A Wake A Week * Little Black Cloud (cd 2009)
I noticed this title on a distro’s list and it was mostly that strange bandname that caught my attention. What might be even stranger is that this album was released on a label that appears to be a more technoish label (three “dubstep” compilations for example). A Wake A Week has nothing to do with techno though. The music is very slow and rather heavy orchestral music which is mostly very sad, but sometimes pretty dark. On the background you can hear all kinds of samples and sometimes there are for example drones or some noisy sound, but the majority of the music are the orchestrations. I think this will appeal to people who like The Protagonist for example. An original sound, well executed, a very nice surprise!
Links: A Wake A Week, Spectral Liquid
Stupid me. I saw Der Blutharsch twice during their last tour, but I did not buy this single because I was not sure I did not have it… Fortunately copies have ended up at a couple of distros so you can still get it. Not that you should buy it for the music though. The fairly discoish track with Jeffrey D. is no masterpiece, but I try to keep up with the band’s releases a bit.
Last week I stumbled upon the French distro and label Steelwork Maschine. I never heard of them, nor have I heard of most projects they release and sell. Not having enough time to carefully look through their catalogues, I got a copy of this split cdr. Neon Rain offers some alright to nice rhythmical industrial tracks, HP Unit 14 has more tranquil IDM or drum’n'bass sounds which are not too good. It is always nice to run into new music, but I will have to check if Steelwork also sells really good stuff.
I have gravely neglected the current that I call “rhythmical industrial”, but which since years has been called “rhythmic noise”. I never liked the latter term, since however the style is rather extreme, I seldom found it really noisy. Then again, Winterkälte’s last album (“Disturbance” 2004) is quite noisy and this album of Imminent is too at times. Around 1998/9 I shortly listened to this music. Winterkälte’s “Drum & Noise” (1999), Imminent Starvation’s “Nord” (1999) are great albums, but the “Industrial Frequencies” compilation series and other projects in the style were too tame for me. Another problem that I often had with the style, is that the music is often a dustbin of ideas with tracks stuffed with different rhythms, breaks, sounds, samples and ideas completely losing the idea of ‘danceablity’. My interests shifted to other musical currents and for about 10 years I probably did not even hear a single “rhythmical industrial” release. Then at last years Wave Gotik Treffen I saw Winterkälte which was great. Then I noticed that Imment has a new album so I figured I might want to find out what it is that “rhythmic noise” is nowadays. “Cask Strength” opens with two IDM/breakcore tracks, but then goes on full throttle with extremely loud dance music. A lot of breakbeats (while I love the regular blasts of the “Lost Highway” track) and also more tranquil tracks, mostly very nicely done and a good listen. Danceable? I do not know, sometimes I guess. Apparently with Winterkälte out of the way, Imminent is the best project in this style. Ironically too by the way, since both Winterkälte and Imminent are the projects that have made this music since 1993/4 while all the later bands are less skilled to make this kind of music. Too bad in a way, since I have the same with other styles (harsch EBM, old Wumpscut style for example, noone ever topped the earlier releases, especially not Ratzinger himself), but at least Imminent has made a new release! However much I like this music when it is well done, just as with extreme tekno or power electronics, I will not play a release such as this too often, since I usually feel like listening to a little more easy music. In any case, should you -like me- have missed the last 10 years of “rhythmical industrial”, this new album will not sound shockingly new, but Moreau is still a guy to make this sound good.
So Argentina also offers loud electronics. I did not know Synchro Mode, nor the “new and promising harsh electronic label from USA, Soviet Media Kontrol”. No worries of course, since Synchro Mode offers “strong rhythmic noise tunes with breakcore influences”. Fortunately there are not breakcore breaks in all tracks, most of the tracks are more of a Winterkälte harsch industrial style which is not bad at all. The result is pretty energetic and enjoyable. The tracks have a varying length (4 to 11 minutes) and enough variation to keep my attention. An interesting release in the style. It seems that the earlier releases can be downloaded from the project’s website, but I have not tried that yet.
This new project already has many releases available, but the first release is of 2002, a couple of years after I listened to this kind of music. Terrorfakt makes industrial techno, most of the time not as extreme as Winterkälte or Synchro Mode, but still quite energetic. The music has enough variety, but often misses just that to make it really good, perhaps it is the flood of breaks/rhythm changes, I am not sure. Not bad, but not too great either.
I thought that Der Blaue Reiter was one of these popular orchestral martial projects and I never really listened to them. Actually the sound of this project is more mature than just some drumming over orchestrations with speech-samples. Der Blaue Reiter is more of a neoclassical project with here and there a martial track. Some tracks are very melancholic, others are more bombastic and martial. It is not that “Nuclear Sun” is a masterpiece, but much better than I expected and much better structured too.
Wow, it has been almost 10 years since Gaë Bolg suddenly appeared in the scene with their crazy medieval drumming sound with trumpets, weird singing and idiotic costumes. According to Discogs recordings of their 9/9/00 legendary show in an Amsterdam squat (which I attended) has been released already five years ago. I liked Gae Bolg’s earlier sound, but I did not really follow them after the “Oran Môr” vinyls because they were not all that good. Besides, the band brings some humour to the scene, but I do not often feel like playing humoruous music. So with a gap of about 8 years, I decided to get myself the latest attempt of the “Grand Maistre de la Gymnosophie”. The music seems to have become even more crazy than in the early days. Drumming, singing and copper, they are still present, but also discobeats and manic “lalala”s. Gae Bolg definately have not lost their touch, so this is a nice release should I ever feel like crazy music.
However I have known this Belgian project since the early days, I never really followed him. When Dead Man’s Hill was still new, I saw him live a few times. I heard some of the releases, but was not interested enough to buy them besides two split releases. Interested in what DMH would sound like nowadays, I got myself this cd. The sound is still more or less the same: slow and pompous industrial with slow beats and orchestrations. The sound reminds quite a bit of 
I remember why I stopped following Horologium. “Le Paradis Des Chausseurs” not only is another release built with looped classical music and opera samples (not too well done either), but also almost entirely exists of tracks that I already had and I do not own all Horologium’s releases. Nope, not my thing.
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 
Well well, the Dutch scene seems to be ever becoming more active and interesting. Without regards for scenes and tags people go from one style to another which makes it rather difficult to keep up with. So I also missed Hadewych’s very limited demos and the first version of this self-titled album. Two years after the initial release, there is a luxery rerelease on Tuchtunie (165 copies) soon to be followed by a ‘regular’ release limited to 300 copies. Hadewych makes very experimental dark music. Dark soundscapes made with electronics, guitars and voice combined with ‘IDM’-beats at times and samples. The first part of this 50 minutes album is a bit ‘drone rockish’, lateron the sound becomes more ’soundscapish’. The result is something quite different and highly interesting and another promising project coming from my own country.