Tag: Dark

DEAYCAST Reviews : MONOCHROMACY “Living Posture” CD (Stay Strange SD. 2018)

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DEAYCAST Reviews : MONOCHROMACY “Living Posture” CD (Stay Strange SD. 2018)

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Stay Strange SD Collective artist Esteban Issac Flores brings eight heavy, dissonant and atmospheric guitar based worlds oscillating between drone , noise, metal and industrial under tbe MONOCHROMACY moniker . Flores elegantly creates haunting and dissonant cinematic spaces for a wall of destructed waves of swelling chaos, choked screams decay into walls of thick oppressive fog of tone, climax and eventually swell back down into dreary, pulsating tones. Sine waves shifting into the horizon encapsulate a distant haze of confusion and dread.

On “Living Posture” , Flores creates a deep and complex tension between the various sonic elements, which really doesn’t ever falter throughout the eight tracks of dreary doom. Some of these atmospheres could call back to Times Of Grace era Neurosis (my favorite period of one of my favorite bands ) , SUNN O)))) , Earth etc but that would be sort of a lazy comparison as Flores has clearly refined his sound to something not heard before in the tropes of heavy music.

 

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Monochromacy “Living Posture” CD (photo from artist)

Monochromacy leaves the “tough guy” bullshit of extreme music far away in the trash for a delicate and intelligent experimental offering. Flores has clearly honed a unique philosophy and approach to present the listener with a tense, yet refreshingly present decaying burning structure of mammoth and intimidating take on noise-influenced, drone-metal. The plethora of unique territories covered on this record while maintaining an overall dark and dreary cinematic vibe is rather impressive to say the least.We are never left without a tight sonic line pulled taught across our reality/neck wth ever shifting tone, pulse and intention. what is going on? Where did he leave us atop this  fog  ridden, dank mountain of dissonance and confusion? What is GOING ON! Wow and just like that it’s over, what a listen.Absolutely essential ride for all fans of the heavier side of noisy guitar works and heavier dissonant, cinematic music in general.

DECAYCAST Reviews : Witowmaker “Feather” Cassette (Sleep On Dreams, 2018)

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DECAYCAST Reviews : Witowmaker “Feather” Cassette (Sleep On Dreams, 2018)

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Witowmaker is the project of Bay Area electronic producer and internet cult personality Christopher Danko, also of Stable imprint/collective, and Religious Girls fame. On “Feather”, Danko crafts ten lush, dynamic,  emotionally present, fun and heavy electronic “dance” tracks which float the listener to an oscillating plane of lush tone poem arpeggiations, thick walls of decaying synthesizers, heavy, dynamic drum programming, atmospheric flutterings, and concisely layered, and intricately mapped vocal samples. The overall sound of Witowmaker is, at times,  surprisingly warm and ‘positive’, with a tinge of sarcasm, and at other times, darker, more dissonant, and even emotionally confusing in an interesting and uncontrived manner. Tension is sonically available throughout the wide range of aural moods on “Feather”, one track is accentuating the bent light sunshine across crashing waves, while the next track descends into another layer of cosmic hell, unsure of the outcome. Refreshing; this is a fun and important release in the arch of bay area electronic musings.

“Feather” offers complex, lush, delicate sonic textures while still retaining a pounding, thick, four to the floor heaviness which pulls from Acid, Dub, IDM and a dense warped version of straight-up dance music. Remnants of influence from Aphex Twin, FKA Twigs,  DJ Spooky, Art Of Noise, and later Carl Cox can be heard in the glistening, bright, affront production, yet Witowmaker offers a unique style of dance based electronic music all their own! The B side begins with a fast tempo, funky bass arp track titled “Trick Me Twice” which rings back to 90’s NRG/bass music with an experimental flare all it’s own. A classically trained arp machine spits out climbing cascading  rhythms while lush pads provide a warm backbone for chopped and glued vocal slices, offering a dense, warm, funky dance floor banger. Plug my ears with a drill to extract the earplugs that have been stuck for centuries at the club, ‘cause this is the high tempo, low bullshit dance music I’ve been waiting for.

This little tone machine gets funkier and more dynamic with each spin!  Other tracks like the B side’s “Contamination” offer a darker, more evil-grin means of electronic stylings, which perhaps might be the  darkest and most warped track on the album, pleasing the listener as the acid kicks in and everything changes. Witowmaker is refreshingly honest, dark and delicately crafted dance music for the jokester in all of us laughing to the trap door of life  until the doors spin open and we’re left wandering through a world of confusion not knowing what we’ve seen nor heard. Look for more from this project, we will be. Side note: this is one of the best sounding and best LOOKING tapes we have received in some time, and it’s refreshing when the visual look and sound unite to create a beautiful package of lush electronic presentation.  Order this tape, now!

 

Here’s also some free bandcamp download codes for the album:  redeem at http://www.bandcamp.com/yum

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DECAYCAST Track Reviews: Forests 森林 “Disarray” from ‘Idol Collapse’ LP (Left Hand Path, 2018)

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DECAYCAST Track Reviews: Forests 森林 “Disarray” from ‘Idol Collapse’ LP (Left Hand Path, 2018)

Forests 森林 crafts dark, heavy, funky, and  occasionally sludgy, a-tonal industrial music for generations spanning many wars and technological shifts, collapses included.  On the track “Disarray” of their new 12” LP “Idol Collapse” on the rapidly accelerating  San Francisco Left Hand Path imprint,  Forests 森林 begin with an ancient howling metal percussion style clamoring as a distressed alarm-style sine wave bleeds your ears into a dark, thudding, hammering bass  riff.  “Disarray”  angrily and violently pounds forward  with thudding, unsettling cavernous percussion. An angular,  fuzzed out, monotone bass eventually gives breath to distantly haunted chanting/moaning style vocals. Words, and these worlds are unintelligible to my damaged, ramsacked, and now funky bassed-out,  puss-filled ears, but the tone of the story tells of an old, abandoned structure who’s walls are being slowly expanded upon by the  cavernous reverb,  pulsing bass tracks and churning hum of far away synthesizers and mutilated electronics,  Forests 森林  will lock you in a room and expand upon its  structure through sound, until you lie motionless on the  floor of  a place that once  contained  the form, now you have nothing but an old mangled, half  erased Front242 tape playing at a  third of the speed with  twice the  intensity and four times the  dynamics, whoops that’s actually the Forests 森林 tape i just dubbed as  I was  laying  there gasping for my last breath, i reach for the record  to button to  replicate these hellish,  booming sounds just one more time as my  turntable wont fit in this tightly bound coffin. Order the record HERE

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– Maniere Zappone

DECAYCAST Reviews: MOIRA SCAR “Wound World Part 1” (Near Dark, 2018)

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Bay Area queer deathrock stalworts MOIRA SCAR are back with their new full length on CD/CS/ and  digital via Oakland’s NEAR DARK imprint, which is run by dark gothic outfit, OTZI whose newest offerings, “Ghosts” was  covered HERE a few weeks ago. Moira Scar currently is in trio form with their latest offering  with Roxy Monoxide: guitar, sax, vocals, LuLu Gamma Ray: synthesizers, vocals, and Aimee S: drums. Moira Scar’s newest full length, “Wound World Part 1” boasts seven snappy, punchy, femme forward dark punk/death rock cuts,  intentionally building upon their unique, sought after, indimable sound of their previously released full lengths, “Psychoid”  and “Scarred For Life”. With an augmented lineup, and a slightly darker and more rock forward sound, “Wound World Part 1” might be the most intentionally straight forward, intense  and focused sound the outfit has  concocted yet, and the  recording production suits the  sound perfectly. Thick pummeling percussion, wailing, screaching vocals, fuzzed-out chugging, angular guitar riffs and the staple walls of  reverb’d saxophone.

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“Snap Back” might be the most traditionally “Moira Scar” sounding cut on here blending heavy bass riffs, walls of  sax with driving punk inspired hard hitting  drumming and the signature  layered vocal efx stylings which could take the  sonic shape of anything from low  distorted  growls to high pitched shrieks of intense washes,  utilized to great success on the track “Chrysalis Skull” The operatic style walls of  vocals blend perfectly over the frantic, manic heavy  drumming and thick slabs of  guitar and  bass work. Slower, more  post rock inspired track “Zeta Rainbow” offers chugging, blown up guitar riffs with dragging slagged out bass lines with more  traditional breakdowns where the guitar and  dual vocal  processions shine brightest.

Moira Scar’s  sound is  thick, violent,  present, and demanding of the space it requires and  deserves. Death rock, like any “sub-genre” can be formulaic, boring, and  predictable, but “Wound World Part 1” is the complete opposite; fierce, unique, cathartic, and nasty!. In a time where we need it most,  Moira Scar once again, and perhaps with more force than ever proves they are  here to stay with some of the most forward thinking and necessary sonic offerings within the contemporary rock scope. This record rallies against the dying, boring, overdone and under thought  droves of CIS white-male “dominated”capitalistic rock scenes, by raising the bar and  flushing the  boring and  inspired rock trends down into the sewer where they have belonged this entire time, and serve as an assault on the  normative, re-hashed, uninspired music that often fills the  airwaves. Moira Scar is a weapon against a  violent, patriarchal system of despair, confusion, and  entanglement and  “Wound World Part 1” is the next logical step in the bands seemingly endless progression of reinvention. One of the most important contemporary dark rock acts going, period. This record is not to be overlooked.

Order the  New record HERE and  HERE

MOIRA SCAR

NEAR DARK RECORDS

DECAYCAST #040-1: ARVO ZYLO “An Itch for Nature” Mix

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DECAYCAST040
MIX BY ARVO ZYLO

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DECAYCAST #040-1: ARVO ZYLO “An Itch for Nature” mix

Peggy Lee – Sea Fever (for Edgar)

Michel Delpech – Pour Un Flirt
Takeshi Terauchi & The Bunnys – Sado Okake
“Klua Duang” sung by Phloen Phromdaen
The Beachles – Don’t Talk (Get Better)
Le Forte Four – Aye Mama (I’m Amok)/ Meanwhile Back at the Tulip Boat, Stinky
Walls of Genius – Porcelain God
Foetus (Live in Chicago ’96, Thanks to *KP) – Goin’ Blind (KISS)
Dave Phillips (field recording) – Muay Drums
Regosphere – Nature Knows
Skinny Puppy – Nature’s Revenge
Jandek – Can I See Your Clock
Edward Ka-Spel – Where The Highways Form A Spiral
Sergey Khismatov – Symphony for Industrial Horns (excerpt)
Fhtagn – Live 1-21-18 (excerpt)
Rudi Schneider – Trance Breathing (1933)
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“Arvo Zylo is a recording artist and radio person who has been active since 2000. He spent 7 years with “The Delirious Insomniac Freeform Radio Show” on WLUW (also syndicated on KLFM in Split, Croatia), as well as well over 100 appearances on WZRD since 2005, and dozens of live DJ appearances in various contexts. He also spent 4 years co-hosting a soul/funk radio show called “Two Slaps Radio”. For several years, he booked weekly experimental showcases and wild parties, often in decrepit old buildings. He has written on various aspects of sound art and noise for Special Interests, Heathen Harvest, Roctober, NewCity Chicago, and others. His collaborative project / collective Blood Rhythms, released its first LP, “Assembly” in 2015, and his private label “NO PART OF IT”, kicked off in 2008, with a collection of locked grooves featuring Nurse with Wound, Crash Worship, Helios Creed, Sudden Infant, and others.”

Follow  ARVO ZYLO At :

decayREVIEWS : EN NIHIL “The Approaching Dark” CD (Eibon Records, 2012)

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ennihilEN NIHIL is one of those artists that remains back in the shadows , with much more of a modest output than many of todays noise/experimental artists who release literally everything they record. THE DARK PULSING SKULL that is En NIHIL has chosen his position- remaining a bit in the shadows, while crafting throbbing, articulate noise / drone / dark ambient / harsh from
An unassuming position in the dark mist. I have a few of his releases and they are all composed and compiled with care, craft, and attention to detail, with the latest release, “The Approaching Dark” being no exception.

This disk flows seemlessly through harsh noise, rhythmic dark industrial, ambient spaced out textures and swelling rhythmic intensity blend together to give breath to the harsh blasts that lay beneath a thick yet subtle fog. Each sound on the disc comes across as intentional and deliberate – again and again combed over – no happy accidents here – every sound is carefully and conceptually placed to create an interesting and ominous space- giving way to the next and last sound; texture tension rod of black smoke .

At times super harsh and blasted out, and at other times restrained , EN NIHIL Creates a delicate balancing act of harsh abrasive pulsing attacks, desolate and  near classical like compositions fueled by pulled back ambient sections which make the louds louder and are a wonderfully paced black breath to the overall ebb and flow of the disk. Composition wise, the disk doesn’t let up – a perfect balance of dense, anxiety ridden movements  and sparse  textured based tracks make this disk a fluid and theatrical atmosphere- just abrasive enough- and the  artwork fully supports the sound, very high quality all around. This is  bleak, dissonant soundscapes  for a  future vision of the  absence of a current polluted consciousness. Be on the lookout if you can ever  catch him live, because  performances are  few and far between.

Mp3 Sample “The Hearts Relent

Get it from the  label  http://www.eibonrecords.com/

http://ennihil.blogspot.com/

written by : malo