[Dracko]

Gary Numan and Trent Reznor to collaborate. :O

[Dracko]

http://www.gristleism.com/
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[Panoptic]

If you're in to stoner metal, it may be worth checking out Shrinebuilder. They're made up of members of Sleep, The Melvins, Neurosis, and Saint Vitus. Here is the first track they've released.

[Dracko]

The Downward Spiral: Live

[Winona Ghost Ryder]

Some demo cuts from the second Madvillain album.

[Mr.Stevenson]

I need a non-menthol cigarette right now.

[Panoptic]

Why is it that you're not banned yet, again?

[edit] Disregard; the post I was replying to is gone.

[Broseph Stalin]

[rabite gets whacked!]

Ben Frost's By The Throat: texture is ENORMOUS, composition leaves a little to be desired. Still think Theory of Machines is his best work by miles.

Stuff I've been digging from this year:
Paul White
Aethenor
Current 93
Broadcast & The Focus Group
David Sylvian
Henry Threadgill Zooid
Moritz Von Oswald Trio
Richard Youngs - Beyond the Valley of Ultrahits
Spring Heel Jack
Sly & the Family Stone's Woodstock set
Willie Isz
Vieux Farka Toure
To Blacken The Pages
all the typically awesome Analog Africa/Soundway/Strut/Sterns/Sublime Frequencies goodness.
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[Dracko]

Ah, so the new Sylvian is worth a listen, then?
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[remote]

Teitanblood — Seven Chalices (Spanish oldschool raw occult black/death metal miasma.)
Katharsis — Fourth Reich (German orthodox Satanic black metal.)
Arckanum — ÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞ (Swedish anticosmic/chaos-gnostic black metal.)
Peste Noire — Ballade Cuntre lo Anemi Francor (French filthy black metal, described as black 'n' roll.)
Tenebrae in Perpetuum — L'eterno Maligno Silenzio (Italian occult black metal.)
Dreams of the Drowned — Thanatotropic Principle (French black/crust experiment.)
Yoga — Megafauna (Drone, ambient, experimental, black metal.)
Mono — Hymn to the Immortal Wind (Post-rock.)
Portal — Swarth (Surreal death metal, dissonance worship.)
Ulcerate — Everything is Fire (Atmospheric brutal/technical death metal.)
Grave Miasma — Exalted Emanation (Oldschool morbid occult death metal.)
Stabat Mater — Stabat Mater (Bleak funeral doom metal.)
The Ruins of Beverast — Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite (Black/doom metal.)
Drudkh — Microcosmos (Ukrainian heathen metal.)
Miserere Luminis — Miserere Luminis (Canadian depressive black metal.)
Amesoeurs — Amesoeurs (French coldwave/post-punk/black metal.)
Urfaust — Einsiedler EP (Dutch post-black metal.)
Funebrarum — The Sleep of Morbid Dreams (Monstrous death/grindcore.)
Martyrdöd — Sekt (Crustcore/d-beat with black metal influences.)
Arktau Eos — Ai Ma Ra (Ritual ambient.)
Rome — Flowers from Exile (Neofolk.)
Current 93 — Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain (Apocalyptic folk, though this record actually has a sort of doom metal vibe.)
Aderlating — The Nectar of Perversity Springs from the Well of Repression (Black noise.)
Gnaw Their Tongues — All the Dread Magnificence of Perversity (Black noise.)
Karjalan Sissit — Fucking Whore Society (Martial industrial.)
Lifelover — Dekadens EP (Swedish depressive pop black metal.)
Diamatregon — Crossroad (French black metal.)
Skagos — Ást (Cascadian black metal.)
Njiqahdda — Taegnuub - Ishnji Angma (Ambient/black metal.)
Korouva — Sleepwalker (Russian dark ambient/folk/blues.)

Excuse the descriptions if you find them cheesy, those were just there for someone else who asked for recs and this is a copypaste.

Should also mention Snow Lark on the Temple Mt. Doom, whose album was leaked onto the internet last year, but only discovered this year by a friend while perusing the artists' photography collections online. It's a really lovely French drone/ambient/psyche/folk project. They still only have a bit over 100 listeners on last.fm, and deserve much more attention.

http://www.myspace.com/snowlarkonthetemplemtdoom
http://www.last.fm/music/Snow+Lark+on+the+Temple+Mt.+Doom
http://www.mediafire.com/?tajdfzh5oci
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letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[rabite gets whacked!]

Man, I love the new Sylvian, though Blemish is one of my favorite albums ever and I'm into the whole EAI sound/scene he got his players from for this one (and I don't really care for his solo stuff for Virgin). But I love Manafon- it's very spare, mostly big beautiful vox over assorted electronic rubble. Werner Dafeldecker's bass is a really good anchor (he's the most jazz-based of the players), and Sylvian knows how to really punctuate with instrumentation this sparse.

Hey Brian- been a while! You should check that latest Aethenor if you haven't- I think David Tibet was the perfect addition to their unit, and I really kind of see Faking Gold & Murder as the other side to the Aleph coin.

Funny, I caught that Snow Lark album on the LJ psyche-folk comm. I think I was a little put off by their worship of Natural Snow Buildings -a group I've always found massively overrated- and it feels like they're trying too hard.

How do you feel about Cobalt? I expected to love Gin, but it never pulled me in the way Eater of Birds did.
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[remote]

I honestly don't know how I haven't heard of this Æthenor project -- at least via Current 93 (I'm not so interested in the Southern Lord scene these days). This is very nice, and yes, Tibet's voice sounds perfect here. This is a lot more attractive to me than recent Sunn O))) releases...

You know, I should probably hear Eater of Birds, because I have heard similar statements before, but have remained hesitant because Gin just sounds like Tool playing "black metal" to me. Can't really get into it.

Of the albums I listed above, by the way, I would think you might appreciate the Yoga and Aderlating.

Have you heard much Rome?

Also curious about what you'd think of Deathspell Omega. Particularly an offering like Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum. To me, for the last few years, there has been Deathspell Omega and everything else.
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letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[rabite gets whacked!]

Yeah, I've been really into Æthenor the last couple years- adding their two free jazz drummers starting with Betimes Black Cloudmasses made totally transformed their sound and whole direction. It's a direction I wish more heavy groups would pursue. You'd be a good person to ask- is there any free metal out there?

Interesting thought on Tool and Cobalt there. As I think about it, that may be exactly what turns me off about Gin actually- it's hard to hear all the tuned tom work and think not of the epic wankery of that Tool drummer, especially when that's half the instrumentation, and the guitar is more melodic with that album.

Going back to Eater of Birds it's definitely a similar situation, and I don't think I still love like I did a couple years ago, but I think there's a bit more crunch and bottom end and less emphasis on the drums, and really excellent production to bring out the fullness of the duo. Worth a listen anyway.

I haven't been doing much metal lately, but going back to Chaining the Katechon, I really like it much better than I remember, so I may go back and check out Fas or some of their other stuff. As someone who's never gotten any physical stimulation out of metal, the sound you can wrench out of guitars and voice is the real reason I get into it, and those guys do that really nicely.


On a completely separate note, Amerie's new In Love And War sounds pretty disappointing so far (halfway through), knowing how great she can be when she's on. I keep thinking she'll eventually make for the best retrospective compilation ever, but I'm not sure I'd put any tracks on it from this album. Sounds like she's got no budget- why open a pop album with such awful synthesized horns?
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[remote]

A sort of "classic" in the realm of more experimental metal, Abruptum are a band known for their improvised black metal style on albums like Obscuritatem Advoco Amplectére Me and Evil Genius. (Later on they did away with the metal for more simple dark ambient.) I honestly don't believe their intention was to do anything clever or "avant-garde" or whatever, they just wanted to sound as evil as possible -- to create (as the late Euronymous of Mayhem put it) the "audio essence of pure black evil." Apparently the original pressing of Evil Genius came with a razor and a note instructing those who couldn't understand their music to use it. Naturally, they're one of the most misunderstood bands among metalheads.



There was actually an issue of Wire years back where Stephen O'Malley talked about them in an interview, and they were probably as much inspiration to Sunn O))) later on as Earth. There's nothing all that complicated or nuanced about it though, it's just sick, murky, plodding metal noise. Their vocalist was also supposedly a dwarf named It.

Abruptum has probably been some influence on more current "black noise" bands like Gnaw Their Tongues, Aderlating, etc. Most of those implement some degree of improv.

Gorguts' Obscura is pretty much revered as the first death metal album to successfully approach the genre with free jazz techniques, and remains completely unique. Actually, when DsO's Fas came out lots of people were calling it "the Obscura of black metal" ... which honestly isn't quite accurate, but both have reputations as "difficult" metal albums utilizing dissonance and atypical rhythms. You might find it worth checking out.

Oh -- did you happen to listen to the S.V.E.S.T. flipside of their split with DsO? (The one with "Chaining the Katechon".) It's not 'free', but it has a very hectic no-wave/kraut-inspired sound that brings to mind that whole cliché about backmasked '70s rock records spewing Satanic noise. This is, to me, an amazing thing.
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letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[remote]

Exploding Head by A Place to Bury Strangers would be a late addition to my favorite records of 2009.

Check them out if you're into shoegaze, psyche rock, noise pop, etc.

Dracko, you might be particularly interested since they opened for NIN in 2008.
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letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[Dracko]

I gave that album a download.

I like.
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[remote]

I think I could be gay for Ben Frost.
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letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[Dracko]

He scored the music for this starlings footage:


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[remote]

Lol, shit. Okay, so Ben Frost's latest album contains three tracks titled like so:

"Through the Glass of the Roof"
"Through the Roof of Your Mouth"
"Through the Mouth of Your Eye"

... And I knew that seemed a familiarly peculiar arrangement of words, but couldn't put my finger on just how.

Tonight, listening to The Cure's Disintegration, along it came:

"Dropping through sky
Through the glass of the roof
Through the roof of your mouth
Through the mouth of your eye
Through the eye of the needle
It's easier for me to get closer to heaven
Than ever feel whole again."
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letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[rabite gets whacked!]

Yep. There's a good little feature on him in the latest Wire- on Disintegration: "A big influence on this record if only for the weird way in which that music, and particularly the title cut, just launches in - no intros, no decoration, and very little changes over the piece. It's like: here is this world, submit to it, and then Robert Smith sort of just uses the space it creates to tell a story. This is often true of Michael Gira and Ian Curtis, too"

He also talks about going to bed to Chris Watson's Outside the Circle of Fire for several months, specifically the close-mic'd vultures on a carcass.
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[Dracko]

Is this interview online, by any chance?
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[itsashowtime]

Flairs - Truckers Delight (NSFW)

Animation style is like "metal slug with an extreme dose of misogyny" and utter disregard for decency.

Music is like Kraftwerk to me, with some electrohouse-ish tones.

[Dracko]

More Ben Frost madness.

[rabite gets whacked!]

Paul White just released a free album (in lossless and other formats). His Strange Dreams Of Paul White is one of my favorite albums this year.

http://paulwhite.bandcamp.com/album/sounds-from-the-skylight-side-a
http://paulwhite.bandcamp.com/album/sounds-from-the-skylight-side-b
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[Dracko]

Good shit.
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[Dracko]

The Sky May be Falling... But the Stars Look Good on You

A documentary following the young Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds from Iceland Airwaves straight to a full scale UK tour in October 2008.

[remote]

Since the year is almost over, I'd like to see everyone who might care to post their top __ albums of the decade! I'm interested in this.
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letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[eskaibo]

Alopecia lol

guys I couldn't come up with a list of my own but I would also be interested to see this

my list would probably also have Qua and Ben Frost on it

oh wow I didn't even really listen to music until this decade was already well underway OK fuck this

guys I am really looking forward to a new decade
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♪ x x x ♫ x x x ♫ x ♫ ♫

[mothman spirit]

The Jesus Lizard's "Goat" is pretty great!

[mavndrll]

portal are fucking excellent

[remote]

I agree but I doubt many others will. They're pure dissonance worship in death metal form.




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letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[rabite gets whacked!]

Hee hee. Darth Vader's weekend helmet?

G-Side - Huntsville International Project

Really good. Really really good.
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[Dracko]

ATTN: antitype

[remote]

Hmm, thanks for pointing that out. Interesting selection of bands, leaning toward the hardcore/oi!/disbeat style of black metal specifically.

Dracko have you ever tried any Blut aus Nord? I would think that you could appreciate some of their music.

Ignore the shitty North American label's reissue cover art used here (the original artwork is much better):



And a nice piano cover of that song:


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letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[Dracko]

Headphone Commute, and all around good review site dealing with the more instrumental and ambient forms of music, ranging anywhere between glitch, IDM, classical, shoegaze, post-rock and trip-hop, have got some pretty grand mixtapes up:

Organic Ambient
Modern Classical
Intelligent Breakcore

Also, a Hecq-created mixtape has me intrigued enough to give his works more of a listen. Very soothing ambient tunes with a slight aquatic bent.

[remote]

LJ copypaste.

FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2009.
01. Portal — Swarth
02. Teitanblood — Seven Chalices
03. Katharsis — Fourth Reich
04. Arizmenda — Within the Vacuum of Infinity...
05. Peste Noire — Ballade Cuntre lo Anemi Francor
06. Mono — Hymn to the Immortal Wind
07. Arckanum — ÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞ
08. Rome — Flowers from Exile
09. Grave Miasma — Exalted Emanation
10. Tenebrae in Perpetuum — L'eterno Maligno Silenzio
11. Aluk Todolo — Finsternis
12. Yoga — Megafauna
13. Drudkh — Microcosmos
14. Beherit — Engram
15. Aderlating — The Nectar of Perversity Springs from the Well of Repression
16. Urfaust — Einsiedler EP
17. A Place to Bury Strangers — Exploding Head
18. Stabat Mater — Stabat Mater
19. Ulcerate — Everything is Fire
20. Arktau Eos — Ai Ma Ra
21. The Ruins of Beverast — Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite
22. Current 93 — Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain
23. Dreams of the Drowned — Thanatotropic Principle
24. Amesoeurs — Amesoeurs
25. Gnaw Their Tongues — All the Dread Magnificence of Perversity
26. Funebrarum — The Sleep of Morbid Dreams
27. Ben Frost — By the Throat
28. Ignivomous — Death Transmutation
29. Diamatregon — Crossroad
30. Blut aus Nord — Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue With the Stars

Honorable mentions for decent/good records:
Krallice, Wolves in the Throne Room, L'Acephale, Skagos, Njiqahdda, Caïna, Miserere Luminis, Graveland, Immortal, Khanate, Martyrdöd, Deströyer 666, Denial, The Chasm, Aosoth, Fluisterwoud, Nazxul, Embrace of Thorns, Diocletian, Infinitum Obscure, Vorum, Karjalan Sissit, Slagmaur, etc.

Favorites of the DECADE (2000-2009) not listed above:

Deathspell Omega — Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice
Peste Noire — La Sanie des siècles - Panégyrique de la dégénérescence
S.V.E.S.T. — Urfaust
Portal — Outré
Katharsis — VVorldVVithoutEnd
Drudkh — Autumn Aurora
Blut aus Nord — The Work Which Transforms God
Weakling — Dead as Dreams
Sigh — Imaginary Sonicscape
Luror — Cease to Live
Silencer — Death - Pierce Me
The Ruins of Beverast — Unlock the Shrine
Dark Tribe — In Jeraspunta - Die Rückkehr der Tollwütigen Bestie
Morbid Angel — Gateways to Annihilation
Gorguts — From Wisdom to Hate
Intestine Baalism — Banquet in the Darkness
Dead Congregation — Graves of the Archangels
Bolt Thrower — Those Once Loyal
Have a Nice Life — Deathconsciousness
Skywave — Synthstatic
Asobi Seksu — Citrus
Aluk Todolo — Descension
Gnaw Their Tongues — An Epiphanic Vomiting of Blood
Aderlating — The Nectar of Perversity Springs from the Well of Repression
Menace Ruine — The Die is Cast
The Angelic Process — Weighing Souls with Sand
Nuit Noire — Infantile Espieglery
Alcest — Souvenirs d'un Autre Monde
Amesoeurs — Ruines Humaines
Lifelover — Pulver
Rome — Nera
Death in June — All Pigs Must Die
Current 93 — Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain
Agalloch — The Mantle
Ulver — Shadows of the Sun
Arve Henriksen — Chiaroscuro
Supersilent — 6
The Angels of Light — How I Loved You
Colleen — Everyone Alive Wants Answers
Ben Frost — By the Throat
Tim Hecker — Harmony in Ultraviolet
Grunt — Europe After Storm
Coil — The Ape of Naples
Elend — A World in Their Screams
Kammarheit — The Starwheel
November Növelet — Magic
Acid Mothers Temple — Mantra of Love
Sunn O))) and Boris — Altar
Boris — Pink
Khanate — Khanate
Electric Wizard — Dopethrone
Jesu — Heart Ache EP

Looking forward to in 2010:
Deathspell Omega, Morbid Angel, Gorguts, Dark Tribe, Burzum, Agalloch, Paysage d'Hiver, Ondskapt, Walknut, etc.
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letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[Dracko]

New Swans album in the works.

[Dracko]

Details on the new Swans line-up.

[zombieman000]

No Jarboe ;_; I'd like to hear more no-wave stuff but Gira probably doesn't want to do that anymore.

[Dracko]

What? Did you not notice Norman Westberg is back too?
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