Gangleri – music reviews

I just discovered Objekt/Urian, so I here present an old album. This is the only ‘official’ release of this project, all others are cdrs. Objekt/Urian makes relatively tranquil oldstyle industrial with repetative sounds, here and there a distorted voice and a few harder, even noise tracks. “Tonfragmente II” is a nice album with some darker tracks, some less dark, a few not-too-good, but mostly pretty good and a couple of very good tracks (the harder ones).
Links: Objekt/Urian, Zone de Confusion

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

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

Who thinks that sharing music is a bad thing? I ran into this lp on some P2P user’s list by accident. I did not even know about this release. Fortunately it is still available. After the split 7″ which spelled Thorofon’s goodbye and The Musick Wrecker’s hello, it seemed that our duo left the industrial sound for an even more experimental sound, but actually “Mission Mass Media” continues where Thorofon left of with “This Summer Suicide“. “Industrial disco” obviously rooted in old style industrial and noise with simple but catchy melodies and simple repetative rhythms and (distorted) vocals. The tracks here are more interesting (but less surprising) than the tracks on the 7″. A very nice release!
Links: The Musick Wreckers, La Nouvelle Alliance (no website found)

The female half of Thorofon / The Musick Wreckers is back. It is only recently that I got to know Geneviève Pasquier (about a year ago) and I have to admit that I pulled her three earlier releases off the internet. I like some of the songs on these albums. Pasquier has a nice mix between oldstyle industrial and electropop, but the result is less predictable than this description suggests. On “Le Cabaret Moi” Pasquier has a little bit more of a ‘cabaretesk’ sound, the lyrics are now mostly in French and Pasquier incorporated a few new sounds. Still the new album is recognisable in song structure and style. Poppy songs with strange distorted industrial sounds or simply rhythmical industrial with Pasquier’s singing, most of the time nicely catchy. Yep, an original style and I happen to like this relatively more accessible current in the extreme electronics scene and this album is a very nice one in this direction.
Links: Geneviève Pasquier, Ant-Zen

Finally a new release on Galakthorrö and “Miasma” is very much a Galakthorrö release. A bit old November Növelet, a bit of Maska Genetik and a lot of Haus Arafna. As a matter of fact, if this would have been released under the name of Haus Arafna, I would have believed this to be a Haus Arafna album instantly. “Miasma” would come perfectly after “Butterfly” with again softer industrial noise and angstpop. The sound, the structure, the vocals, everything reminds of Haus Arafna, the only thing missing is mrs. Arafna. Should this have been a Haus Arafna album, it would have been their best; man, what a great album “Miasma” is! Exactly what I needed. Industrial rhythms, creaking noises, dark drones, deep vocals. Not every track is perfect, but most tracks are great enough to compensate for the one or two less-great tracks. Hopefully mr. and mrs. Arafna will soon take up the task to release an even better album.
Links: Herz Jühning, Galakthorrö

Since the last new album is already 5 years old, I decided to buy some older material and ‘work my way backwards’ to see to how early I like Haus Arafna. “Version 2000″ the cover of “Children of God” says, I gues the first pressing was gone rapidly. “Children Of God” “includes the mega-hit Last Dream Of Jesus” and is musically and thematically (artwork) quite extreme. This album is another step forward to the great sound of later material. There are some hardly distorted rhythms in some tracks, others are relatively tranquil and ‘discoïsh’, such as the great “Anatomy of a murder”. Leaving out the really extreme material of the earlier days, Haus Arafna is rapidly becoming one of my favourite exponents of extreme electronics.
Links: Haus Arafna, Galakthorrö

Originally released in 1995 as “Blut / Trilogie des Blutes”, this 2006 rerelease contains “Nachblutung” as bonus. This results in a nice length of about an hour. Even though this is some of the earlier material, this album is not as extreme as Haus Arafna can get. Mind you, this cd is still a lot more industrial noise than “Butterfly”! The music of Haus Arafna will fall hard on the average music listener, but I personally like it a lot. It is extreme, especially in some tracks of an earlier release such as this, but structured and nicely rhythmical. I must add that I am no fond of the very early more chaotic noise sound, but the tracks here were a good step in the right direction. I never really got to buy more of Haus Arafna than the magnificent “Butterfly“, but this puts me back on track.
Links: Haus Arafna, Galakthorrö

I have had this compilation on the computer for some time, but good things I want to have ‘for real’. This compilation celebrated 10 years of Galakthorrö and opens with an old style harsch industrial noise track of Haus Arafna. The second track is also for Haus Arafna, but this time more the ‘new style’. Subliminal continues with two harsch noise tracks, but things get more tranquil with Karl Runau. Then follow two magnificent tracks that were mostly the reason for me buying this cd. Maska Genetik is unfortunately no longer on Galakthorrö and even seems to cease to excist, but his two noisy disco-industrial tracks are very much Galakthorrö and some of the best tracks this label released. Of course the compilation would not be complete without November Növelet, two great “angstpop” (and/or “kalte welle”?) tracks in the “From Heaven On Earth” style. Unfortunately the running time is only 38 minutes…

Those who fear that Galakthorrö is becoming soft with the newer sound of Haus Arafna and November Növelet, releases of Herman Kopp and Herz Jühning can rest assured tonight: Subliminal made another total noise album. The first two tracks lets you get used to the fact just mentioned, but from track three on, you get some rather harsch noise with distorted vocals. Subliminal has released another album on Galakthorrö (“Gracebudd” 2000), but I don’t know it and they appear on the excellent “Galakthorrö – Kosmoloko” compilation (2004, which I have no legal copy of yet, so I haven’t reviewed it). “Coping” reminds quite a bit of the harscher side of Haus Arafna here and there. I wonder how it comes that Galakthorrö projects somehow all seem to have a sound based on whatever sound mr. and mrs. Arafna have produced. Does the label manage to track down such projects, are they involved in them theirselves, it this a group of friends working in the same studio? Whether it is noise, “angstpop” or “Kalte Welle”, it is not too hard to recognise a Galakthorrö sound in projects. As long as it is good, this does not matter of course. Subliminal is surely no Haus Arafna copy and like I said: if people think that Haus Arafna got too soft, they can now buy “Coping”.
Links: Subliminal, Galakthorrö

A long time I didn’t really know Haus Arafna, their other project or their label. Almost five years ago I decided to buy a Haus Arafna album and reading back my review of that time I found the album just fine at the time. I guess the cd grew on me, since I consider “Butterfly” to be a masterpiece nowadays. I didn’t come to buy more Haus Arafna music, but apparently started to look for their material on the P2P network that I use sometimes (rarely actually). I have some other Haus Arafna albums on the computer by now, some are nice, some are too noisy and none is as good as “Butterfly”. I suppose in the process of looking for Haus Arafna material, I also ran into the sublime album “Magic” of November Növelet, which I bought immediately. Somewhere along the line I also pulled “From Heaven On Earth” off the web and this album is not only definately good enough to buy, but also still available even though it’s quite old. “From Heaven On Earth” is not as much a disco cd as “Magic”, but has more of that odd Galakthorrö style of music: minimalistic, a bit ambient, a bit industrial, some soft rhythms and a lot of weird sounds. The style is dark and charming, elusive and provocative and most of all: very original. “From Heaven On Earth” could be an album for people who don’t like the harscher side of Haus Arafna (you just have to get used to it!) and perhaps also for people who find “Magic” too poppy, but “More Satanic Heroes” (1994) too harsch. It’s quite a typical Galakthorrö release, but as long as it’s only Galakthorrö releasing this kind of stuff, I don’t mind the ‘typicallity’.
There is a 7″ just released, I hope to be able to review it soon. Two of the four tracks can be listened on the band’s Myspace, check out the links.
Links: November Növelet, Galakthorrö

Murpey’s Law caused some delay to this release, but I finally got my copy yesterday. In the series of DVDs with reports of the shows at the October 2004 Steinklang festival in Vienna/Wien, this is the second. Here we have to rhythmical industrial/noise projects. Tormentum is not too great, only a few nice tracks in their 41 minutes. The sound-quality is not too good either, the right speaker sounds really flat and no, that is not caused by my equipment. Thorofon is more interesting in every way. The sound quality is much better (fortunately), the visuals are more interesting (two persons on stage and they even walk around, plus they include a woman and that helps too), the music is more interesting. It is no This Summer Suicide, but Thorofon showed both their old fashioned noise side and the more rhythmical sound. 52 minutes, not such a bad deal!
Links: Thorofon, Steinklang

For their hundreth release The Old Europa Café label has released a 7-cd compilation with a track of each band and project they have been involved in during the years. However looking around the internet it seems like the bands are featured alphabetically, this is not the case, the cds are ordered somewhat thematically / according to style. “Somewhat” I say, since it is not completely that there are industrial and folk cds, there is some overlap. That is only for the better, the compiler of the cds has a rather good ear for things. In the beginning I had the idea that there are alternally more industrial and more folky cds, but this is not entirely true. The compilation opens with a cd with mostly not too extreme noise, a nice cd. Then follows a cd with more (neo)folky music, but not the too typical sounds of a compilation that I reviewed a few days ago. Then we have cds with power electronics and the extreme, chaotic style that isn’t mine, but also more old industrial things, strange experimental soundscape music and more of an old neofolk cd that I find awfull (Ain Soph, that sort of bands). Having heard the whole thing, my temporary conclusion is that the first cds are the most interesting and towards the end are some cds that I will probably never play. I think that four out of seven cds are enough of my taste to put in the player every now and then, so the “price/quality balance” is not that bad.

We didn’t put limits to the sound stiles, so here you can really hear all the sounds of the Industrial sub-culture featured on OEC !

This is a sure thing and it would be utterly impossible if everybody would love everything on this “mammoth compilation”, but I guess that for people who like the better stuff from the scene, there will be plenty to enjoy on “The Old Europa Café”.
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Those of you who follow these pages will already know that I find the musical current called “neofolk” has been in a downwards spiral for quite a few years. There was an interesting thing when some bands started to experiment with poppy sounds, but after a short trend, also these poppy influences have already been removed. Judging the second half of the fourth Steinklang label compilation, “neofolk” is back to its minimalistic, unimaginable and boring sound. Unfortunately it seems that also kindred musical currents seem to have been infected by the virus of dullness, since the “industrial / noise / electronic” tracks of the first half of this cd are pretty boring as well. Besides a few good moments, this new compilation is an awfull compilation, a downwards trail since number II (I don’t have the first). There are a whole bunch of bands that I didn’t know or that I only knew by name, but this obviously was for the better. So now I wonder: does this compilation represent the poor state of the scene or is it another omen that I am growing away from it?
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My girlfriend wanted to have this cd because she ones wrote a paper about the Austrian poet Georg Trakl and Heidegger’s analysis of his symbolic texts. With three tracks of each band, this nicely packed album makes about 50 minutes. The Allerseelen tracks are not bad, but like usually with Allerseelen, the tracks start with a nice idea, but keep repeating it until the tracks end. Neutral has tranquil piano tracks with the poets spoken on the background. Otzepenevshiye is a strange project with strange tracks. Not a bad cd, but certainly no masterpiece.
Links: Allerseelen, Neutral, Otzepenevshiye.

The Eastern Front has released a very nice double cd compilation with a whole range of famous bands on the first cd, most of them not from their own label. Cd 1 (“Grief”) has bands such as the resurrected Belborn, Cold Fusion, Cawatana, Kammer Sieben and Horologium and includes a cooperation between H.E.R.R. and Von Tronstahl. Most tracks are bombastic and militant, sometimes more orchestral, sometimes more neofolky and in most cases quite enjoyable. The second cd (“Birth of Psyche”) has mostly more minimalistic and ambient tracks from Artefactum, Rose Rovine, Shining Vril, Bisclaveret and a range of projects that are new to me. This cd surely isn’t bad, but less interesting than the first cd, but the projects Wach and Sitra Ahra offer a nice surprise. Both cds have a running time of well over an hour, so you get what you pay for! The simple but very nice booklet looks good, like we get used to from this label and also the limited amount of 1000 copies goes for this compilation. I noticed that it is available from about every descent mailorder, so it shouldn’t be too hard to lay your hands on a copy.
Link: The Eastern Front

I probably don’t have to tell you, but November Növelet is another project of Haus Arafna and Galakthorrö is mr. and mrs. Arafna’s label. It is only since a few years that I got to know and appreciate Haus Arafna. I hadn’t really listed to November Növelet yet, but what I heard it seemed that this was the Arafna harsch noise project while Haus Arafna evolved towards a more accessible sound. This assumption turns out to be wrong, because “Magic” is more ‘easy listening’ than anything that has been released under the monicker Haus Arafna (as far as I know). The album opens with minimalistic and even atmospheric sounds as it can be only made by the couple Arafna, but as the album continues the sound goes more towards 80′ies synthpop with of course an odd twist. It seems that the Arafna’s undergo a similar evolution as for example Thorofon who also started as a harsch noise project, but later got a sound that some call “antipop”. This album of November Növelet will appeal to people who enjoy the last Thorofon album, Dogpop, Geneviève Pasquier and the like. Also where in earlier days mr. and mrs. Arafna were always shown with gasmasks on, they now can be seen in both projects with their real faces and for “Magic” even with an “Austin Powers”-like photoshoot! I must say that I enjoy this development in industrial music, the older the musicians get, the crazier it seems. The music is easy to listen to, but strange enough to avoid the masses (also because of the names they are released under I guess), so if you share that weird musical sense of humour, you might want to get a copy of “Magic”.
Link: November Növelet, Galakthorrö
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Around since at least 1986 with dozens of releases, yet (I think) this is the first time that I hear them. 16 Tracks and 71 minutes with music as strange as Oblivion Ensemble (see below), but Sigillum S doesn’t just make weird soundscapes, because besides theses collages of sounds, samples and voices, there is also pretty loud industrial rock that may even appeal to people who like Marilyn Manson, NIN or Ministry. There are also more jazzy things. The larger part are the soundscapes, either or not with an industrial or noisy edge, but with the completely different tracks there is variety enough to make this an interesting album.

Links: Sigillum S / Verba Corrige Production
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Yesterday the first day of the Tesco Festival took place in Antwerpen with Ure Thrall, Dogpop and Galerie Schallschutz. Unfortunately I cannot go to see Genocide Organ, Janitor and Post Scriptvm tonight. I was interested to see Dogpop. Their “Popgod” debut 12″ may not be brilliant, but it surely is refreshing and interesting so I was curious what these industrial veterans would do on stage. Well, the LP contains strange experiments with a sound somewhere between old synthpop/electro and industrial and maybe what some people like to call “antipop”. If you know Thorofon and Geneviève Pasquier, you might be able to get an idea of the sound. What was most remarkable yesterday, was that the sound is much more (back to) industrial with almost noise tracks even. Also there were silly tunes. Maybe for their tour, Dogpop released a “live without band” cd, limited to 100 copies with 11 years of material (!!). I don’t know if this cd is only sold at concerts. Also on this cd, the sound differs a bit from the LP, but of course the music remains that weird Dogpop sound with dance, acid, synthypop, etc. sounds and industrial, ambient and a bit of noise, all in all: Dogpop. Very nice and interesting enough to keep an eye on.
Links: Dogpop, UMB Kollektiv
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