55 minutes, 7 seconds

L'Orchestre Noir
Eleven (CD 1 of 2)

Tony Wakeford has recorded under a lot of different monikers, but aside from his main project, Sol Invictus, I've always liked L'Orchestre Noir best. This was their second album, released in 1998. Sadly, there's been no new album since, although I remember reading a rumor that he was about to begin recording under this name again soon.

At any rate, a bit like the "solo" discs he's released as Tony Wakeford, the Orchestre Noir material is a bit more elegant and stately than the down-to-earth folk stylings of Sol Invictus. But only just--it's not often clear to me why Wakeford chooses to record under different names when the music isn't so different from project to project.

Eleven is an ambitious work that attempts to be a requiem for the victims of the First World War and an expression for peace in Europe in the future. But like a lot of neofolk music, it runs the risk of trafficking in exactly the kind of militaristic pomp it seeks to criticize. That may be what I find so interesting about this kind of music--you never quite know where it stands. Bombastic tympani, horns, and strings match against choirs and flutes to create a pleasing juxtaposition of sound and mood, and the listener is forced to reconcile simultaneous feelings of soaring exhilaration and profound sadness.

Then again, maybe that's what World War I was like.

Also today:

55:06 Brian Eno, Discreet Music
55:05 A Challenge of Honour, Trilogy (CD 2 of 2)
55:04 Sol Invictus, The Blade
55:03 Clock DVA, Man-Amplified
55:02 The Pain Machinery, Hostile
55:00 Corvus Corax, Tempi Antiquii
55:00 Raison d'Être, Metamorphyses
54:59 Attrition, Étude
54:58 Harold Budd, The Room
54:57 :Wumpscut:, Wreath of Barbs

New arrival! 59 minutes, 27 seconds

Gjallarhorn
Rimfaxe

I've been amassing CDs lately by Scandinavian folk bands. I'm not entirely convinced I like all the music, although much of it evokes a sort of traditional, medieval feel, not unlike Estampie or Faun or some of the other more or less authentic bands that play around in this genre. It might be a little too much on the Loreena McKennitt side of "mystical" medieval-flavored music, though. Which tends to curdle my eardrums.

I'm trying to keep an open mind. Maybe it'll grow on me fully as I get older, and by the time I'm 50 I'll be happy to listen to Enya [shudder].

Also today:

55:08 Feindflug, Feindflug
55:08 Remanence, Apparitions
55:08 VNV Nation, Matter + Form
55:08 :Wumpscut:, Eevil Young Flesh

55 minutes, 21 seconds

Ah Cama-Sotz
Diary of the Infernal Gods

I'm not interested much in remixes. One or two on an album is fine--provided they're significantly different from the original mix--but entire discs of remixes are a bore and a rip-off. (I'm talking to you, Rudy of :Wumpscut:!) Anyway, the reason I tell you this is to inform you of why I might list only one disc of a two-disc box set on this blog. It's usually because I have all the songs on the other disc elsewhere or, more likely, because the disc in question is just a bunch of steenkeeng remixes.

This two-disc set from the ritual industrial band Ah Cama-Sotz is a good example. The whole shebang is called 10 Years Bat Vibez, which leads you to think it's some sort of retrospective or best-of, but if you thought that, you'd be wrong. Instead, the first disc is all new stuff, a weird and typically spooky-sounding tribute to some very scary gods. It's awesome. And the second disc (titled Re.worx) contains other bands' remixes of past ACS songs. Not so awesome. I have the original mixes on the other CDs, and I'll pass on listening to an hour's worth of remixes, thankyouverymuch. I have enough to listen to as it is, thankyouverymuch. I'm being annoying now, soI'llstop.

Also today:

55:18 Auto Aggression, Geräuschinformatik
55:17 Qntal, Illuminate
55:16 Absurd Minds, The Cycle
55:16 Injury, Scars from the Past
55:14 Elijah's Mantle, Psalms from Invocations
55:11 Various artists, Père-Lachaise
55:10 Dernière Volonté, Devant le Miroir
55:09 Current 93, Horsey

55 minutes, 30 seconds

Assemblage 23
Defiance

I listen to music as much and as often as I can. While I get dressed, while I brush my teeth, while I eat, while I drive, while I work. Unless, of course, Mrs. Total Time is around, and then, as a courtesy to her, I turn it off. (She's not too keen on the loud electro-industrial stuff, and the neofolk music creeps her out. Quite rightly.) Given that I work from home for the most part, I get to listen to a lot of music on any given day. It's on almost constantly.

That gets me to thinking about whether this music, which once had the power to surprise and even frighten me, has lost its potency. In other words, is it now just so much aural wallpaper?

Of course, I'm not necessarily picking on Assemblage 23, or any other more traditional song-based bands. Tom Shear makes what might be called pop music, after all, and that can demand more-active listening. But it's the soundscape-ish stuff I'm wondering about, the more abstract music--ambient or noisy--that makes me think I'm becoming inured to what it has to offer.

I still appreciate certain recordings above others, so perhaps it's the sheer quantity of CDs I own that creates a vast middle ground of music that fails to make an impression. But part of me worries that because it's on all the time, and because I'm doing other things while listening to it (such as, um, blogging), I'm not fully engaged with it. I'm not truly "listening."

Maybe. Or maybe I've heard so much mediocre crap, it takes much more to get me to perk up my ears. That's the snob defense.

Also today:

55:29 Seven Pines, Nympholept (CD 2 of 2)
55:28 Andreas Resch, Requiem
55:28 Ulf Söderberg, Nattljus
55:26 Dead Can Dance, Into the Labyrinth
55:25 Digital Poodle, Division!
55:24 Accessory, Titan
55:24 Controlled Fusion, Unnatural Causes
55:23 In the Nursery, Era
55:23 Project Pitchfork, Eon:Eon

55 minutes, 39 seconds

Thy Veils
The Diaphonous Depressions

I like this CD, and I'm not just saying that because I share Romanian ancestry with Thy Veils's frontman, Daniel Dorobantu. No vocals, just moody neoclassical soundscapes that leave you in a pensive sort of mood. Like a much less annoying Black Tape for a Blue Girl.

Anyway, one of the nice things about putting together this blog is actually having to visit artists' Web sites to get the correct link to place around the bands' names. I end up staying pretty well-informed about new releases--that's all I need: more CDs--and I'm often surprised to find there are a bunch of albums that eluded my radar.

Thy Veils is a good example. Dorobantu has three other CDs besides this one. Who knew?

Sheesh. And I call myself a completist.

Also today:

55:38 Supreme Court, Yell It Out
55:37 Reversal Penetrations, Cut Up Violation
55:35 Current 93, All the Pretty Little Horses
55:35 Rein[Forced], Futile Longings of a Condescending Man
55:34 ATD Convention, Cyber Relations
55:34 Speaking Silence, Insides
55:31 Letum, Broken

55 minutes, 56 seconds

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56 minutes, 14 seconds

In Strict Confidence
Cryogenix

When your singer relies heavily on effects, it can be difficult to avoid sounding like many other bands whose singers also rely heavily on the same effects. That may be part of the problem with modern industrial music: For example, often it's hard to tell Amduscia from Agonoize. The vocals have been processed and distorted beyond recognition, and the arpeggiated keyboards and movie samples are more or less interchangeable.

So it's the relatively rare singer who's able to carve out a truly unique space with his voice. And often it's the result of a careful and sparing use of effects, coupled with the vocalist's natural timbre. I'm thinking of Front 242's Jean-Luc De Meyer, Project Pitchfork's Peter Spilles, and In Strict Confidence's Dennis Ostermann.

Ostermann seems to have a naturally deep and gravelly voice, which adds a certain richness to his vocals, sung alternately in German and English. Cryogenix, from 1996, was their debut, and while their overall sound would go on to become slightly poppier, Ostermann's vocal approach wouldn't change that much. His voice remains instantly recognizable as much on 2006's Exile Paradise as on this album.

I also like the fact that he's unafraid to sing in German about half the time. Seems like too many European bands try to write and sing in English (to appeal to the broadest market segment?) and fail to grasp English idiom or pronunciation. The irony is that bands with very German names, song titles, and lyrics often do just as well as or better than their English-wanna-be peers. Einstürzende Neubauten, anyone?

Also today:

56:13 Einstürzende Neubauten, Kollaps
56:11 X Marks the Pedwalk, Meshwork
56:08 Silk Saw, 8 Reports
56:08 Vox, X Chants
56:06 Tamás Kátai, Erika Szobája
56:04 In the Nursery, Prelude
56:00 Angeltheory, Fatal Condition
56:00 Anthesteria, Beyond Nimbostratus
55:58 Absent Minded, Endless Pain
55:58 Attrition, A Tricky Business
55:58 Einstürzende Neubauten, Halber Mensch
55:57 Defcon, Endsong
55:57 E-Craft, Unsocial Themes

56 minutes, 24 seconds

Retractor
Edge of Incision

Harsh industrial techno from Puerto Rico, by way of Florida. If you've ever wondered what drives musicians in sunny climates to produce this type of music...this album doesn't really answer your question. But it sure beats reggae.

Also today:

56:22 Abscess, In Your Mind
56:22 Future Trail, Big Sky Horizon
56:22 Tri-State, Synopsis
56:20 Sect, Telekinetic
56:18 Non-Aggression Pact, 9mm Grudge
56:18 Various artists, An Introduction to Suffering
56:17 Lycia, The Burning Circle and Then Dust (CD 2 of 2)
56:15 Decoded Feedback, Shockwave
56:15 Electro Assassin, Bioculture
56:15 Prometheus Burning, Beyond Repair

56 minutes, 31 seconds

Hioctan
Concentration Overload

Astute observers of this blog--ha! that joke never seems to get old--will have noticed that I've updated the index of bands in the right-hand column of the page. I'd removed it for a week or two while I figured out what to do about Blogger's 200-character limit in the Tags field. When it no longer became possible to add a tag for each band I listened to during a particular day, I decided I'd use the Tags field to list only the first band featured that day.

So, fewer overall tags, but hopefully still a useful and representative listing on some level. (Useful? To whom?)

Also today:

56:27 Mediæval Bæbes, Undrentide
56:25 Bahntier, Randome
56:25 Cranes, Loved

56 minutes, 46 seconds

Velvet Acid Christ
Hex Angel: (Utopia-Dystopia)

To date, I havent seen any news articles that indicate what type of music Virginia Tech mass murderer Cho Seung-Hui listened to. But something tells me there's a decent chance it ends up being goth or industrial music and we see a rehash of the whole Columbine subplot. In other words, did the music (and the violent Korean horror movies) make him do it?

It's a facile way to explain why someone picks up a gun and starts killing people, of course, and it's absurd. Not to mention the implication that you have to be mentally disturbed even to listen to this kind of music. (Although maybe if you listen to it in descending order of total time... I digress.)

The central question is, Do violent music, movies, video games, television, etc., have a role to play in mentally ill people's actions? The answer is yes, probably. They might not have the proper detachment to process this kind of content the way the rest of us do. It's akin to alcoholics or obese people--they don't have the same relationship to food and drink the rest of us have.

But alcoholics and overweight people aren't homicidal--they're killing only themselves. So what makes it easy for mentally ill people like Cho Seung-Hui to wipe out 32 people? Easy access to guns. But that's not what Middle America likes to hear. So much easier to blame it on the music or the movies or the video games.

Also today:

56:43 Desiderii Marginis, Songs Over Ruins
56:39 Flëur, Prikosnovénie
56:37 Dominion, Only the Strong Survive
56:36 Cyclone B, Demolished
56:34 Anthesteria, Nebesnaya
56:33 Klinik, Klinik (CD 2 of 2)
56:32 Data-Bank-A, The Citadel (CD 2 of 2)

56 minutes, 58 seconds

C/A/T
The Prisoner

This CD manages to merge two great personal loves: media cut-up industrial music (à la Some More Crime and Reversal Penetrations) with the surreal 1960s British TV show The Prisoner. It trades samples from the series with samples from the news about the Iraq war, making some sort of vague commentary about the nature of freedom in a democracy that's been corroded by a corrupt administration. It's entertaining, if not exactly coherent.

Too much work to do today for the World's Most Boring Software Company to blog any more than this, unfortunately. (Or should you count yourself lucky?) Maybe more tomorrow.

Also today:

56:57 Front Line Assembly, Civilization
56:57 Omne Datum Optimum, Missa XXI
56:54 Horologium & K. Meizter, Eight Studies in Transition
56:53 Atrium Carceri, Ptahil
56:52 Allied Vision, Unburied
56:52 PAL, M@rix
56:48 Die Form, Some Experiences with Shock
56:48 Die Verbannten Kinder Evas, Dusk and Void Became Alive
56:47 Combichrist, Everybody Hates You (CD 2 of 2)
56:47 Dense Vision Shrine, Litanies of Desire
56:46 Disharmony, Moonflower
56:46 Novakill, Hard Tech for a Hard World

New arrival! 57 minutes, 29 seconds

Assemblage 23
Meta

Always interesting to hear what Tom Shear has to say. I haven't spent enough time with this new album yet, but first impressions are good. I might have mentioned this in a previous post a while back, but the thing about Shear is that he packs a lot of emotion into his lyrics and vocal stylings without ever verging into the realm of the maudlin or the cheesy.

But it is sort of funny (funny strange, not funny ha-ha) to think that goth kids nod their heads and dance to a song like "Disappoint." That must be weird for Shear, to see kids move their feet to a song about his father's suicide.

Also today:

57:04 Estampie, Materia Mystica
57:04 Prospero, Spreading the Infection (CD 1 of 2)
57:03 Kreuzweg Ost, Edelrost
57:03 Ministry, Twitch
57:02 Lisa Gerrard & Jeff Rona, A Thousand Roads
57:00 FabrikC, Gleichstrom
57:00 :Wumpscut:, Music for a Slaughtering Tribe
56:59 Lamia, La Máquina de Dios

57 minutes, 6 seconds

Distorted Memory
Burning Heaven

Not exactly endorsed by Pat Robertson. Can't blame him, what with lyrics like "Christ was just a wise man, not the son of God" followed by intonations of "Kill the Nazarene." ("Just" a wise man? Sheesh. Setting an awfully high bar there, I think.) Anyway, it's not a dull album, but nor is it the first time an industrial band has tackled concepts of religion and apostasy. And is it possible that Christianity is too easy a target?

Also today:

57:06 Lisa Gerrard & Patrick Cassidy, Immortal Memory
57:05 Angels & Agony, Eternity
57:05 Putrefy Factor 7, Total Mind Collapse
57:05 Die Verbannten Kinder Evas, Come Heavy Sleep
New arrival! 74:00 Alien Produkt, Ignorance
New arrival! 70:30 Front Line Assembly, Fallout

57 minutes, 17 seconds

Estampie
Signum

Has the whole medieval-revival movement in Europe become a genuine phenomenon? Ensembles like Estampie, Corvus Corax, Hedningarna, and others have been around for a while, but lately they've been joined by Potentia Animi, Faun, and other newcomers, all making early music augmented (or not) with modern instrumentation and production. And then there was this article in last week's New York Times. OK, so not exactly evidence of a major movement, but the article made me wonder why I'm drawn to the music and why it might be that Europeans are interested in that period again. By way of approximate contrast, I don't think there's a similar collective nostalgia in this country for the colonial era.

But that clumsy analogy may reveal something: America is a multicultural nation--always has been. Immigrants, recent or not, can't trace their ancestry back to the colonies and the fight for independence from the British. Chances are, what tugs at their national soul is something related to their original ethnic culture or history, and not that of the country they live in now. Anyway, America is more of an idea--a group of concepts around freedom and capitalism--rather than a national expression of an ethnic group, even to those of us who were born here.

In Europe, the equation is a bit different. Sure, France, Germany, Italy, and the rest all have large immigrant populations, but these nations are very much expressions of a particular language, culture, history, and ethnic persona--one that can be traced back to medieval times, if not before. And I think they view immigration as a bit more of a threat to their culture than we do. (Although that's rapidly changing even here in the U.S.)

I guess the question I'm trying to pose here is this: Is the revival of interest in all things medieval (even among a small subculture) in Europe a more benign cousin of the neofolk movement? That is to say, is there a certain subsection of the European population that's attracted to historically influenced music, art, and other media because it harkens back to a time when Europe was European? Before the Turks came to Gemany and the Arabs came to France and the Africans came to Italy? Is it, to some, a comforting expression of "authentic" European-ness? And finally, if that's true, is the medieval revival movement a celebration of pre-modern European history and culture or a reaction to modern times?

Maybe it's a little bit of both. And by the way, I'm not trying to accuse Estampie or any other band of racism or xenophobia. Often what's so interesting about their music (and that of lots of other so-called medieval authenticists) is the interplay between east and west in the sound. The Crusades, for all their pointless carnage, certainly fostered a cultural exchange between two worlds, and you can sometimes hear it in the Middle Eastern-tinged melodies in Estampie's music.

Whew. Long post for a Tuesday morning. At least I didn't have to inscribe it on an illuminated manuscript.

Also today:

57:15 Ulf Söderberg, Tidvatten
57:14 Dernière Volonté, Commémoration (CD 1 of 2)
57:14 Vas, Feast of Silence
57:13 Lycia, A Day in the Stark Corner
57:12 TWZ, The Sixth Extinction
57:11 Nebulo, Kolia
57:11 Some More Crime, Code Opera
57:10 Attrition, The Hidden Agenda
57:10 Neon Cage Experiment, Oscillations
57:07 Elijah's Mantle, Sorrows of Sophia
57:07 Lycia, Estrella
57:06 Covenant, United States of Mind
57:06 Data-Bank-A, Decompilation

57 minutes, 26 seconds

Digital Factor
Countercheck

I wrote a little about these guys a few days ago, and I'm not much inclined to dig deeper on a band I don't think is worth the effort. So suffice it to say that Digital Factor isn't a huge factor in my musical consciousness. Sorry, guys. (I am, however, in search of your rare-ish compilation De Facto. Why? Because it's there, as the Everest climbers say.)

After an exhilarating softball game last night (we won, 9-8), followed by a burger, fries, three pints of beer, and a restless night's sleep, I'm feeling out of whack today. Which sucks, because I have a shitload of work to do. And what am I doing instead? Blogging about cheesy German electro music from the early '90s.

Also today:

57:25 Northborne, Force It
57:24 Fractured, Only Human Remains
57:23 Ice Ages, This Killing Emptiness
57:23 Mediavolo, A Secret Sound
57:22 Genetic Selection, Darwin's Voyage
New arrival! 69:39 Preussak, Werkschau
New arrival! 62:19 Stendeck, Can You Hear My Call?
57:22 Z Prochek, Intravenous
57:21 Caul, Whole
57:20 Delerium, Morpheus
57:17 Bio-Tek, A God Ignored Is a Demon Born

57 minutes, 30 seconds

Clan of Xymox
Clan of Xymox

"Like New Order, only more morose." I dimly remember some critic or other describing Clan of Xymox this way, and for all its flippancy, it's not too far off the mark. I'm not a synth-pop fan, but there's something I hear in the first two albums by this band that strikes me as different. Maybe it's the association with the 4AD label and label head Ivo Watts-Russell's artful production work. But more likely it's the moody instrumental presence of Pieter Nooten, who would leave the band sometime in the late '80s. (Where is he now?)

At any rate, good stuff on a Sunday.

Also today:

57:30 Stereotaxic Device, Stereotaxic Device
57:29 Skinny Puppy, Back and Forth Six
57:29 Tzolk'in, Tzolk'in
57:28 Brian Eno, The Shutov Assembly

57 minutes, 37 seconds

Cocteau Twins
Garlands

Close observers of this blog (that is to say, pretty much just me) will notice that I removed the index of bands in the right-hand column. Why? Well, I'll tell you: Blogger limits the "Labels" (or tags) field in each blog entry to 200 characters. This impinges on my ability list each band I've listened to that day. Why? Well, I'll tell you: As the CDs I listen to get shorter and shorter, I can get through more and more of them on a given day. When the discs were 70-odd minutes long, I never reached the 200-character limit. But now that we're down into the 50-minute range, I'm butting right up against it. In short, more CDs means more bands, which means more band names, which in turn means more characters to type.

So rather than omit names and risk an inaccurate tally, I wiped out the entire feature. I might bring it back, perhaps as a tally of all the truly "featured" bands--those that have been written about, as opposed to those simply under the "Also today" header.

I also might use the space to link to other blogs (like this one) that have discovered this ridiculous little experiment and have been kind enough to write about it and link here. Or I might just use it to link to blogs and other sites I think are just plain interesting.

Stay tuned.

Also today:

57:37 Psyclon Nine, Crwn Thy Frnicatr
57:37 Regenerator, 2.0
57:36 Arden, A Journey Through Darkness
57:36 Fin de Siècle, Tout Disparaîtra
57:32 The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath a Cloud, Rest on Your Arms Reversed
New arrival! 61:09 Photophob, November 30th
New arrival! 60:21 Photophob, Within

57 minutes, 56 seconds

Autopsia
Mystery Science

One of the more mysterious bands to emerge from Europe, let alone the former Yugoslavia, Autopsia seems like more of an art project than a musical one. But the music is so incredible and so mesmerizing, you forget about everything else. "Everything else" being the willfully obtuse, frequently morose imagery and text that accompanies each CD release. "Above all, we are not concerned with music," they state on the inside cover of 1995's Humanity Is the Devil. "Our subject is death and the pity of death. The music is in the pity."

Against the backdrop of the horrible atrocities that took place in Yugoslavia in the '90s, this has a sort of elegiac resonance. It's not the defiant, mocking attitude toward the war and its instigators that, say, Laibach adopted. Rather, Autopsia took on the role of somber bystander, bearing witness to the genocide almost by being its accompanying orchestra.

And the music is incredibly, profoundly, hauntingly sad. It can sometimes strike a note of triumph, but never of triumphalism. Every neoclassical, post-industrial flourish is tinged with tragedy and sorrow. It's strangely beautiful, and oddly relaxing, despite the grim subtext.

And in the end, what makes it art--what makes it transcend the realm of commercially released music--is that strange, discomfiting beauty: the sense that there's a lot more than just music going on here.

Serious stuff for a Friday, I know. I guess Autopsia's the Debbie Downer of my CD collection. (Or is the entire collection one big downer?)

Also today:

57:54 Fatal Morgana, The Destructive Solution
57:54 Noise Unit, Drill
57:53 Digital Poodle, Soul Crush
57:52 Silk Saw, Dystopia
57:51 KIFOTH, Ebola
57:51 Regard Extrême, Résurgence
57:48 Suicide Commando, Axis of Evil
57:47 Romowe Rikoito, Austradeiwa
57:45 The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath a Cloud, Amara Tanta Tyri
57:43 Dismantled, Dismantled
57:41 Tristesse de la Lune, A Heart Whose Love Is Innocent
57:40 Geneviève Pasquier, Soap Bubble Factory
57:39 Amduscia, From Abuse to Apostasy
57:38 Allied Vision, OS Bandwidth

58 minutes, 6 seconds

Klinik & Vidna Obmana
Gluttony

Two great tastes that go great together. At least that's probably what the plan was when these two got together to record this new series of recordings, based on the seven deadly sins. It's not the first time Klinik's Marc Verhaegen has collaborated with Vidna Obmana: Way back in 1991 Obmana contributed to "Lost Ambience," a track on Verhaegen's Semblance album (recorded under the alias X10). Plus, Belgium's a pretty small country. They were bound to run into each other at some point.

I gave up on Klinik after Dirk Ivens left and it became a Verhaegen solo project (although Contrast wasn't a terrible album). I suppose now I need to go back and listen to the material he's recorded since. (Great--another excuse to eventually spend a bunch of dough on eBay and GEMM.)

This disc bubbles along in a low-key sort of way--not necessarily reminiscent of either musician's golden era but not completely different-sounding either. And what it has to do with gluttony I can't really say. Also can't really say for sure whether they're truly planning to release seven CDs together, in order to fulfill all seven of the deadly sins. (The second in the series, Greed, was released in 2006.) If they do, more power to them. If they don't, more power to my poor wallet.

Also today:

58:04 Symbiont, Ology
58:03 Die Verbannten Kinder Evas, In Darkness Let Me Dwell
58:00 Seven Pines, The Garden of Fand
57:59 Attrition, Keepsakes and Reflections
57:59 Les Berrtas, Nekropolis
57:59 Massiv in Mensch, Die Rein
57:58 Brian Eno, Neroli
57:57 Flëur, Siyanie

58 minutes, 17 seconds

Digital Factor
Over One Million Times

Remember these guys? This album, released in 1999, was the last one they did before taking a seven-year hiatus. They came back last year with One More Piece, which I haven't listened to enough to offer any sort of opinion yet. But Over One Million Times? Pretty cheesy electro, especially considering it was made fairly recently. It has an '80s feel, and I don't think it's meant to be ironic or retro.

The truth is, it's a little embarrassing to listen to nowadays. It hasn't aged well. It's a guilty pleasure now, very much like the stuff Eco put out around the same time. Or maybe Manipulation, whose two CDs I had to sell last year because they were almost unbearable to hear anymore. I wonder how many other bands I'll begin to feel that way about.

Also today:

58:13 Lycia, Cold
58:12 Flëur, Magic
58:11 In the Nursery, The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari
58:11 Project Pitchfork, Collector: Fireworks
58:09 Die Form, Duality
New arrival! 73:57 Patenbrigade: Wolff, Hochstapler
New arrival! 61:57 Supreme Court, Hypocrites & Saints (CD 1 of 2)
New arrival! 58:33 Disharmony, Malignant Shields

58 minutes, 35 seconds

A Challenge of Honour
Monuments

Not the best example of this band's output. Which is sort of strange, because better releases from ACOH came both before and after this one. Here's the biggest problem: Why does Peter Savelkoul feel he needs to add his vocals? They're worse than those of early Tony Wakeford, and that's saying something. Just shut your mouth and let the music play.

Plus, the movie samples are cheesy and ham-handedly inserted into the mix. But hey, it's a CDR release, so what do you expect? I'd heard they were going to rerelease it last year as a CD, but that must have never panned out. (Maybe they listened to it again and came to their senses?)

Wow, I sound grumpy. Sorry.

Also today:

58:34 Sol Invictus, Thrones
58:31 Carnalia, Dirty Days
58:30 Cesium 137, Elemental
58:30 Prospero, Spreading the Infection (CD 2 of 2)
58:29 Data-Bank-A, Access Denied & Isolation
58:27 Collection d'Arnell-Andréa, Exposition: Eaux-Fortes et Méandres
58:27 Compound, Cinema Verité
58:26 DavaNtage, Broken Influences
58:23 DF Sadist School, The Visionary Garden
58:23 Laibach, WAT
58:20 Agonoize, Assimilation: Chapter Two (CD 2 of 2)
58:20 Dunkelwerk, Troops (CD 2 of 2)
58:20 Lycia, Ionia

58 minutes, 40 seconds

Sleepwalk
Spirits from the Inside

For some reason, a harsh industrial band from Switzerland sounds like an anomaly. Isn't it supposed to be a beautiful, orderly, and peaceful nation? What is there to get all worked up about? It's like if you told me there was a new noise band from Tahiti. I'd have a hard time understanding where the angst comes from.

But apparently there are things about living in the Alps that piss off Sleepwalk. Maybe it's all those fucking cows.

Also today:

58:39 Pro-Tech, Orbiting Cathedrals
58:38 Front 242, 06:21:03:11 Up Evil
58:38 Laibach, Volk
58:37 Pneumatic Detach, Vis.cer.a
58:37 Rajna, Hidden Temple
58:37 Von Thronstahl, Imperium Internum
New arrival! 72:24 Numina, Symbiotic Spaces (CD 1 of 2)
New arrival! 71:59 Numina, Symbiotic Spaces (CD 2 of 2)
New arrival! 63:22 Photophob, Photophob
New arrival! 62:28 Halbschlaf & Polygon, Kalt

58 minutes, 41 seconds

Collection d'Arnell-Andréa
Tristesse des Mânes

Tristesse, as you may recall from the high school French classes you managed to stay awake for, means "sadness." But mânes? A quick-and-dirty check of the nearest online French-English dictionary yielded rien. (That's French for bupkus.) So I turned to my old friend Wikipedia, and sacré bleu! There's an entry for Manes, a Latin term from Roman mythology that's defined as the souls of deceased loved ones.

Now it all makes sense, my dear Watson: "The Sadness of Deceased Souls."

At least that's the translation I'm going with.

In any case, this album was sort of a return to form for CDAA. That is to say, they abandoned (temporarily) their more-recent rockin' style and went back to making the strings-soaked, terribly sad chamber music they started out with back in the late '80s and early '90s. In fact, they revisit a bunch of those old songs here, creating classical "remixes" that strengthen the original compositions.

I know, I know--French chamber music. Almost as pretentious as Elijah's Mantle, for Christ's sake. But the effect is strikingly beautiful, and even though I like both aspects of CDAA'a music, the older, more classically oriented material was distinctive in a way their later work wasn't. So there. Stick that in your crêpe and eat it.

Also today:

58:40 Data-Bank-A, Brotherly Love
58:40 Pygmy Children, Malignant
58:40 Signal 12, Signal 12

58 minutes, 48 seconds

Novakill
Kill Everyone

"Novakill" doesn't refer to a fishing expedition to procure lox for your bagel and cream cheese. (But that does sound good for breakfast right about now.) No, instead it refers to an Australian electro-industrial band, and this is their second album, released in 2005. It's a pretty good stomp 'n' growl CD, with lots of hard beats and hard vocals and hard synths. It's all very hard.

Also today:

58:47 Skinny Puppy, Brap (CD 2 of 2)
58:46 Conscientia Peccati, Chaos/Magick
58:45 Leæther Strip, Underneath the Laughter
58:44 Velvet Acid Christ, Twisted Thought Generator
New arrival! 65:25 As Lonely As Dave Bowman, Pod
58:42 Autoclav 1.1, Visitor Attractions

New arrival! 68 minutes, 1 second

Polyspace
Tactual Sense

I'm starting to seek out the music of Polygon and all its side projects. Aeons ago, I picked up a copy of Mortal Constraint's The Legend of Deformation and really liked it. But then I never followed Ingo Lindmeier's musical evolution from the previous project's harsh industrial soundscapes into the more IDM-based atmospheres of Polygon. My bad; now the releases are kind of hard to find.

Polyspace is a collaboration between Polygon and For a Space, which I'd never heard of before. This disc has a spacy sort of ambience--industrial/IDM with a light touch, somewhere between Digital Soundtracks-era Clock DVA and Beefcake. Repeating piano figures drive a lot of the melody, and the pieces move slowly and in a smooth-funky way. It's soothing, in its own off-kilter way.

Also today:

58:58 Assemblage 23, Failure
58:58 Current 93 & Thomas Ligotti, In a Foreign Town, in a Foreign Land
58:58 In the Nursery, A Page of Madness
58:57 The Retrosic, God of Hell
58:50 Covenant, Northern Light
58:50 Steve Roach, Structures from Silence
58:49 Cenobita, Neo Milenio
58:48 Current 93, SixSixSix: SickSickSick
58:48 Mediæval Bæbes, Mirabilis

59 minutes, 1 second

Object
Part-Time Paranoia

Crazy day at work today, so not much energy or inclination to blog today. Fortunately, there isn't much I really want or need to say about Object, a pretty straightforward, generic German industrial/EBM band. I did like their über-cheesy use of the dramatic music from the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? on their second album, The Reflecting Skin. When that show first came out, I tried like mad to be a contestant, but I never made it. (Hey, what can I tell you? I'm a big Regis Philbin fan.)

But I digress. Where was I? Oh, yeah--Object. I'll leave you with just one question to ponder until tomorrow: Do you think they mean it as a noun or as a verb?

Also today:

59:01 Vidna Obmana, Revealed by Composed Nature
59:00 Autopsia, Humanity Is the Devil
59:00 Noisuf-X, Antipode
59:00 Vidna Obmana, The River of Appearance
New arrival! 68:22 Nest, Trial of the Unwary

59 minutes, 7 seconds

Vomito Negro
Dare

Why Belgium? What was it about the Flemish people or culture that led to such a huge explosion of EBM bands in the '80s? Maybe it's all Front 242's fault. (Did I say "fault"? I meant "thanks to Front 242.")

In any case, Vomito Negro never really made it big like Front 242. Instead of being signed to American labels like Wax Trax!, they were stuck on Belgium's KK Records, along with Insekt, Klinik, Force Dimension, and others. But their sound was so cool--they knew how to use space and syncopation to create stiff yet undeniably funky music aided by some very fat-sounding analog synths.

They tried to make a comeback a few years ago with an album called Fireball, but it failed to capture the sound that made them so identifiable and unique in the '80s. If you're interested, try to find Dare and the one they recorded for Antler Subway in 1991 called The New Drug. Both remarkable.

Also today:

59:05 Prager Handgriff, Täterschaft und Teilnahme
59:04 Unter Null, The Failure Epiphany (CD 1 of 2)
59:03 Aïboforcen, Face (of) Death
59:03 Am'Ganesha'n, Beyond the Soul
59:02 Laibach, Opus Dei
59:02 Liholesie, Primeval Rotation

59 minutes, 29 seconds

Elijah's Mantle
Poets and Visionaries

I love Elijah's Mantle, but even I must admit that if there were a prize for Most Pretentious Band, they'd win it hands-down. The band (really just Mark St. John Ellis) seems to have disappeared, which is too bad. I hope it's because they decided they'd accomplished what they set out to do and not because of the collapse of World Serpent Distribution.

At any rate, Poets and Visionaries is from 1996, and it's a good example of the style of music they were making toward the end of the band's career. Abandoning the dark interpretations of liturgical songs he focused on in earlier recordings, here Ellis dramatically recites Romantic poetry (Baudelaire, Rimbaud) over a dramatic backdrop of strings and tympani. It's all very dramatic. In fact, you might need Dramamine to get all the way through the disc.

I kid.

Ellis is really more of an actor than a singer, and this isn't so much music as recorded theater. That's OK, though. If you like Romantic poetry read beautifully by a dude with a posh accent, this is hot stuff. On the other hand, he really pushes the limit here--the first time you hear it, it's hard not to snicker.

Also today:

59:28 Pimentola, MM-MMV
59:28 Stark, The Surgical Suite
59:26 Klinik, Klinik (CD 1 of 2)
59:25 Prager Handgriff, Schindluder
59:23 His Divine Grace, Die Schlangenkönigin
59:21 Filament 38, Unstable
59:18 Amateur God, Around the Corners of Our Minds
59:12 Tanquam, Artanasan
59:11 Agonoize, Evil Gets an Upgrade
59:09 Ab Ovo, Le Temps Suspendu...
59:09 Infact, Go Away

New Arrival! 65 minutes, 31 seconds

Karin Höghielm
Fabra

Back from San Francisco--did you miss me? Of course you did...not. And I didn't miss you either. San Francisco is the most beautiful city in America, and I was reluctant to leave. But a mounting hotel bill and the cost of eating out meant a return to dreary old Seattle (37 degrees in April!) whether I wanted to or not.

Karin Höghielm recently released an album for the Prikosnovénie label, and you can see from this earlier disc why they thought she'd fit in with the rest of their fairy-folkie-ethereal roster. Her approach is a little more experimental, though--perhaps an appropriate gauge puts her somewhere between the odd operatic flights of Helga Pogatschar and the earthy beauty of more-traditional Scandinavian artists like Gjallarhorn.

Worth seeking out.

Also today:

New arrival! 64:18 Cervello Elettronico, Negate the Instigator
New arrival! 61:21 Penitent, Among the Sleepless
59:35 Regard Extrême, Utopia
59:34 Doubting Thomas, The Infidel
59:33 Haujobb, Freeze Frame Reality
59:32 Serpents, Terminal Breath
59:30 Instincts, The Mystery Visions
New arrival! 67:31 A Challenge of Honour, Trilogy (CD 1 of 2)
59:29 Cruciform Injection, Aftermath