Gangleri – music reviews

Free online compilations can be a nice way to learn about new projects, but I must say the fact that the length is no longer limited by the amount of information that fits on a disc, things become quite absurd. After the 5 hours Emissions compilation that I reviewed recently, here we have a one file, 800MB and 8+ hours compilation with dark ambient, industrial and a lot of experimental electronic music. I have by far not heard the whole thing when I write this, so this is not really a review, rather an announcement. I heard some nice tracks along the way, but also a lot of too vague experimentalism for my taste. When you are interested, get this compilation here.

Of course I have known the name Throbbing Gristle for ages. They have been releasing material since I was born. I never really listened to them. I guess I thought they made this oldfashioned chaotic kind of noise and I have never really listened to the industrial music of before my time. Apparently TG still releases at a staggering speed and also partly on the same label as the early days, so I figured it was time to properly listen to TG. Not really as expected this cd contains quite tranquil soundscapes, slightly industrial, but quite ‘easy listening’. I cannot say that I really like it. There are a few tracks that are a bit faster, a bit ‘industrial disco’ even and these tracks already sound better to my ears. I do not know if this album is representative in style for TG, but I am sure that you readers have probably followed TG for ages and do know the answer to that question already.
Links: Throbbing Gristle, Industrial Records

Changes is not my favourite band, but they always have a few nice songs. “Lament” starts with a piano track and continues with a bit too usual Changes folk music. Fortunately furtheron there are some other styles such as an OFWATM like song and some more experimental and less (neo)folky tracks. “Lament” has new and new versions of old songs. I am not ravingly enthousiastic about this new album, but as always, there are a few very nice songs here.
Links: Changes, Hau Ruck!

I always thought that Land:Fire was a dark ambient project. I have some music on compilations and maybe I (unconsciously) heard that Herbst9 is another project of this duo, but when I recently heard a great noise track of Land:Fire it became time to really listen to this project. “Shortwave Transmission” opens brilliantly with very dark ambient noise with industrial rhythms. There indeed are a few dark ambient tracks, but the larger part is really my kind of noise. Great material!
Links: Land:Fire, Power & Steel

Fabian of Dead.Circuit brought this free download compilation to my attention. 5 Times 11 tracks and about 70 minutes, I suppose, since the files do not work 100%. In any case, about 6 hours of music, how do I write a review about that? Emissions is a dark ambient compilation, but there are also more industrial and even noise tracks. There are established projects such as Land:Fire (great noise track), Herbst9, Svartsinn, Northaunt and of course Dead.Circuit (a monotous ambient track, not his best), but most of the projects are new to me. I do not listen all that much to dark ambient, because it tends to be too monotous for me, but I must say that I am not disappointed about the majority of the tracks presented. There is enough variety with darker and lighter tracks, rumbling and rhythmical and quiet and noisy.
Links: Kalpmantra

“Imperative” might not be a masterpiece, but it is a nice album. “Sect” creates music with orchestral samples that are usually very fast, cut and looped. This makes the music cheerfull in a way. There is drumming and marchdrums in most tracks, but I would not call this album “martial”. Besides the orchestrations there is usually nothing to hear. Just a few tracks have vocal(sample)s or speech samples.
Links: Sect, Rage In Eden

Yet another project of Dead Man’s Hill, Alle Sagen Ja, Eisengrau, etc. NDE makes a mix between black metal, martial industrial, bombastic orchestrations and noise. The result is a heavy pompous sound with distorted screamed vocals and raging guitars. Quite extreme, quite original, not alway quite good. There are some nice orchestral noisy tracks, but as soon as the guitars set in, I loose my interest. I think this album will appeal to people who like the later sound of Karjalan Sissit with the noisy orchestrations and screamed vocals, but then with guitars added.
Links: NDE, Cold Spring

Dawn & Dusk Entwined has never been my favourite project, but this latest album is still quite disappointing. I do not have everything that David released, this is the fourth album including the split with Golgatha. “Cathedrals of mist” is a soundtrack to a book and very minimalistic and repetative orchestral ambient. Only in the darker orchestral parts and the scarce martial tracks things get better, for the larger part of the 27 (!) tracks are not really my cup of tea.
Links: Dawn & Dusk Entwined / Aube et Crépuscule

It has been five years since the interesting debut of this Romenian duo. “Dialogue” mixed different kinds of music into an interesting style. On “Divine Skinny” there is again a mix of styles, but the result differs from the previous album. After hearing the Myspace tracks I got myself a copy of the new album, but I must say that I am disappointed by it. The cd opens interestingly with a mix between folk and industrial, but most of the tracks are rather bluesy, minimalistic, slow tracks, mixed with electropop and other poppy sounds. Especially the female vocals are not my thing (I prefer the photos of the very skinny Julie in the booklet) and the music is quite boring at times. I do like the fact that the bands presents something very uncommon and perhaps some more (than four) listenings will make the album grow a bit, but I can currently not give too much praise to it.
Links: Divine Muzak, Punch Records

Well well, D-Passion released a cd! Looking at the cover, I see quite a typical gabber face. D-Passion is one of the classic Third Movement artists enlightening their compilations with great industrial techno. D-Passion balances on the border between gabber and tekno, but does not lean towards the wrong direction. His style is fairly dark, pretty agressive, has a lot of samples and loud beats; not the the-faster-the-better ideology of the gabber or speedcore style, but always in a nice danceble pace. The music is minimalistic enough and does not have too many breaks and changes in speed, which makes it very enjoyable. Great heavy techno!
Links: D-Passion, The Third Movement

I mostly know Peaky Pounder from his label’s compilations, but I also heard some of his vinyls. Peaky often makes the quite popular techno (minimalistic, regular beats and with minimal sound on the background), but then in a heavy, industrial fashion. Great stuff. Now there is a cd. I like the fact that within a DJ culture vinyls are still released to play at parties, but I personally prefer to buy cds to play at home, so I was happy to hear about a Peaky cd. Our Dutchman thinks that things to not have to be too dark and wanted to create something lighter with disco samples and stuff like that. However the tracks presented are obviously Peaky, most tracks are not as hard as I like them, but there sure are nice tracks here too. Here and there I find the tone a bit too light though and it seems that the speed has gone a bit down too. Overall the album is not as good as I hoped and it seems that Peaky gets about as crazy as for example Kid 606 here and there. At least the sound is not very typical (not even for Peaky Pounder) and some tracks are still good.
Links: Peaky Pounder, The Third Movement

The Dutch label The Third Movement releases what I call “post-gabber”. “Gabber” was the biggest Dutch subculture a decade or two ago, but it got too big and exploded and some of the people from that scene continued a bit more underground and with a heavier sound. In 2004 I discovered the superb compilation “Audio Output 3“. Where the first “Audio Output” (2002) proved to be mostly a gabber compilation (hardstyle techno, but too cheerfull for me), part 2 (2004) containing both gabber and “tekno” and therefor much more interesting, part 3 was a complete tekno / industrial techno compilation with some great extreme dance music. Still waiting for “Audio Output 4″, I now discover that another compilation series is put out by The Third Movement, a series that started between the first and second “Audio Output”! In any case, “Demolition part 10″ is a 10 euro double cd with great Third Movement artists such as Promo, Peaky Pounder, N-Vitral, D-Passion and The DJ Producer, but also my favourite extreme techno artist Hellfish. Promising! To my big disappointment I hear a step back to the times of “Audio Output 2″ with horrible gabber tracks with those awfull ravy melodies and cheesy samples. Other tracks are great industrial tekno, but the Hellfish tracks are not all that good (neither is his last 12″), the highlights are definately the two DJ Producer tracks. It is funny how thin the line between good tekno and awfull gabber is. There are two tracks of “3 Steps Ahead” that start of in a promising way, but after an ‘announcement’ of gabber elements both tracks because simply horrific, awfull enough to give me a bad temper! I am afraid that the same ‘gabbery feeling’ is to be found in tracks of projects that I normally do enjoy, so do we witness a step back to the times in which hard techno sounded like shit? I hope not and there sure are great tracks here, but I guess I should make my own compilation out of this compilation…
Link: The Third Movement

Last year Roma Amor released a nice untitled debut album. They describe their style as “folk / neo-cabaret” which is a good description. Slightly reminding of Edith Piaff, Roma Amor has an enigmatic singer and nice, smooth music which is also very nice to see/hear live. This second album is quite the same as the debut, just as good, no change in style or really new elements. So, again nice and I guess you should get it when you liked the debut.
Links: Roma Amor, Old Europa Café

Most Of The Taciturn is a Chinese dark ambient project and they release this mcd (5 tracks, 20 minutes) on the Chinese label that also released the newest Dead Man’s Hill and l’Effet c’est Moi albums. It comes in a very nice digipack, but the soundscapes are a bit too monotous for me. So there is a market for this kind of music in China too? And they manage to get their limited releases here too, since these albums are not very hard to get here.
Links: Midnight Productions, M.O.T.T.

I noticed this title on a distro’s list and it was mostly that strange bandname that caught my attention. What might be even stranger is that this album was released on a label that appears to be a more technoish label (three “dubstep” compilations for example). A Wake A Week has nothing to do with techno though. The music is very slow and rather heavy orchestral music which is mostly very sad, but sometimes pretty dark. On the background you can hear all kinds of samples and sometimes there are for example drones or some noisy sound, but the majority of the music are the orchestrations. I think this will appeal to people who like The Protagonist for example. An original sound, well executed, a very nice surprise!
Links: A Wake A Week, Spectral Liquid

Stupid me. I saw Der Blutharsch twice during their last tour, but I did not buy this single because I was not sure I did not have it… Fortunately copies have ended up at a couple of distros so you can still get it. Not that you should buy it for the music though. The fairly discoish track with Jeffrey D. is no masterpiece, but I try to keep up with the band’s releases a bit.
Link: Der Blutharsch / WKN

Last week I stumbled upon the French distro and label Steelwork Maschine. I never heard of them, nor have I heard of most projects they release and sell. Not having enough time to carefully look through their catalogues, I got a copy of this split cdr. Neon Rain offers some alright to nice rhythmical industrial tracks, HP Unit 14 has more tranquil IDM or drum’n'bass sounds which are not too good. It is always nice to run into new music, but I will have to check if Steelwork also sells really good stuff.
Links: Neonrain, Steelwork Maschine

I have gravely neglected the current that I call “rhythmical industrial”, but which since years has been called “rhythmic noise”. I never liked the latter term, since however the style is rather extreme, I seldom found it really noisy. Then again, Winterkälte’s last album (“Disturbance” 2004) is quite noisy and this album of Imminent is too at times. Around 1998/9 I shortly listened to this music. Winterkälte’s “Drum & Noise” (1999), Imminent Starvation’s “Nord” (1999) are great albums, but the “Industrial Frequencies” compilation series and other projects in the style were too tame for me. Another problem that I often had with the style, is that the music is often a dustbin of ideas with tracks stuffed with different rhythms, breaks, sounds, samples and ideas completely losing the idea of ‘danceablity’. My interests shifted to other musical currents and for about 10 years I probably did not even hear a single “rhythmical industrial” release. Then at last years Wave Gotik Treffen I saw Winterkälte which was great. Then I noticed that Imment has a new album so I figured I might want to find out what it is that “rhythmic noise” is nowadays. “Cask Strength” opens with two IDM/breakcore tracks, but then goes on full throttle with extremely loud dance music. A lot of breakbeats (while I love the regular blasts of the “Lost Highway” track) and also more tranquil tracks, mostly very nicely done and a good listen. Danceable? I do not know, sometimes I guess. Apparently with Winterkälte out of the way, Imminent is the best project in this style. Ironically too by the way, since both Winterkälte and Imminent are the projects that have made this music since 1993/4 while all the later bands are less skilled to make this kind of music. Too bad in a way, since I have the same with other styles (harsch EBM, old Wumpscut style for example, noone ever topped the earlier releases, especially not Ratzinger himself), but at least Imminent has made a new release! However much I like this music when it is well done, just as with extreme tekno or power electronics, I will not play a release such as this too often, since I usually feel like listening to a little more easy music. In any case, should you -like me- have missed the last 10 years of “rhythmical industrial”, this new album will not sound shockingly new, but Moreau is still a guy to make this sound good.
Links: Imminent, Ant-Zen