FULL CORN MOON (04 September 2009)

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!

PINK MOON (feminine musick)

WHITE RUTH

FLOWERS OF EVIL (An Electronic Setting Of The Poem Of Charles Baudelaire)


Original Issue: 1969 Limelight (LS-86066)

Reissue: 2006 Creel Pone (#47) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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1 The Clock (3:03)
2 Evening Harmony (4:05)
3 Lover's Wine (3:01)
4 Owls (2:48)
5 Mists And Rains (2:10)
6 The Irremediable (4:58)
7 The Cat (3:31)
8 Spleen (2:56)
9 The Litanies Of Satan (6:56)

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from Mimaroglu:

... back again after last week’s mishap (don’t ask) with an absolute corker of a creel pone - the setting of a set of poems by charles baudelaire to electronic instrumentation & vocal treatments, as realized by ms. ruth white in mid-1969.

a sampling of any of the text(s) below (baudelaire was heavy, man...) should tip you to just how creepy & dark the vibes emanating from within this record are exactly. ms. white’s posessed monotone-through-echoplex-through-vclfo-gate throughout is just bone-chilling, her howling synth & noise backdrops so perfectly capturing the “southern” essence of the text that it’s hard to believe that these poems weren’t conceived in the era they were realized here (the just pre-altamont “downer” hippie zenith), but in fact in the middle of the 19th century!

certainly a creel pone more on the psych-end of things, but nonetheless a bizarre and terrifying vision into futures past-future that should speak to the inner satanist. those who felt the “doomy” waves warping out of the warren jepson creel pone should follow suit herein...

BLUE MOON (musick by request)

COIL

MOON'S MILK (IN FOUR PHASES)


Original Issue: 2001 Eskaton (ESKATON 23) Buy it here and here!!!

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

Francesco, this is for you!

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First Phase: Spring Equinox

1-01 Moon's Milk Or Under An Unquiet Skull (Part One) (8:29)
1-02 Moon's Milk Or Under An Unquiet Skull (Part Two) (8:09)

Second Phase: Summer Solstice

1-03 Bee Stings (4:55)
1-04 Glowworms/Waveforms (5:54)
1-05 Summer Substructures (8:07)
1-06.1 A Warning From The Sun (For Fritz) (4:57)
1-06.2 Untitled (5:03)
1-06.3 Amethyst Deceivers (Live In Europe 2001) (6:33)

Third Phase: Autumn Equinox

2-01 Regel (1:15)
2-02 Rosa Decidua (4:53)
2-03 Switches (4:43)
2-04 The Auto-Asphyxiating Hierophant (5:55)
2-05 Amethyst Deceivers (6:42)

Fourth Phase: Winter Solstice

2-06 A White Rainbow (8:52)
2-07 North (3:46)
2-08 Magnetic North (8:50)
2-09 Christmas Is Now Drawing Near (3:26)

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from Amazon:

It has always been very difficult to pin down Coil stylistically, since their blend of John Balance's dark-wave-ish vocals and the band's vast musical background, which included everything from neo-classical music to the most brutally distorted noisescapes, threw shapes too strange for most listeners.

One had seen hints of what was to come with the more ambient-oriented nature of the band's mid-'90s output, but little could have prepared the average Coil listener for the stunning „Solstice and Equinox" series back in 1998. Four years later, „Moon's milk" finally does the logical thing of combining the four individual and now out-of-print EPs into one fantastically packaged and attractively priced double-disc set. There's not only no other Coil album quite like „Moon's milk", the music also has very few comparisons to anybody else's work, perhaps apart from Dead Can Dance's late-'80s output and In The Nursery's more recent ventures. Despite the quite predominant images of suicide („A warning from the sun", for example, is dedicated to a friend of the band who took his own life), darkness, loneliness, pain and despair, the overwhelming pattern throughout the four parts of the series is a sort of meditative flow - not in a particularly relaxing but rather otherworldly and spiritual way.

Indeed, if „Black light district" were the calm before the storm, then „Moon's milk" is the closest we have to a post-apocalyptic soundtrack!

Disc 1 opens with two 8-minute pieces from the „Spring Equinox" release, and although the combination of dirge-like atmospherics, churchy organs, choir-like vocals by John Balance, and William Breeze's web-like violin lines is pretty fascinating when you're in the right mood, it's musically the weakest and most unadventurous part of the series. Admittedly, a better name would be „Season of Death".

Fortunately, the „Summer Solstice" EP with its four tracks brings energy and liveliness to this album, serving a dreamy though shadowy panorama of ambient soundforms. „Bee stings" sets the scene wonderfully; it's built around a humming noise loop which shimmers deep in the background while John's excellent vocals bring further suspense to the piece. „Glowworms/Waveforms" works in a quite similar vein as John recites an endless series of questions over dark droning layers of electronics. The 8-minute „Summer substructues" is a little more dramatic in comparison, with John narrating a text that seems to focus on feelings of longing and Breeze playing some truly beautiful violin parts towards the end. By complete contrast, the already mentioned „A warning..." brings out much more randomness: Violent sweeps and and electric buzzings which almost sound like a radiation storm rush across the scene, coupled with some really overdone vocals and bright harmonics which seems to come from a processed slide guitar - a vast sea of rolling turbulence which is nevertheless strangely engrossing.

From here, things become even more interesting and abstract with the 5-track EP „Amethyst deceivers": In „Switches", fountains of white noise periodically erupt from a sea of electronic burblings and are then swept away on the soundstream. „The auto-asphy..." is also pretty fascinating with its massive, almost medieval drum pounds (quite reminiscent of Dead Can Dance's „Enigma of the absolute"), while the slow-cooking „Rosa decidua" offers a hauntingly beautiful Balance/McDowall duet. The real highlight, though, is the the 7-minute title track - it's utterly unlike anything I've ever listened to: The pieces builds very well, from its slight beginning to a fragile acoustic guitar line, which is soon joined by a swooshing synth loop, melodic synth chords, and processed vocals.

The remainder of Disc 2 is taken from the „Winter Solstice" EP and returns to the overall sound design of the „Summer Solstice" entry; true to their avant-garde roots, Coil seldom establish a melodic threat, but instead add touches of harmony and a delicate tranquility to such pieces as the 9-minute „Magnetic north" and the McDowall-sung „Christmas...". The hidden bonus track on Disc 1 features a live performance of „Amethyst deceivers" which differs radically from the studio version in that it eschews the great instrumental interplay in favor of some slightly outdated sequencer patterns.

Overall, those with an interest in experimental ambient music will more than likely be familiar with Coil already, but otherwise you should rush out and buy this disc set immediately. Like many other Coil discs, „Moon's milk" is proof that John Balance and Peter Christopherson explore the outer extremes of sound-exploitation with their musical partners-in-crime, but rarely have they produced an album which is so consistently exciting and fascinating from start to finish.

Utterly essential.

FULL BEAVER MOON (13 November 2008)

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

BLOOD AXIS & LES JOYAUX DE LA PRINCESSE

ABSINTHE: LA FOLIE VERTE


Original Issue: 2002 Athanor (ATNR 017) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

A recent discovery for me and an unvaluable gem!

Totally mesmerized by this masterpiece...this is the sound of my beloved Europe!

I am the Green Fairy
My robe is the colour of despair
I have nothing in common with the fairies of the past
What I need is blood, red and hot, the palpitating flesh of my victims
Alone, I will kill France, the Present is dead, Vive the future.

But me, I kill the future and in the family I destroy the love of country, courage, honour,
I am the purveyor of hell, penitentiaries, hospitals.

Who am I finally? I am the instigator of crime
I am ruin and sorrow
I am shame
I am dishonour
I am death
I AM ABSINTHE

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1 Folie Verte (I Am The Green Fairy) (3:40)
2 Symphonie Verte (And Here I Am, An Absintheur...) (4:59)
3 Minutes D'Absinthe (Let Me Be Mad, Mad With Absinthe) (1:59)
4 Absintha Taetra (Opaline) (6:58)
5 Poison Vert (D'Après Frédéric Barbier) (6:57)
6 Avec Les Fleurs... Avec L'Absinthe (With Flowers And With Women) (1:58)
7 Absinthine (D'Après Emile Duhem) (0:55)
8 Variations Sur Le Thème De Corelli (By Venus And Cupid) (4:05)
9 Variations Sur Le Thème De Corelli (That Night, I Drank Deeply) (13:20)
10 Princesse Verte (D'Après Emile Spencer) (5:37)
11 Fée Verte, Vous Êtes Jolie (Chanté Par Affre) (2:10)

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from Athanor webpage:

Absinthe: La Folie Verte is a sonic and poetic invocation combining mind-altering music and powerful recitations of Absinthe-inspired poems of the fin-de-siècle.

These elements unite with a brilliant graphic presentation to conjure an emerald realm of euphoric delirium. It is also one of the most obsessive recordings ever made: the various melodies that float across these soundscapes derive from forgotten Absinthe songs of the past; actual elements of the latter, derived from old cylinder recordings and 78s, have also been carefully stirred and distilled into new formulations by Les Joyaux de la Princesse.

Furthermore, all aspects of this album (instrumentation, spoken recitations, and even the final mixing) were executed under the influence of the drink. The end result is an impressionistic tour-de-force and the ultimate aural hymn to la fée verte, the Green Fairy.

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from Compulsion:

Blood Axis & Les Joyaux De La Princesse release their long-awaited celebration of that intoxicant of aesthetes: absinthe. It is said Van Gogh sliced off his ear while under the influence, Hemingway, Poe, Rimbaud and Wilde regularly imbibed the green liquor, Picasso even painted The Absinthe Drinker. Long outlawed in many countries Absinthe is regarded as one of the most potent drinks ever, its psychotropic effect a result of the wormwood herb and exceedingly high alcoholic content.

Michael Moynihan has long been an advocate of the transcendental nature of absinthe, and has been instrumental in its resurgence in America. The debut Blood Axis album, The Gospel of Inhumanity, even featured an ode to this bedevilled drink. Like Moynihan, the other musicians on this CD have all become obsessed with the drink, distilling their own recipes and creating their own rituals to accompany their absinthe sipping evenings.

Absinthe: La Folie Verte is imbued with stirring orchestrations and lush string segments, while Moynihan with deadpan delivery recites poems culled from the late 19th Century. Absinthe: La Folie Verte evokes a turn of the century Parisian café with age-old absinthe songs salvaged from the past. Produced in collaboration with the Absinthe Museum, Auvers-Sur-L'Oise, this is a beautifully packaged and extensively researched document that should appeal to anyone transfixed with the mystique of the Green fairy. When one considers that the EU ban on Absinthe has been lifted, variations of the drink are available in UK public houses, and numerous books have just been published documenting the effects of the Green liquor it appears that Blood Axis and Les Joyaux De La Princesse have managed to capture the zeitgeist of today while conjuring an atmosphere of 200 years ago.

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from FluxEuropa:

In a collaboration with the French project, Les Joyaux de la Princesse, Michael Moynihan's Blood Axis forsakes militaristic bombast to deliver a homage to absinthe, the notorious fin-de-siècle tipple distilled from an infusion of wormwood. Michael reads from contemporary texts condemning or examining the gods and demons of the absinthe experience, against a dreamy mood-evoking ambient soundscape. With snatches of period music weaving in and out of the cacophony, the album successfully captures that sense of distance associated with intoxication as it takes us on a journey into the addled brain of the absintheur.

Absinthe had such a bad reputation - at least partly due to harmful additives - that it was widely banned for most of the twentieth century. An idea of the taste of historical absinthe can be gained from Pernod, a modern wormwood-free absinthe. Pastis is similar but the dominant flavour is liquorice rather than aniseed. Michael Moynihan and Annabel Lee of Blood Axis and Erik Konofal of Les Joyaux are all imbibers of the liquor and have long experimented with homemade varieties. Modern, commercially manufactured absinthe has only a tenth of the psycho-active 'thujone' present in the original, but my own experience suggests that even this has an effect more akin to drugs than alcohol.

STARLESS MOON (nacht musick)

GÜNTER BERNHARD

REDSHIFT/ABSCHIED

Original Issue: 2002 Trente Oiseaux (toc 021) Buy it here!

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

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1 Redshift (31:47)
2 Abschied (20:50)

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from Bernard Günter homepage�:

The constant growth of Bernhard Günter keeps going. "Redshift" is based on sounds he found on his DAT collections, dating from almost 10 years ago; they have been processed and reworked with the usual care for the micro-details, creating a canvas on which nuances and shadows propagate in hypnotic, repetitive fashion - classical Günter style. But the best track is "Abschied": a requiem for the kind soul of a deceased person (in this case, Bernhard's wife's aunt) it's worked from treated orchestral samplings which become a faraway, melancholic delicacy of tenuous rarefaction and faint breathing, pointed with the glowing of drying tears. Again, one of the most intense compositions I came across recently, a music that will make you think for long moments after it's over. [Massimo Ricci, TOUCHING EXTREMES]

This release combines two pieces, 'Redshift' (30 minutes) and 'Abschied'} (20 minutes), realized in 2001. Although they both fit Bernhard Günter's esthetic, they share no common conceptual bond, which prompted the artist to include two interchangeable covers. 'Redshift' was put together from old samples dating back to Günter's beginnings (circa 1993). The music mainly consists of three separate layers: a faint humming background, almost inaudible, and two tracks of rattling sounds (could be contact microphones) placed far away in the left and right stereo channels.
In headphones it produces a schizophrenic effect; on loudspeakers it transforms the room into a wide sound field you can loose yourself in.
Settings change in the course of the first three movements, but the basic idea remains the same. The last seven minutes leave a lone horn calling long notes in the distance. This mournful finale turns out to be the perfect introduction for 'Abschied' composed in memory of the deceased aunt of the composer's wife. Sustained tones, calm and discreet, weave an ever-changing pattern inducing a state of meditation. Are they strings or horns? At one point, through a short transformational process reminiscent of Trevor Wishart's 'Red Bird' or Bernhard Gal's works on 'Relisten', appear the sounds of a city street at rush hour. Instead of casting some light on the piece it makes it more puzzling and beautiful.

(Note by bg: I do not own a contact microphone, and the 'street noise' part is not a field recording, but also consists of instrumental sounds.) [François Couture, ALL MUSIC GUIDE]

Redshift is the latest release from sound artist Bernhard Günter. The title piece was composed using noise sounds from Günter's DAT archive, from his early sampling days in 1993. This long piece begins with faint crackling, soft fluctuations giving the impression of movement, of a gently changing sonic space. Beneath the crackling sounds is the quiet roar of a fan, a motor, a distant drone, but it too rests gently on the listening space. Sharper textures rise and fall throughout the piece, of varying frequencies and timbres, all of which create hypnotizing movements of fluctuating sounds perfectly suited for playback at medium volume. The disc also contains a second piece, "Abschied," which otherwise has no connection with the first. It was composed in memory of Erika Kedziora, an aunt of Günter's wife who had recently passed away. Slow moving, dissonant harmonics, sounding as if they were made using a combination of bowed instruments (stringed, metallic or otherwise), create a beautiful soundscape mourning the loss and celebrating the memory of a relative who is obviously very close to Günter's heart. The piece might not have any thematic or compositional connection with "Redshift", and yet these two pieces compliment each other well. The uneven crackling and subtle noises of the first piece are answered by the sustained notes of the second. A stunning new release, one that won't want to leave your CD player for days on end. [Richard di Santo, INCURSION MUSIC REVIEW]

GHOST MOON (imaginary musick)

CARETAKER (THE)

SELECTED MEMORIES FROM THE HAUNTED BALLROOM

Original Issue: 1999 V/Vm Test Records (OFFAL02) (Buy it here!)

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

The atmosphere created here is superb, taking old 78s and drowning them in mental distortion, going some way to what was going on inside Jack Nicholson's head in the film "The Shining" (inspiration for the project and one of Margot's favorite) - www.discogs.com

Here you can read an interesting article about Hauntology.

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1 The Haunted Ballroom (3:44)
2 By The Seaside (4:00)
3 One Thousand Memories (1:25)
4 Haunting Me (3:48)
5 A Summer Romance (3:05)
6 Den Of Iniquity (2:45)
7 Dream Waltz (3:29)
8 A Handful Of Stars (3:34)
9 Request Dance (5:09)
10 In The Dark (3:02)
11 Reckless Night (3:02)
12 Thronged With Ghosts (3:48)
13 From Out Of Nowhere (3:45)
14 Friends Past Reunited (2:00)
15 You And The Night (3:12)
16 Moonlight Seranade (2:34)
17 Disillusioned (2:41)
18 The Revolving Bandstand (0:47)
19 Garden Of Weeds (3:06)
20 "Excuse Me" For Ladies (0:59)
21 In Days Of Old (2:14)
22 September 1939 (1:57)
23 Thanks (3:25)
24 The Haunted Ballroom (3:20)
25 Untitled (3:29)

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from The Caretaker homepage:

Dusty and forgotten memories, echoes and vibrations from the past.
Using as source, recordings from the 1920's and 1930's era of Ballroom music.
Often painful and desolate memories, recalled and replayed from beyond the grave of our senses.
In amongst this darkness lies the solace of a semi-recognizable melody or phrase, a beacon of light in this often dark and distant ocean of haunted recalled audio.

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from Boomkat:

The Caretaker has always been the more thoughful alter-ego of V/VM - the Stockport based butchers have been grinding up sound for quite some time now, and this full length was originally released way back in 1999.

A nice diversion from the demonic plugin-fuelled insanity of their more well known work, Caretaker instead goes for industrial ambience. Think Skinny Puppy’s more cinematic moments and you’ll be somewhere in the right area – what I love most about this album though is the kind of reverberating fairground mood.

Seaside organs hiss and hum in the background and give the record a persistent menace, a thick nostalgic groan which reminds me of Jeunet and Caro’s shiver inducing ‘Cite Des Enfants Perdus’ or maybe even more fittingly David Lynch’s ‘Eraserhead’.

Vinyl crackle rings out across the album as if it’s being played as an instrument and before long you’ll be certain you don’t live in the real world anymore. Utterly unique and really quite scary, in the best possible sense.