINE CHARLEMAGNE & HEEMANN CHRISTOPH

SAITEN IN FLAMMEN

Original Issue: 2009 Streamline (STREAMLINE 1026)

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

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Do not forget to take a look at the comments section :-)

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from Soundohm:

Saiten In Flammen, a new album by Charlemagne Palestine and Christoph Heemann follows their collaborative work on Palestine's heavy-metal-piano workout The Apocalypse Will Blossom with a more textural approach. As on The Apocalypse... the only sound source used throughout these two electro-acoustic explorations of the lower depths is the Bösendorfer Imperial Grand Piano, notorious for its unique resonant qualities.

The title is a German translation of 'strings aflame.' ...looking directly at the cloud, he saw that it was not a cloud, although what it was he did not know. It was a massive wall of utter blackness that rose from where it met the surface of the downward sloping sand far into the sky, so that he was forced to crane his neck to see the top of it. Lightning bolts still slashed across its face with devastating ferocity, and thunder crashed and rumbled.

The wall, he saw or thought he'd saw, was a monstrous dam raised against the sky, and over the lip of it was pouring something that was not water, a gigantic waterfall of blackness that was not water, crashing down across the face of it, a waterfall so solid and unbroken that he did not see the actual falling of it, but only had the hypnotic sense of its falling.

Watching it, he realized that it was not only thunder he heard, but the deep, awful roar of whatever was falling over the lip of the dam, the Niagara-like rushing sound of something falling down from great height, falling from the unknown into the unknown. It seemed to him that the very ground beneath him was trembling with the roar.'

2011-06-21T00:01:00.000+02:00

PLEASE BE INFORMED THAT THE FOLLOWING POSTS ARE NO LONGER ACTIVE!

LITHA (21 June 2011)

2011-06-21T00:00:00.003+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

HOFFMAN KAY

FLORET SILVA

Original Issue: 1985 Belle Antique (BELLE 8502 )

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

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from Tinymixtapes :

The tumultuous history of Kay Hoffman's 1977 progressive folk opus Floret Silva is perhaps widely known among aficionados of underground psych folk and Italian prog, but it does indeed bear mentioning for the uninitiated, at least for the purposes of this review. Hoffman was an Italian composer who endeavored to set parts of the legendary Carmina Burana basically a Thirteenth Century Northern European manuscript containing a series of mostly anonymous religious and spiritual poetry to music.

Assisted by the Italian progressive rock band Pierrot Lunaire (and most notably the vocals of singer Jacqueline Darby), Hoffman composed and produced Floret Silva, an ambitious recording that combined elements of psych folk, psychedelic rock, and Italian prog with overtones of Medieval choral music.

Due to a number of factors, including deadlines not met, and possibly the passage of the Seventies psych folk zeitgeist into the void, Floret Silva was not released in 1978 as was Hoffman's original intention. Instead it was released in 1985 on a small Japanese label, Belle Antique, where it received precious little in the way of international exposure.

Finally, three decades later, Floret Silva has been issued in remastered and impeccably packaged form on Robot Records. Now that psych folk and wyrd folk artists such as Jan Dukes de Grey have begun to achieve renewed popularity among the indie rock/free folk scene, the record is finally being reissued to greater fanfare that Hoffman could have perhaps imagined.

Sounding at times like the precursor to the music of Dead Can Dance, Floret Silva contains eerie passages of instrumental rock and medieval folk, and has the somewhat unusual distinction of featuring lyrics sung entirely in Latin, courtesy of the aforementioned Jacqueline Darby. Although the record is heavily informed by progressive rock and even a healthy dose of jazz at times, it falls firmly within the purview of what is commonly known as psych (or acid) folk.

Replete with flutes, harpsichord, strings, and melancholic acoustic guitar, Floret Silva is a druggy synthesis of traditional music, medieval chants and somewhat dated-sounding Seventies musical ornamentation. But despite Hoffman's tendency to push the limits of the genre via her experimental and highly unorthodox arrangements (Hoffman's métier was composition in a minimalist style), the album's pastoral pieces sound entirely as suitable for romps around the maypole as those of, say, Clive's Original Band. On most of these tracks, particularly on the vocal pieces, there is a palpable and frequently unsettling Wicker Man vibe at work here.

Unlike the more definitive progenitors of the psych-folk genre Fairport Convention, Comus, Incredible String Band et al. Kay Hoffman's album is unfortunately marred by both its late emergence into the scene and its Seventies musical affectations. The production values on Floret Silva would not have been sorely out of place on one of Creed Taylor's CTI records.

The muffled drums, noodly, acid-laced guitar leads, and reverb-drenched Fender Rhodes accompaniment right out of a Chuck Mangione album have the overall effect of dulling Hoffman's medieval atmosphere, rendering it distractingly anachronistic. But all criticism aside, Floret Silva is a strange and intriguing release that gives the listener a welcome insight into a different, more electric, aspect of the genre. And truth be told, it's at times a hauntingly beautiful album that will leave certain passages resonating with the listener for considerable length of time.

FULL STRAWBERRY MOON (15 June 2011)

2011-06-14T00:00:00.005+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

CHALOT VÉRONIQUE

A L'ENTRÈE DU TÈMPS CLAIR

Original Issue: 1979 Materiali Sonori (MASO 010) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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from Abraxas Records:

England may have its Jacqui McShee (Pentangle), but France and Italy have its Véronique Chalot. For the past three decades Véronique has dedicated herself to playing, recording and researching medieval, renaissance, and early folk music from France and Italy, helping to save these musical forms from total obscurity.

This album, released in 1979 on the small Italian Materiali Sonori label, was recorded while Véronique was living and researching in Italy. Although it was only her second studio album Véronique’s immense talent and sensitivity was already extremely evident.

Here she sings and plays classical guitar (as well as the dulcimer and the hurdy-gurdy), backed by five Italian musicians playing a number of traditional instruments, including bouzouki, bagpipes, crumhorn, Bendhir and bodhran, making this album of early French traditional music an enjoyable discovery even almost three decades after its release.

LAMMAS MOON (02/14)

2011-05-27T00:00:00.000+02:00

VARIOUS ARTISTS

LAMMAS NIGHT LAMENTS VOLUME 02
(A Collection Of Wyrd-Folk Music From 1966-1980)

Original Issue: www.theunbrokencircle.co.uk/

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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Do not forget to take a look at the comments section :-)

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Tracklist (courtesy of http://www.dlc.fi/~hhaahti/Levyt/levyt_kok2.html):

the wicker man soundtrack: willow’s song
bread, love and dreams: brother john
synanthesia: peck strangely & worried evening
comus: song to comus
mellow candle: poet and the witch
donovan: voyage into the golden screen
duncan browne: chloe in the garden
loudest whisper: pied piper
flibbertigibbet: my lagan love
principal edward’s magic theatre: sacrifice
the moths: the heron’s daughter
the sweeney men: dreams for me
famous jug band: a leaf must fall
tudor lodge: willow tree
shirley collins: the cruel mother
robin williamson: songs in the earth and air

FULL FLOWER MOON (17 May 2011)

2011-05-16T00:00:00.004+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

ROSEMARY'S BABY

ANDREW WOODHOUSE

Original Issue: 1986 Ricerche Studi Babalon (RSB 3/7)

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

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from L'Erba della Strega (Google automatic translation from Italian):

From the beginning of its work, RSB said to put the TOPY as a starting point and not necessarily of arrival.

This implied the fact that prior to putting in the fruit of his research could be of any type and not necessarily on one side or the other for stupid statement.

With the completion of this project, "Andrew Woodhouse is immediately and permanently ended the research studies Babalon and his work as TOPY Italian, also comes to an end the existence of Rosemary's Baby, a subsidiary of the music more complex project RSB : Babalon was researched and studied and, at the present time was recognized.

Below we publish the results.

RSB - July 1986

This is the statement that opens the book contained in the final production of Rosemary's Baby: The LP Andrew Woodhouse. After only a couple of years, as the group bids farewell to his supporters, admirers and followers, exalted, and not trendy. Print run 500 copies of the disc, 250 in free distribution. The title itself symbolizes the change took place in the group: in the film Rosemary Andrew is the name that would give his son, and will ultimately be called Adrian. Nearly a change of course.

Disk and the words contained in the booklet and in the letters that he wrote about Pierre, he could talk for pages, but I remember the premise made at the beginning of the article. I have uncovered the tomb where rests Rosemary's Baby, I tried to describe their past life, but I do not want to completely remove the veil that envelops the body. This we can do each of us if interested and with his head.

What is certain is that the project had actually worked well, the purpose of study and research had been fully pursued and at the time had come to maturity of the ideas with the point from which he had left had little to do. The results mentioned in the statement are not disclosed. Instead, they are presented as extracts from books by various authors, among which is expected to emphasize the preponderance of the quotations from the works of Rene Guenon: its opinions on the psyche and the magic, the modern world and human development.

The entire A side of the disc is occupied by an impressive cover of "The End" The Doors, re-run in a tribal, ethereal, dreamy, full of percussion and never disturbing and oppressive as it could be a "... The power of love." You find yourself floating in a smoky haze for the duration of the piece, even more exciting final for the registration of which the Rosemary's Baby have used some tools used by Tibetan monks for the last piece of the B-side The text is modified, you can read all handwritten in a copy of a calendar page dated July 3 (death of Jim Morrison ...), also attached to the disk. Text not changed at random, as Pierre explains in one of his last letters.

The B side is instead of three recordings. "ENI," Byzantine chant sung and celebrated in the Monastery of Xenophontos. "La ilaha illallah" Muslim who obsessively repeats the song title, which sounds like "There is no god but Allah." "Swayambunath" recording of a song made by Tibetan R'sB in the temple of Swayambhunath.

Pierre closes one of his last letters with the phrase "Seek the Lord." I believe that reflecting on this fact and the three songs that Rosemary's Baby have decided to include in the B side of the disc, you can guess what was the road that they were trying to take at that time.

BELTANE (01 May 2011)

2011-05-01T00:00:00.003+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

AQUILAR ILDEFONSO

Erosión

Original Issue: 1985 Ja-Ja (Ja-Ja-6)

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

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from Progarchives :

Not only an electronic artist, but a dedicated photographer and painter as well, ILDEFONSO AGUILAR seems to state a small late pioneering into Spanish electronic music by just an album, "Erosion" (released 1978, later rehashed into more complete music). After studying Beautiful and Applied Arts, he makes several audio-visual experimentations, plus, between 1978 -1980, he makes impressions and recordings out of journeys taken in different countries.

His devotion in this figment goes towards the soft electronic machinery, as well as guitar mastering. Dedicated, from 1986, only towards the artistic activity, his little reached record production becomes palliated, despite being a fan artist and being the collaborator with the most impelling work for the Visual Music festival, that is celebrated since 1989, and that takes place in natural scenes of his native island Lanzarote. (and that, although it is not a contest centered exclusively in electronic music, has welcomed in musicians of the stature of Constance Demby, Steve Roach, Robert Rich or Brian Eno). He also appeared, recently, on a Russell Mills wide collaboration-album, along royal (read: imposant) names.

Ildefonso Aguilar's studies interact with the natural compelling, covering the sound motemp or the analog synthetism. Whilst his photography has the landscaping, ortographic and consumating look appeal, so is the music sheet able to, in general, spire placid work, beauty and sensitivity, rescriben privacy, ebeautiful levation in impression. It's taken as an ancient and work of rarefact and isolationist ambient music. Also as a conceptual point of electronism in opposite of a real and truthful rock vein. Cosmic music reveales a loose symphonic synth solvent. Mystical, instrumental of a new compulsory attitude and ober-toned. Inside the logic, "Erosion" can be conceived as concept blatant affinity. The adventurous synth escapade of it recommends, somehow flawlessly, the hints of drone aftertaste, or the natural omuses like Edgar W. Froese's "Aqua".

Ildelfonso Aguilar seems both the complete artist and the personality with the heart of an artist. In the short term of music, his album is a concrete result of his studies, dedicated equivocally to landscaping, to finding the ambient inside the world, to measuring the scales of a music fade. His album is rare, consequently intentional.

LAMMAS MOON (01/14)

2011-04-15T21:45:00.008+02:00

VARIOUS ARTISTS

LAMMAS NIGHT LAMENTS VOLUME 01
(A Collection Of Wyrd-Folk Music From 1966-1980)

Original Issue: www.theunbrokencircle.co.uk/

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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Do not forget to take a look at the comments section :-)

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Tracklist (courtesy of http://www.dlc.fi/~hhaahti/Levyt/levyt_kok2.html):

the wicker man soundtrack: main theme
anne briggs: standing on your shore
clive’s own band (C.O.B.): spirit of love
water into wine band: waiting for another day
forest: bluebell dance
dulcimer: caravan
the trees: garden of jane delawney
tir na nog: time is like a promise
dr strangely strange: frosty morning
midwinter: waters of sweet sorrow
stone angel: the bells of dunwich
third ear band: fleance
vashti bunyan: rainbow river
tea and symphony: winter
the sun also rises: tales of jasmine & suicide
mark fry: the witch
pearls before swine: images of april

FULL PINK MOON (19 April 2011)

2011-04-01T00:00:00.003+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

11:59

THIS IS OUR SACRIFICE OF PRAISE

Original Issue: 1974 Dovetail (DOVE4) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 4 moons / 5

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from Revolver USA:

English Christian acid folk band produced as their only recorded legacy this wonderful, pastoral record; an early 1970s album (released on Dovetail Records c. 1974) that has dreamy, moody production values, with special effects (nature sounds like sea gulls and babbling brooks) set against a beautiful landscape of acoustic guitar, soaring mellotron, flute, autoharp and male/female vocals; a couple of up-tempo songs act as a change of pace, but the ballads are the reason to be thankful for this record; and how can you go wrong as a Christian folk band, with actual Psalms as your lyrics? As Ken Scott’s Vintage Vinyl Jesus Music guide says, “turn the lights out, crank it up, and sail away.”

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from Background Magazine:

11.59 was a British Christian group that released one exceptionally rare album way back then. Most tracks have been inspired by Psalms and other passages from the Bible, which speaks clearly from the lyrics that do carry a Message, but with the exception of “Hallelujah Jesus!” that shouldn’t bother anyone. That particular song, however, may be a bit too much of a “hallelujah-gospel-song” (pun intended) for most - even I tend to skip it. The other material brings beautiful progressive folk with quite a bit of Mellotron playing and good (male and female) vocals.

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from Popsike:

7-piece British group who were active in the early 1970s. As you might have gathered from the song titles, 11.59 were a full-on Christian band, working at the folk/rock end of the spectrum.The record is a tad sweet in places, particularly on the female vocal front, and some of the lyrics will raise the hackles of non-believers, notably the jaunty Hallelujah Jesus!, which is, in all honesty, a bit hard to bear. If you concentrate on the music, though, what you get is a nice folk rock album with a bit of Mellotron, which is rare enough in itself to warrant
attention.

All but one of the songs is based on the psalms, the best-known in the secular world being No.23, The Lord is My Shepherd, tackled at the end of the album on one of Kinch's 2 compositions, although strangely, neither of his songs has any Mellotronic content. Speaking of said 'Tron, there are flutes and strings on opener "The Earth Is The Lord's" , then nothing until "By The Waters Of Babylon" , which you may or may not be glad to hear has nothing to do with the later Boney M song, apart from the obvious lyrical content.

Actually, it's one of the nicest pieces on the album, a melancholy, minor-key piece with 'Tron flutes, but sadly, that would appear to be it.
The presence of Mellotron and flute has found This Our Sacrifice of Praise being labeled "prog folk" while river, seagull and ocean sound effects put it in danger of being written off as hippie drivel. And candidly, the scarcity of original LP copies probably has more to do with its elevated collectible status than music contained therein.

Lyrically it's likely a very religious in content and recommended to many folk purists with an innocence about the presentation and a purity about the vocal blend that's refreshing a lot...it's reflective and introspective, an acquired taste but well worth sampling.

EOSTRE (21 March 2011)

2011-03-16T00:00:00.007+01:00

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

TEATRO SATANICO

PAN IST TOD

Original Issue: 2007 Old Europa Cafe (OEMP 012) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

To learn more about Teatro Satanico

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from Old Europa Cafe :

Do you think you can foresee how will sound the new Teatro Satanico’s songs ?
Do you think Teatro Satanico plays only elektronic music ?
Do you think Teatro Satanico has not more trick-or-treat to play on you ?
Do you know that PETER PAN was a real soldier and that he is dead and buried ?
Do you know that his grave is located on a mountain in Veneto, the Italian region where Teatro Satanico’s guys live ?
Don’t you believe it? Well, look to the photo of his grave on the cover of the new Teatro Satanico PAN IST TOD album !
Hardly to expect it, but these Italian devils recorded some real neo-folk tunes with a marching, pop touch this time !
And due to its peculiar oddity it will become a very unique feature into the official Teatro Satanico’s discography, since here we are talking about “no-synthesizer musik”, the trademark of the previous Teatro Satanico releases.
Expect the unexpected ! Believe the unbelievable !
Once again Teatro Satanico proves to be one of the more original and unforeseeable contemporary post-industrial project in a post-industrial scene full of poseurs, fake-artists and obvious predictable releases.
Beware of Teatro Satanico, they do bite your certainty!

FULL WORM MOON (19 March 2011)

2011-03-13T00:00:00.005+01:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

IN SLAUGHTER NATIVES

IN SLAUGHTER NATIVES

Original Issue: 1988 Cold Meat Industry (CMI-04)

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

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Swedish industrial act, formed by Jouni Havukainen in 1985. ISN has used many different sounds over the years, from dark ambient soundscapes to martial industrial stompage to neoclassical orchestration.

FULL SNOW MOON (18 February 2011)

2011-02-01T00:00:00.003+01:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

EMMANUEL J.D.

WIZARDS

Original Issue: 1982 North Star Productions (NSP-2003) Buy it here!

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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Do not forget to take a look at the comments section :-)

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from Boomkat:

Chances are you won't have heard of J D Emmanuel before.

This record in particular was a private pressing released back in 1982 and owned by a select few punters who quite clearly did their research. In recent years the record's reputation has spread, with rumours circulating that it was a transcendent blend of Terry Riley, The BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Popul Vuh and early Kraftwerk - but finding it was about as easy as looking for a connection between Wolf Eyes and The Spice Girls.

Then, without fanfare, the album re-appeared as a limited edition on the Belgian 'Dreamtime Taped Sounds' and we knew as soon as we got our grubby mitts on a copy that this was something that simply had to be heard to be believed, that would stun just about everyone we know with its almost meditative electronic explorations.

I'm sure many of you remember Delia Derbyshire's amazing 'Electrosonic' LP (that lasted about two weeks...) and this album gives us the same kind of chills, it's just THAT sound, it's impossible to put your finger on but even more impossible to re-create. With the amount of retro-electronic music coming out at the moment you'd think someone would have nailed it, but no, it's still these records that emerged at the time, that came from people genuinely excited by the technology and the possibilities this technology could inform that really hit you where you need to be hit. Using three Sequential Circuit Pro-1 synthesizers, a Crumar Organ and some delays (recording direct to tape) Emmanuel manages to conjure up deep, distorted faraway lands, astral plains and shimmering multi-coloured skies - the soft synthesizer tones dictating the journey perfectly. Whether with bubbling, almost sequenced-sounding synth bass, or with organ-like improvised phrases, Emmanuel never takes a wrong turn and this is an album that will rarely leave your turntable (trust me, it's been welded to mine since I got it).

The sensitivity and simplicity of the music is almost impossible to convey, suffice to say we think it's one of the best (and most unexpected) things we've heard this year so far, and followers of early electronic music, Kraftwerk and the Radiophonic Workshop need to get a hold of one right away. Stunning stuff, and incredibly limited - we only have a few so be quick if you want to secure yourself a copy.

ESSENTIAL PURCHASE.

IMBOLC (02 Febrary 2011)

2011-01-14T00:00:00.005+01:00

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

SEPI KUU

RANNAN USVASSA

Original Issue: 1980 Heliander (Help 703)

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪from CD Reissue Wish List :

An amazing find... intense droning Finnish vocals and searing fuzz guitars with hand percussion. Sounds like the more serious tracks on Walter Wegmuller's "Tarot" album. Or even Sergius Golowin's "Lord Krishna Von Goloka". Comes completely out of left field, and is pretty much one of a kind, especially considering the time and place.

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from New Gibraltar :

Rannan Usvassa (Heliander HELP 703) may be the most obscure Finnish progressive rock album. In fact, even the identity of the musicians behind the pseudonym Sepi Kuu is unclear. Stylistically Rannan Usvassa (In the Mist of the Shore) is actually more late-in-the-day psychedelia than progressive rock, as most of the album's twelve short tracks build on a few chords strummed or arpeggiated on acoustic guitar, over which an unsonorous voice more recites than sings blank verse about existential angst and mysticism by the numbers. Organ, oscillators and flute gather their modal mist around these structures, while a fuzz guitar occasionally snakes up to thicken arrangements with background growls or, in the case of "Puhukaa mitä puhutte" ("Say What You Will") and the title track, understated solos, in a style remotely comparable to early Jade Warrior. Bass and percussion also make appearances, played with the same homespun plainness and lack of technical boasting that marks the whole project - for better or worse.

There is a decidedly amateurish air about the monotonous staccato thrum of "Tämän linnoituksen on kestettävä" ("This Fortress Must Stand") or the stop-start, kindergarten-variety proto-industrial-metal muck that accompanies the vicious circle of amateur-philosopher homilies in "Ajatus" ("Thought"). And yet "Muuratut kasvot" ("Bricked Faces") digs up surprising lyricism from its dusky vocal melodies, ringing guitar arpeggios and meditative keyboard solo, while the one instrumental "Manvantara" cleverly flanks its centre-position solo flute with asynchronous sets of drums panned to the opposite sides of the stereo field, each coupled with a feedbacking guitar or synthesizer. As a small-time psychedelic album Rannan Usvassa is quite acceptable, but any aura of lost classic obscurity may have furnished it with is totally unwarranted. And obscurity was a fact in 2004, for the original vinyl was very rare and no CD release existed (the Tachika pirate-CD-R edition does not rate as one).

Kai Karmanheimo

FULL WOLF MOON (19 January 2011)

2011-01-04T00:00:00.006+01:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

ITSUTSU NO AKAI FUSEN

FLIGHT 1 & 2

Original Issue: 1970 Underground Record Club URG-4006)
Original Issue: 1971 Underground Record Club URG-4007)

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Margot-meter: 4 moons / 5

Impossible-to-find holy grail ranking at #47 in Julian Cope's Japrocksampler is finally available in Margot's coven!!!!

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from Julian Cope's Japrocksampler:

Imagine an LP half full of songs such as Erika Eigen's 'I Wanna Marry a Lighthouse Keeper' from the A CLOCKWORK ORANGE soundtrack. Mo Tucker's Velvet Underground ballads 'After-hours' and 'I'm Sticking with You', and that ubercute ditty Tonight You Belong to Me' that Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters sang together in The Jerk.

Imagine that same album also contains a few euphorically strung-out cosmic folk ballads somewhere in the style of Tim Buckley's Straight Records LP BLUE AFTERNOON united with Culture's super-sweet TWO SEVENS CLASH, but sung by a man and a woman in the manner of Emtidi's SAAT. Then imagine that some of that material was extended to cover a whole side of 12" vinyl, Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser-style.

Okay, now imagine there were two such LPs and that they were released one year apart on a cult label called Underground Record Club, and you've hit exactly where Itsutsu no Akai Fusen is coming from. It's a weird combination of urban torch songs, rural lovey-dovey indoor campfire, and transcendental tripped out meditative space folk. Both LPs were packaged in cosmic spacious gatefold sleeves, and the records were mainly sung by female singer Hideko Fujiwara and written by songwriter Takashi Nishioka, the man responsible for a fairly legendary Japanese album, MELTING GLASS BOX. that I've never really found much time for.

These two records I like very much indeed, however, so they're hidden away at number 47 because I listen to them all the time, despite having never had much time for the Japanese early-'70s folk scene. So please excuse this review hyping two LPs simultaneously, but by 2012, you'll most likely have found time to investigate these records and, hopefully, are by now digging them.

YULE (21 December 2010)

2010-12-22T00:00:00.003+01:00

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

VARIOUS ARTISTS

PEOPLE TAKE WARNING! (Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs, 1913-1938)

Original Issue: 2007 Tompkins Square (TSQ1875) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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from Pitchfork:

Times are tough. Times are always tough. But times used to be much tougher.

A recent report noted the global rise of the standard of living, and the U.S. stock market keeps hitting all-time highs. Even if the relative prosperity of America is tempered by the troubling observation that, contrary to the usual positive economic indicators, life isn't getting much better, life in general doesn't seem that bad.

Every so often, though, we get a glimpse of what once was and what could very well be again. The precarious, precipitous housing market leads to talk of recession, which inevitably brings up depression. The Hurricane Katrina humanitarian disaster provided an alternate-reality view of the United States as Third World nation. The resolution of the United Auto Workers strike settled the weight of thousands of jobs bobbling in the balance. The death toll and number of wounded in Iraq and elsewhere creeps upward, reminders of a time when sacrifice was compulsory, not voluntary.

Yes, times are tough, but times used to be absolutely terrible-- rife with starvation, disease, extreme poverty, and senseless death. As relative prosperity continues unabated, perspective predictably fades. People Take Warning: Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs, 1913-1938 provides that perspective with three discs of abject misery, songs about misery, miserable people, and the miserable things they've done or that were done to them. It's the epitome of a bad trip back in time, and a riveting collection of musical snapshots capturing a country teetering on the edge of the abyss, looking down, and singing songs about what they see.

Titled "Man V. Machine", the first disc focuses on songs of train wrecks, plane crashes, and the odd car accident, and features lot of songs about the Titanic, in particular. The other two discs are titled "Man V. Nature" and "Man V. Man [And Woman, Too]", respectively, and tackle just what their names imply: natural disasters and good ol' fashioned murdering.

It's harrowing and horrifying stuff, but there's a twisted element of rueful humor to this set, too. "If it bleeds, it leads," goes the cynical journalism saying, and these horror stories, drawn from headlines, serve much the same purposes as the tabloids, providing tales of loss you can't turn away from. It's also a little like the scene of the accident on the side of the highway, with traffic slowed to a near halt so that everybody can get a good look, as if they don't already know what they're going to see.

You generally know what you're going to get here, too, but just because it's familiar sounding hardly means it's full of household names. The set inevitably includes a few songs from such usual suspects as Son House and Charley Patton, as well as often anthologized tracks like Kansas Joe and Memphis Minnie's "When the Levee Breaks". There are also plenty of well-known subjects, like the infamous Old 97 train, conductor Casey Jones, the doomed Tom Dooley, and the reliably murderous Stack O'Lee. But there are countless surprises as well, like "El Mole Rachmim (für Titanik)", a song that stresses how much the great ship's sinking resonated with recent Eastern European Jewish immigrants.

Music like this has always been the province of obsessive collectors, and it will probably always remain that way. But there's no question that having this music packaged together by experts and fans beats scouring estate sales for fragile 78s. Whether beautifully packaged (like the astounding gospel collection Goodbye, Babylon), thematically organized (the fun medicine show soundtrack Good for What Ails You: Music of the Medicine Shows 1926-1937), or both (the still essential Anthology of American Folk Music, which, lest one forget, really was once just part of one man's collection), it's still remarkably powerful and moving all these years-- but really not that many-- later. As Tom Waits puts it in his introductory essay, "The scratches on the 78s sound like the ocean in a shell, and the songs are riding inside across time."

FULL COLD MOON (21 December 2010)

2010-12-17T00:00:00.003+01:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

NERELL LOREN

LILIN DEWA

Original Issue: 1996 Soleilmoon (DFX 26) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

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from http://home.earthlink.net/~lnerell/ldreviews.html:

Option May-June 1997

Nerells' chops as both a synthesizer expert and a student of the gamelan allow him to explore the border region between electronics and one of the world's most highly developed acoustic orchestras -- not that this hasn't been done before. But Nerell takes the gamelan into ambient realms, where-as many of the other fusions of Western musics with gamelan have turned on gamelan's rhythmic elements, Nerell uses gamelan in combination with synths, but also electronically morphs the gamelans into subtle, delicate resonant spaces, where just traces of the originals loop through the composition. At times reminiscent of Jon Hassell and the darker soundscapes of Steve Roach, Nerell's music shows a delicate touch of great beauty, and his understanding and love of gamelan never leave you feeling even the hint of appropriation. John Baxter

Alternative Press May 1997

(four fingers out of five meaning: well done).
Nerell is an American who became spellbound by Bali and Java's gamelan music after a chance encounter with it 15 years ago. He merges field recordings of said music with his own studio manipulaitons (via synths and samplers), but only skilled ears could tell which is which. Nerell's tools include various Indonesian gongs, rain-stick, dholak and slenthem.

Lilin Dewa should strike a resonant chord with Westerners receptive to contemplative musics, even if they don't have a clue about gamelan. The moan-and-groan drone of Galungan has ritualistic overtones that induce an uneasy, peaceful feeling, like being isloated in a desert, Borobudur 4AM is akin to Paul Schutze's cinematic take on Souteastern Asian ambience. Muted chanting and cricketsong add to the song's mesmerizing chill. Bamboo, Iron, Resin, Bronze is one of the most gorgeous and euphoric peices of music since Don Cherry's "brown Rice" (1975), conjuring the image of a stately glide down an Indoesian river. Dave Segal

Interface version 4.1

It seems as though everytime you turn around, Portland-based Soleilmoon Recordings puts out another batch of reissues, collections, anthologies and new releases that transcend the usual glut of meaningless industrial anthem rock, and define a whole other, more sincere world of ambient sounds and settings. Quickly becoming the grandfather of Industrial World Music, Soleilmoon must rank at the top of the list for any aficionado of textual sound canvases and internationally-mixed keyboard cacophonies. This latest batch of exceptional ambient releases all arrived at my door within the last few months, and they are collectively better than the junk-mail singles collections substituting for albums that clutter major labels, release schedules for an entire year.....Nerell and Muzlimgauze offer enchanting forays into the realm of world music with their new releases....all are superior and recommended trance music for the thinking man. Anais

Camera Obscura

Nerell, originally awakened by Tangerine Dream's Rubycon, also took an early liking to gamelan music, tape manipulation, and electronic sound generation. He's been known for his work with Steve Roach, Djam Karet, Kronos Quartet, Paul Haslinger, and others. Why he's taken so long to release his first solo is a mystery, but some artists only do things when they consider the time is exactly right. Lilin Dewa is a slow, brooding, swirling, mysterious quintet of nighted murals. A cross between Vidna Obmana, Alain Kremski, and a somnabulistic Steve Reich, it demands liquid patience from the listener and displays a debt to Harry Partch that only the initiated will understand. It also requires a breadth of experience, attention, and, at least initially, non-judgementalism. The opening track, Irama, is deceptive, seeming somewhat more minimal than necessary, and perhaps a tad paradoxically World Music-y in this fad-time of politically correct obeisance to imaginary social demands from art (of all things). It is, however, a preparation agent and owes no uncivil subordination to current contexts and trends. It slows the listener and thickens the listening environment, and is important to the fourth track, Hiasan (Ornament), which contains very subtle information and is an epic (20:00) of quietude, joining such masterpieces as Eno's 2/2, John Abercrombie's Still, and a much-too-small body of sublime quiet-art. It also has latencies of the On Land work.

The closer, Borobudur 4AM, carries on Hiasan's mission, but as terrenely alien electronics within a rain forest (the ambients were recorded at Borobudur, in Java, site of the largest Buddhist stupa in the world) counterpointed by a distanced ceremonial event. And neither Nerell nor the label indicate whether there was an intention for the bird song and insects to act as natural music, but they do, giving a bit of an exposure to the coincidental experience of nature as an unrecognized music "form". Given the savantry displayed and Nerell's immersion in the culture (he played in-country with native bands) bounced against his American birth, I'd wager he knew exactly what he was doing yet got more than he intended. The degree of identification with this environment is almost unsettling, creating the transference for the wet loamy fecundity of the jungle to seep slowly into the listener's bones......through the ears.

This cd will not be for everyone, of course. It requires more than a modicum of culture and serenity of mind and spirit. Many who essay it unprepared will soon be clawing to crawl out of their skins and toss on some Metallica. But, for the connoisseur, it will sit on the shelf of outre musics for slightly twisted ears. And once you've finished listening, the answer to my curiosity (as to why he took so long to go solo) should become obvious. Marc Tucker

Exposé No. 14, Winter 1998

Here is a composer who has been busy working to put Indonesia on the map as the next landing point in the trek in search of inspiration. In his music Loren Nerell has always shown the explorer spirit, and Lilin Dewa reflects the fruits of his study of ancient and rare forms of Balinese gamelan. This he uses as source material to create ethnic-drone hybrid material that you could safely say has precedence in Brian Eno's seminal On Land. Reference points to the techno-tribal or Berlin-style space music directions taken on his previous cassettes (not to mention other influences such as Harry Partch) are scant, if existent at all, on this (his third) release. Far and away the standout track for me was the evocatively titled, Bamboo, Iron, Resin, Bronze, with its simple but very effective hints at gamelan. Such a beautiful blending of authentic instrumentation flanked by a synthetic layering - you wish it would go on much longer. Hiasan is a sedate meditation constructed around motives played on the kempul (a row of highly vibrant, tuned Javanese gongs). If their resonance seems to beckon one to the imperial courts of Jogyakarta, then the Roach-like drone of Galungan bids one to stay and soak in the ceremonial atmosphere the work evinces. Voices and flute creep into the menacing admixture ever so subtly. The ambient drone supporting Borubudur 4AM is based around field recordings made near the Borubudur temple in Java. It is the next best thing to being there I'm sure, but given its fifteen-minute length you might wish for the intrusion of some more prominent instrumentation. The CD closes there, however, leaving us to ponder what may follow. That this one-time Djam Karet collaborator has few peers in the subgenre lends a sense of limitlessness which I hope Loren will exploit further in the future. Mike Ezzo

Wind & Wire Issue 7 July/August 1998

Genre: Gamelan (Ambient/Trance/World)

Music that invites the deepest of listenings are few and far between when one reviews music as much as I do. Loren Nerell's recording Lilin Dewa is music that merits it, though. Seldom do I hear a work that almost literally jumps into my head and says, "Listen, dammit. I have something important to say." But, after hearing just the first several minutes of this CD, listen (and very intently) is just what I did. It was time well spent.

Lilin Dewa could very well be the sequel to Robert Rich's superlative 1989 recording, Rainforest. Both are heavily influenced (and in the case of Loren, very directly so) by the gamelan music of Bali. To put this CD in the same league of Robert's is, coming from me, very heady praise. To me, Rainforest is a literally essential CD and may be Robert's best work. That Lilin Dewa stands toe-to-toe with it and even expands on some of that release's work is quite a feat.

Using an assortment of Indonesian gongs and kempuls, Balinese suling and gambuh, plus many other instruments that not only do I not know what they are but probably can't even pronounce them, along with wonderful synth and sampler textures, Loren has produced a work of feeling, mystery, depth, and beauty. I want to submerge myself in this CD and let my mind drift away to distant lands. This is not ambient music in that it should not be ignored. Or, if you treat it as such, you are missing the point. Which is not to say that you can't play this in the background. God knows it's beautifully unobtrusive at times. But, be prepared to pay attention and allow the music to work its magic on you.

The album opens with Irama which uses gongs and percussion to sound a steady rhythm which should immediately make those comparisons to Rainforest evident to anyone who knows the recording. But on the next cut, Galungan, the CD shifts gears abruptly into trance and drone-mode. Galungan, per the liner notes, is a ceremony practiced in Bali to commemorate the beginning of a new year. The ceremony must be very spiritual because this is not "Auld Lang Syne!"

With the exception of the third cut, Bamboo, Iron, Resin, Bronze which is just over six minutes long and is a wonderful excursion into dense polyrhythms, the other four songs are all at least ten minutes long (one clocks in at twenty minutes!). This is music that breathes. It is patient and develops over time. For example, the last two songs on the CD are wonderfully evocative and atmospheric. But the listener must commit themselves to really listening to this music. Again, this may not mean sitting still. It depends on how skillful a listener you are. For me, I simply had to pay attention to this music.

Loren is deeply committed to gamelan music and has spent the better part of this decade studying it first-hand. Lilin Dewa is a recording that shows what happens when an artist becomes not just inspired but even consumed by his or her love of music. Loren has created a work deeply enmeshed with this other culture. I admire not just his craft and his devotion, but also his conviction. For those interested in gamelan music and/or recordings that truly draw the listener into the experience of the music, I recommend spending some time with Lilin Dewa. Bill Binkelman

Dreams Word

I always love it when an artist successfully blends different styles of music into a unique listening experience. Combining modern dark ambient and ages old gamelan music may not seem an easy task, but in the hands of Loren Nerell, it feels that way on Lilin Dewa. Dark drones open Irama, but are soon joined by metallic chimes of ancient instruments. Beginning slowly, the beats gradually pick up speed and musical intensity. Just when it seems things will build to a crescendo, the music slows down again. Ah, but wait, here it goes again. Irama rides a musical wave up and down, then finally crests and falls. On listening, the musical pattern seems deceptively simple, though it is probably not easily achieved. Primitive influences continue with Galungan, an 18-minute journey into long forgotten cultures, again blending traditional instruments and synthesizers, this time with chants added as well. I must confess to a Western world bias against too much chanting in my music, but it is not too distracting here, and definitely fits with the overall mood.

Each of the five tracks range from ten to twenty minutes, with the exception of the six-minute Bamboo, Iron, Resin, Bronze, named for the four primary materials used in the recording. This is a fascinating sound collage, and should appeal to fans of Steve Roach's albums Artifacts and Origins.

The CD is beautifully packaged, with detailed liner notes explaining how Lilin Dewa came into being, including the meaning, intent, and recording method behind each song. For example, it is explained that the 20-minute Hiasan is based on small knobbed gongs, called kempuls, which are featured. This minimal piece very effectively uses ancient instruments in the same way modern ambient artists use synthesizers to soothe and relax the listener.

Lilin Dewa rewards both passive and attentive listening, though I highly recommend the latter, to fully appreciate all its nuances and subleties. Though it seems like many are going for a tribal ambient sound these days, something about Lilin Dewa is very refreshing and original. Recommended, especially for fans of ambient with tribal overtones. Phil Derby

FULL BEAVER MOON (21 November 2010)

2010-11-19T00:00:00.002+01:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

AUTUMN SHADE

EZRA MOON

Original Issue: 2007 Strange Attractors Audio House (SAAH049) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

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from http://www.tinymixtapes.com/:

Tulsa, Oklahoma native Jes Leneé’s prematurely world-weary and timeworn vocals may betray a maturity beyond her years, but they also possess a damaged, little-girl-lost quality that suffuses her songcraft with a ghostlike, almost spooky ambience. Her lyrics, however cryptic and ambiguous, are nonetheless conveyed with an anguished candor that reinforces the music’s supernatural affectations, and while she frequently sacrifices profundity for abstraction, Leneé’s nebulous lyrics suit the tone of the music, which has a distinctly antiquated flavor to it. Her voice is expressive, but conversely yearns to convey something inexpressible, as on the beautiful and somewhat distressing “Red,” with its simple yet devastating melody and ominous lyrics.

Ezra Moon, Leneé’s debut release under the name Autumn Shade, illustrates the manner in which an album’s whole dynamic can be altered entirely by its production, and in keeping with her band’s moniker, there is an autumnal, almost gothic quality to these pieces, redolent of gray skies, wet leaves, and wood-smoke haze. The record’s opening instrumental, “Sparrow,” features a delicate piano figure that, with its slightly out-of-tune character suggestive of a creaky upright piano from an Old West saloon, ultimately dematerializes and dissipates as if into a cloud of dust motes. Leneé’s lyrics and plaintive, minor-key chord progressions convey a wistful sense of melancholy that, coupled with the record’s atmosphere, pack an additional emotional wallop. Ornate piano melodies are a testament to Leneé’s background as a classically trained musician and add a subtle hint of color to a generally sepia-toned affair.

Reduced to their constituent elements, which generally include little more than vocals, guitar, and piano, with the occasional violin and hammered dulcimer flourish, the frugal arrangements of these tracks are fairly straightforward. But the filigree production from Derick Snow infuses the music with something spectral and sometimes icy cold. Snow’s production also serves to emphasize the broad dynamic range of the instruments. This technique is manifest on the incredibly haunting “Spanish Willow,” which features a vibrant and animated acoustic guitar line that makes Leneé’s subtly reverbed vocals sound even more spectral and otherworldly, as if those of an apparition beckoning from beyond this mortal coil. Other shorter, more piano-driven tracks act as interludes that showcase the singer’s impressive dexterity on the keys.

Stark as these pieces are, they make amazing use of space; in between guitar strums or the deftly keyed notes of a piano we find ourselves paying attention to the lingering ambience, which seems informed by an earthy resonance. As if to even further emphasize the importance of space, atmosphere, and the visual aspects of Autumn Shade's music, Snow doubles as a live painter on stage. On the whole, Ezra Moon is an exercise in subtlety. Trim and succinct, these 12 tracks showcase the abilities of a talented, budding songwriter, and leave us waiting in earnest for more.

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from http://www.strange-attractors.com/:

Autumn Shade is the nom de plume of Jes Lenee', a stunning young songstress brimming with unbridled talent. Armed with a satchel full of pensively beautiful tunes, Lenee' possesses a voice as pristine as any your ears will have heard in this lifetime. The fact that Lenee' calls Tulsa, Oklahoma home only adds to the mystery, for her music is much more aligned with the astral plane than anything resembling the Okie Plains. Lenee' is a classically trained piano prodigy, who at the age of eleven was penning songs that won award recognition. Ultimately seduced by the craft of songwriting, Autumn Shade is a marriage of her piano prowess and folk-inspired guitar strumming, imbued in a heady ambiance and enveloped in some of the most heavenly, intimate vocals to have come down the pike in some time.

Formed in 2002, the band self-releasing an EP entitled Grandfather's Attic, which caused a stir in the Tulsa and Midwest area; in the live setting, the band incorporates painter Derick Snow, who creates his pieces on stage, allowing the moods to dictate the whim of his creations, lending a tactile visual element to the music. Set to splash with their full-length debut Ezra Moon, Autumn Shade has concocted a fascinating foray into an ethereal, yet emotionally raw netherworld.

Ezra Moon is a journey into a unique sepia-toned microcosm, one that intertwines folk, chamber music, psychedelia, avant-rock and indie singer/songwriter. Opening with the wispy "Sparrow", a delicate piano interlude softly fluttering in and out of focus like a foggy memory, the misty landscape spills into "Home", a folk-inspired lament driven by acoustic strumming and Jes Lenee's yearning vocals. Colored by additional instrumentation of violin, hammer dulcimer and percussion, and a healthy penchant for sonic experimentation, the narcotic, detached feel of Ezra Moon is reminiscent of albums by the female artists that helped define the 4AD sound. Jes Lenee's classical roots and compositional sense invoke the avant-chamber feel of Rachel's, if they were enveloped in the hazy folk atmosphere that Marissa Nadler resides in. Ezra Moon is an entrancing debut, inaugurating Autumn Shade into the contemporary folk scene with an understatedly personal and cinematic sound.

SAMHAIN (31 October 2010)

2010-10-29T00:00:00.003+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

BRADSHOW-LEATHER DON

THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US

Original Issue: 1972 Distance (DIST101)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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from All Music Guide:

The music on this bizarre double album from 1972 is somewhere between gothic horror and psychedelic. Don Bradshaw Leather was apparently some kind of British occult group who self-released this album with no credits. (Also, on the record cover the name is spelled "Bradsham-Leather," not Bradshaw Leather, as it is referred to in everything from the Nurse With Wound list to the book and web guide on early U.K. psychedelic rock -Tapestry of Delights.)

The title track, which takes up the first two sides, begins with some spooky piano rambling and then more mysterious sounds are added in. Soon tribal rhythms pound away while an organ seeps in with more creepy tones. The track gets a bit more intense as the organ and piano jam with the rhythms. Though most of it is instrumental, some wordless female vocals appear toward the end of side one, as the music settles down slightly.

The rest of Distance Between Us is quite similar -- spooky organ and keyboard chords, obsessive piano plinking, primitive drum circle-style percussions, and other mysterious noises and drones in the background, with an overall pervasive gothic ambience, a horror film/cinematic feel. At times quiet and restrained, other times full of freaked-out energy, parts of this would not be out of place on one of Shinjuku Thief's Witch albums. The obsessively scary mood is sustained over all four sides.

Rolf Semprebon

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from http://blog.wfmu.org/:

Who the hell is Don Bradshaw-Leather? Not much is known about him, but his self-released LP Distance Between Us (Distance Records, 1972) is certainly one bizarre egg. It's on the infamous Nurse With Wound list of Steven Stapleton's favourite weird records, so it's no wonder that this was brought to my attention by David Late Tibet of Current 93 (and sometime NWW collaborator). David sent me a copy and described it as a strange DIY horror symphony beyond words, and it indeed is difficult to describe.

There's hardly a thing about this double LP on the web besides want lists and offers for sale (it seems to be averaging around $200 for original vinyl), though rumor has it that Don was a wealthy hippie (some say a member of Barclay-James Harvest, which David refutes) who was squatting around London in the early 1970's, whereabouts unknown now.

The four lengthy tracks here ("Distance Between Us" Parts 1 & 2, "Dance of the Goblins", and "Autumn Mist") are dense, swirling, and hellish tapestries of blurred instrumentation, squawking voices buried in the mix, and seemingly no layout of progression from point A to point B in various movements (i.e. it's all a giant progression, but almost like a dog chasing its tail in a mad frenzy). Tracks have the leanings of some epic Messiaen pieces in some ways, though imagine Bradshaw-Leather taking his symphony and filtering it through some kind of lo-fi source like a boombox or something and then just went bananas in the post-mix. And if the front cover wasn't insane enough, he's again in Wolfman-garb on the back with a screaming topless woman. The whole sleeve package seems to be hand-cut and stitched as well.

FULL HUNTERS' MOON (22 October 2010)

2010-10-20T00:00:00.007+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

LAIBACH

NATO

Original Issue: 1994 Mute Records (CDSTUMM121) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

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Miscellaneous reviews:

Following the 1992's "Kapital" and the launch of their new republic (don't ask), Laibach are back. You may remember their reinvention of Queen's "One Vision" as stirring Volk anthem, which somehow managed to highlight some peculiarly common ground between Nuremberg and Freddie Mercury ("Ein Fleisch!/Ein Mensch..."). You may even remember their slow detonation of "Sympathy For The Devil", reinvented as a funereal postcard from hell. Laibach have always been scary and hilarious - mostly at the same time. "NATO", I'm delighted to say, exceeds even their most burlesque moments.

Apparently, "NATO" is inspired by the state of flux gripping Eastern Europe. But don't let that put you off the fact that Laibach's penchant for dignying silly pop songs like Status Quo's "In The Army Now" with absurdly operatic pomp and Teutonic portent, reveals them to be more akin to a kind of solemn Slovenian Frank Sidebottom. On Europe's "The Final Countdown" Milan scarily intones, "We're heading for Venus/But still we stand tall", and immediately the poodle-permed rockers become ashen-faced harbringers of the apocalypse. Elsewhere, the album's theme of changing world orders takes the Holst ("The Planets"), Pink Floyd ("Dogs Of War") and Edwin Star ("War"), relocated within Laibach's grand vision of a Europe in flux at the of the millennium. Nostradamus, Wagner, Giorgio Moroder and the Warsaw Pact make ideal bedfellows. Quite how Laibach have kept a straight face for so long, is something I'll never understand. I wouldn't have them any other way though.

Peter Paphides, Time Out, 19 - 26 October 1994

It's always been very difficult to pin Laibach down to a particular style. Certain ingredients of their sound (a dark orchestral feel, heavily accented, sepulchral vocals) have remained relatively constant, and allowed the easy identification of their work. However, the context within which those characteristic features are used has varified widely. They've done everything from stage-related concept albums such as "Macbeth" to all - cover releases like "Let It Be" and "Sympathy For The Devil".

"NATO" fuses both of these extremes into a seamless whole, an album with a consistent theme that is implemented entirely through cover versions. Rather than stick with a single artist, the group have selected material from a number of sources and fed it through the Laibach mincer. Not all of the songs chosen were originally on the theme of war, but given their talent for making almost anything sound like it was recorded at a Red Army requiem disco, this isn't important.

First up is "NATO" itself. At some time in the dim distant past this track was Gustav Holst's "Mars" but Laibach have, in typically awkward fashion, taken the most intrinsically warlike piece of music on the album, and added a dance beat and assorted electronic burbles to produce a bizarre cross of full orchestra and lightweight techno that updates Holst's pre - First World War piece to an age of electronic warfare and laser - guided munitions. It works, but Laibach's interpretation is rather less doom - laden than the original, allowing it to meet the other metamorphosed covers here halfway.

Edwin Starr's "War" is equally unconventional. Part contemporary techno, part Laibach theatrics, the lyrics here have been cleverly altered so that Starr's original rhetorical question of "War - what is good for?" is for once actually answered. Science, religion, domination and communication, according to Laibach. More specifically, they list (among others) GM, IBM, Newsweek, CNN, Universal, Siemens, Sony... the list goes on. Very cleverly done, both musically and lyrically, even if Laibach's list of martial benefactors seems a little odd at times. Sony? Aren't they purely a consumer electronics firm? Or did I somehow miss the launch of the Bombman?

The first single taken from this album, a cover of Europe's "The Final Countdown", was a highly commercial mixture of lightweight Euro - disco and the usual Laibach ingredients. When I heard the single, I suspected the album version would be rather less explicitly dancefloor friendly.

I was right, but not to be expected degree. The version here does indeed suggest that the Pet Shop Boys have run off to a remote Balkan castle and begun experimenting with a pipe organ the size of a house and a heavily accented choir, but it's still rather more poppy and rather less overblown and pompous than I'd hoped. Still, it's pretty good and would certainly have Joey Tempest turning in his grave if he was dead in anything but a musical sense.

The thought of Laibach covering Status Quo is strange enough in itself but the blunt reality of it is stranger still. Their rendition of "In The Army Now" is recognizable, but reshapes the song in Laibach's own image as a blend of grandiose choral sequences and a dance beat. It works well but there's really not more I can say about it. Pink Floyd's "Dogs Of War" gets a similar treatment. I'm not familiar with the original, but regardless of how it originally sounded it's now a high BPM techno track with a choir and those gravelly Slovenian tones over the top. Again, it works well although it's difficult to say exactly why.

Probably the most faithful cover here is that of DAF's "Alle Gegen Alle". This is perhaps due to the stark minimalism of the original - there was so little to it to begin with that you can't really add all that much if you want it to remain recognizable. On the top of this, let's face it, even Shirley Temple would sound like DAF if she were to bark German lyrics over a stripped - down militaristic dance beat. Musically, it's very close to the original, but adds the inevitable Laibach vocals and choir, plus an odd choral bridge that suggests Laibach are considering adding the track to a 30s musical spectacular about the Nuremberg rallies.

The next track finds Laibach indulging in a little lyrical meddling, metamorphosing "Indian Reservation" into "National Reservation" with appropriate lyrical changes to slant the song towards the situation of the former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe. It's perhaps not entirely fair to liken the current situation of the Eastern European states to that of native Americans, but musically the track's interesting enough and trundles along nicely.

Their interpretation of the old Zagen And Evans hit "In The Year 2525" hits some rather more firmly. The song was always rather more suited musically to their current approach than most of the material here, but Laibach have done some very interesting things to the track lyrically, replacing the umpteen - thousand years of future history chronicled by the original by a gloomy and decidedly apocalyptic history of the period 1994 - 1999. Those dark Slovenian vocals are perfect here, and manage to convey an incredible sense of world weariness, cynicism and sadness. The minimalist backing track of a thunderous heartbeat works well too.

The album is rounded off by the song I couldn't trace the original of. I know that it was originally "March On River Drina" (read: The War God Mars on River Drina, read: March On River Drina - which is a Serbian military marching anthem from the First World War) but that's about it - the credits for the original versions are, alas, printed rather illegibly on the disc itself rather than in the booklet. It looks like it was composed by Stanislav Binicki, but I'm unsure of the spelling of that surname and with my musical encyclopedia inaccessible can't confirm it. Anyway, regardless of the composer, Laibach's arrangement of the track is excellent. It begins in a dark and warlike vein, punctuated by male and female choirs, eerie moans and groans and a militaristic drumbeat before veering into a more contemporary vein. The slightly cheesy brass is a little odd - one picture Captain Kirk fighting a man in a lizard suit for the hand of a woman with green hair rather than anything military, and the choir sometimes suggests the flying monkeys from the Wizard Of Oz, but there you have it. Very enjoyable, even if it doesn't quite have the desired effect.

Overall, I'm very impressed. As always, it's difficult to compare this to any prior Laibach releases since they never seem to head in quite the same direction twice in succession. However, it's more likely to appeal to those who're into the group's cover material such as "Let It Be" than those who like "Macbeth" or their early work.

The interest here lies less in Laibach's distinctive take - no - prisoners approach to covering other people's material than in what their reinterpretations actually say. There's less parody here than before, with Laibach apparently focusing less on a demolition job of the artists covered than on using their material to get Laibach's own point across.

Of course, that's not to say that the material here couldn't be enjoyed in a parodic sense - "Final Countdown" is, for example, a fine example of the total war approach to cover versions that Laibach have used in the past. There's more to this on though, and it's by turns beautiful and terrible, although not quite to the same degree as their best material. Definitely worth a listen though, and as good an introduction to their more recent sound as anything they've put out in the past few years.

Al Crawford - awrc@access.digex.net

FULL HARVEST MOON (23 September 2010)

2010-09-20T00:00:00.003+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

CHURCH UNIVERSAL AND TRIUMPHANT INC. (THE) FEAT. ELIZABETH CLARE PROPHET

THE SOUNDS OF AMERICAN DOOMSDAY CULTS (VOL. 14)

Original Issue: 1990 Faithways International (No Number)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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from Synrecords.com:

A document of the spellbinding chants, call-and-response decrees, hypnotic invocations and prayers performed against the demon rock'n'roll by the ultra-conservative new age church universal and triumphant, led by charismatic, gun-hoarding nutjob elizabeth clare prophet--who is believed by her followers to be divinely inspired by a host of ascended masters, including merlin the magician, hercules, william shakespeare, jesus christ, gautama buddha, the archangel michael, and other emo legends. humorous for its damnation of seemingly harmless rock stars like billy joel, which explains why negativland and other experimentalists would sample it, this mesmerizing, all-vocal performance should fascinate listeners interested in la monte young's drones, kurt schwitters' "ursonate," or the stringent choral works of ligeti, penderecki and scelsi.

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from Aquarius Records:

It's hard to believe this is real. In fact, it took a lot to convince Andee, who was sure this was some sort of elaborate prank. But it's one of those things that just makes you proud / embarassed to be an American. Elizabeth Clare Prophet purchased 24,000 acres in Paradise Valley, Montana and started The Church Universal and Triumphant, a creepy new age doomsday cult in which Prophet channeled spirits such as Jesus, Buddha, K-17, Morya, Quan Yin, Afra, Hercules, Mighty Victory, Astrea, Shiva, Pope John XXIII, and more. (Sort of like J.Z. Knight of Yelm, Washington and her channelling of "Ramtha" except even more scary.) Prophet and her husband stockpiled arms, built giant bomb shelters, and coerced their devotees to purchase their own survival equipment at exorbitant prices. Throughout its existence various members of CUT were indicted for kidnapping, lost custody of the children who belonged to the church and were investigated for tax exempt status and firearms violations. In 1995 former member Joeseph Pietrangelo Jr wrote a book condemning CUT entitled "Lambs to Slaughter: My Fourteen Years with Elizabeth Clare Prophet and Church Universal Triumphant".
But the thing that really puts CUT on the map for us is their way of conducting their religious services. The tapes of these services have been floating around for years already. Those of you familiar with Negativland's 1989 album "Escape From Noise" will already be familiar with an excerpt of one of the tracks on this album, as they used it for the track "Michael Jackson", and Steve Fisk has been using these tapes for years as well. This record features live recordings of Clare Prophet 'speaking' out against the evils of rock music. She sounds perfectly normal as she introduces her 'psalms' or 'songs' or 'speeches' or whatever they are. But when she gets going, it's amazing. And so goddamn insane sounding. Her rapid fire high pitched testifying sounds a bit like an impossible mix of an auctioneer, a yodeller, the guy who sings the directions at a square dance, Neil Hamburger huffing helium and variations of baseball's 'hey batter batter' chant only faster. It's like that sound you make when you sort of hum/breathe out and move your finger up and down between your lips making a sort of 'bebubebubebubebubebubebubebubebu' sound. It's one of the most amazing things we've ever heard! A must for all cult fanatics, new age withdrawal victims, seekers of the truly strange, and fans of extended, trance-like vocal techniques. Ever so highly recommended! We'd almost have made this cd edition our Record of the Week if we weren't certain that it would probably bug the heck out of more people than (like us) would love it!!

MABON (21 September 2010)

2010-09-19T00:00:00.002+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

LICHENS

OMNS

Original Issue: 2007 Kranky (KRANK 106)

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Margot-meter: 4 moons / 5

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CD-1 Vevor Of Agassou 4:57
CD-2 Faeries 8:19
CD-3 Bune 8:46
CD-4 M st r ng W tchcr ft L v ng n Sp r t. 18:41
CD-5 Sighns 2:27

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from Drownedinsound.com:

I tried listening to Omns while falling asleep, although I didn’t have to try as such - it lulled me there easily, gently. But there’s something abrupt about the record, despite its subtleties. It runs to five tracks in all, and each spans different lengths – the shortest being 2.27, the longest 18.40. And it’s all over the place, extremely vast and explorative. It’s distinctly personal, each listen sounding like a little slice of creation; it is like it was created on the spot in somewhere, although I have no idea where. It’s completely otherworldly; thinking about just one guy making this album is confounding. It’s his own, personal universe, and it’s eerie, ungoverned. It’s very natural; the type of record that seems odd to be reviewing.

It does have some typical ‘experimental’ sounding signifiers: occasional piano tinklings, eerie female vocals wailing in the distance, that analogue, sepia-toned tape-loop effect, delays upon delays. It’s freeform and abstract, though. If there are conventions at work, they are never heavy handed – they are natural, progressive, and innate. Lichens (which is Robert Lowe, by the way, formerly of 90 Day Men) is set in a bizarre dimension of his/their own.

Tracks like ‘Bune’ is lifted straight from Dead Man; it’s even got the same chord progressions, the same pace; it’s Johnny Depp wandering down the dirt road, searching; this song is searching, and the album finds its footing through all these different sounds. It culminates on the longest track, ‘M St r ng W tchcr ft L vng n Sp rt’. In its entirety, it’s a summation of the album and the direction it conveys to me; it goes everywhere, not recklessly but never restrained,_ it just is, ineffably. Hearing _Omns is a very evocative process, and a bewildering one too; it all sounds strangely familiar, especially lying in the dark, conjuring wild and different images of anything and everything.

Sprawling, it rambles along, never with too much audible direction, and that’s most of its charm. The world that Lichens conjures is probably not really somewhere I’d like to go; it’s dark and mysterious and swampy and unlike anywhere else, as intriguing as it is. It’s comparable to the sort of dark, lo-fi folk that is full of ideas that sound - despite their intricacies - like they’ve been laid down all in one go, just on the spot, in a solar flare of inspiration and creation. Visions and epiphanies but no blazing suns: it’s reasonably dark stuff, but always with an ear and eye towards the light. Facing down a dark dirt road, sometimes lit by headlights, sometimes just pitch black, you can make out the stars. It’s compelling.

FULL STURGEON MOON (24 August 2010)

2010-08-24T00:01:00.000+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

FALKENSTEIN

HEILIGER WALD
UNDARBRUNNEN

Original Issue: 2008 Kraftplatz (KRPL 01) Buy it here!!!
Original Issue: 2008 Kraftplatz (KRPL 02) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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Do not forget to take a look at the comments section :-)

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from Heathen Harvest:

I was stepping right behind this band since the last year, marauding after it like a hunter behind a magnificent elk through high peaks and somber woods. This image may very well represent the mood of the music contained in “Urdarbrunnen” second album from this fantastic German neo-folk conformation dealing with nature, mysticism and a clear medieval influx in a way that presents them as an original and highly qualified musical compendium of the newest neo-folk breed. The production runs by none less than Axel Frank which adds with his presence a special insight and somehow magical aura. This is one of the best works from 2008 without a doubt, so get ready for the hunt. In the end this magical forest entity represented in the music from Falkenstein submits any hunter to his simple observation and respect, like any creature from Herne’s reign should do.

The tranquil melancholy that slips from the very first chord comes as cold breeze, a cloud of delicate drops of water splashing from a huge water cascade(just like the art cover!) marked by the snare that gives a touch of strong spiritual martialness. These following the tradition of classic neo-folk instrumentation: Guitar, dual male chorus and tenor like voice accompanied by delicate snares and a drum that serves as a vivid natural heart beat the music follows its introductory course with “Funkenfeuer” displaying all the awesome quality from Falkenstein at first sight. A quality of mystery derive from the voice at moments and a sense of ritual repetitiveness beautifully accommodates the more enhanced musical parts and chorus, making it more appellative and delicious for the listener, enjoying every bit of each passage represented. “Sonnerkraut” introduces a sweet flute melody that daintily settles like falling leaves in the music cadence, giving this soft touch that slips the listener in a very romantic and inspired pathos, subtle and gently compensated with the tenor tone of the vocals, a vocal set that sounds earthly and revitalizing. “Unter der weide” comes in a more epic Germanic fashion, accentuating the percussive aspect and introducing a synth line that comes as trumpets from forgotten castles while the guitar strolls with strong rhythmic passages, here the works starts to deliver more strength than beforehand just to increase this direction in the following songs. “Erlkoenig” & “Die odaliske” synchronizes both aspects; the melancholic bucolic feeling and some well poured folky martial touch but still able to preserve the subtlety and delicacy that consolidates their composition.

It is on “Grau sind masken” that the music takes again a distinctive turning point that exalts the spirit of any sensible listener, reaffirming the pathos and the vanguard of its unique sound . Slowly the guitar and the flute manifest its peaceful pastoral cadence, a beautifully crafted melody that achieves both the impression of the heart and the spirit aflame and then, right in the middle of the song just like an accidental apparition the rhythmic equilibrium and traditional pace gets switch into a thunderous folk march in a quasi sixties operative outburst fashion, a bit of protest music accent is perceived as influence and the trouvadoresque guitar play is really a vanguard bet in here. This song alone comes as one of the aces from the whole compendium of great songs that constitute the album, truly the pounding heart from the body work.

Now the album steps away again from the predetermined formula from the songs beforehand and the neo-folk tradition. The addition of a violin accompanying the guitar along with the excellent vocal and chorus arrangements transcends the common ground of other neo-folk formations giving the music an almost classic tonality by means of composition. All the elements and turns contained, all the wide versatile musical display of the work shows the outstanding power and capacity from this band and its rather difficult not to get impressed by the music or the spiritual quest inside its core, track by track there is an evident union that adheres to each piece making a wholeness that puts the listener in a position where its a guest and advocator.

“Siegfried schwert” comes as another division this time mixing pastoral like cadence with the epic tone displayed at some sections. It is important to note that the martial tone is never obfuscating or predominant but rather accomplishes a moral accompaniment that diverts the spirit and empower the melody. Not a march but rather an endorsement to the natural cadence of the folk tune. The following songs: “Der sonnwendmann”, “Halfdan, Ragnar’s son”, “Blummentod” and “Walpurgisnacht” accomplish a narrative quest full of mythos and more traditional neo-folk construction respecting the distinctive aspect that defines Falkenstein, particular cadence, use of rhythmic drums, flutes and snare with the Spanish guitar rambling its excellently crafted melodies and everything fusing perfectly in a whole resume of incomparable beauty and ecstatic sensibility. Another surprise awaits the listener with the apparition of “Weltenbaum” a song that originally appeared on the first album takes here a different approach, introducing the flute as prologue to later commence with the chorus and from there on preserving the ritual martialness available on the previous version, comparatively beautiful in its own particular incarnation. This ritual aspect in the drum section marks a rule inside the album and serves a practical functionality for the epilogue as the final song increases this sentiment. “Heiliger holunder” is markedly ritual and remits to strange mountain ceremonies around a gigantic blaze with people dancing at night, the chorus and the rhythm marks an almost tribal cadence while the guitar and the drum join arms in their mighty graceful dance. The reign of Falkenstein is now fully explored in this album with this final ritual.

The sweetness and light found inside this album transcends the common stereotyped notion from standard neo-folk associations, ritualistic and melancholic with heavy influx of classic arrangements, ingrainedly melodic the works centres its magic from the chemical perfection of all these aggregations . Its originality comes from the extremely elasticity and fragility that comes from every piece although preserving a strange modus operandi that allows drums to play their role without devastating the sweet cadence of the melody. The chorus lines made with two male voices, both tenor, one high pitched and the other low adds another special touch to the magic that Falkenstein summons with their music. A band that steps away from the stagnation of the genre by giving mobility and vanguard to their compositions, aside from adding uncommon aspects to the neo-folk aesthetic, who said classic composition and ritual martialness, folky melodies and graceful heathenism cannot coexist together? “Urdarbrunnen” teaches an important lesson in musical heterogeneity and syncretism, the marvellous configuration of apparent dissimilar orders and finalities (just like ritual folklore and classicism joining together and fitting perfectly) that presents a sense of union during the whole work, making song by song and track by track a cohesive and inspiring experience for the listener. Very well worked, highly recommended!

MARGOT'S HOLY GRAILS (brand new musick => no download link provided)

2010-08-06T00:00:00.002+02:00

PHILIPS DAVE

?

Original Issue: 2010 Heart & Crossbone (HCB 026) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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1 Untitled 2:12
2 Untitled 1:21
3 Untitled 12:21
4 Untitled 7:58
5 Untitled 9:21
6 Untitled 5:37
7 Untitled 5:29
8 Untitled 15:51
9 Untitled 8:55
10 Untitled 10:33

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Miscellaneous Reviews:

? comes to us from Israeli noise/metal label Heart And Crossbones, and it's one of his creepiest recordings. ? continues in the disturbing, surreal vein as his other releases, but with a series of sounds that generates stronger feelings of fear and uneasiness, as if someone has commissioned Dave Phillips to create his version of a horror movie score. The ten tracks are based around field recordings that have been augmented with actual composed musical parts, like clusters of dark lower register piano that echo through recordings of rainfall and fields of mysterious clattering and clanging noises, Carpernter-esque synths, and distorted accordion drones and wisps of bowed cello strings that appear in between strange smooching and slapping sounds, a door being loudly shut (a recurrent sound that reappears throughout the album), droning insectile buzz, nocturnal forest sounds, random laughter, deep gong-like reverberations, brutally loud crashing metal, heavy footsteps, and crushing walls of white noise. Whenever vocal sounds appear on Phillips's recordings, it's usually in the form of grotesque vomiting or retching or choking sounds that assault the listener, but on ?, we hear voices that range from haunting (ghostly voices, angelic chorals) to the demonic (impossibly deep throat singing, and horrific screams of pain). Some of the most chilling moments on the album appear on the third and the final tracks: the former evolves into a disturbing soundscape of deep pitch-shifted beast-like groans and demonic grunting over the orgasmic moans and gasps of women that are looped over and over, a hallucinatory tangle of samples and grotesque voices that eventually morphs into an eerie chamber-string drone, later joined by recordings of owls, random backwards sounds run through trippy FX, and an sad, melancholic accordion melody; the last track is dark piano-led minimalism and Lustmordian blackness, the sounds all subtly warped and tweaked, creating an off-center, nightmarish feel that goes on for more than ten minutes. From beginning to end, this is an intense and agitated performance that has long empty fields of quiet torn apart by sudden eruptions of unsettling noise. Full color digipack packaging. (http://www.crucialblastshop.net)

'?'. It was recorded 'during a period dominated by severe disturbances of loss, mental abysses and despair' and yes, we are not in for some fun for the next eighty minutes. Normally I would complain about the length of such a release, but somehow it all seems to make sense here. The shortest piece is just over one minute, the longest just under sixteen. And it seems to be without the sort of noise those earlier mentioned youngsters care about: Phillips uses loops, piano, concrete sounds, very little sound effects, so all the sounds are as a dry as possible, cello, accordion and voice material (sighing, moaning, crying) and the sounds of torture the human body. Like I said, nothing conservative noise here, but quite a depressing album altogether. Low bass sound here and there, obscured field recordings and such like make up the backbone, and top these repeating sound fragments of instruments and voices. Bleak, dark stuff. Not much information on the cover to go by, but depression has not be made that clear in quite some time. A creepy record, not for the weak of heart and mind. That's true noise for you. (Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly)

I was expecting to be confronted by a wall 30 second howls of apocalyptic rage and instead I’m being gently caressed by a set of introspective and vaguely psychedelic ambient(ish) pieces. Phillips has undergone a sea-change on this album and has shown a markedly different side to his creativity through the use of accordion, cello, piano & field recordings. The music is beautifully composed (in both senses of the word) with subtle nuances that reward repeated, and close, listens. It’s an absolute joy to hear a musician step waaaay outside his comfort zone and it’s an extra special joy when he does it this well. (www.wonderfulwoodenreasons.co.uk)

Recorded "during a period dominated by severe disturbances of loss, mental abysses and despair", ? does not shy away from expressing those traits. Notes tapped on the lower register of a piano and a weeping accordion signify utter depression amid Phillips's exceptional use of nocturnal field recordings. Owls, crickets, warehouse resonance and forest noises form a hallucinatory, slow-moving concoction; but it's his use of the human voice that makes this album so unsettling. A male voice, pitchshifted to a demonic other, laughs and grunts amid spiralling snippets of a female voice caught somewhere between orgasm and pain. The interaction between these recurring voices reflects the voyeuristic qualities of Luc Ferrari's concrète pieces, with Phillips pushing the psychosexual drama to the brink of self-annihilation. (Jim Haynes, The Wire July 2010)

? collects compositions built around all manner of field recordings, metallic crashes, babbling textures and, indeed, the occasional tidal wave of static white attack. What’s most noticeable is the pervasive sense of genuine unease and moodiness, though. Throughout the layers of breathy vocals, groaning, minimal piano keys, swirling rumbles seemingly beamed in from the ether, cracking sounds, accordian, dissonant tones, birdsong and so on, an alarming amount of space and restraint is given to retaining an atmosphere that soaks on all from sombreness to something more distinctly menacing. If anything, there are vague parallels with some of Andrew Liles’ work, but perhaps with a rather more sober edge. No bad thing at all, as there’s only one Liles and, well, ? suggests yet another artist whose back catalogue must be well worth exploring in its own right. So much for my expectations. Those HCB boys have gone and done it again! (Richard Johnson, www.fourth-dimension.net)

LAMMAS (01 August 2010)

2010-07-31T00:00:00.002+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

WALL JOHN

ALTERSTILL

Original Issue: 1995 UtterPsalm (UtterPsalm CD2)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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1 Fragmenta 11:04
2 Alterstill (Nothing Is Sacred) 10:17
3 Belief Not 8:57
4 Stunde Null (I) 7:06
5 Stunde Null (II) 11:38

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from All Music Guide:

The first in British composer John Wall's beautifully designed series on the Utterpsalm label, this limited-edition CD comes in a card-booklet slipcase. Housed inside is an aggressive and disorientating series of sample-based works, like a contemporary classical suite, although some of the chosen sample material is fairly unorthodox, such as Carcass; the power of the metal group is used to great effect juxtaposed against samples of contemporary classical, musique concrète, and free improvisations from the outer regions of 20th century music.

Sample sources range from Scelsi, Luigi Nono, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and company through to European free improvisation, black metal, and '70s Krautrock. John Wall's compositions sit nicely alongside the works of Rioji Ikeda, or some of the contemporary musique concrète from the French Metamkine CD series. Erik M, John Oswald, and Oval are all points of reference, although John Wall's vision and process is unique.

Few artists work with the attention to detail -- from production through to packaging and presentation, the work is beautiful. Rumored to have spent literally years making albums, it is easy to believe when hearing the complexities of the fine electro-acoustic transformations.

Sylvie Harrison

FULL BUCK MOON (25 July 2010)

2010-07-21T00:00:00.003+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

BLACKSHAW JAMES

LOST PRAYERS AND MOTIONLESS DANCES

Original Issue: 2005 Digitalis (digi008) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

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1. Lost Prayers And Motionless Dances

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from Jazzloft:

An absolutely monumental recording, Lost Prayers and Motionless Dances re-examines many of the themes that were explored on Celeste and distills them into one brilliant 35-minute composition that is full of excitement and surprise. The piece begins with a harmonium drone and acoustic 12-string, tuned to the guitar-unfriendly C-F-C-F-C-F (I can't find any examples of this tuning being used elsewhere) and unfolds beautifully. Blackshaw moves effortlessly from Takoma-inspired picking into electroacoustic improvisation and concludes with 12-string, harmonium and ride cymbal falling into a blissed-out circular folk groove that is absolutely infectious.

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from Boomkat:

'Lost Prayers And Motionless Dances' is a single thirty-five minute composition, opening with droning harmonium passages and only revealing the guitar part - inevitably the ace up Blackshaw's sleeve - after a good eight minutes of toying with you. Thereafter, Blackshaw's fluency with Eastern modes and sitar-like figures becomes the central attraction, dressing the piece in an enormously elaborate display of fingerpicking, but eventually it all melts away into a state of drone, leaving only echoes, jangling bells and radio static. It's one of Blackshaw's more abstract moments, but soon the guitar returns for a coda at a more stately pace, supported by thudding kick drum, drawing the piece to a suitably regal close.

FULL STRAWBERRY MOON (26 June 2010)

2010-06-27T00:00:00.003+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

PAAVOHARJU

LAULU LAAKSON KUKISTA

Original Issue: 2008 Fonal (FR-55) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

Without any doubt "Laulu Laakson Kukista"/"Uskallan" were my 2008 Record/Song of the Year.

Band profile states: Bollywood music, church hymns, beautiful pop tunes and ambient esoteric noises

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1. Pimeänkarkelo
2. Kevätrumpu
3. Tuoksu tarttuu meihin
4. Italialaisella laivalla
5. Alania
6. Uskallan
7. Ursulan uni
8. Kirkonväki
9. Salainen huone
10. Tyttö tanssii
11. Sumuvirsi
12.

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from Cokemachineglow:

The everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to instrumentation is typically associated with lo-fi aesthetics. Paavoharju are out to change that. Even more than the fantastic Yhä Hämärää (2005), Laulu Laakson Kukista translates the homespun psych-folk that distinguishes the Fonal label into near-epic, shockingly lush strokes of impressionist pop. Here also is everything that lies in between classical orchestration and musique concrete; the music of Paavoharju constantly expands and contracts in ways which are humble, majestic, and just out-and-out phenomenal. The fact that the band happens to be part of a mysterious Finnish commune of devout Christians is probably dwelt on too much in reviews, but it’s pertinent in at least one way: how else do you explain something so labored over and yet so earnest and void of pretension, except to say that the band’s channeling something greater than themselves? Suffice it to say speculation about what exactly makes this band so vivid and unlike anything else out there at the moment is bound to produce hypotheses of questionable substance and more than a little delirium, but bear with me—this music is more than worth it.

Comparisons to other music are as inevitable as they are insufficient; there’s any number of maverick acts out there that I could compare Paavoharju to. But that comparison would only work to describe a sense of shared ground with other bands that use any and all means to achieve a specific sound. Rather, I’d hazard to say that Paavoharju are one of the first bands to fully incorporate what found-sound masters like Philip Jeck have developed into a pop framework. Which is to say that Laulu Laakson Kukista sounds like fragments of a thousand pop records, but rather than assembling them into a drifting ambient landscape like Jeck the band build these fragments back into pop songs. Now, they don’t try and pass it off as straightforward pop; they allow all the static, disembodied voices and samples, and lost/undiscovered choral etudes to organically coalesce into silken, marmoreal slices of transcendence, and then they allow them to break apart again. For example, the fact that “Kevätrumpu” carries melodies that wouldn’t be out of place on an Annie or Róisín Murphy single is astounding in itself; the fact that the static and backwards AM radio samples are always poised around its Röyksopp-esque production in an almost subliminal way is something like a miracle. The modus operandi of this album, besides attempting to unite virtually every contemporary strain of Scandinavian music from Peter Bjorn & John to Kemialliset Ystävät, could be to show how much even the slickest pop will someday become an artifact.

Still, the fact that it’s not—that this is the premeditated, controlled work of a specific group of people (even if the details and credits are somewhat hazy)—is what casts this beast beyond the realm of accidental masterpieces. Leena Uotila’s voice is central, or at least as central as it’s possible to be in a sonic universe where everything is ephemeral, and she sings in crystal-clear soprano, offering up the strange persistence of clarity amidst the blooming chaos of nature. Some of the more pop-oriented tracks feel like lost torch songs, blasting through the fury of static and crumbling instruments as if they needed to announce themselves with unabashed grandeur before they drown in the noise. This quality is equally evident on the tracks where whoever handles the male vocals sings, especially “Uskallan”: opening and closing with the cut-up sound of a baby gasping for air, the track builds into a disco-rhythm with synths alternately smooth and static-drenched threatening to consume the vocals halfway through.

The melodies are astounding on their own—even if you don’t speak Finnish—but far more important is how the band refuses to take them for granted. Outside of the disco-pop of “Uskallan” and “Kevätrumpu,” melody is treated in a similar way to Alejandra & Aeron’s documentary/folk field recording Bousha Blue Blazes (2003): melodies are employed as a means of evoking another time and place, and considering how much of Laulu Laakson Kukista picks through Romantic and Baroque relics, it succeeds brilliantly. Of course, in the spirit of an album which constantly refuses to be pinned down, this is only half the story: sometimes the band breaks through with something so immediate and bracing it’s hard to believe it sits perfectly alongside the album’s restless experimentation. “Italialaisella Laivalla” is instructive in this regard: it starts as a simple folk song with gentle guitar-picking and vocals but then begins to introduce menacing electronics and bows scraping against strings erratically. But this dark shroud is only hinted at; the song breaks off into an outro of slow, carnivalesque French accordion. It sounds like something that should be too suffocating in its wealth of ideas to be evocative, but somehow in combination it creates something listless and urgent at the same time, like The Catcher in the Rye.

If there’s any relationship between Paavoharju and other contemporary Christian music, it lies in the fact that both tend to completely ignore all sense of “fashionable” melody in favour of something achingly naïve and immediate. There are also the traditional choral arrangements of piano/organ/vocals on tracks like “Sumuvirsi” and “Kirkonväki”; these melodies reflect Bach and a long tradition of church music moreso than anything current. The latter track also happens to feature some demented, horribly distorted and slowed-down voices, though oddly they only add to the reverence of the track as a whole.

Which brings me to my one point of contention, or at least confusion. The band makes a point of stating their Christian beliefs in what little publicity they offer and even state in their website’s 10-point primer that they’re “against the use of drugs.” Far be it from me to challenge the band’s beliefs, and I can even understand to a certain extent the latter point—when Agaetis Bryjun (1999) dropped Sigur Rós made a point of disavowing any relationship between their music and narcotics and perhaps Paavoharju have a similar agenda—but it seems that as a perceptual experience Laulu Laakson Kukista is too open to decry any method that one might use to approach it, drugs included. And while much of its strength lies in its sense of sober precision, it’s a long cry from asceticism. Maybe I need to understand the Finnish lyrics to comprehend the band’s spiritual convictions, and yet when I listen to them I can’t help but feel something that transcends any specific religion: something that involves purity and innocence, and darkness and light and struggle. Perhaps it’s proof that an artist’s statement always betrays the intentions of the artist, as all these emotional triggers will combine in different ways for every listener. Maybe that’s the real spiritual value of the album: rather than impress their personal convictions, the band acts as a conduit for all these forces to combine and radiate like a prism.

Joel Elliott

LITHA (21 June 2010)

2010-06-18T00:00:00.003+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

VARIOUS ARTISTS

VOR DER FLUT (Hommage An Einen Wasserspeicher)

Original Issue: 1985 Eigelstein Musikproduktion (ES 2025/26CD) Buy it here!

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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1 Christian Bollmann , Doris Zeman , Gerd Kappelhoff , Helmut Scherner , Jochen Vetter , Roberto Laneri , Stephanie Wolf - Invocationes 2:59
2 Dario Domingues - Pacha Siku 3:40
3 Pauline Oliveros - Watertank Software 4:41
4 Büdi Siebert , Joe Koinzer - Trüffeltanz 4:14
5 Jochen Vetter , Doris Zeman , Gerd Kappelhoff , Helmut Scherner , Jochen Vetter - Praevocationes 5:25
6 Dario Domingues - The Spirit Of The Wind 3:44
7 Pauline Oliveros - The Gentle-Short Version 5:42
8 Büdi Siebert - Wal-Hall-A 4:47
9 Saxophon Mafia - Kellerdschungel 4:50
10 Conrad Bauer - Bötz 10:05
11 Butz Dähn , Michael Höhler , Wolfgang Hamm - Unter Der Stadt 6:52
12 Heiner Goebbels - Die Sintflut - Ein Vorfilm Für Herbert Achternbusch 6:29

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from liner notes :

In December 1984 musicians from different countries and the 'Tanzforum der Oper/Köln' met in the almost 100 years old drinking water tank SEVERIN, located on the southside of Cologne, for an exceptional music and dance project.
The recordings of this compact disc testify for the unique acoustics of this subterranean colonnade. All takes have only been recorded with microphones distributed throughout the tank, without using any additional studio effect equipment."

The water reservoir was empty for 2 years for construction works. The longest audible reverb recorded at the empty tank lasts approximately 45 seconds. After the project the water tank was flooded again with about 20 million litres of drinking water.

FULL FLOWER MOON (27 May 2010)

2010-05-22T00:00:00.003+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

ÄLGARNAS TRÄDGÅRD

Framtiden Är Svävande Skepp, Förankrat I Forntiden

Original Issue: 1972 Silence (SRS 4611) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

One of the most incredible psychedelic albums coming out of the '70s!

ESSENTIAL LISTENING

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1 Two Hours Over Two Blue Mountains With A Cuckoo On Each Side, Of The Hours... That Is 13:13
2 There Is A Time For Everything, There Is A Time When Even Time Will Meet... 6:10
3 Children Of Possibilities 3:12
4 La Rotta 1:41
5 Viriditas 2:59
6 Rings Of Saturn 7:15
7 The Future Is A Hovering Ship, Anchored In The Past 5:06
8 5/4 10:26
9 The Mirrors Of Gabriel

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from Forced Exposure:

Älgarnas Trädgård's name translates as "Garden of the Elks" and this debut album has always stood as one of the pinnacles of underground psychedelic rock -- comparable to early Pink Floyd, Group 1850 and other world masters of space-out genius.

The title translates as The Future is a Hovering Ship Anchored in the Past. The group employed an instrumental array made of: violins, rebec, cello, guitars, sitar, piano, zither, organ flutes, zinks, jew's harps, tablas, percussion, Moog-synthesizer & VC-3 Putney-synthesizer.

Recorded at Studio Decibel in 1971, this CD reissue adds two bonus live tracks from 1972. From Dan Söderqvist's notes: "We have known each other since 1968, when we met in our home neighborhood Västra Frölunda, Gothenburg.

We listened to everything; Perotinus heavenly choirs from the 13th century, Messien's heavy works for orchestra, Beefheart's Safe as Milk, with it's surreal lyrics, King Crimson's endless string of chords, the beautiful acoustic Third Ear Band, Terry Riley's minimalism and above all the psychedelic music of early Pink Floyd.

Sometimes we played our 'dägga-däng-music', crazy rhythmical plays with acoustic guitars and hysterical giggles. Sometimes we just sat and listened to the sounds slowly disappearing into space ... We experimented with getting strange sounds out of our instruments, started to use amplifiers and played with echoes ... We constantly expanded our possibilities to get new sounds, with organs, mouth harps and pedals ... We got our hands on the first Moog module system that just about had reached Sweden. We mixed Middle Age instruments such as zinks and rebecs, sound effects, church bells, fragments of both Bach and The Beatles and improvised our way through the first album.

BELTANE (01 May 2010)

2010-05-02T00:00:00.003+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

MNORTHAM & JGRZINICH

THE STOMACH OF THE SKY

Original Issue: 1997 Staalplaat (STCD 115)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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1 Eluvium - Separate Material Accumulations, Or At Least Only Shifted By The Wind
2 Remanent Magnetism - The Memory Of C. Kelvin Physically Manifested In The Structure Of A Leaf
3 Geochronologic Formation - This Eye Can Only Be Seen By A Change Of Perception

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from Aquarius Records:

MNortham (who has previously been sighted on the fantastic Ora album Anagram and in recent collaboration with Francisco Lopez) and JGrzinich are sound artists investigating the properties of various organic acoustic forms, making use of long wire devices, found materials, assembled devices, aeolian wind harps, and a field recordings. Culled from years of collaborative recordings, The Stomach Of The Sky begins with extended rumble of densely layered sounds -- very much like the latest Lopez field recording work. Then the duo introduces a delicate metallic drones / scrapes / gurgles which could come from the Organum / Andrew Chalk school of bowed cymbals and gongs or from a processed field recording of water running through copper pipes. Either way, it's a beautiful magnetic tone.

FULL PINK MOON (28 April 2010)

2010-04-18T00:00:00.004+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN

TABULA RASA

Original Issue: 1993 Mute (BETON 106 CD) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

"Blume" and "Wüste" still resonating and haunting me from 1993!

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1 Die Interimsliebenden
2 Zebulon
3 Blume
4 12305(te Nacht)
5 Sie
6 Wüste

Headcleaner
7.I Zentrifuge / Stabs / Rotlichtachse Propaganda / Aufmarsch
7.II Einhorn
7.III Marschlied /
8 Das Gleissen / Schlacht
8.IV Lyrischer Rückzug

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from http://www.sputnikmusic.com/:

Latin for clean slate, its an apt title it would be the last album with Mark Chung and Muffi. The album opens with Die Interimsliebenden, with a funky bass by Alexander Hacke. Immediately you are struck by the lack of metallic noise and how melody is beginning to move to the fore.

Zebulon is spare and gentle melody and vocal harmonies devoid of any percussion until it explodes in the last minute or so. Still the release is lacks the abrasion of previous works.
Fans may at this point begin to feel that neubauten have softened and they may be right but then they are missing the point.

Neubauten have began to expand their sound, use noise more sparingly and effective. Blume is a haunting melody, lead by female vocals with Bargelds whispers under pinning it, at times dreamy and other times filled with sadness.

12305 (Te Nacht) is electronic beeps and metal scrapings and droning, not the strongest track but by no means filler.

Sie sees the band swap metal pipes for plastic tubing, a technique that they will reuse throughout later albums, at least until the end of the track where it comes in sparingly. While not as harsh as their more metallic songs, it still has the same intensity.

Wuste is a stand out track, using strings for the first time in a Neubauten album, as well as sand and burning oil. It starts off largely instrumental sounding like a Philip Glass composition, before
Blixa's whispered vocals creep in, at times they are barely audible over weird sounds and strings. Then the song abruptly ends.

Headcleaner builds from a low to hum over 1.03 mins punctuated by metallic percussion then dies down only start up again, and does this over its 15 mins.
Every time explodes the band throw themselves full long into sound smashing metal against metal recalling the glorious collapse of their debut kollapse.

Hearing it now the tension of the track it sounds like percussionist Muffi trying to drown out Bargeld and the rest of the band, it becomes easy to use the song as a metaphor for the inner tensions of the band and how they would never record another song as chaotic or tense as this track.

tomwaits4noman

FULL WORM MOON (29 March 2010)

2010-03-27T21:25:00.004+01:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

FERN KNIGHT

MUSIC FOR WITCHES AND ALCHEMISTS

Original Issue: 2006 VHF (vhf#101) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

IMHO, the more beautiful folk-related album of 2006

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1 Song For Ireland
2 Awake, Angel Snake
3 W. Memphis
4 Murder Of Crows
5 Lintworme, Pt. I
6 Marble Grey
7 Shingle River
8 The Dirty South
9 Summer Of Throg
10 What The Crows Left Behind
11 Lullaby

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from Boomkat:

Fern Knight is guitarist, cellist and singer Margie Wienk in collaboration with a revolving cast of musicians, in this instance largely culled from the Espers line-up (Meg Baird, Greg Weeks and the ubiquitous Otto Hauser). As you can tell from both the artist name and album title, this project really isn't going out of its way to avoid the faerie folk typecasting acts like Espers are associated with, and sure enough Ms. Wienk guides her troupe of followers through the acid folk haunted wood with aplomb. As is often the case with this scene, much of the influence here has been taken from English folk fusion groups from the '60s and '70s. Opener, 'Song For Ireland' has that hypnotic Wicker Man feel that's referenced so often by this music, while 'Awake, Angel Snake' contains some of Greg Weeks' curiously medieval sounding acid lead guitar. As the album starts to draw to a close, 'What The Crows Left Behind' proves to be one of the finest things here; an upbeat waltz featuring Jesse Sparhawk's beautiful harp playing and some great ensemble arrangement and vocal harmonizing from the Espers crew. Music For Witches And Alchemists might turn out to be exactly the record you expect it to be, but given the quality of both the writing and performances, that's far from a bad thing. Excellent stuff.

EOSTRE (21 March 2010)

2010-03-17T00:00:00.002+01:00

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

13TH TRIBE (THE)

PING PONG ANTHROPOLOGY

Original Issue: 1992 Review (rere 174 cd)

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Margot-meter: 4 moons / 5

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1 Dream Hunters 10:02
2 Hawaiian Office 1 4:32
3 Khazar 4:43
4 Can-nibals I 5:28
5 Lofoten Part II 6:18
6 Can-nibals II 5:43
7 Ping Pong Anthropology 4:33
8 Hawaiian Office II 2:45
9 Exhausted Pipes 13:55

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from All Music Guide:

Ping-Pong Anthropology defies categorizations. Two members of the 13th Tribe, German Werner Durand and Norwegian Erik Balke, perform on invented instruments, mostly wind instruments without finger holes, which are actually assemblages of PVC tubes of various lengths. The third musician, Brazilian Silvia Ocougne, provides cyclic rhythmical structures on prepared guitar. Percussionist Pierre Berthet appears as a guest on three tracks. Durand and Balke play games of "call and response" (reproduced in stereo, they do sound like a ping-pong game) over Ocougne's cycles, each one moving at his/her own pace, periodically losing the others and catching up on them.

This process creates soft, unreal, slow-evolving textures belonging to both meditative and avant-garde music. Because of its ritualistic patterns and similarities between the Tribe's devices and such autochthonous instruments as the didjeridoo, the Alp horn, or even the pan flute, this music has a distinctive exotic quality. Somewhere between the Andes and Australia probably lies an island where the 13th Tribe's music may be used for the religious ceremonies of a postmodern civilization.

François Couture

FULL SNOW MOON (28 February 2010)

2010-02-25T00:00:00.003+01:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

CASTRO NICK & THE POISON TREE

FURTHER FROM GRACE

Original Issue: 2005 Strange Attractors Audio House (SAAH030)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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1 Sun Song 4:09
2 To This Earth 3:29
3 Unborn Child 3:40
4 Won't You Sing To Me 4:26
5 Waltz For A Little Bird 4:18
6 Guildford 5:13
7 Music For Mijwiz 2:42
8 Deep Deep Sea 8:09
10 Walk Like A Whisper 4:29

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from Splendid Magazine:

Nick Castro hails from Los Angeles, a city whose glitter and glare would seem worlds away from anything as comfortable and worn-in-feeling as Further From Grace. The acid folk-meets-Renaissance Faire aesthetic behind most of Further From Grace recalls medieval Britain more than modern La-La Land... but that's not nearly as dorky as it sounds. Castro and the Poison Tree (featuring members of Philadelphia neo-folkists Espers) are utterly convincing -- they seem contemporary, but never allow a breath of indie-rock pretension to steal into their sumptuous balladry. "Sun Song" opens the disc in fairly traditional troubadour style, with mourning cello and narrative steeped in the dark and supernatural. Soon it dissolves into a gentle melee of undulating flutes and choirlike singing (courtesy of underground folk luminary Josephine Foster). And that's when Further From Grace gets its hooks into you.

Castro's rich voice and gift for lyrical imagery find a comfortable home in Further From Grace's beautiful arrangements. The yearning, flute-like tune that decorates "To This Earth"'s introduction is echoed by the vocal melody, lending extra poignancy to the already evocative lines, "Her hair was red like the blood which she caused to flow through my heart / Her love was so pure, like a little bird in the sky / Flying right towards me, she's my one desire." Of course, Further From Grace has its share of clichés like "Her skin was white as snow", but the storyteller's empathy in Castro's delivery keeps them from sounding hackneyed.

Not all of Further From Grace follows the minstrel formula, though; Castro's 2004 debut wouldn't have gotten so much attention if he were afraid to experiment a bit. In the wordless "Waltz for a Little Bird", Adam Hershberger's mellow flugelhorn replaces the vocal with a wistful, rather circus-like melody, later reprised by guitar, over plonking piano. Placed at the album's approximate midpoint, the track functions almost as an intermission, signaling departure to regions less "folk" and more "acid". "Music for Mijwiz" primarily features the Arabic "double clarinet" of the song's title, working up to a rambling, multitonal buzz against complex hand drumming patterns. In "Deep Deep Sea", the flugelhorn once again takes center stage -- now moaning a wistful boat-whistle, now effortlessly running up and down the scale. A long, jammy interval shifts abruptly -- with a crisp bell tone, no less -- into delicate guitar picking, a fit transition into "Walk Like a Whisper", the album's slow, dreamy conclusion.

Further From Grace is an ambitious record. The studio artistry, the large number of musicians and instruments, the hodgepodge of styles -- all self-consciously demand notice and respect. But Further From Grace is also humbly built on the things that make great albums what they are: solid songwriting and arrangements, good lyrics, impeccable performances. It not only deserves your admiration, but a place in your CD player.

Sarah Zachrich

IMBOLC (02 February 2010)

2010-01-31T00:00:00.002+01:00

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

THRESHOLD HOUSEBOYS CHOIR (THE)

FORM GROWS RAMPANT

Original Issue: 2007 Threshold House (THBKK3)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

Listen to the seductive sound of EVIL!!!

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1 A Time Of Happening (7:02)
2 Intimations Of Spring (11:29)
3 So Young It Knows No Maturing (14:34)
4 So Free It Knows No End (8:25)
5 As Doors Open Into Space (7:04)

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from Brainwashed:

This CD/DVD is the first proper release by Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson's post-Coil audiovisual project. The music on Form Grows Rampant is a logical continuation of Sleazy's contributions to late-period Coil and the reformed Throbbing Gristle, a suite of dense digital environments that combine shuddering electronics with sampled vocals. In the process, The Threshold HouseBoys Choir create a brand new genre that might be described as Post-Industrial Exotica.

The DVD is the main attraction here, containing a slightly lengthier version of the program that premiered at last year's Brainwaves festival. The DVD contains five videos captured at the GinJae Vegetarian Festival held in Krabi Town in the south of Thailand. Because the recently expatriated Christopherson's has made Thailand his new home, and because of the prurience suggested by his longtime nickname "Sleazy," there is a distinctly perverse undercurrent to the name "HouseBoys" and to the five-part video program included on the DVD. Fear not: there is nothing here which could be construed as boy-porn by any but the most censorious fundamentalists. However, these videos do not shy away from depicting young, willowy Thai boys in the rapturous malaise of ritual religious ecstasy, and there is a distinctly erotic component to the proceedings that must be acknowledged.

The boys whip themselves into a furious trance, heads shaking back and forth, eyes rolling back into their heads. A crowd of people stare as they eagerly volunteer to have their eyebrows and cheeks and lips pierced with long skewers and giant sharpened metal poles. Christopherson slows down the video footage as a way of depicting the peculiar beauty and savagery of the GinJae Festival, adding subtle time-stretching effects so that it seems as if one can actually witness the moving of the spirit in these zealous young acolytes of the "Khatoey" Holy Men. As an ethnographic documentary, this doesn't work very well at all, as it is far from a complete picture of the cultural context which surrounds this important festival. However, as a highly aestheticized way of gazing upon these seductively erotic-religious rituals, the videos are a resounding success.

Contributing to this success is Sleazy's soundtrack, which represents his first major musical project since the death of John Balance and the subsequent demise of Coil. Many people, I assume, will be interested to know how this music compares to Coil. The answer to this question is complex. Certainly, there are many features of the music that will be very familiar to those who have followed the work of Coil, especially during their last decade of existence: shuddering electronics, dense atmospherics, eerie digitalia, twisted and mutated vocals and sinister undercurrents hinting at a gleaming heart of darkness. These features give the music of THBC a superficial veneer that is unmistakably Coil-esque, but on the whole it is a very different animal. Here, Sleazy leaves behind the elements of chance, chaos and asymmetry that characterized late-period Coil. Perhaps because he is working almost exclusively with computer software now, instead of the variety of analog synthesizers and organic elements favored by Coil, the music feels more hermetic and inorganic. Even though human voices and other elements are sampled, they are mutated to the point where they synthesize with the rest of the digital library of loops and effects. This is not necessarily a criticism of THBC, but rather a proviso to those who were expecting the second coming of Coil.

The tracks are lengthy and contain layers of digital ambience. Melodies are present, but are sometimes buried, or are so child-simple that they become almost subliminal. Some of these tracks have appeared before in compilations in a much more nascent form. "As Doors Open Into Space" was previously known as "Mahil Athal Nadrach" when it appeared on the It Just Is... compilation last year. Here, it is expanded and reworked, with new elements added, until it becomes a rich, post-ethnic piece of electronica with a joyful melodic progression that sounds positively triumphant coming at the end of the disc. Critics such as David Toop have criticized the Anglo-American-Continental tendency to co-opt the musical features of third world cultures as a texture for their music, and certainly THBC could be accused of this kind of ethnic colonization. However, Sleazy's pieces are so hypnotic and beautiful, and so vague as to be impossible to pinpoint which specific world musics are being invoked, that they come across as a sort of 21st-century exotica: space-age bachelor pad music for the sexual tourists of tomorrow. Lovely pieces such as "Intimations of Spring," alive with electrified spirit voices smearing out behind a resonant sequence of xylophone tones, quickly negate any inherent problematics. All that is left is a stunningly well-conceived collection of audiovisual art that, though it is quite different, is undoubtedly the worthy successor of the legendary group to which Sleazy once belonged.

Jonathan Dean

FULL WOLF MOON (30 January 2010)

2010-01-20T00:00:00.003+01:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

ARBOGAST LUC

HORTUS DEI

Original Issue: 2007 Private Release (No Number) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

For this Esbat I'd like to use the bit of visibility this blog has gained (thank you, folks) to promote the work of a French artist I've recently encountered during my travels across Europe: Luc Arbogast.

More details about him below.

Please if you like the musick (and I know lots of you will) come into contact with the Artist and buy his CDs that I consider real gems in the modern medieval revival trend. Essential listening!!!

His "Hortus Dei" is in heavy rotation in my CD player since day one I purchased it :)

Cheers,
Margot

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1. Morgenstern
2. La rosa enflorece
3. La valse du miroir
4. In memoriam Alesia
5. Pälastina lied
6. Dame de Cataluña
7. Non sofre Santa Maria
8. Beold de maï
9. Entre moi et mon ami
10. Unicornus
11. Hortus Dei
12. Ange

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from http://www.ubikann.com/:

It’s been a long time since I had such an unusual and memorable experience and it happened while we were looking at the cathedral in Strasbourg. A guy sitting on a stool started playing an instrument (called a bouzouki) and singing. He is pretty large guy and has several tattoos on each arm.

You look at him and expect a real husky voice. To begin with his voice was pretty low and slowly started crescendo. What was astonishing was the power and pitch of his voice. He is labelled as a “Countertenor mezzo-soprano”. For myself and maybe others this means he got to really high notes and was able to hold them at great ease ! I didn’t have anything I could use to record him and although a friend recorded the voice on a phone, the quality isn’t good.

To describe the overall style I suppose I would say medieval or Shakespearian, a really beautiful moment and after searching on the Internet I can only tell you that the disc is not yet available on the Internet anywhere. The guy is called Luc Arbogast and from what I understand he also plays with his wife Mélusine who wasn’t there on this occasion.

Before he started singing there were maybe five or six people in front of the cathedral and when he finished I would guess there were over fifty in a semi-circle around him. He switched from German to French with great ease after singing, talking to people wanting to buy his CD. He has a French father (from Strasbourg) and German mother.

FULL BLUE MOON (31 December 2009)

2009-12-26T00:00:00.004+01:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

JARBOE

MAGICK FOR MISCHIEFS

Original Issue: 2006 The Living Jarboe (No Number)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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1 Five Point Star 7:46
2 Furfur 7:29
3 Psychedelick 6:23
4 Ascension 4:56
5 Running Through Invisibility 6:25
6 Magickgrl 8:31

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from http://blogcritics.org/:

Experimental vocalist Jarboe is currently creating a trilogy of CDs which reflect her ongoing studies in Buddhism, Islam, and the Kabbalah: Magick for Mischiefs, Magick for Prudence, and Magick for Cherishings. This sometimes ethereal, sometimes dissonant series of releases is the latest creation in a career that started with The Swans in the 80s and has not subsided. Although Jarboe is not radio or major label material, she has carved a niche for herself, marketing her work to fans through her website. She has also performed with many others in the avant-garde, most notably Neurosis, and the interviews on her website are a veritable who's who, including talks with Diamanda Galas, Athan Maroulis, Steven Severin, Richard Kern, and Lydia Lunch.

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from Rate Your Music (and my dear blog-friend Brad):

Positively my favorite recording by Jarboe so far (although I have not yet received my copy of Prudence yet). This CD is brilliant. Jarboe's amazing vocal talents are on display in both ways you have come accustomed to with this brilliant vocalist, and new ways as of yet unexplored.

The CD starts off with my favorite track "Five Point Star" Beautifully crafted with a piano score that sounds right off of Greed or Holy Money by Swans. Jarboe's vocals, multilayered and beautiful, sound like a coven of young witches lamenting over one of their own. Georgeous.

Furfur will thrash your speakers. Jarboe hits some notes on this one that have permanently fuzzed my car stereo. Don't let that deter you though. This mostly instrumental track is beautiful and her voice is Angelic. Psychedelick is the exact opposite. Her voice isn't Angelic here, more like possessed, but not in the guttural roar that we found on Anhedoniac. No, Psychedelick has Jarboe sounding primitive and almost animal like. Very interesting and unique track. Ascension and Running Through Invisibility are reminiscent of the work that she did with Blackmouth... somewhat. Both tracks feature a more traditional song structure and "rock". The CD finishes off with Magickgrl which is basically an instrumental version of Five Point Star until the end when Jarboe sings a repeated chorus and the drums kick in.

If you haven't ordered it, do so now. If it's sold out, prey for it to be re-issued!

TheeBradMiller

YULE (21 December 2009)

2009-12-19T00:00:00.004+01:00

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

SCHÜTZE PAUL (feat. Köner Thomas)

THIRD SITE (46 Deg 37' 00'' N 9 Deg 12' 00'' E)

Original Issue: 1999 Rykodisc (RCD 10464)

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Margot-meter: 4 moons / 5

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1 The Surface Of The Eye 8:47
2 The Skin Of The Face And Neck 3:19
3 The Head, The Soles Of The Feet, And Arm 11:10
4 The Palms Of Both Hands 14:23
5 The Breath 9:37

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from http://www.paulschutze.com/:

The recently completed Thermal Baths complex in the Swiss alpine village of Vals is already regarded as a structure of international architectural importance. A remarkable building which is embedded in the mountainside and fuses both the local stone and the thermal spring water into an environment where all the senses are sharpened by the acute intelligence of the structure and its conception.

My aim in continuing the Site series with this particular structure is to explore in detail the experience of the baths in the context of sense memory, sound mapping/recording and the shaping of a poetic narrative within the rooms and cells at Vals.

As with the Jantar Mantar project (Second Site) I want to evoke the physical and poetic presence of this site using sound and spoken text. Peter Zumthor's work is distinguished by his exemplary use of materials and I have attempted to draw analogies between the ways in which our memories of touch and sound connect to the sense presence of complex man made spaces. I am also interested in the parallels between the internal organisation of thoughts and sensations and the external experience of moving through designed spaces.

The end product of this process is both a stereo recording and a more complex split channel version made to be installed within another space. The idea being to superimpose the presence of the first space within the volumes of another unrelated space. The "libretto" contained within both of these works will be published along (I hope) with some notes by and an interview with the architect. It is my intention when installing this work within another space to incorporate video material generated at the site as well as still images. The design of the installation will also try to reinforce the experience of the original space.

Paul Schütze

FULL COLD MOON (02 December 2009)

2009-12-01T00:00:00.002+01:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

OVADIA MONI THEATER ORCHESTRA

OYLEM GOYLEM

Original Issue: 1991 Fonit Cetra (CDC 60) (Buy it here!!!)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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1. Firen di Mekhutonim aheym
2. Dem ganefs Yiches
3. Ani maamin
4. Bulbes / Trellohaposervico
5. Finf un tsvantsiger
6. Rustemal ca la Listeava
7. El Mole Rahamim
8. Khassidishe Nigun
9. Rozhinkes mit mandlen)
10. Der shtille Bulgar (Suite)
11. Zogt der Rebbe
12. Yoshke Yoshke
13. Vi azoy s'iz nisht git tsu geyn
14. Trink briderl
15. Dire gelt
16. Yiddish folk song
17. Di fartraibung vun dem Moshiach
18. Quadrille
19. Tants yidelekh
20. Nigun
21. Shabes
22. Tants/Freilech
23. Le Dovyd mizmoyr
24. Friling/Fidl volach
25. Wen der rebbe
26. Vilna

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from All Music Guide:

A collection of traditional Eastern European klezmer songs from a pair of Italian stage reviews, with emphasis on musical director Moni Ovadia's ebullient vocals. Solid performances and orchestration plus a number of nice touches, like the unexpected piccolo solo that brightens "Rustemul ca la Listeava.

Bob Tarte

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from http://www.cornelldailysun.com:

Moni Ovadia is an Italian musician who happens to be particularly moved by klezmer music, and because the near-extinct Eastern European genre contains only a handful of groups and bandleaders, he is one of the bigger names for klezmer enthusiasts. Nevertheless, he does an excellent job maintaining all the soul and witticism that the music is most known for. Yet play this for your grandparents and you might just stop them from demanding why you don't have a job yet.

With a full ensemble of professional musicians behind him, including strings, clarinet, light percussion and accordion the music is so realistic, you might just feel as if you were back in the shtetl, humming a Yiddish melody while milking the cows.

Most of the songs are a hilarious series of insults which we can all learn since English lyrics are included but sound all the better in Yiddish. The song "Dem Ganefs Yiches" shows us that the language invented the "yo mama" joke, as well as the lesser known "yo brother" and "yo papa." And who said it was dead?

RED MOON (musick & other arts)

2009-11-18T00:00:00.004+01:00

BACALOV LUIS ENRIQUE

IL VANGELO SECONDO MATTEO
(THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO SAINT MATTHEW)

Original Issue: 1964 Mainstream (S/4000)

Reissue: 1996 RCA (74321-37416-2 OST-132)

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Margot-meter: 4 moons / 5

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1. GLORIA from "Missa Luba" (p.d.) (02:40)
2. SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE A MOTHERLESS CHILD (spiritual) (03:08)
Voice: Odetta
3. SIGNORE MIO (from a Hebrew Song) (02:05)
4. TRE FRONDE TRE FIORI / VIENI DA ME (05:54)
(JERUSALEM: DAYTIME)
5. TRE FRONDE TRE FIORI (05:16)
(JERUSALEM: NIGHT TIME)
6. VIENI DA ME / TRE FRONDE TRE FIORI / VIENI DA ME (02:26)
(DANCE OF SALOME)
7. INDEMONIATI 1 (00:51)
8. INDEMONIATI 2 (02:22)
9. INDEMONIATI 3 (01:29)
10. GETSEMANI (01:09)
11. THE 13TH CENTURY (01:29)
Sergei Prokofiev from "Alexander Nevsky" Film Score
12. ADAGIO from the "Concerto in C minor" BWV 1060 Double Concerto for Oboe & Violin (05:09)
Johann Sebastian Bach
13. MAURERISCHE TRAUERMUSIK KV 477 (06:31)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
14. DONA NOBIS PACEM from "Agnus Dei" from "Mass in B minor" BWV 232 (03:00)
Johann Sebastian Bach
15. ADAGIO from the "Concerto in E for Violin" BWV 1042 (07:32)
Johann Sebastian Bach
16. ERBARME DICH, aria from "St. Matthew Passion" BWV 244 (06:41)
Johann Sebastian Bach
17. WIR SETZEN UNS MIT TRANEN NIEDER from "St. Matthew Passion" BWV 244 (06:50)
18. GLORIA from "Missa Luba" (p.d.) (02:40)

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from http://jclarkmedia.com/:

The only aspect of this magnificent film which does not work, at least for me, is the self-consciously eclectic use of music, which extends from Bach to Prokofiev to folk music.

He wants this polyglot score in an attempt to create subtle, and shifting, tensions between the world of ancient Judea and our own. Sometimes it enhances the drama; other times its repetition or incongruity are distracting. For instance, the excerpts from the striking Missa Luba: An African Mass lose their impact with each subsequent repetition (there are many); and although the mood of the haunting spiritual "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child," sung by Odetta, matches the nativity scene beautifully, the lyric clashes with the action and ultimately proves distancing. (It's worth noting that Pasolini had once considered filming The Gospel in Africa with an all-African cast, to recreate the feeling of an ancient world still present today; a few years later he contemplated a similar juxtaposition regarding Greek myth, as seen in his fascinating documentary, Notes for African Orestes.) In contrast to the music here, Pasolini's use of only J.S. Bach's music on the soundtrack to Accattone, a contemporary tale of Roman slums, works to astonishing effect.

FULL HUNTER'S MOON (02 November 2009)

2009-10-31T00:00:00.004+01:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

FROST BEN

THEORY OF MACHINES

Original Issue: 2006 Bedroom Community (HVALUR 2) (Buy it here!!!)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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1 Theory Of Machines 9:30
2 Stomp 8:26
3 We Love You Michael Gira 7:49
4 ...Coda 1:42
5 Forgetting You Is Like Breathing Water 11:13

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from Almostcool.org:

When readers of this site kept recommending Ben Frost, I knew that it was an artist I should seek out (as my readers most often know more than I do), and after hearing his album Theory Of Machines, I'm glad that I did. The second release on the fledgling Bedroom Community label, it's also the third release from Frost, and finds him pushing even further into powerful audio explorations that sounds something like Tim Hecker with occasionally punishing rhythms. He examines textures and timbres in lovely, and sometimes disturbing ways over the course of five tracks and just under forty minutes, mixing pastoral beauty with gut-churning blasts in other places.

The album-titled opener "Theory Of Machines" sets the tone with a super-slow build of filtered guitar that's almost crystalline in places. Eventually, slow-morphing sludgy bass enters the mix and the track builds to a powerful climax of screaming guitars and overdriven beats about two-thirds of the way through before melting into ambience again. "Stomp" follows, and takes a slightly different direction, with programmed beat thumps banging across a more barren landscape while distance waves of noise only creep into the foreground during a crunchy ending.

"We Love You Michael Gira" conveys a similar sense of dread as many tracks on the album, and this time Frost pulls it off by again barely keeping waves of feedback under control for the first half of the track before letting loose with a repeating high tone (that resembles a medical device warning sound) and some beats that are absolutely coated in feedback and on the verge of breaking down. A string coda at the end of the song does nothing to lighten the mood.

If the former track was barely-contained violence, then "Coda" is where things let loose with any pent up energy. The two-minute track is all scorching guitar noise, red-lined bass pulses, and hammering drums that finally blur out at the end. Given all that came before it, it seems only fitting that the closer of "Forgetting You Is Like Breathing Water" takes things down a great deal to warm repeated tones, filtered drones, and some subtle strings that sound something like a more layered version of the minimal pulse-tone work that Oren Ambarchi has mastered. Even though it's a shorter album, Theory Of Machines is by no means a light listen. With several moments that will make your hair stand up on end (both for sheer beauty and dread), this is definitely worth seeking out.

SAMHAIN (31 October 2009)

2009-10-25T00:00:00.002+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

SHINJUKU THIEF

THE WITCH HUNTER

Original Issue: 1995 Dorobo (Dorobo 009)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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1 Prelude - In The Wake Of Walpurga's Ashes
2 A Black Furrow
3 Cobwebs And Vinegar
4 Shadow Path
5 A Swim At Night
6 The Second Dream
7 Blue Flame
8 Smoke And Ice
9 Marias' Shirt
10 Berserkir
11 The Witch Hunter
12 Four Ember Weeks Of Ecstatic Sleep

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from http://www.darrinverhagen.com/:

For the second release in the "witch" trilogy, Shinjuku Thief descend further into the nightmare world of medieval superstition, paranoia and vengeance. East European violin, reflective passages of brooding ambience and occasional moments of hope are undercut by sheer orchestral violence and a chillingly bleak filmic landscape.

Overwhelming...gorgeous. If only most classical music could mean as much as this. I think this guy should be shipped off to LA to show Mr ravel a thing or two." - the Wire, UK

"A work of discipline and assurance and no little beauty, given an added dimension by its mysterious subtexts of found sounds and radio interference. Indispensable." - the Wire, UK (yearly wrap-up 1995)

"Like it's predecessor, a marvellously evocative album." - Al Crawford, USA

"Enchanting, bewitching, darkness unveiled. Essential" - Dark Angel, AU

"Top 10, office ambience 1995" - the Wire, UK

FULL HARVEST MOON (04 October 2009)

2009-10-02T00:00:00.002+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE MELTING PARAISO U.F.O.

LA NÒVIA

Original Issue: 2001 Swordfish (SFAMCD2D)

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

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1 La Nòvia 40:40
2 Bois-Tu De La Bière? 3:49
3 Bon Voyage Au LSD 17:26

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from BBC Music:

The Acid Mothers Temple discography seems to be expanding weekly with limited edition vinyl and CD-Rs cropping up on obscure labels all over the place. When you record live and have a band that's pretty much incapable of playing anything under 20 minutes long, there's a lot to release. No-one's complaining though, as guitarist Makoto Kawabata and friends seem to be on a roll at the moment in their quest to unite the drive of psychedelically fuelled rock with a deeper, more spiritual aesthetic.

The sprawling 40 minute title track is based on an Occitanian folk tune, and the unearthly acoustic opening with its overtone singing sounds like something that might have made its way on to a Werner Herzog soundtrack. Indeed once the guitars come in and the band stoke up their mighty drone, the effect is that of an amped up Popul Vuh, the German band who soundtracked many Herzog films. Ashra Tempel or Amon Duul are other reference points. At times, it's impossible to believe that this wasn't recorded in Berlin in 1972, such is the authenticity of the enterprise. But Kawabata's crew aren't merely K-tel Krautrockers; La Novia shows a deep respect for the traditional folk form and integrates it completely with the long forays into deep space that the leader's fuzz

"Bon Voyage au LSD", though a mere 17 and a half minutes long makes up for in intensity what it lacks in length, building up from a stark montage of synth cries and guitar shrieks to a bludgeoning trainwreck of a riff. Likely to send even your Granny on a trip to the outer regions of the known universe, this record should be handled with care.

Peter Marsch

MABON (21 September 2009)

2009-09-19T15:34:00.007+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

KALACAKRA

CRAWLING TO LHASA

Original Issue: 1971 Private Release (K-ST-2000)

Reissue: 2001 Garden Of Delights (CD 053) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

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1 Naerby Shiras (9:20)
2 Jaceline (6:19)
3 Raga N°11 (5:36)
4 September Full Moon (9:39)
5 Arapahos Circle Dance (2:32)
6 Tante Olga (7:35)
7 Vamos (6:52)
8 Deja Vu (5:38)

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from Progarchives:

Really gorgeous eastern psychedelic kraut (related) improv in the mood of Siloah, Parson Sound, Lamp of the Universe, Dom.Some sections contain primitive, blues damaged folk jams. The result is astonishing, highly mysterious and luminous. "Naerby Shiras" is an acoustic, repetitive, dreamy and druggy little piece, dominated by simplistic but efficient guitars motifs, some dancing flute lines and discreet narrations at the end. Really warm & acid stuff. "Jaceline" is a percussive, floating ballad within a forest ambience, accompanied by voices and words, violin contrasts and vibraphone. The "pastoral" acoustic guitar parts always prevail. "Raga no 11" features an intense, chanting like raga improvisation with rhythms and "mantra" sonorities. "September full moon" contain folkish strings and rhythms for a rather light, bucolic composition. "Arapaho's dancing dance" is bluesy like tune with circular rhythms, evasive guitar parts and kinda folky harmonica arrangements. A charming artefact with some tripped out moments!

Philippe

FULL CORN MOON (04 September 2009)

2009-08-31T00:00:00.003+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

NIJIUMU

LIVE

Original Issue: 1997 Big Cat (ABB 1000/2CD)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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01 Untitled (3:11)
02 Untitled (49:38)
03 Untitled (12:29)

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from The Sound Projector:

Top of the range is Nijiumu, one of Keiji Haino’s quieter musical hats, and for sheer pathos this live recording worth your entry money by itself; to call this slice of sheer emotion tear-inducing is not enough. You will weep!

FULL STURGEON MOON (5 August 2009)

2009-08-01T00:00:00.004+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

ROACH STEVE & STEARNS MICHAEL & SUNSINGER RON

KIVA

Original Issue: 1995 Fathom (HS11056-2)

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

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1 Passage One (2:27)
2 East Kiva - Calling In The Midnight Water (13:42)
3 Passage Two (1:59)
4 South Kiva - Mother Ayahuasca (15:13)
5 Passage Three (2:12)
6 West Kiva - Sacrifice, Prayer, And Visions (17:27)
7 Passage Four (2:00)
8 North Kiva - Trust And Remenber (9:42)
9 The Center (2:33)

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from All Music Guide:

Ron Sunsinger, a Native American tribal artist and musician, joins two space music pioneers on Kiva, an atmospheric re-creation of sacred tribal ceremonies representing the directions of the Four Winds.

For the Southwest tribes, a kiva is a circular subterranean structure used for ceremony and ritual; other tribes may use a canopy of trees, the circular space of a Sun Dance, or a cavern. For this recording, Sunsinger obtained, with permission, field recordings of traditional ceremonies. The musicians then brought the kiva space into their music studio. Each wind direction is preceded by an atmospheric passage of chanting, nature sounds, and rattles. "East Kiva: Calling in the Midnight Water" features chanting with the rattles and rapid drumbeats of a peyote ceremony. The space music continues the ceremony to an expanded heartbeat, with horns signaling breakthroughs of thunder strikes. A more celestial space is heralded by organ tones and crickets. Hearing the overlapping layers of sound and the progression allows the listener's mind to travel, while still being connected to the ceremonial music and rhythms.

Ghostly voices usher in the passage to "South Kiva: Mother Ayahuasca." Here, breathy whistles and a hypnotic twang of a stringed instrument begin a trance that takes off on one of the most dramatic space blastoffs on record. It climaxes through shouts and ceremonial purging, a sacred song, and whistling; the organ/chanting drone background is very trippy with its sonic infinity pattern of organ tones, chanting, jungle birds, and distorted drumming. "West Kiva: Sacrifice, Prayer and Visions" includes the powerful powwow drumming, singing, and stomped bells of the Native American Sun Dance. The space music collides sounds and rhythms -- a dizzying and hallucinatory clash of reality and illusion.

The music then "passes out" and takes the listener on a voyage through a sonic tunnel where all time is suspended. The final "North Kiva: Trust and Remember," recorded in a cavern, thunders with resonant drums and the growls of the didgeridoo. This recording is an excellent introduction to space music and the shamanic experience. You'll find it's not a free ride.

Carol Wright

LAMMAS (1 August 2009)

2009-07-25T00:00:00.006+02:00

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

BROTHERS OF THE OCCULT SISTERHOOD

ANIMAL SPEAK

Original Issue: 2004 Music Your Mind Will Love You (mymwly0005)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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1 Om Agar (5:23)
2 The Light Of Life (10:20)
3 The Life Of Light (10:14)
4 I Would Rather Live On The Sun (6:36)
5 Birds Of Interspace (7:43)
6 Swallowed Hole (11:28)
7 Quetzacoatl's Return (6:11)
8 Sericule (14:29)

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from Foxy Digitalis:

2004 was a year of many great discoveries for me. Davenport's massive coming out party (by way of more releases than I can count) was sitting at the top of my list for a good part of the year, but that changed a month or so ago. Make no mistake, Davenport are simply one of the finest bands around - that much is true. But last month, my mind was melted completely when a package from Australia's MusicYourMindWillLoveYou collective showed up. Centered around an Aussie named Michael Donnelly, this group of musicians are doing some truly mind altering stuff. Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood are the lynchpin, though.

"Animal Speak" is a masterful psychedelic primal declaration. It screams "We are here, and we're covered in mud." Everything on this sprawling album is extracted and returned from the earth. Acoustic instruments make up the majority of sound here, but various percussive elements add to the tribal feel of the album. It all blends together so perfectly that it's easy to get swept up in its roaring gloary.

Donnelly is the key, however. With BOTOS, he makes it all happen. His drumming lays the foundation for everything else to happen, and his skill is undeniable. Sparse clatter finds a constant rhythm somehow; there's elements of jazz inspiration floating throughout his playing, which adds to the originality of the music. Cellos and other bowed instruments add tranquility to this chaotic sea. With so many different things happening it once, it's amazing that this music is so fluid and cohesive. As the radio static of "I Would Rather Live On the Sun" fades in, low frequency drones emanate from a cello. High-pitched squeals are barely audible above the murky sludge. When the drums come in, your foot starts tapping. There's a feeling of being lost in the Australian outback while a massive thunderstorm is brewing in the distance. The skies start changing from bright blue to grey, and the wind picks up as Donnelly pounds his toms. Keyboards and guitars shimmer and glow in the background as the rain pours down. Drenched, you seek cover underneath a lone, massive tree.

Based on the title alone, one might confuse "Quetzacoatl's Return" with a song by the Mountain Goats. But as soon as it begins, it's obvious that is not the case. Low end electronic drones ride over the tops of waves created by Donnelly's tribal drumming. This is like swimming in pristine blue water, floating weightlessly underneath the surface. You can see for miles and your whole body is tingling from the cold bath. For something with so much sludge, this is beautiful.

The sister songs, "The Light of Life" and "The Life of Light," are the core of this masterpiece. The former features Japanese (maybe Chinese?) samples on top of an acoustic based piece. It slowly devolves into a hypnotic monsoon. Donnelly starts singing in an emotion-filled voice. Its got the feel of a funeral procession for a fallen hero. There are massive amounts of organic quality to this track as well, which make it even better. It's magic. The latter piece is the most melodic piece on the album. Field recordings give it a wooded feel. Again, Donnelly's drumming takes center stage, dropping a perfect foundation for the picked acoustic guitars. Various wind instruments and, again, Donelly's voice add depth and texture to this already packed song. It's fucking beautiful and brings to mind some of the more melodic aspects of The Ivytree. Bowed guitars add more layers to the mix, and as Donnelly "mmm"s and "ahh"s throughout, you are stolen away on a fantastic voyage through the Australian forests. Leaf gnomes and woodland creatures dance in unison as they celebrate the sun and the earth. The only thing left to do is cover yourself in mud and dance with them. This is one of the best pieces of music I've heard all year.

Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood are so many things at once. This surgical psych folk sludge is one of the most original and stunning releases I've heard all year. Whether they're exploring the ancient history of their lands through organic romps, slowing things down with electronic drones, or even dropping acid and flying in the clouds like on the psychedelic album closer, "Sericule," they are channelling pure fucking magic. This will melt your skull and fry your brain. In the end, all the pieces are glued together to form a better, more delicious whole. Essential. 9/10

Brad Rose