New arrival! 75 minutes, 52 seconds

Diverje
The Distortion Chamber

Catching up with Diverje, the main project of DSBP label head Thomas T. Rapisardi, better known as simply Tommy T. Diverje was always on the periphery of my radar, but I thought their music was more guitar-oriented industrial. Not true, as it turns out. The more recent work, anyway, is EBM tending toward the "hellektro" that all the kids seem to like nowadays. Not bad. Not exactly envelope-pushing, and not dissimilar to what you might have heard from other American industrial bands such as Pygmy Children, THD, and Velvet Acid Christ. But tuneful and more thoughtful than some of the paint-by-numbers bands in Europe.

But what's with the Andrew "Dice" Clay samples?

Also today:

New arrival! 73:21 Diverje, On Skin
39:28 Selaxon Lutberg, Think
39:27 Fata Morgana, Fata Morgana
39:20 Dive, Behind the Sun
39:19 Dead Man's Hill, Legion
39:18 Dominion, Where Muses Dwell
39:17 Death in June, All Pigs Must Die
39:16 Love Is Colder Than Death, Oxeia
New arrival! 74:08 Homicide Division, No Tears to War

39 minutes, 36 seconds

Morrissey
Your Arsenal

I remember there being a bit of a lull between the previous Morrissey solo album, Kill Uncle, and this one. As it turns out, it was only a year, but it felt longer. And it's worth remembering that Kill Uncle wasn't terribly well-received when it first came out, either by critics or many fans. And then the first single from Your Arsenal was issued: "We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful." With its loopy chorus of "Ha ha ha-ha-ha ha," Morrissey seemed to be, in the words of one reviewer at the time, laughing at his fans.

But we needn't have worried. Your Arsenal is probably the best solo album he's ever put together. And, yes, "We Hate It When..." was a strange choice for a first single, because it was readily apparent that it wasn't even close to being the strongest track on the album. He'd go on to release three more singles from Your Arsenal, each of which, well, kicked the arse 'n' all of "We Hate It When..."

I've always had a soft spot for "You're the One for Me, Fatty." A trifle of a song, really, but fatally catchy and yet still tinged with Morrissey's trademark ironic mirth. There's also "The National Front Disco," which earned him a bit of controversy for its lyrics and his propensity to drape himself in the Union Jack when playing the song live. Are people that literal? Or have I been listening to Laibach so long that I can barely take anything literally?

Also today:

39:36 Ulrich Schnauss, Far Away Trains Passing By (CD 2 of 2)
39:34 Arditi, Spirit of Sacrifice
39:33 Sylvain Chauveau, Des Plumes dans la Tête
39:30 Single Gun Theory, Flow, River of My Soul
New arrival! 77:09 Diverje, Stitched

40 minutes, 1 second

Harold Budd & Brian Eno
The Plateaux of Mirror

Supposedly, a man landed on the moon in 1969. A tremendous and much-celebrated accomplishment. Yet human beings haven't been back to the moon since. Why not? And in the early 1980s, ambient musicians Harold Budd and Brian Eno recorded two albums together, The Plateaux of Mirror (1980) and The Pearl (1984). Both tremendous and critically acclaimed accomplishments. Yet they've done nothing together since. Why not?

It's a conspiracy, I tell you.

Also today:

40:01 IC 434, Dogondance
40:00 His Name Is Alive, Livonia
39:54 Morrissey, Vauxhall and I
39:53 Autopsia, Palladium
39:52 Modulate, Skullfuck
39:49 Infamis, Upiór
39:46 In Slaughter Natives, The Fifth
39:45 Bel Canto, White-Out Conditions
39:42 Run Level Zero, And Thus We Walked...
39:41 The Last Fall, Unknown Treasures
39:40 Caustic, Booze Up and Riot (CD 2 of 2)
39:40 Claustrum & Traur Zot, Return to the Past by Silence
39:40 Skinny Puppy, Remission
39:39 Mortiis, Ånden som Gjorde Opprør
39:37 Marsen Jules, Herbstlaub

40 minutes, 19 seconds

Artesia
Hilvern

Should a CD that runs only 40 minutes sell for the same price as one that runs 70 minutes? It's 30 minutes less music. I mean, often visual artists sell their smaller paintings for less than their larger works. Ditto for sculptors. And, yes, you could argue that painters and sculptors spend more on materials when they create a larger-scale work, whereas a CD is a CD--costs the same to manufacture whether it's 70 minutes or 40 minutes long.

But surely songwriting time, rehearsal time, and studio time cost more for 70 minutes' worth of music than for 40 minutes' worth. Yet that cost isn't reflected anywhere in the price of the CD.

I'm just saying.

Also today:

40:19 Dead Man's Hill, We Will Live for Eternity
40:19 Pinknruby, Garden
40:15 Arcana, The New Light
40:14 Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, Children of Nature
40:13 Various artists, Scontrum, Act VI
40:12 Einstürzende Neubauten, Strategies Against Architecture II (CD 1 of 2)
40:12 Pinknruby, The Vast Astonishment
40:11 Mediæval Bæbes, Worldes Blysse
40:10 Cocteau Twins, The Pink Opaque
40:09 Fortdax, Divers
40:08 Speaking Silence, Speaking in Silence
40:06 Splatter Squall, The Spell
40:04 Tor Lundvall, Empty City

40 minutes, 42 seconds

Sturm
Le Prix du Sang et des Larmes

With a title that translates to "The Price of Blood and Tears," this album is a bit of a letdown. For one thing, it sounds nothing like the violence promised by the group's name, and while there might be some tears to be found in the sad neoclassical arrangements of piano, strings, light snare, and tympani, there's no blood. In fact, there are times the disc sounds an awful lot like Regard Extrême riffing with a morose Dave Brubeck.

So, yes, it's a little...quiet. Low-key, if you will. Despite appearances, Wappenbund this is not. But neither is it boring. Sturm achieve a kind of simmering tension just below the surface that never quite explodes. There's a feeling of vague dread, and then the song ends. If you've ever seen a film by Michael Haneke, you have some idea of what I'm talking about.

In any case, it's yet another ear-catching release from the Polish label War Office Propaganda (which has apparently now changed its name to Rage in Eden). Poland: Where the pierogi are fat and the music is militaristic.

Also today:

40:41 Grendel, End of Ages
40:38 Max Richter, The Blue Notebooks
40:36 Toroidh, Segervittring
40:35 Sava, Aire
40:34 Reaper, Angst
40:30 Dive, Snakedressed
40:25 Tsunematsu Matsui & Anneli Marian Drecker, Song of Joy
40:22 Autour de Lucie, Autour de Lucie
40:20 Encryption, Secrecy

40 minutes, 47 seconds

Predella Avant
Carbon Figures

The other day when I was describing this blog to some friends, I was lamenting how the advent of the MP3, iTunes, and song-based (as opposed to album-based) downloading and listening has hastened the demise of the CD. And hence will eventually make the whole concept of "total time" irrelevant. So I called this blog, in part, "a requiem for the compact disc." Sheesh. Has listening to pretentious music made me pretentious, or do I like pretentious music because I am pretentious? You can't see it, but I'm wincing.

Also today:

40:46 Current 93, Music for the Horse Hospital
40:44 Cranes, Population Four
New arrival! 63:36 The Glimmer Room, Now We Are Six

41 minutes, 10 seconds

Strength Through Joy
Salute to Light (CD 1 of 2)

You may know Strength Through Joy a bit better under its current moniker, Ostara. But that's not to make it seem as if the band merely changed names. In fact, one of the members of STJ, Timothy Jenn, left the band, and now Ostara's sound more closely resembles a sort of fractured alternative rock. It's a far cry--too far a cry for me--from the Death in June-inspired neofolk of their releases as STJ.

"Strength Through Joy," you may or may not know, was the name of the government leisure organization in Germany during the Nazi years. Couple the band's name with its early association with Death in June, and whammo! Instant controversy. Protests by anti-fascist groups at their shows, constant "are you or aren't you?" questions from the press, and all sorts of other scrutiny. This despite the fact that Richard Leviathan (né Richard Levy), one of the band's founders, is part Jewish.

But such are the wages of trafficking in fascist and Nazi-era symbolism, as many other bands working in the neofolk genre have discovered. Play with fire, and...well, you get the idea. In fact, it always strikes me as funny when these bands whine so much about people's misinterpretations of their music, their clothes, their demeanor. I mean, what did they think would happen when they dressed up as Gestapo officers on stage, singing oblique lyrics about heroism and war? These are the same people who'd likely cross the street to avoid a group of black kids in baggy jeans and tilted baseball caps. So to say that appearances don't matter is disingenuous at best.

Still--and I've posted about this numerous times--I think it's the ambiguity that attracts me to this music. Are these bands truly fascist? I doubt it, at least in most cases. But unlike, say, Laibach, STJ, DIJ, and others aren't mocking fascism either. They're doing something subtler and more confusing. More fraught with danger and open to misinterpretation. It's either very brave or incredibly irresponsible.

Also today:

41:09 Laibach, NATO
41:07 Supreme Court, Hypocrites & Saints (CD 2 of 2)
41:06 Brian Eno, Music for Films
41:00 Arcana, Le Serpent Rouge
41:00 Miasto Nie Spało, Pieśni Żałobne
New arrival! 75:26 OTX, The World in Red
40:56 Hedningarna, Karelia Visa
40:56 His Divine Grace, Eurydice
40:56 Plastic Noise Experience, Transmitted Memory (CD 1 of 2)
40:55 Haven, Naos
40:51 Sophia, Sophia

41 minutes, 20 seconds

Angeltheory
Transmission

Last night I was out with a group of friends, and talk turned to blogging--who's doing it, why they're doing it, and how much of a pain in the ass it is to do it. Now, I'm a little shy about my blog, especially around friends. I mean, many of them know I have one, but I haven't sent them the link to it or really even talked about its content with them. Partly because we don't share the same musical interests and I think they'd find the contents dull, but also because I'm not entirely sure I even want friends reading this. It's not that I get personal here or anything--although on rare occasions I suppose I do--but that I'm just not sure this blog is worth anyone's time, perhaps not even my own. Let's face it: I'm not exactly writing literature here.

And yet I persist. Part of it is the whole obsessive-compulsive thing. Maybe instead of curing my compulsion to listen to my CDs in descending order of total time, this blog has merely added another compulsion to the pile: the need to blog every day and meticulously catalog what I listen to. It's a variation on replacing one addiction with another--for example, the phenomenon of alcoholics replacing their need for alcohol with a need to go to AA meetings. Or the heroin addict's replacing his need for heroin with a need for methadone. In my case, I've replaced nothing. I've simply accumulated more. I'm an addiction pack rat. Good thing I have a fear of needles.

At any rate, last night I described this blog in detail to friends for the first time, and I think it's only a matter of time before they find it. I'm making that out to be a bigger deal than it probably is, but there was some felt value on my part to writing this more or less anonymously, to some unknown (and mostly imagined) audience out there. (A little like Robert De Niro's character in The King of Comedy.)

One friend in particular seems fascinated by the idea behind this blog, but I can't help thinking he'll be massively disappointed in what he actually finds here. Like a lot of creative endeavors (if that's what this is), the idea is way better than the execution.

But the idea's--and the execution's--days are (literally) numbered. Forty-one minutes, twenty seconds. Probably a little more than a month to go.

Also today:

41:20 Cocteau Twins, Treasure
41:19 Autopsia, The Berlin Requiem
41:19 Einstürzende Neubauten, Strategies Against Architecture
41:18 Suicide Commando, Love Breeds Suicide
41:17 Rukkanor, Requiem for K-141 Kursk
41:16 Dominion, Battleground
41:14 Autumn's Grey Solace, Shades of Grey
41:12 Calva y Nada, El Peste Perverso Lleva Mi Peluca
41:12 Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson & Sigur Rós, Englar Alheimsins
41:12 Stark, Wield

41 minutes, 37 seconds

Manufacture
Voice of World Control

Kind of a nostalgic recording to listen to--it harkens back to the days when the only two major industrial labels were Nettwerk, out of Vancouver, and Wax Trax!, in Chicago. What a long time ago that now seems. In any case, Manufacture released only two albums (both in 1990) and then called it quits or disappeared or got jobs or whatever else kids do after starting a band.

Their first disc, Terrorvision, gained them minor notoriety because it featured the guest vocals of one Sarah McLachlan, then at the dawn of her multi-platinum career, on the song "As the End Draws Near." Voice of World Control sees Bel Canto vocalist Anneli Drecker lending her services to the track "Running Mad." Both are great songs, and it's a shame there aren't more like them on either disc.

Yet even the more identifiably "industrial" tracks on the two albums are solid--Brian Bothwell and Perry Geyer, the nucleus of Manufacture, had a sure hand with the sampler and used unusual source material to help them create music that holds your interest even as it moves your body.

The only missteps, really, come on Voice of World Control. "New Decisions" and "Control Yourself" add yet another guest vocalist, this time songwriter and singer Nigel Butler. The result are two ill-advised, insipid, sub-Depeche Mode electro-pop songs that would have been better left on the mixing-room floor.

So the inevitable question: Where are they now? Bothwell is apparently a photographer in New York, and Geyer is a music producer in Boston. Good for them--at least they're still working in creative fields. As opposed to, say, writing marketing materials for the World's Most Boring Software Company. Which reminds me that I should get back to work now.

Also today:

41:36 Haven, The Last Breath of Lonely Buildings
41:36 Run Level Zero, In Between
41:36 Sophia, Deconstruction of the World
41:32 Cocteau Twins, Four-Calendar Café
41:31 Evil's Toy, XTC Implant
41:27 Lisa Gerrard, Whalerider
41:27 Nature and Organisation, Death in a Snow Leopard Winter
41:25 Karjalan Sissit, Karjalan Sissit
41:24 Doubting Thomas, Father Don't Cry
41:22 Rukkanor, Deora (CD 1 of 2)
41:21 Cdatakill, Valentine

41 minutes, 54 seconds

Dead Man's Hill
Dog Burial

Is it just me, or does it seem like Dead Man's Hill puts out a new release every few weeks? Counting side projects and collaborations, they've issued nine discs over the past three years. That's staggering. Even Steve Roach would have a hard time matching that kind of pace. Perhaps even more so than some of DMH's other releases, Dog Burial strikes me as a dirtier, more low-fi imitation of the bombastic sound of In Slaughter Natives. Not a bad thing in and of itself, but DMH risks suffering by comparison.

Can it really be the end of July already? Summer is moving way too quickly.

Also today:

41:54 Dither, Tubetech
41:54 Vond, Selvmord
41:52 Dominion, Rescue Mission
41:51 Stoa, Zal
41:50 To Avoid, Voyage into the Past!
41:49 Robin Guthrie, Continental
41:45 Sombre Printemps, Ambient & Film Music
41:42 Love Is Colder Than Death, Mental Traveller
41:42 Pimentola, Misantropolis
41:41 Evil's Toy, Angels Only!
41:41 Garmarna, Hildegard von Bingen

42 minutes, 24 seconds

Skinny Puppy
Cleanse Fold and Manipulate

Interesting article in yesterday's New York Times Magazine about something called the Buddha Machine, a small, inexpensive device that plays nine digitally encoded random loops of ambient music. Created by musicians Christiaan Virant and Zhang Jian and distributed by the Dutch experimental label Staalplaat, the Buddha Machine has only an on-off switch. Which basically means you don't have much control over what to listen to next.

I was interested in the article because I think in many ways that's what I've been trying to do with my own collection of CDs over the past decade-plus of listening to music in descending order of total time. It's essentially a randomization method, one that eliminates the issue of choice from the music-listening equation.

But the article rang a false note when it tried to call the Buddha Machine "the anti-iPod." It described "the relief of not having to make a choice in a world awash with entertainment and self-expression options." Uh, well, you can do that with an iPod too--it's called shuffle mode.

Still, nice (and weird) to see the Times Magazine give coverage to something like this and name-check Staalplaat. Worlds are colliding!

Also today:

42:24 Stormfågel, Den Nalkande Stormen
42:23 Single Gun Theory, Like Stars in My Hands
42:19 Laibach, Let It Be
42:17 Stoa, Urthona
42:16 Die Form, Corpus Delicti
42:16 The Sundays, Static & Silence
42:15 Death in June & Les Joyaux de la Princesse, Ostenbräun
42:05 E-Craft, DOS_Unit
New arrival! 65:26 Post Crash High, The Apocalypse Came Yesterday, and No One Noticed
42:01 The Moon and the Nightspirit, Regö Rejtem
41:59 Collection d'Arnell-Andréa, Au Val des Roses
41:58 Harold Budd, The White Arcades
41:57 Anchorage, The Bleak Wooden Tower
41:56 Strength Through Joy, The Force of Truth and Lies

42 minutes, 31 seconds

Khvarena
The Spirit Rises

Can you apply the term "supergroup" to a collaboration of goth-ethno artists? And if you can, can you call it "gothno"? Why not? Let's call Khvarena, then, a gothno supergroup composed of members of Rajna and GOR. And the music is very similar to Rajna's, with GOR's Francesco Banchini taking over lead vocals on a few of the tracks. It's a soothing, pretty mix of Middle Eastern melodies and rhythms underpinning ethereal singing.

This wouldn't be the first time members of Rajna have gone off to join a side project that sounds...very much like Rajna. Am'Ganesha'n, a collaboration between an ex-Rajna musician and Les Secrets de Morphée, also traffics in a similar Middle East-by-way-of-Western-Europe sound.

It's a nice release for Projekt, especially given that it's an American label, which makes The Spirit Rises more easily available to the domestic market. And cheaper too, for which I'm always grateful. Because the weakness of the dollar, coupled with my weakness for European underground music, has produced weakness in my bank account.

Also today:

42:30 Cerebral Apoplexy, Cold Heart
42:29 Toroidh, The Final Testament
42:27 Ah Cama-Sotz, Murder Themes
42:27 Lycia, Empty Space
42:26 The Glimmer Room, Grey Mirrors
42:26 Hedningarna, Hedningarna
42:25 Clan of Xymox, Medusa
42:25 Various artists, Lonely Is an Eyesore

42 minutes, 42 seconds

Monolith
Talisman

I've already posted on this topic before, but a quick look at the keyword-search data for this blog makes it worth repeating: I know other music blogs seem to exist for the sole purpose of hosting large music files and allowing people to download them, but this isn't one of them! So all you cheapskates looking for free music--wait, let me rephrase that: All you thieves looking to cheat artists out of the money they deserve for their creativity, please go elsewhere. You won't find free music (or a fellow-traveler with a sympathetic ear) here.

And really, Artesia's Chants d'Automne? That's the album you're looking to rip off? Come on. These guys are on a small label. Would it kill you to spend a few bucks to buy their CD or find a legal download? Go grab a BitTorrent of Britney Spears and leave the indies alone.

Also today:

42:40 Nature and Organisation, Beauty Reaps the Blood of Solitude
42:40 Storm of Capricorn & Paranoia Inducta, Jama
42:39 Death in June, Burial
42:35 Terrace of Memories, Terrace of Memories
42:34 Horologium, Le Cartoline Perse

43 minutes

Phragments
Homo Homini Lvpvs

Not to be confused with Les Chasseurs de la Nuit's Homo Homini Lupus, although both are Latin for "Man is a wolf to man." And like Les Chassuers, Phragments creates, appropriately enough given the title of the album, downer martial-ambient compositions: We are a violent species, and here's our theme music. There's an increasing amount of this kind of music being made, mostly in Europe, and it begs the question of how large an audience there is for it.

On the one hand, artists are businesspeople too. They wouldn't keep making it if there wasn't enough interest. On the other hand, I always crack a bit of a smile when I see artists advertise their new releases as "Limited to 1,000 copies!" I mean, really. Are there 1,000 people in the world interested in your obscure, difficult music?

I'm being unkind. And I really don't know what I'm talking about. For all I know, this is a smart business decision designed to inject scarcity into the market and create a name for your musical project. Not unlike art photographers who issue only six prints of a given work.

But somehow I have to believe that Phragments, Les Chasseurs, or any other band working in this way-below-the-radar genre would love to sell as many copies of their CDs as they possibly can, and then print thousands more and sell those too. Why else are they on MySpace?

Also today:

42:56 Harold Budd & Brian Eno, The Pearl
42:55 Cataclyst, Monuments of a Rubicund Age
42:55 Death in June, The Wall of Sacrifice
42:54 Jóhann Jóhannsson, IBM 1401, a User's Manual
42:53 End of Orgy, Still Life
42:49 Advanced Art, Product
42:48 Cocteau Twins, Milk & Kisses
42:48 The Triple Tree, The Turning Wheel
42:47 Photophob, About the Living Things
42:44 Dead Man's Hill, Esoterica Orde de Dagon
42:43 Seven Trees, Embracing the Unknown
42:42 Amduscia, Dead or Alive
42:42 Intermix, Intermix

43 minutes, 5 seconds

Tribe of Circle
Rien ne Disparait Jamais Vraiment...

Over the past week or so, it's felt as if I'm getting through CDs faster. That makes sense--after all, the CDs are getting shorter. But sometimes the shift is so subtle, it's hard to really sense it. Can you "feel" the difference between 62:39 and 62:06? I can't. But getting down around the 43-minute mark changes that, and now I feel like I can see the end. It's a matter of another month or two, I think.

Which makes me both happy and sad. Happy because it means I get to start over again (unless I truly have managed to exorcise the obsessive-compulsive demons) and sad because it signals the end of something, which is always sort of sad. I haven't decided whether I want to continue this blog once I've run through the entire CD collection, or if I do, what format it will take and whether I'll continue to write about music or choose another topic.

I do know that I've become addicted to listing out what I listen to each day. There's something satisfying about that--maybe it's a way of cataloging an accomplishment, even (especially?) on those days when I accomplish little else.

Also today:

43:04 Atrium Carceri, Cellblock
43:04 Parzival, Blut und Jordan
43:02 Morrissey, Maladjusted
43:02 Suicide Commando, Contamination
New arrival! 73:02 The Pain Machinery, Chaos Transmissions

43 minutes, 24 seconds

Ulrich Schnauss
Far Away Trains Passing By (CD 1 of 2)

In the early '90s, I suppose this would have been called "chill-out" music. But that term always rubbed me the wrong way--it was a way of describing the music not for what it is (ambient) but rather for what it isn't (thumping dance music). In other words, it was what you listened to to take a break from techno.

Well, phooey. I always preferred the "chill-out" stuff to the stuff you were supposed to work up a sweat dancing to anyway. Hence an affinity to Ulrich Schnauss and his ethereal doodlings. This particular album has a bit of a Robin Guthrie vibe, if the dreamy guitars were being filtered through Photophob's spacey, computer-driven musical sensibility. Schnauss is getting a good deal of press these days for his new album, Goodbye, which adds vocals to the mix, but I prefer the older material here. It's starker and more mysterious.

I also like saying the name "Schnauss."

Also today:

43:21 Fin de Siècle, Sans Titre
43:20 Blixa Bargeld, Commissioned Music
43:19 Caul, Apophasis
43:19 Dark Ages, Twilight of Europe
43:17 Abnocto, Simon Magus
43:17 Dead Man's Hill, The Demons of Death
43:17 Mediæval Bæbes, Salva Nos
New arrival! 65:28 Herwig Holzmann, How to Stop...
43:16 Monolith, Compressed Form
43:16 Tony Wakeford, Into the Woods
43:15 Skinny Puppy, The Process
43:15 Stalingrad, Court-Martial
43:12 In the Nursery, Groundloop
43:10 Stiff Miners, Vox Celesta
43:07 Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd, Before the Day Breaks

43 minutes, 45 seconds

Forseti
Windzeit

There's a lot of bad neofolk out there. That is to say, lots of guys with acoustic guitars and tympani and weak, shaky voices who think they can simply look the part and draw an audience. The sad thing is, they're right half the time. That's what makes Forseti such a breath of fresh air. Soaring above the usual dreck, Andreas Ritter and company craft songs that demand your attention. Moving effortlessly between softer, more pensive moods and somewhat more energetic bursts, Ritter keeps his vocals (entirely in German) on a cool, even keel, not unlike Death in June's Douglas Pearce--who makes an appearance here on the eerie final track.

It's a transfixing set of songs, and I get completely engrossed in it every time I hear it. The high point for me is likely "Sturmgeweiht," particularly when Ritter's accordion kicks in. It's a sound soaked in nostalgia, evoking such a strange sense of wistfulness. The funny thing is, with everything in German, I have no idea what he's singing about. Someday maybe I'll find out, but for now it doesn't seem to matter. I guess I could say that about a good chunk of the music I listen to.

Also today:

43:45 Stormfågel, Ett Berg av Fasa
43:44 Cranes, Particles & Waves
43:44 Digital Poodle, Combat!
43:43 Der Blutharsch, When Did Wonderland End?
43:39 E-Craft, Die Stahl AG
43:38 Tumor, Killer Tekkkno
43:34 Anna Gardeck, Bondage Women
43:32 Cold Fusion, ORP Orzeł (CD 1 of 2)
43:32 Dive, Concrete Jungle
43:30 Greg Ellis, Kala Rupa
43:30 Image Transmission, Regurgitation
43:29 Antigen Shift, Next to Departed
43:28 Brian Eno, More Music for Films
43:25 Amateur God, Near Life Experience

43 minutes, 53 seconds

Sol Invictus
Trees in Winter

Probably the first good Sol Invictus album. Sol Veritas Lux was marginally OK for a debut, but Lex Talionis was pretty awful. So what changed with Trees in Winter? Well, for one thing, the songwriting is a lot more accomplished, both lyrically and with regard to the arrangements and the breadth of instrumentation. But if I had to pick one thing that makes the most significant impact on this album, it's Joolie Wood's violin.

You may know Wood from her appearance on several Current 93 albums; she's also worked with a lot of other bands in the onetime World Serpent stable. Her plaintive and sad yet strangely uplifting contributions to the songs she plays on seem to elevate a mere folk song to something elegiac. Here, you can hear it to best effect on the songs "Here We Stand" and "Deceit."

She's released some solo material recently, which I haven't yet had the chance to hear much of. So much new music, so little shelf space...

Also today:

43:52 Cranes, EP Collection, Vol. 1
43:52 Wappenbund, Zeitenwende
43:51 Radio Kuolema, 10050 Cielo Drive
43:51 Thirteenth Exile, Assorted Chaos and Broken Machinery
43:50 God Module, Let's Go Dark
43:49 Beefcake, Hôte
New arrival! 57:20 Berkana, Lichtrad
New arrival! 55:22 Am'Ganesha'n, Estolia
New arrival! 47:34 Crackletone, Journey to the Sea of Sparks
43:47 Data-Bank-A, Salad Days
43:47 L'Effet C'est Moi, Tomber en Héros
43:47 Photophob, Music for Spaceports

44 minutes, 1 second

Siechtum
Kreuz:X:Feuer

One of the handy things about listening to your music collection in some sort of predetermined order is that it removes the entire issue of "What am I in the mood to listen to today?" So never mind that it's the dead of summer--if autumnal music is next on the list, that's what you're listening to. And I have to admit, something north of 70% of my collection could be characterized as autumnal, if not downright wintry. So what's on the stereo and what's going on weather-wise is usually a jarring juxtaposition at least half the year.

It's been gloomy and rainy in Seattle all week, though (uncharacteristically for July), so for now the likes of Tony Wakeford sound about right. Ask me again next week when it's 79 degrees out and I'm blasting Autopsia in the house.

Also today:

44:01 Tony Wakeford & Steven Stapleton, Revenge of the Selfish Shellfish
44:00 Dive, Grinding Walls
43:57 Wappenbund, Schlacht

44 minutes, 6 seconds

Soma
Stygian Vistas

Yay, the new Harry Potter book is finally out! Now will everyone just shut the hell up about it already? See, those of us who haven't read any of the books, seen any of the movies, bought any dumb-ass wizard hats--and just generally don't give a shit about Harry Potter--don't want to hear about it anymore. We're adults who don't read children's books or dress up in funny glasses to look like our favorite children's book characters.

Nor do we want to hear about how the Harry Potter books have rekindled kids' interest in reading, because that's apparently bullshit, according to this article.

So take your book--the one you waited in line to buy for six hours last night--go home, and don't emerge from under the covers until you've read it eight times by flashlight. Then have a good cry because Harry died or got paralyzed in a magic accident or OD'd on meth or whatever, and, when you're ready, rejoin the rest of the world. But when you do, don't start talking to us about the books or the movies, assuming we've read or seen them. We haven't. And we don't want to.

Harumph.

Also today:

44:04 Absurd Minds, Damn the Lie
New arrival! 53:59 Aaron Spectre, Lost Tracks
44:04 Sol Invictus, In the Rain
44:02 Artefactum, Chaos Elements
44:02 Les Joyaux de la Princesse, Chantez Jeunesse