The Rock Blogger

Have a Nice Life. Time of Land. 2010. 4.5 stars.

The hidden kings of the American underground return with this deeply subdued EP. Gloom spreads over the lumbering ambiance of “Wizard of the Black Hundreds” with grim, deaden percussion and yawning distortion. The droning waves of black noise rise against ghostly vocals, offering a sacrificial hymn to this menacing occult ritual. The allusions to history here are fitting, as one can picture the processes of the Black Hundred,  the anti-revolutionary forces that cast a pall of violence over the Russian landscape.

“Woe Unto Us” is a beautiful piece of post-punk art, with the gritty buzz of its bass lines, the cold melodies of skeletal guitars and some of the best singing from the band yet. The second half of the song dissolves into atmospheric synth lines that glide over the stark, minimalist drumming. Perhaps HANL’s most accessible track since “Bloodhail”.

“The Parhelic Circle” is a densely layered dark ambient piece, with deep drones, terse crackles of the electric guitar and an eerie keyboard melody that sounds like the prolonged whistles of a factory. “The Icon and the Axe” begins in dark melodic bliss, sharing the somnambulist tenor of “Mogwai Fear Satan”. Haunting voices hover in the distance, reciting sparse poetic fragments about the Devil, bodies and the deep, freezing waters.

Like the preceding Deathconsciousness, Time of Land delves inward, crafting a blackened version of post-punk, left unbounded into a void of drawn-out abstraction. The result is inspired, taking cues from material as diverse as Sunn O))) and Sisters of Mercy to fashion something that has incredible depth and intensity. These guys have vision.

You can listen and download the album here.

Raate - Halki Kuolleen Maan. 2007. 4.5 stars.

Halki Kuolleen Maan is a mind-bending black metal album from Finland that encompasses nearly everything great about the genre. The cold, hypnotic buzz of distortion, cyclonic percussion, airy keyboards and a harsh misanthropic atmosphere are all part of Raate’s post-Burzum vision.

Not content with mere shrieks and lo-fi tremolo riffs, Raate’s compositions are layered forays across many peaks and valleys. Each lengthy track is replete with well-paced transitions in texture, from the cascading guitars to tribal drumming, producing an immersible experience. Its many interludes are also absorbing, including the acoustic folk guitars on “Kaskeajan Laulu” to the sounds of a crackling fire, coupled with rumbling drone, during the last minutes of “Hävitys, Tuhkaa”.

Despite their relative obscurity, Raate has created one of the preminent expressions of black metal art. The scope of their debut is mystifying, with its deep appreciation for atmosphere, cohesion and detail. While Raate may not have the distinctive quality of more popular acts (Wolves in the Throne Room or Ulver for example), they still stay true to the frost-bitten roots of the genre. Recommended.

Maeror Tri - The Beauty of Sadness. 1996. 5 stars.

This an exquisite and emotional drone/ambient album from this now defunct German trio. Deep bass lines and subdued guitars underlay the brooding moans of synths which lapse over each other in densely layered compositions. Jangling riffs are contrasted against airy ambiance, evoking desolate spaces broken only by soft pillars of light.

While many experiments in the genre have crafted moody atmospheric pieces, they cannot compare to the fluidity of Maeror Tri’s progressions as they slowly build around shimmering motifs. The cascading waves of sound, the resigned melodies against buzzing effects, is musical transcendentalism at its most refined. The Beauty of Sadness avoids the tedium of minimalism and the harshness of hard noise to find the golden mean between experimentation and tragic catharsis. Like a Mark Rothko painting set to music, Maeror Tri chart the landscapes of sleep and find hollowed ground. If you are familiar with Labradford, William Basinski, and Stars of the Lid you will certainly appreciate the fine nuances of this record.

Oren Ambarchi - Intermission 2000-2008 . 4 stars .

Intermission is a meditative compilation of drone and ambient pieces from this prolific Australian artist. Consisting mainly of subtle guitar and bass tones, these plodding tracks are drawn out over long periods of time to the point where they loose their deliberate instrumental quality and become natural background noise. While the gradual processes of the record take their sweet time, the effect is quite stunning once it sets in - evoking calm ocean waves or a placid morning sky. Pieces like "The Strouhal Number" are weightless pieces of ambiance, only punctuated by the low rumble of bass tones and the sleepy crackle of static.

While the album passes through an otherworldly atmosphere, it avoids the symphonic excess of most ambient records - these are meticulously crafted experiments in sound manipulation that sift through your memories, rather than just lulling you to sleep. It is certainly a challenging collection, and it is not as forceful as the psychedelic drone of Birchville Cat Motel or Natural Snow Buildings, but it still carries on a deeply cerebral undertaking with care. Anyone interested in experimental music will be fascinated by its many crevices.

Drawing by Marc Ngui

“In rupture, not only has the matter of the past volatised; the form of what happened, of an imperceptible something that has happened in a volatile matter, no longer even exists. One has become imperceptible and clandestine in a motionless voyage. Nothing can happen, or can have happened, any longer. Nobody can do anything for or against me any longer. My territories are out of grasp, not because they are imaginary, but the opposite, because I am in the process of drawing them. Wars, big and little, are behind me. Voyages, always in tow to something else, are behind me. I no longer have any secrets, having lost my face, form and matter. I am now no more than a line. I have become capable of loving, not with an abstract, universal love, but a love I shall choose, and that shall choose me, blindly, my double, just as selfless as I. One has been saved by and for love, by abandoning love and self. Now one is no more than an abstract line, like an arrow crossing the void. Absolute deterritoralisation.”

Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari - A Thousand Plateaus

YOGA. Megafauna . 2009. 4.5 stars.

A fascinating drone album that oscillates between airy dark ambiance and raw experimentation. YOGA’s mystical surrealism opens up a sonic space punctured by bursts of distorted guitar noise, warbling synths and martial percussion. There are no voices echoing across this landscape, only the chirps, grunts and groans of unknown animals (cryptozoology).

The atmosphere is dense and absorbing, lulling the listerner into an eerie dream, or worse, repressed memories. Megafauna is nothing short of vision quest, using organic textures and subtle progressions to trace paths in the forgotten forests of the mind. While some of YOGA’s noisy bursts are odd, if not unsettling, they are used to light up the caverns they plunge into. Megafauna is a unique piece of psychological terror that challenges the listener to go beyond melodic structures and stand in a primordial clearing.

Rahu. Ride of the Eight Black Steeds. 2008. 4 stars.
Obscure, lo-fi black metal inspired by wrathful figures from Hindu mythology. A strong, misanthropic atmosphere emanates from the dense guitar riffs as they cascade against stark percussion and haunting wails. Rahu project the occult mystique of bands like Urfaust while infusing the intense textural dirges of Drudkh. Rahu’s conquest is uncompromising as it stakes its musical vision in some mystical darkness, pushing their sound towards a violent cosmology.

Like it’s predecessor Caput Draconis, this release is too short and unpolished to fully extend it’s colossal vision, though I suppose you can always listen to the two demos back to back. Despite it’s brevity, this effort is intriguing shift of perspective for the black metal underground, looking towards astrological terror, as opposed to Northern landscapes, for demonic inspiration.

Ivan Shishkin.

The First Snow. 1875.

“Ordinarily we speak of letting be whenever, for example, we forgo some enterprise that has been planned. “We let something be” means we do not touch it again, we have nothing more to do with it. To let something be has here the negative sense of letting it alone, of renouncing it, of indifference and even neglect. However, the phrase required now — to let beings be — does not refer to neglect and indifference but rather the opposite. To let be is to engage oneself with beings. On the other hand, to be sure, this is not to be understood only as the mere management, preservation, tending, and planning of the beings in each case encountered or sought out. To let be — that is, to let beings be as the beings which they are — means to engage oneself with the open region and its openness into which every being comes to stand, bringing that openness, as it were, along with itself”.

-Martin Heidegger. On the Essence of Truth

Hateful Abandon - Famine (Or Into The Bellies Of Worms). 2008. 4.5 stars.

This is a rather obscure but rewarding debut from Hateful Abandon. Evoking the bleak fog of the UK, this duo play sparse post-punk melancholy with a blackened metal edge. Mournful bellows, accompanied by sinister, wraith-like snarls, open a space where the cold bass lines of Joy Division meet the raspy gloom of Altar of Plagues.

While the dual vocals initially seem melodramatic and odd, they come to complement the fluid guitar riffs as they twist their menacing way. Slower songs like “Riding the Blade” and “Avalanche” roll on with apocalyptic grandeur, with plodding percussion and eerie post-rock jangles creating dark spaces for the band to explore. Hateful Abandon are at their best towards the album’s conclusion, as they throw off their shadowy art-rock decorum and launch into energetic (but none the less oppressive) bursts of post-punk. “Painters Rope” and “Lungs” are understated masterpieces, with sinewy bass lines reminiscent of “Shadowplay” and other dark classics from Unknown Pleasures.

While Hateful Abandon are clearly disciples of the English post-punk tradition, they inject enough of a cold, black metal atmosphere to create a distinct and moody sound. Through the careful use of space, an exchange of vocal styles and muscular muscianship, Hateful Abandon walk a dark mile to the coast, blurring the horizon line.

Ulaan Khol. I and II. 2008. 5 stars.

Glorious psychedelic drone music from the prolific Steven R. Smith (of Hala Strana). Both of these albums are largely guitar based, sending distorted space-rock riffs through hazy ambient mist. Loose, jangly melodies crackle in the arid and ancient atmosphere, sounding like weathered field recordings from Mars. Light noise hovers above the drawn-out instrumentation, painting a beautiful autumnal skyline for the music to dance against. Chords warble and twist like the pitched lure of the snake-charmer.

Ulaan Khol manages to be epic and absorbing without building up steady cresendos or crushing finales - this music deserves meditative patience much like the venerable Natural Snow Buildings. These albums should not be described as walls of sound but more as bubbling streams of consciousness. The expereince is a deep and mysterious one, full of texture, nuance and cosmic wonder. Smith’s compositions wander and haunt like specters over a vast alien landscape, never reaching their destination, but content in their long, winding journey. Simply masterful.