Objekt/Urian * Tonfragmente II (cd 2004)
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
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.
Finally a new release on Galakthorrö and “Miasma” is very much a Galakthorrö release. A bit old 
In april 2007 I saw Minamata at the Tesco festival in Antwerp. Over two years later, this show is released on DVD (just like the Galerie Schallschutz show about two months ago) together with the “Cyclator” album (both as cd and in videos). Minamata has been around since 1984 with a gap between 1991 and 2007. This French project takes its name from the Japanese city where just after WWII a chemical plant discharged their wastewater in open water, causing the fish that the inhabitants of the city ate to be polluted with chemicals and thus the Minamata disease appeared. Minamata has been telling this story for 25 years. During the show in Antwerpen we saw traditional Japanese music alternated with extreme noise. The album/videoclips and the noise parts of the show are a bit too noisy for me, but I like a project with a message and the original mix between two very different kinds of music in the live footage.
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.
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 “
I thought that when I ordered my copy from Tesco, I would have it sooner than when I would order it from Cold Spring. After two weeks of waiting, Tesco tells me that it will take another 10 days before their copies arrive. Impatient as I am I spent € 9,50 to get a 
I thought that I already had something of this Dutch project somewhere, but maybe not. The label describes this release as “dark industrial soundscapes”, but description is way off in my opinion. KK makes strange industrial noise music. Sometimes it is a bit technoish, sometimes a bit punky, sometimes more digicore, but always industrial noise. There are ‘vocals’ which gives this release something extra, especially because the ‘lyrics’ are in Dutch. KK uses a bit too many high frequencies for my poor ears. KK has a sound that I have not heard so far. Unfortunately KK not only seems to have the need to shock musically, but also thematically. I don’t like the projects name or several of the titles of releases and tracks. Not that I get shocked or something, but I don’t see the use of naming a project “Christus cunt”, or a release “offering whore”. Anyway, the lyrics on this album seem to have been taken from the Bible or so and the weird extreme kind of industrial music is at times very good, so I guess I have to forgive the young man (?) for the rest.
Bone Structure is a label from the French part of Belgium and very active in releasing tiny edition cdrs, apparently most in DVD cases. This compilation comes in only 50 copies and shows the more noisy side of the label. When you have a look at the ‘website’ of the label, you might get the idea that this is some kind of metal label. The band logos look like death metal logos, there is a fascination with gory horror, satanic artwork and titles. The description of the music is as varried as “rhythmic assault of unfriendly ambient soundscapes”, “industrial doom”, “death ambient and old school industrial sounds” to “cyberblasting and grim blackish noise mayhem” and “badass noise” (and indeed, also some metal). All very interesting, so I decided to try two compilations to get a taste of the label. “2008 Maniacs” opens very noisy, but lateron there are more soundscapish tracks, not devoid of noise. There is also complete noise overkill though (Toby Dammit). When track 8 sets in, things finally start to become really interesting and indeed, this is the Dutch project Dead.Circuit. This track sounds nothing like the Propergol-like 
I gambled and lost… Usually when I run into a band that I don’t know that could be interesting, I see if the band has a Myspace or another way to listen to their music. I guess I couldn’t find any, so I just went for the description “11 tracks of densely layered power electronics / industrial / noise”. Well, FITH makes the kind of noise that I try to avoid: the chaotic, unstructured, high pitched, earcracking kind. The sound is quite dark at times, not totally unlike 
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 
In the past I have tried some smaller (industrial) labels without much succes. In the end the good projects usually end up on a larger label and consequentally on the regular mailorders. For quite a few years I haven’t taken much effort to find interesting smaller labels, so I had to run into a few to show me that this can actually be quite interesting. For a mere 8 euros I bought this Alampo compilation of a little over an hour and it is actually very nice! The music can be described as dark ambient and soundscapes with an industrial and noisy edge. Most tracks are pretty dark and nice to listen to. There is (of course) also a not too good track (of Akronia) and a superb track comes from Machinamentum Victum Tortusve (too bad about the whip sample). Indeed, this is a nice sampler if you like the darker side of electronics and when you do not fear a healthy bit of noise. I guess I have to look into the label and the projects a bit more, since these small labels release small labels seem to have a high release-speed.
I don’t spend much time looking for projects that I do not know, but I am glad that I ran into this Dutch project. Dead.Circuit does not mind much about keeping one style, but on “Repressed Memory Therapy” the style is dark noisy soundscapes with total noise moments. The sound reminds quite a bit of Propergol at times (a bit too much sometimes), which is a good thing since Propergol has not released much recently and his sound seems to become less extreme. The people who like the older works of Propergol should definately try to get one of the 97 copies of this Dead.Circuit album. “Repressed Memory Therapy” might not always be as good as Propergol or Sistrenatus, but our Dutchman surely knows how to create a dark and filthy atmosphere with echoing film samples, distorted/noisy edges and here and there going completely loose with an almost power electronics track. Of course it is also a debut and small release, so who knows what the future will bring. A cheap 70 minutes album for lovers of “noisescapes”.
Totally unexpected a new album of Ginger Leigh fell in my mailbox yesterday. “Mercant Of Death” is another typical Ginger Leigh album. Sound collages with strange samples, weird rhythms and this time more vocals than we are used to. Swinging ‘noise ‘n’ roll’ (even though this new album is again not as noisy as the earlier albums) with jungle sounds, Middle Eastern flutes, etc. making a sound that I still have not heard anywhere else. Inspite of the strangeness, I find Ginger Leigh listenable and very enjoyable. Nowadays you can also have a try before you buy, since the website has free downloads and Ginger Leigh got a Myspace, see below.
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”.
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!
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. 
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?
A compilation dedicated to North Korea with a whole range of interesting bands to be found on it. Putting the cd on I am very pleased to hear that Turbund Sturmwerk didn’t loose their touch afterall. Their latest tracks were not too great, but their “Reunification” is pretty damn good. It opens very loud with a bit of a Firsst Law sound and after a noisy middle Turbund falls back in known patterns, but overall I am happy with this wonderfull track. Lovers of harsch noise can enjoy themselves with Operation Cleansweep, Con-Dom and Genocide Organ. The track that Militia contributed is quite nice, but when we skip on to Ex.Order we hear another wonderfull “ambient noise” track with a great dark sound. The Grey Wolves tear our ears to shreds with their power electronics and to close off Anenzephalia put together a quite typical track with minimal noise and screamed vocals; not their best material, but not boring either. Overall “Juche” is mostly a compilation for people who like the harder side of electronic music and who had to wait for their favourite projects to finally release something new. “Juche” has a nice A5 package, produced in North Korea and is limited to a mere 15.000.000 copies, so hurry up!