Week 15

ANDREA BELLUCCI & MATTEO UGGERI – FURTHER OPINIONS ABOUT DEATH (CD by 13)
GERMINAL – NOTTURNI (CD by 13)
LHAM – TERTIUM QUID (CD BY 13)
LANDSCAPE 2024 (CD compilation by 13)
MARC KELLAWAY – MOST VISIBLE (CD by The Cat Box Corp)
THE GREAT OLD ONES – LANDS OF AZATHOTH (CD by Eighth Tower Records)
CONRAD SCHNITZLER – III KUGELN (CD by Flip Flap)
CONRAD SCHNITZLER – RHYTHMICON (CD by Flip Flap)
MIKOŁAJ TRZASKA & DAKTYLE – TRANSIENT RIOT (CD by Antenna Non Grata)
WILLEM DE RIDDER & THE RADIO ART FOUNDATION PRESENT RADIOLA (LP compilation by Dead Mind Records)
FNTC – EUROPE IN FLAMES (CD by Dead Mind Records)
JEREMY YOUNG – CABLCAR (LP by Halocline Trance)
JEREMY YOUNG – MASSES (cassette by We, Here & Now Recordings)
ORGAN OF CORTI – LOCUS (LP by Dead Mind Records)
RL HUBER – RETURN OF THE COSMONAUT (CDR, private)
FALLEN SUN/RDKPL – RHYTHM INTERFERENCE / PATTERN INTERFERENCE (CDR by Smixx Records)
ANDREAS DAVIDS – BEAUTIFUL ISOLATION (3″ CDR by Inner Demons Records)
FOG BAPTISM – SEA SLEEPER (CDR by Inner Demons Records)
YARGU – FOR DAMAGE (cassette by Zouenkaikaku)
YO & OOYAMADADAISANMYAKU (cassette by Zouenkaikaku)
YENGO – MEIDO (cassette by Zouenkaikaku)
SATANIC RITE – DEMAGOG (cassette by Lust Tapes)
D.N.A. DESTRUCTION COMMANDO – PALLOR MORTIS (cassette by Lust Tapes)
INCISED WOUND – POST VITAM (cassette by Lust Tapes)
SATANIC RITE – IN SEARCH OF SODOM (cassette by Lust Tapes)

ANDREA BELLUCCI & MATTEO UGGERI – FURTHER OPINIONS ABOUT DEATH (CD by 13)
GERMINAL – NOTTURNI (CD by 13)
LHAM – TERTIUM QUID (CD BY 13)
LANDSCAPE 2024 (CD compilation by 13)

In Vital Weekly 1343, I reviewed the first collaboration between Matteo Uggeri and Andrea Bellucci, ‘The Soundtrack Of Your Secrets’. A long-distance collaboration between Milan and La Spezia was conducted via the Internet. The last song was ‘Opinions about Death’, and following that release, Uggeri’ss mother passed away after a long illness. Working on this new album was a way “to navigate the emotional weight of this journey, which, despite its sorrow, was not devoid of other, more nuanced and brighter feelings”. This resulted in a long, 78-minute album with 11 tracks divided into four sections, ‘waiting for death’, ‘death’, ‘after death and mourning’ and ‘months afterwards’. I couldn’t tell from the music where one part ended and a new one started, except for the last part, a trio of tranquil pieces. Bellucci plays piano, samples, loops, and synths, and Uggeri plays beats, samples, rhythms and random drums. Yes, beats and rhythms, as this is quite a rhythmic album. That’s not to say this is a dance album. The two used sounds from others, including Uggeri’s daughter speaking at her grandmother’s funeral. Others contribute clarinet, bass, cello, violin or just “abstract sounds”. When one doesn’t know anything about the background or not knowing any Italian (which is hard to understand anyway), one could consider anything that deals with sadness, darkness and melancholy here. The beats are sometimes up-tempo, but the music stays darker. With some highly melodic (and dramatic!) tinkling on the piano, rolling drums and strings (whether or not out of a box), the music takes on quite a post-rock feeling at times, but it also stays on firm electronic grounds. This is enjoyable music, however odd that may seem given the album’s thematic approach. This album was released a month after Andrea’s father’s passing, which is even more significant.
Federico Franzin is the musician behind Germinal, and ‘Notturni’ is his second album, following ‘Il Ritorno Degli Inverni Freddi’, which was about Cold Winters. As before, I have no clue about the instruments he uses, but they may include guitars, field recordings, electronics, and granular synthesis—a bit the same as before. Some of this stuff gets looped around. There are eight pieces this time, ranging from three-plus minutes to almost nine. Once again, the music is dark, atmospheric, and sometimes noisy, noisier than I remember his last release. There is mild distortion throughout these pieces, which gives the music a grainier and dystopian feeling. Some of the smaller loops are looped around, fed through delay pedals and form the melodic content of the drones and minimalist wanderings of electronics. It’s no surprise the title translates as ‘nocturnal’, because the music seems to be made to enjoy at twilight time. With some of the voice material, it sounds pretty spooky, even if it’s nothing more than train station announcements, such as ‘Ultime Tentazioni’. If anything changed, I’d say this album is a bit less ambient than its predecessor and a bit noisier, but nothing over the top or all too harsh.
Lham is a duo, Bruno De Angelis (Mana ERG) and Giuseppe Verticchio (Nimh), who have now their third album (see also Vital Weekly 1327 and 1377), continue their exploration of ambient music through the expanded package of synthesisers, electronics, guitars, drums and a free-range from the orchestral package. There is that post-rock approach, with swelling crescendos and lots of strings and throughout the production is rather ‘massive’. There are a lot of details; more importantly, these details don’t get lost in the bigger picture. The mood of the music is atmospheric and predominantly greyish, with a bit of blackness thrown in. It’s ambient music with many instruments and some voices, and as with their previous releases, there’s also a cinematographic aspect to the music. Just what kind of movie, I don’t know, but something dramatic for sure; Lham play the vast picture, not the tiny interaction. This CD has ten pieces in under an hour; none feels too short or long. The whole album, while individual pieces, is also a homogenous experience.
Compilations are rare for 13/Standa/Silentes, but here’s one. The Zeugma Collective curates it, and “the project has established itself as a reference point for sound artists and video artists exploring the concept of landscape through sound and image.” The ten pieces chosen range from “experimental field recording to immersive electroacoustic compositions, as well as sound installations that engage with the environment. Each selected work offers a unique interpretation of the contemporary soundscape, providing new perspectives on the relationship between sound, space, and perception.” I am lazy and quote the information here. Much like the annual compilations by the German Degem label, I suspect Zeugma is similar but Italian, dipping into a pool of Italian composers, and they are all new names for me. There are works by Bruno Belardi, Elena Ghigas, Masafumi Oda, Ebo Ensemble, UENO Collective, Antonio Tonietti, Simon Šerc, Alessandro Buggio, Salvatore IAIA (SIC project) and Stefano Tashi. Oda divers a boisterous piece of musique concrète, whereas the majority granulates more modestly with their field recordings into collages and ambient pieces, many of which aren’t too gentle. It’s lovely stuff, with no stinkers or standout pieces. (FdW)
––– Address: http://store.silentes.it/

MARC KELLAWAY – MOST VISIBLE (CD by The Cat Box Corp)

More music by Danish composer Marc Kellaway, the follow-up to ‘Nocturnal Machines’ (see Vital Weekly 1413). This time, the theme is ‘making music like field recordings’: “Rhythms and melodies emerging from formless drift, not necessarily in a regular or repeating way. Certain textures dominate for a while before receding, changing the framing of the overall sound field. Something having a clear sense of direction and internal logic while still unpredictable. Something with more space and light than I usually allow in my music, letting the individual sounds stand a bit more on their own.” As before, Kellaway uses electronic machines (electric organ, synth, effects) and blends these with field recordings, among which he mentions “chattering jackdaws and distant trains heard from my boyfriend’s balcony in the South Harbor area of Copenhagen” and “The environment inside my freezer while defrosting”. This results in what one could call ambient music, even with the more digital approach he takes and involving rhythm and melodic touches means his work owes, also as before, more to the 1990s ambient music of O Yuki Conjugate and Paul Schütze than to the current trend of lo-fi dystopian ambient music. Everything seems to explore textures, and Kellaway is quite good at that; I already knew it from his previous albums. Gentle music, dark but never too dark; there’s always a shimmer of light and hope. If it’s dark, it’s natural darkness, nocturnal rather than black and despair. This is another damn fine work, not better or worse than I know from him, just a slow and steady improvement and honing of skills. (FdW)
––– Address: https://marckellaway.bandcamp.com/

THE GREAT OLD ONES – LANDS OF AZATHOTH (CD by Eighth Tower Records)

I found a beautiful, massive book of H.P. Lovecraft’s collected works many years ago. It was very cheap as well, so bring it on. How many of these stories have I read until now? A handful and it’s waiting for me to retire and have time to read it. Oh, and the many other unread books. I am not as dedicated as The Great Old Ones, a music project dedicated to “the unfathomable and chaotic core of Lovecraft’s mythos”, and ‘Lands Of Azathoth’ is their album, following ‘Yog-Sothoth’ (2022) and ‘The Mythos of Cthulhu’ (2023), and my introduction. There is no information about band members or instruments, only that the music is “profoundly lo-fi and shrouded in dense fog”, which I can say is correct. [wiki] “Azathoth is a deity in the Cthulhu Mythos and Dream Cycle stories of writer H. P. Lovecraft and other authors. He is the supreme deity of the Cthulhu Mythos and the ruler of the Outer Gods. He may also be seen as a symbol for primordial chaos, therefore being the most powerful entity in the entirety of the Cthulhu Mythos.” Maybe some kind of very lo-fi sampling is going, creating these foggy clouds of greyish mist, losing all sense of detail. Or a swamp in which you slowly get sucked into, and once below, everything is dark and moist. Electronics are extensively used, even when they might be lo-fi. I love it. This is the sort of dark ambient I like a lot. It lacks the dystopian aspect and the post-nuclear apocalypse elements, and the music feels earthy, foresty, and maybe even ritualistic. Of course, this is the best moment to pick up that heavy Lovecraft book and start reading; I did! I read the ‘Azatoth’ story while playing this music, as it’s one of the shortest. It has a similar mysterious quality as the music, quite rightfully so, of course, and it fits the darkness of the story and the music. Sure, I like to know more about the music, how it was made, and so on, but I understand that there’s too much mystery involved, and it works better not to know. (FdW)
––– Address: https://eighthtowerrecords.bandcamp.com/

CONRAD SCHNITZLER – III KUGELN (CD by Flip Flap)
CONRAD SCHNITZLER – RHYTHMICON (CD by Flip Flap)

More, more, and more. I love the consistency of Flip Flap’s release of 100 CDs by Conrad Schnitzler, initially as a 100 CD box set for the Russian Waystyx label. I won’t go into the idea that 100 at once is better than two at a time, which it is currently; it is what it is. Of the two, ‘III Kugeln’ is the most recent work, dated 11 December 2008. I am unsure if that means the whole thing was recorded or completed. No further description was mentioned on the https://fancymoon.com/con_s/conjin2.shtml website. There is no additional information or description for this release. This piece, also called ‘Drei Kugelen’, has thirty index points and lasts 60 minutes and three seconds. It’s a continuous piece of electronic music based on a few synthesisers, some samples (percussive bits towards the end) and electronics. I’d call this action music, which means Schnitzler sets the parameters of the music and then starts playing, staying within these parameters and retaining a lot of freedom to go about. Compare tracks ten and twenty and note the difference. It’s not ambient music, dance music, musique concrète, improvised, or whatever term comes to mind. The music is atmospheric and organic; it moves, grows, dies, and is born again. And above all, it’s a charming piece of music. It pleases the listener and isn’t demanding but also not overtly simple. It’s an excellent example of Schnitzler’s non-keyboard electronics. I wish there would be more of this modular synthesiser music.
‘Rhythmi-con 1-9’ mentions “(1982-2000) 13.7.2001” and deals with rhythmic music, “entirely, drums and rhythmical sequences are performed with improvisation-like free melodies. So ingenious music with full of freewheeling ideas”, so says the website above. This made me think the work was edited and compiled on 13 July 2001. It’s interesting to hear the coherency of this album in terms of the machines used. Nothing on this album is about straightforward 4/4 beats, pop music, but minimalist, machine-like beats, rocking back and forth with all sorts of synthesiser sounds around it. The sequencer and drum machines trigger synths, letting them evolve, revolve and dissolve, almost in a non-human way. Once Schnitzler flicks the switch, the music plays itself. I am sure that’s not how Schnitzler worked, and there’s much more human interaction in this music. Be it a melodic touch, even when strictly repeated, or some of the music going a bit out of control, it is man and machine, not machine and man. The rhythms, mechanical as they are, are industrial and kraut-like but also funky. Not as in dancefloor-funky, but playful, making feet tap and heads nod. The music is light and dark; this blurs throughout the album and is hard to pin. The third piece is pretty dark, but the fourth feels a lot brighter. It means this is quite a diverse album and a true beauty. (FdW)
––– Address: https://flip-flap.bandcamp.com/
––– Address: https://fonodroom.limitedrun.com/

MIKOŁAJ TRZASKA & DAKTYLE – TRANSIENT RIOT (CD by Antenna Non Grata)

The Polish label Antenna Non Grata has two interests: music made with radio waves and improvised music. It’s no rocket science that if the lineup is Mikołaj Trzaska on saxophones, Marek Sadowski on drums, bowls, shells, and electronics and Maciej Jaciuk on electronics, bass-box, sidrax, daxophone, and loops, we are dealing with improvised music. This release was recorded on May 25, 2024, and I assume there has been some kind of editing, coming to nine pieces on this CD, not one long one. Despite using electronics, this is a reasonably traditional improvised music disc, verging on free jazz, mainly due to Trzaska’s saxophone playing. I understand the other two players are a duo, Daktyle, and I’d be interested in hearing what they would sound like without a saxophone. As with such things, I think the saxophone is the dominant player, laying it on heavily. Only in a few instances, there is some restraint, and that’s when the music is at it’s best, such as in ‘The Evil Of The Invisible’. When the saxophone goes all out, I am not as much interested. It becomes a somewhat too normal of a release. It’s not bad, but not my cup of tea. (FdW)
––– Address: https://antennanongrata.bandcamp.com/

WILLEM DE RIDDER & THE RADIO ART FOUNDATION PRESENT RADIOLA (LP compilation by Dead Mind Records)
FNTC – EUROPE IN FLAMES (CD by Dead Mind Records)

This is not a review but merely some autobiographical notes. I wrote this in a book before; “This is what I wanted – to be an experimental musician. I’d flunked piano lessons and wanted to learn to play the guitar, but not the acoustic box my parents bought me. I recorded my first ever ‘experimental’ piece of music with this beast. I banged the strings with a handheld blender, recorded it at high speed on my Dad’s reel-to-reel, and then played it back at the slowest speed. “It’s three times longer,” I realised, “this experimental music is easy to make!” I recorded it to a cassette and posted it to Willem de Ridder, a former Fluxus artist with a unique radio programme. His premise was straightforward: “You send me a tape, and without pre-auditioning it, I will play five minutes on the radio” – a bit like ‘Who Wants to be A Pop Star?’ nowadays, but the radio version. My piece was broadcasted, but it sounded like a bunch of hiss over the radio.” I was 15 or 16 years old and read about De Ridder’s radio program in Vinyl, a new magazine on alternative music. I listened that Friday evening and was ashamed about my little piece; it stood out like a sore thumb amidst some excellent home tapers, as was the going word at the time. For years, I wondered what happened to my cassette until, in 2020, on my birthday of all days, Marco van Dalfsen sent me a picture of my 1981 cassette as he received a box full of cassette contributions. It confirms my decade-long rant that I delivered some shitty piece of nothing. In the years after that, Van Dalfsen shared a bunch of thematically organised compilations from contributions, wrote an extensive article for my Annual magazine (still available), and now there is a best of LP (which could have had the article as liner notes, but alas they are not. De Radiola Improvisatie Salon was a program for all adventurous music creators with small home studios, which could be anything from two tape decks to 4-track reel-to-reel, or even more significant, some synths, a microphone and a love for creating weird music, as it isn’t fixed to one particular type of music, but ambient soundscapes, electro-pop, general weirdness and some of this stuff lo-fi, but not as lo-fi as my first attempt. None of the names means anything to anyone except for the still-going-strong Hessel Veldman (later of Y Create and Gorgonzola Legs; we’ll return to him in a bit) and maybe Arthur Berkhoff, who was quite active on various compilations. Being old and digging into this history for a long time, I also recognised Rob Terwiel, Arie van der Kooi and Peter Kaars. The most surprising contribution is by Ad van der Koog, a lovely piece of plunderphonics before such was even a term.
Cue a few years forward, and I am in Willem de Ridder’s living room, or what I remember it to be. I struck up a friendship with Christian Nijs, and we became Kapotte Muziek, and I had a label, Korm Plastics. We were at De Ridder’s as the new kids, the next generation, to discuss our work on Dutch national radio. We looked around, quite in awe of the equipment De Ridder had. I don’t think I heard much of his audio work, but this was some professional stuff: tape decks, professional walkmans and microphones. De Ridder and his wife Cora were working with Hessel and Nicole Veldman. For whatever reason, Hessel must have left a big impression on De Ridder, as the radio show released two cassettes, one entirely with Veldman’s music. The quartet called themselves FNTC. The first thing I heard from them was a cassette released by Staalplaat, which I found most intriguing. The music had a kind of ritualistic feeling, not the sort of gothic, campfire feel, but something more obscure, almost hidden, and with De Ridder’s background in sex magazines, also perhaps kinky or erotic, of course, as far as I could judge this as a naive 19-year old boy. That is also my feeling with the three pieces on ‘Europe In Flames’. This is minimal music created with fragments of field recordings, mumbling voices, spoken word with layers of synthesisers and a few percussive moments (not beats, but rattling and shaking). We are outsiders to the ritual; we don’t know what’s going on or what it means, and yet we listen captivated to the music, blind as we are. De Ridder would have loved this: ever the man of radio and not interested in video or TV. The radio leaves much more to imagine! I wholeheartedly agree. (FdW)
––– Address: https://dead-mind.bandcamp.com/

JEREMY YOUNG – CABLCAR (LP by Halocline Trance)
JEREMY YOUNG – MASSES (cassette by We, Here & Now Recordings)

It’s been a while since I’ve heard music from Canada’s Jeremy Young. He’s a member of Cloud Circuit, Sontag Shogun (whom I once saw in concert, which was great), and the trio he has with Nicolas Bernier and Rutger Zuydervelt, Associated Sine Tone Services (see Vital Weekly 1450). The last time I hard solo work from Young was his cassette for Eliane Tapes (Vital Weekly 1250), and that release showed his love of using sine and wave oscillators. He also uses these on these new releases, hand-tuning these and sticking these on 1/4 inch magnetic tape, on the cassette more exclusively than on the LP. The latter sees in also using guitar, Wurlitzer, piezo amplified objects and surface, “the” radio (not sure why he writes it like that), grief, lightning, self-doubt and bourbon – always good to have on hand, plus three guests’ voices. For his LP, he went to eBay, bought some old reel-to-reel tapes, spliced these together in a very Cageian manner, quite random, and then added instruments and other sounds. Using found and new voices in various of the ten tracks, the music becomes radiophonic, even without a strict overarching narrative. It’s more like short stories, some containing text and others not. The best example of a more text-based piece is the title piece about cablecars, with some nice, almost rhythmic accompaniment, like going with a cablecar around town. Young uses his sine waves very effectively to create drones, connected sometimes, forming a web of sound, or more individually. The tuning means Young can create little melodies, which, added to the voices, give the music a much less abstract character, and with the occasional rhythm, it becomes very musical. This is an excellent record; I did not expect anything less, but I think this is his best solo work to date (and yes, that’s a bit of a spoiler alert for what I am about to write about his cassette).
We, Here and Now Recordings, describe ‘Masses’ as”the second of this season’s releases, and the second set of sketches to come from this fruitful period of exploration and execution.” As said, this is more on the electronic side, even when not exclusively. Sketches these might be, but they sound surprisingly well-executed. More straightforward in approach, more on the continuous drone side, Young combines these with other small sounds, looped and twisted; each of the six pieces is a delicate affair. It is more abstract than ‘Cablcar’, minimal, and less melodic; this is more the Young I know from his older releases. The exception might be ‘Gravity Wave’, the final piece on this cassette, which he recorded with Colin Fisher on guitar and is quite a prog-rock piece. It’s undoubtedly the outsider track on this otherwise excellent yet typical Young release. That’s no problem, as this is a fantastic release, too, but LP wins (and it’s no competition).
There’s one thing that I understand from both releases. Both were mixed by others and not by Young. I don’t know why one would do this. (FdW)
––– Address: https://haloclinetrance.bandcamp.com/
––– Address: https://wehereandnow.bandcamp.com/music

ORGAN OF CORTI – LOCUS (LP by Dead Mind Records)

You can call Organ Of Corti a Swedish supergroup. The trio consists of Joachim Nordwall (iDeal Recordings), Dan Johansson (Sewer Election, Neutral) and Matthias Gustafsson (Altar Of Flies), which combined means many years at the forefront of experimental music in Sweden. They have various releases, including two previous 7″ records on Dead Mind Records (see Vital Weekly 1450), who now release their first LP. Johansson and Gustafsson take credit for tape loops and Nordwall works the synths and mixing. Before I wrote about that, the 7″ might not be an excellent format for this kind of music, but it works very well on LP, even when the compositions are similar. Typically, their pieces are between five and seven minutes long and are heavily loop-based. In ‘Calvaria’, the opening piece has a great spoken word loop with noise swirling in and out, more creepy than loud. This is something we see in all six pieces. The music seems to have moved forward, which means less noise and an opener sound, minimal yet never dull and full of tension. This is a haunted soundtrack. The label refers to Nurse With Wound and Organum, both of which I only hear to some extent, but I think Robert Turman comes perhaps closer, primarily through using loops, which sound like loops, and they use a lot of them, so it seems, preventing monotony. The plundered voices add more spookiness to the music; the sort of monster under your bed, don’t go into the forest vibe. The synths provide spacious and delicate drones, pushed to the background, being a bed for the loops to lay comfortably in. This is quite a powerful record! (FdW)
––– Address: https://dead-mind.bandcamp.com/

RL HUBER – RETURN OF THE COSMONAUT (CDR, private)

It’s been quite a while since I last heard music by RL (Ryan) Huber. If I’m correct, it was ‘Comoros’, which I reviewed in Vital Weekly 1037. Before, Huber worked under many names ( Bobcrane, Vopat, Olekranon, Lid Emba, and Sujo) with distinctly different musical approaches. On the previous album, it was all about dance music. Given that he works with various styles and other names, it is pretty remarkable this new album is without beats. Maybe the title is a giveaway if one thinks of cosmonauts concerning cosmic music or, maybe, broader, ambient music. Another noteworthy thing is that he has no less than 18 music pieces in just under an hour, which means some pieces are pretty short. According to the cover, the first ten pieces are the album, and the rest was a previously released digital EP, ‘Forgiving Light’. It doesn’t make much difference, as the mood and style of the pieces remain the same. Each piece is carried by a few deep, sustaining lines on the synthesiser, slightly orchestral at times, with sounds like strings across bows. Maybe Huber expanded into using orchestral samples? It’s all nicely moody music, but I admit, I found some of these pieces too brief. For atmospheric music to work well and have sufficient tension, darkness and mood, there must be room to breathe, live in, and expand. It’s the same with some of the original soundtrack albums I sometimes review. Once you are into a piece, and you think, let’s space out, it’s also over. This is for most of the tracks up to three minutes, roughly half the album. Unless, of course, one takes the whole album as one piece, cut up into 18 segments, only interrupted by some occasional bits of silence, say the fade out/crossfade between pieces. But once the pieces are a bit longer, it all works very well. The production is excellent! Huber took great care of the dynamic spectrum with wonderful deep bass sounds and excellent vibrations. Spacious music, very much in spirit with the title of the album. Excellent stuff! (FdW)
––– Address: https://rlhuber.bandcamp.com/

FALLEN SUN/RDKPL – RHYTHM INTERFERENCE / PATTERN INTERFERENCE (CDR by Smixx Records)

Y’ng-Yin Siew, we know from her work as Reverse Image. She also works as Fallen Sun. I don’t know who is behind RDKPL. Hearing Fallen Sun’s music, I understand the need to change the name. The four parts of ‘Sonic Eclipse’ are early industrial music explorations of feeding a rhythm into a synthesiser and using both the untreated and the treated signals in a highly minimal way. They are captioned by ‘Rhythm Interference’, for these pieces are very rhythmic. These pieces reminded me of the very early Esplendor Geometrico works (collected on my all-time favourite ‘EG1’ release), but may lack a bit of bottom end. The music is mainly in the mid to high-frequency range. The four pieces are alike and only differ in minor details, which means the execution is consistent.
RDKPL has three pieces under the ‘Pattern Interference’ flag, and the titles are dates, so I assume they were recorded on 18 January 2025. As far as I can judge, the process here might be the same, but it’s less rhythmic, but not entirely without it. Sounds go into a synthesiser for further processing, resulting in three slabs of noise—not the sort of over-the-top distorted feedback scream but minimalist bending back and forward of sounds. Also a bit old-school industrial but there’s nothing wrong with that. Like Fallen Sun, the execution of the concept is done very well and maybe also enough to get the idea across. At 32 minutes, perhaps a short release, but with these consistent approaches also long enough. (FdW)
––– Address: https://fallensun.bandcamp.com/

ANDREAS DAVIDS – BEAUTIFUL ISOLATION (3″ CDR by Inner Demons Records)

And then suddenly, to stumble upon an envelope holding a bunch of releases you hadn’t seen or heard before. It can always happen, especially when a label sends you some 30 releases in one batch. It happened with the initial ‘physical copies” batch of what has become my favourite 3″ label in the world, Inner Demons Records. And in that final envelope, the first one I randomly got was Andreas Davids’ “Beautiful Isolation”.
‘Beautiful Isolation is about the difference between being alone and being lonely’, says the promo text. One gives you strength; the other takes it away. One generates creativity, and the other swallows it and leaves you empty-handed. And without losing the strength of the composition, Andreas can show both sides of the medal. The emptiness of loneliness and the gorgeous harmonic structures when being alone give you strength. The minimalism of just a few notes creates harmony in acting and emotion, versus short staccato singular sounds layered upon each other, creating chaos inside your head because it’s coming from all sides, limiting you in who you are and what you do.
Even with a concept many other artists have used in the experimental (but also non-experimental) music industry, Andreas seems to balance the two states of mind perfectly. The result is a 20-minute ambient, experimental piece that turns the good and the bad into something beautiful. (BW)
––– Address: https://innerdemonsrecords.bandcamp.com/

FOG BAPTISM – SEA SLEEPER (CDR by Inner Demons Records)

A 5″ CDr is also possible on the 3″ oriented IDR. And “Sea Sleeper” by Fog Baptism is a 5″. But who is Fog Baptism? ‘Fog Baptism is Sylvia Joyce out of Sacramento, California. She approaches the project as a diary, splashing each release with different moods and soundscapes, reflecting her headspace as the days slouch. Her works span different genres, such as black metal, electronic, industrial, noise, ambient, and doom metal. When she isn’t writing, Sylvia enjoys reading and staying at home with her wife and two cats.’ That’s all on the Bandcamp page, and it’s a welcome source of information because all I could find is one sampler and one collab on Discogs.
In five tracks covering 40 minutes, you have been on a trip from the shiniest of lights into the deepest oceanic depths. From “Sunlight” to “Trench”. Sylvia shows you the beauty of the light because you need light to see things. And what you may see might even be The Old Ones living at the bottom of the trench where light can’t reach. The creepiness of this setting fits the music. There are factions of drones and ambience, but Sylvia uses a lot of resonance in her composition. Because of that resonance, it’s sometimes difficult to hear or follow the depths of the story in the composition. Resonance – especially the bassy, dark one – is challenging to master. But having said that, Sylvia is going in the right direction.
As said, in five tracks, a lovely story is told with enough space for each listener to interpret it. My thoughts went towards Lovecraft, but someone else might have interpreted it as a WW1 battlefield with sunlight reflected over the useless medals of soldiers lying dead in trenches. It may have something to do with the movie you’ve watched the night before. But sonic stories like this will fit many minds and many moods. (BW)
––– Address: https://innerdemonsrecords.bandcamp.com/

YARGU – FOR DAMAGE (cassette by Zouenkaikaku)
YO & OOYAMADADAISANMYAKU (cassette by Zouenkaikaku)
YENGO – MEIDO (cassette by Zouenkaikaku)

Here are three releases by the Japanese Zouenkaikaku label, “dedicated to releasing works by Japanese artists who refine various oriental expressions—blending traditional elements with experimental forms.” Their packaging looks very stylish and new-age Japanese.
I started with Yargu, which is called “an improvisational collective that rotates its members with each performance and recording”. The cassette is the cassette version of their second album. Maybe it’s improvised, but I also hear jazz and pop music, and very little, I think, what could be called ‘traditional elements’, and nothing here is experimental. It is undoubtedly flutes, synthesisers, bass, some voices, and gentle music. It’s something I can play with some interest; much misunderstanding and wondering why Vital Weekly would be the place to review an album described as “ambient, jazz, rock, and new age, while simultaneously stepping into a realm that is none of these.”
The cassette by Yo and Ooyamadadaisanmyaku is more like ‘it’. It is described as “A collection of original tracks from “Ajuga Decumbens,” a remix album in which electronic musicians Ooyamadadaisanmyaku and Yo deconstruct and reimagine each other’s work. As a highlight, the collection concludes with “Ajuga Decumbens (Prototype)” —the foundational version of the album’s title track, a collaborative piece by Ooyamadadaisanmyaku and Yo.” As you will not be surprised to learn, I had not heard of either and don’t know anything about them. They play electronic music. There isn’t much difference between both acts. Ooyamadadaisanmyaku has a stricter electronic approach, whereas Yo samples rock instruments to make his point. It’s in intelligent dance music, with some breakbeat and poppy elements. Not exactly the kind of music that makes it big on the dancefloor (granted, I haven’t seen the dancefloor in a while). There are some experimental sounds here and some spooky ambient (in ‘Return To The Planet Of Ignorance’), and it’s all most enjoyable. It’s funny to hear the only collaborative piece, making not much difference with the rest of the album.
The most interesting new release by Zouenkaikaku is the last one, by Yengo, also a new name for me. I read the most curious thing about this cassette: “Due to certain circumstances, Side A is left blank, with the audio content recorded solely on Side B.” It made me with what these certain circumstances are! I understand Yengo is an electronic musician, perhaps with modular synthesisers. According to the information, the music is “reminiscent of Japanese horror films with an experimental and avant-garde auditory sensibility”. One short piece, ‘Reido’ (still six minutes) and the title piece, about 22 minutes. ‘Reido’ uses slowed-down voice material, not so spooky and some electronics. It’s pretty experimental, not bad at all. I liked the longer ‘Meido’ even more. Here, the music is creepier, and while I am not knowledgeable about Japanese horror movies, I see some of this working in that direction. There are some Sheppard tones buried beneath the surface, and at one point, a drone picks up power and becomes a thick, psychedelic mass of electronics. Synths start with oscillating and electronic bubbles, and there’s a lovely fat sound, which cuts out at the end; the music is over, and there’s no more. Here, too, I have no idea what the traditional elements are supposed to be, but it is a delicate, trippy electronic album. (FdW)
––– Address: https://taikafasciation.bandcamp.com/

SATANIC RITE – DEMAGOG (cassette by Lust Tapes)
D.N.A. DESTRUCTION COMMANDO – PALLOR MORTIS (cassette by Lust Tapes)
INCISED WOUND – POST VITAM (cassette by Lust Tapes)
SATANIC RITE – IN SEARCH OF SODOM (cassette by Lust Tapes)

Hallefukkinlujah is a new tape label, and it’s from The Netherlands. And the first batch is right away four, tapes to play and to be swallowed up like a krill by a gigantic blue whale. All four projects are the same person, and he is no unknown character to Vital Weekly. I’ve recently written about his Permeation project and, before that, about his Pool Pervert project and even about another label he had in the 80’s which was jumped back to live in ’22. Search the archives of the VW and look for Egbert. That’s all I say for now.
So LUST Tapes is a new project where Egbert experiments with noise. These first four releases are focused on HNW with slight tendencies and experiments towards other noise (sub)genres. As medium he chose for the almighty cassette because, well, noise, HNW … Is there another format? The layout is simple, direct and precisely what a noise release needs. Xeroxed black and white nasty or gritty pics without too much information because it’s all about the atmosphere.
The fun thing you hear over time is how Egbert evolves his sounds and the use of his instruments. “In Search Of Sodom” is the one with catalogue number one. So, one could expect this to be the first experiment he did. As a moniker/name, he chose Satanic Rite, but what’s in a name? The music on this first tape is the harshest and most direct of the four tapes—two thirty-minute tracks, which are quite mesmerising in nature. There is more than enough happening to keep it interesting, and at the same time, it’s minimal or nihilistic enough to numb your mind and thoughts. The B-side has a phrase where some feedback is generated, and it’s a welcome addition to the sound set of massive dark (read: low) frequencies and large amounts of distortion, overdrive and saturation. There is hardly any space left in the sound spectrum for well anything subtle—nice one.
The second tape is titled “Pallor Mortis” by D.N.A. Destruction Commando. Another 60 minutes are divided into two tracks. The first track is monolithic, with various noise levels within what could be called a noise drone or harsh drone wall. It’s like a constant distortion of reality, and with a carefully chosen set of sources, the wall adapts itself to what you get to hear. There are some vocals in the back but the sound is too intense. Not to listen to the voices but to follow the content. In a later stage, the voice becomes audible because of the mix. But maybe that’s also because of the loop in the back that opens up the mix for the correct frequencies. These extra layers of sound make the whole thing more accessible than the Satanic Rite approach to HNW. Is it HNW? No, but what is it? Beats me. But you have to play it loudly to be able to be drowned in the experience.
The third catalogue is for Incised Wound with “Post Vitam”. Now, this is a more straightforward HNW. After a few seconds of getting acquainted with sounds, it bursts out of your system and into your brain, and even some careful rhythmic patterns enter the composition, it seems. A lot is happening, though; for an untrained ear, it may appear otherwise. So far, it’s the most truthful HNW release of the batch and I am not sad hearing it. Again a few vocals halfway through, but here it sounds like a bit of harsh noise meets power electronics. But that, too, is no punishment … A Taylor Swift fan may think otherwise … Are these movie clips? Or is it a furious Egbert?
The reverse side of the Incised Wound tape opens like a static problem or maybe an electric hardwired machine ruining your stereo. The pressure that comes with it and the layering of sounds in this track are great. At moments, it is ‘abiotic’ (like in: not noise, but ambient, though psychotic as f***. Reference: ambedelic as in ambient and psychedelic), when static electricity turns into noise, turns into the sea, turns into chaos, turns into … My favourite track so far.
The fourth catalogue number is for the second release by Satanic Rite. With two times 20 minutes, “Demagog” is the shortest release of the four. The A-side has some development over time but is mixed quite bassy/dark. The sudden but scarce movements that ARE there don’t make it explode, but it’s a nice mellow HNW track. – Damn, I never thought I’d ever write those words in the same sentence !!! – The reverse side is mixed more aggressively, making it way more powerful. The second half of this track becomes interesting when looped sounds and more erratic harsh noises enter the composition. The A-side is nice, and the B-side is excellent.
I’m curious if Egbert will continue this experiment, if he is open for submissions by other projects, or if LUST Tapes with the many faces of Egbert IS the project. Time will tell, but up to this moment, there are a few adorable moments splattered with the best medium for this kind of music. And I fully support it. (BW)
––– Address: https://lusttapes.bandcamp.com/