Gangleri – music reviews

I had to wait a little longer for this 7″ than I hoped, but I least I got one of the 806 copies. Four tracks, two seem a bit like an into and outro, two others are more full tracks with the sound of the tranquil tracks from “Magic“. The sound is more melancholic )more “Kalte Welle”?) and not as surprising or as good as that cd. NN (and Haus Arafna and Galakthorrö) keeps making its own strange sound, so I am still curious what the future will bring.

This is almost a joke! For more than the price of a cd you get a large single with two tracks (45 rpm). The title track should have been released under the monicker Position Parallele and the other is just a replay of “Tout a Disparu”, but halfway it switches to disco mode with a rather boring sound. Of course it is not totally unexpected that Dernière continues its development in sound, but I hoped that with the (not really bad) disco sideproject Position Parallele, Dernière would at least have remained some kind of military pop sound. Rather it seems that both projects mingle. Of course I had to get used to earlier sound development of this French project, but “La Nuit Revient” is a lot worse than I feared on initial listening.

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 Deadwood and here and there it isn’t even that annoying, but overall, this is not my kind of noise and I even doubt I will manage to give it one full play.

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…

It has been way too long since the last real album of The Prodigy (“Always Outnumbered” 2004), but finally a new album is announced. “Invaders Must Die” should be available by 2 March. As a teaser, tonight (that is 26 november) at 19.30 (that is 7.30 PM London time) the new single with the same title as the album will be available online for a week from theprodigy.com.

On the Tesco mailinglist I saw a release by a project called “Die Rote Form” or DRF. Looking around on the internet to see if I could listen to some of their music, I ran into their website on which was also a free release. That release was released by a label called “Smell The Stench”. This label looks like a metal label, but it has a lot of “Harsh Noise / Dark Ambient / Experimental / Trash Noise / Industrial / Soundscapes / Black Metal / Real Noise-core / Power Electronics / Drone”. Moreover, this label has about 370 free downloadable releases! I got a few of those (unfortunately their server is not very fast), so here are my findings:

1. Dreka Dreka Dreka – “Nercoleptic”
Apparently this is a Dutch project and their style is described as “noise/shitnoise”. Well, it isn’t a that hard kind of noise and it’s not too good either;

2. |n|!|g|h| – “Onward To Har Medigo”
An American project, again noise, nothing too special.

3. Norss – “Ongerief Fase II”
Again Dutch, this time with the promising description “dark drone ambient noise”. However this is already better to listen to than the previous two, this album is not a masterpiece.

4. Die Rote Form – “Phallus”
Inspite of the German bandname, an American project. DRF has a varried style, going from ambient to ambient noise, industrial to harscher kinds of electronics. DRF is the better of the four that I tried. Some tracks are pretty good, others are not, but overall this isn’t all that bad.

The free releases have all kinds of interesting descriptions. A lot seems to be extreme noise terror (not my kind of thing), but there is also dark ambient, drone, ambient noise, etc. so perhaps I’m going to get a couple more of those stinking releases to see if there is stuff that I like better. Should you hadn’t heard of STS and you like the more extreme side of electronic music, perhaps you want to visit www.smellthestench.net

This compilation is not as good as the “Erotic Morgue” compilation of the same label that I reviewed recently. “Moon Patrol” is not as dark and not as noisy, more dark ambient soundscapes and drones. Not that this cd is boring, but you will have to be more into soundscapes than into noise with this one.
Link: Alampo Records

So yesterday in Rotterdam we went to see three bands. The opening act was unknown to me: Oorchach. The music went from dark (industrial) ambient to industrial. The music was not really bad, not really good, but the ‘vocals’ were quite awfull. Next up was a completely boring show by Die Weisse Rose. A couple of people on stage wearing uniforms, much drumming and spoken and screamed texts. On the background was minimalistic music (inspired by Les Joyaux De La Princesse, just as the bandname?). Six or seven years ago when so-called “martial music” was still upcoming, this might have been nice, but today it’s just a big cliche and not well done either. Fortunately Foresta Di Ferro was a lot better, even though the entire previous band was on stage. FdF went from harsch industrial to weird folky music, neofolk and soundscapes. Not bad at all, but a big tumbs down for the guys of the PA: the whole night the music was so extremely load that it distorted and not only the DJ had an awfull sound (even killing Blood Axis), but the bands suffered the same. Extreme volume levels are not a good thing, for anything.
(And yes, the photos are so small so that you don’t see how bad they are!)

Like I wrote earlier, HeilsKabaal is an “ambient/ noise/ drone/ audio-collage/ fieldrecording” label. In my opinion AvoidAudio does not really fit that picture. What I hear is good old “idm“, or “intelligent dance music”. The more tranquil projects in this style have always used stretched sounds on the background of their cut-up rhythms and the same goes for AvoidAudio. IDM, wasn’t that somthing of 8 years ago? I haven’t really followed it and I don’t know if the projects of back then still have the same sound, but the way I see it, AvoidAudio is at best a “vintage” IDM project. Not that “The Idea…” is a bad album, it’s just not very original and I don’t even have such a big IDM discotheque. I guess I expected more of an “ambient/ noise/ drone/ audio-collage/ fieldrecording” album with IDM elements. Oh well, let’s say: “for vintage sake”.
AvoidAudio, HeilsKabaal

Kasper van Hoek is the very active man behind the HeilsKabaal label. On this 3″ cd Van Hoek seems to follow the tradition of the famous Dutch Staalplaat label: minimalistic and experimental electronic music; I think I best describe it by the term “soundscapes”, but the term “audio-collages” that the label uses is probably a more fitting description. “The Past…” has one track of almost 24 minutes and is a remix of a live performance done with eight speakers in a special set-up. Nothing much happens in the music and I can only say that this is not my cup of tea.
Links: Kasper van Hoek, HeilsKabaal