Gangleri – music reviews

Amazing how this man can keep making the same music for such a long time. I do have a couple of DIJ albums, but by far not all. I decided to have a listen to this new album and all I can think is: “Well, another Death In June album.” The music remains minimalistic neofolk with just Douglas P. on guitar and vocals and on the background sound and voice samples. The songs are not boring, but the sound is too much the same for me.
Just another DI6 album, that is all I can make of it…
-2.5-

Did you ever see a double acoustic guitar? I don’t remember I did, but I am sure that I never saw two men playing it together!
Flairck is a Dutch band that is almost as old as myself and they have an ever changing line-up, safe for one person. Since the band is this old, I have known them for many years, but never really bought records or visited a show. Yesterday there were in a theatre not too far away and my girlfriend got a discount, so we decided to see what Flairck is all about. The music is losely based on folkmusic from all around the world and has a folky/medieval touch sometimes, but the band never just plays traditional music as far as I know. Currently the band consists of the band’s heart who is an aging guitar virtuose who brings a lot of instruments to his shows. Then there is another guitar virtuose, but this time from Mexico, also bringing several instruments, under which an acoustic bass guitar and some really weird-looking guitars. An old and new member seem to play any wind instrument, from the tiniest flute, to a massive bass fagot, a ’super German flute’ and several clarinets. Then there was the young, good-looking academic violin player. Each musician gets plenty possibility to show that (s)he is top-of-the-class (I think auditions are held for new members). Then there was a gigantic wind-organ played by a laptop (”an old one”). These people can surely play and make a party on stage with some very odd humerous (to even silly) elements. “Stoomwals” (”steam roller”) surely made a nice Thursday evening! This tour is almost done, but there are 22 cds (just rereleased in one box) you can listen to and the band lives from touring, so undoubtely they will be on the road again sometime soon.
Link: Flairck

Well, mr. Tibet had put together a varried final day of the Roadburn festival which resulted in a nice, varried audience. The day was not sold out, but the big venue of the 013 was pretty crowded. The sunny day started in the big, dark room with Baby Dee. This proved to be an artist that I expected to come with Current 93. One person behind a piano making strange music that reminds music made in American ‘night pubs’. Every song some bandmembers entered the gigantic stage. Baby Dee doesn’t really make my kind of music, but there were a few nice songs. The awfull Skitliv (some black metal like project of one of the Mayhem singers) gave us some time to have dinner in Tilburg and halfway Hush Arbor we were back. One guy on the stage with a guitar and supersoft popmusic, kind of boring. Because one band had to cancel, Current 93 gave a show of almost 2 hours. It went as expected. Weird and dramatic, with not too great music and a few magnificent songs. I didn’t know any of the songs played, even though I have four or five albums of C93, but it seems that almost the entire new album was played. The room was stuffed and it sure was nice to see this live some time. The last band Æthanor, gave away some metal-soundscapes, not interesting enough for long, so we were home quite early. I took quite some pictures and tried the film function of my camera, but I haven’t had the time to copy it all to my computer. Maybe I will post something in this little story some time.

I have know Current 93 for a great many years, but besides a few good albums (the ones made with Douglas P.), this is not really my music. Still I sometimes have the idea that I would like to see David Tibet live some time, but every time he is around, I am in doubt, usually about the ticket price. I skipped a show in Antwerpen a few years ago and about two months ago friends said that Tibet would play at the Roadburn festival in Tilburg. This is actually a rock festival, but Tibet is asked to “curate” the last day and this includes a show of Current 93. Me and my girlfriend were just in the process of buying a house and making plans to move, the ticket price is way above what I usually pay for a concert, but how many more chances would I get? So, I ordered the tickets, had (or better said: have) a busy time moving and coming Sunday is the day. It seems that there are still tickets available, so if you are interested in a day of Current 93 and friends, go to the Roadburn website for more information.

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

Strange actually, this cd could be listened in full and bought digitally on the CMI website a couple of weeks before the actual release. I have looked forward for this new album. I love this project from Luxemburg, but I don’t play his cds too often because they are rather melancholic. The latter is a little less present on “MMM”, but the sound doesn’t differ all that much from the earlier releases. Rome makes music somewhere between neofolk and military pop and has thick ‘wavy’ influences. Especially the tracks in the beginning sound even more “gothic” than we got used to and the music may not (allways) ‘grab me’ as much as on the previous albums, but the songs are again very well structured and layered and all known elements are again present. “MMM” is again a very good album with perhaps the only minor point that it remains a bit too much in the sound that we all know by now. That is hardly a reason not to buy this album though, because it is a lot better than almost anything coming from that corner of our scene nowadays.
Links: Rome, Cold Meat Industry

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!