Gangleri – music reviews

My eye just fell on an item in the Going Underground rarities list. This is actually the Der Blutharsch 5 x 7″ box for sale, for the absurd cost of 350 euros (if I’d make that to dollars, I’d some to something like $ 540 with the current rate).
Long ago, I was in Gent (Belgium) to see The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath A Cloud (not for the first time btw.). They were still together and Herr Julius had made a solo release under the name Der Blutharsch. I bought that LP at the concert. There was a little card in it with which owners of the LP could order a 7″ and that again for a few times. Then there was a card for a 5 x 7″ box. Not cheap, but I figured that these very limited releases of a sideproject of the cultband TMLHBAC would be worth having, so I sent my cash to Austria, like I did a couple of times before. (This was all before the internet, euros, etc.) On inquiring where my box was, I got a letter from Julius that he never got my cash and he had similar complaints from other people. Apparently his mailman found out that all those letters he received contained dollars… Since I thought that Der Blutharsch was nothing compared to TMLHBAC, I didn’t try again to get the box, hell, I didn’t even buy the first cd that contains the music from the 7″s! When the style got better and TMLHBAC was debunked, I started buying and loving Der Blutharsch, but my collection always remained incomplete, since I hadn’t been able to lay my hands on the 7″ box. When Julius started to release more very limited vinyls, but now only sold at Ebay or only at concerts, I missed several releases. Too bad, I still have most, but I have no intention to pay a crazy sum of 350 euros just to get that 7″ box afterall. Would anybody?

David Lynch has made a lot more music than I knew. Yesterday I wrote a little about a new classical soundscape cd and some jazz(rock) releases, later I ran into this album. “Lux Vivens” is the music of the mystic Hildegard von Bingen which Jocelyn Montgomery apparently sings a lot. For this release David Lynch made the background music which in line of most releases that I review I would call “dark ambient” and “soundscapes” and Montgomery’s opera voice would be “heavenly voices”. There is also a little bit of “noise” and here and there a guitar. I am positivily surprised by this album. The “low” (Lynch does not think this album is “dark” since “dark could imply evil”) threatening sound goes wonderfully with the eerie voice of Montgomery. A very enjoyable album!
-4-

Today I found out that there are two new cds by David Lynch and looking for a place to listen some snippets on the internet I saw that there are even more albums of the man that I didn’t know.
Just out is Polish Night Music which Lynch made together with Marek Zebrowski and which appears to be a very monotous soundscapes of classical music. What I heard of it so far, this is not really my thing.
Also new is a single called Ghost Of Love. Two songs with a soft jazzy and weird sound with apparently Lynch himself on vocals. These songs sound quite nice with the whawha guitars and stretched sounds.
Further there is a Twin Peaks New Season Two Music Soundtrack CD which does not have music from the series, so I guess it’s a new musical interpretation of the series. I’m not sure if the music is of Lynch himself.
Continuing there seem to be two albums from 2004, one called Jazz Lobster which is not bad for a jazz album with some nice elements such as electric bass and normal guitar, this album doesn’t get better as it continues though. New View Through The Window Vol. 3 suggests that there are more of them. This is a jazz rock / fusion album, not really my thing. And indeed, there are two more with about the same sound.
What I heard isn’t quite as good as the Blue Bob album, but some music might be interesting enough to listen to properly.

Do you ever wonder what is in my player when I don’t have new music to review? Since I play music when I am at home almost constantly, it would be a dayjob to keep up with that, but maybe every now and then, just to give you an idea and just to give you an idea of what albums are good enough to play when the novelty is gone. On Wednes- en Thursdays my girlfriend is mostly not at home when I come home from work. That is when I often play the more extreme things that I don’t want to bother her with too much. Then it is often tekno, digicore, power electronics and sometimes metal. Yesterday I suddenly felt like playing metal, something like Dimmu Borgir (Enthrone 97), nah, Cradle of Filth? not today, Ancient (Mad Gradiose Bloodfiends 97), hmmm; but then my eye fell on At the Gates so I played their only good album: The Red In The Sky Is Ours (92). While reading later on I put on the first two Stoa cds (Urthona 93 and Porta VIII 94), man I hadn’t heard them in decades. When reading I play something more tranquil of course. On the way home from work today I was already thinking what to play after At the Gates. That other album (With Fear I Kiss The Burning Darkness 93) isn’t that good. Dark Tranquillity (my favourite metal band)? In Flames! Another thing that I haven’t heard in ages. So I put on Lunar Strain (94) and Subterrenean (95). I think that will be enough of metal for a few months to come!

In the Golgatha/Dawn & Dusk split an advertising leaflet of CMI is inserted (as always). It has a very promising remark under “upcoming”:

MILITIA presents the MekanOrganiK project – Extracting Sunlight from Cucumbers CD

Does that mean that my favorite eco-anarchists will release a new album and even on CMI? Now that is something to look forward to!

[edit]: Hmm, what a little ‘Googling’ can onearth, a quote from Wikipedia:

Militia side project MekanOrganiK

In collaboration with the Bilzen Cultural Board, Militia’s side project MekanOrganiK organised the Bilzorganic festival, a street festival featuring several theatre acts and experimental music artists. MekanOrganiK presented a concert for 15 cement mixers and dance performance. See: http://www.cultuur.bilzen.be/site.asp?CID=7135

MekanOrganiK is also involved in the organisation of workshops, teaching young people how to create self-made music instruments and how to play the didgeridoo and percussion on empty oil barrels. In the youth club Club 9 in Koersel, MekanOrganiK organised the workshop “percussion on oil barrels” during the Fair Trade happening, see http://www.club9.be/on_stage.htm

MekanOrganiK will release a full studio CD based upon the adventures of Liamel Gulliver (Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift ), called “Extracting Sunlight from Cucumbers”. The music is slightly more techno and sounds are being generated from sand, stones, cucumbers, water and so on, in combination with electronics and percussion.

According to the label this album “is easily one of the most anticipated records in the neofolk underground scene”. Well, Der Feuerkreiner is a nice band that mixes different kinds of music to their own style, doing that well too, but the selling-line is a little overdone in my opinion. The releases that I already have are very enjoyable, but I do not play them too often. “Unsere Zeit” brings no news in the style of this Italian band. Female vocals sometimes making almost “heavenly voices” music in combination with soft orchestrations, to follow by some harsch and distorted industrial with clear sounds, lots of drumming and bombast. Listening to the new album, the style seems to have been polished a bit and comes out better than before making “Unsere Zeit” a good new album, but without surprises.
Links: Der Feuerkreiner, Neuropa Records
-3.5-

Two bands that I find allright, but not great. I do not think I would have bought this cd if it was just a split album, but because this is actually the result of a joint recording, I was interested enough to give this album a try. “Sang Graal” turned out to be a nice album, going from moody ambient soundscapes to more bombastic and martial pieces, folky and orchestral tones and of course ‘ritual’ sounds, because that is an element in both the projects’ sounds. The sounds of the bands go well together and they made a good balance resulting in an album sounding between both of them.
Links: :Golgatha:, Dawn & Dusk Entwined, Cold Meat Industry.
-3-

When I ordered this cd I did not realise that it was a rerelease of this classic split project of many years ago. I knew the album, but did not really like it and therefor never bought it, so in the end, I did… The project is interesting. 6 Comm’s ambient soundscapes combined with Aswynn’s recitals of Norse texts, but I happen to not too much like much of the music and also I don’t particularly enjoy Aswynn’s voice and pronounciation. The cd has it’s moments and surely is a classic release for having such a thick layer of paganism so long ago, but in my opinion this rerelease is more for archival reasons than for the quality of the recording.
Links: 6 Comm , Freya Aswynn, Hau Ruck!.
-2-

Tempting! So I guess on this place I can give tell you something about the (very few!) concerts that I go to or even put some news or something? “Now playing”? Hmmmm.
No idea about concerts really, but I can tell you that in the past days I have enjoyed myself with some extreme electronics: Propergol, Anenzephalia, the first cd of Steinklang Industries II, that sort of stuff. I have that sometimes