Booby Mason - Huge Cock Canyon : Experimental, Dark Ambient, Noise

Reviewed by Gird_09

I have to admit that a title like "huge cock canyon" makes me a bit sceptical, and I was expecting some kind of ear shattering noise – based on the title's connotations to Gerogerigegege or Rectal Anarchy. However the music is a far cry from any of my expectations. Rather than extreme noise we are served a bit of highly texturized ambient made up of random sounds and shitloads of echo, and everything filtered to sound decomposed. It's a perfect soundscape if you plan to hang out in disused ammunition factories hunting for ghosts of former employees. The music is eerie and haunting, and old school in that really analogue way. I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that everything is done using tapeloops and analogue effects. That's the way it sounds to me anyway.
The second track is a bit more noisy than the first one, but it never approaches the level of discomfort. Well, maybe my mother's but not mine.

I don't really know what more to say. The release is a good piece of ambient music conjuring up images of desolate cities after some terrible cataclysm, with a few remaining russian troops here and there. It's music you want to listen to in the dark, alone. Certainly not party music.

If there's anything that detracts from the release it's the length (and of course the rather infantile title). It could bear to be longer. Once you get into the music it's over. I hope future releases will be atleast twice as long, in order to really build a good mood, and keep the listener there for a while. However if I were to chose between too long and too short I would chose too short, so it's not really a big detraction. The release confirms that Russia really is the place we need to keep our eyes on these days. There's alot of good stuff coming from our neighbour to the east now, and hopefully for some time to come.

1 Huge
2 Huge Cock Canyon

Russia, File Download (free of charge), HTP records, 2010

http://htp-records.blogspot.com
http://www.myspace.com/boobymason

Monte Cazazza - the Cynic : Industrial

Reviewed by Gird_09

Monte Cazazza. The man who coined the term industrial music. If you don't know his name, you have a world awaiting discovery ahead. The repertoir of blatant insanity and transgressions this person is responsible for is worth looking into. When I heard he had a new album coming out I though I was hallucinating, dreaming or having a psychotic episode. Thankfully I was in fact lucid.

And lucidity is what the album is about, as the title "the cynic" implies. The cover contains the following quote from Ambrose Pierce's "the Devil's dictionary".
"CYNIC: A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision."
And Cazazza's work has always been about just that. Seeing the world as it is, like a dog might see it – which is what cynic (kynikos) actually means.

The first track, "Interrogator", sets the stage with deep droning analogue strings. It is dark and moody, and certainly a fitting soundtrack to images of dead afghani children butchered by joystick wielding drone operators. But Cazazza has not lost his humor, despite being a cynic. "A gringo like me" is a cover of an old track by Ennio Morricone, from the film Gunfight at Red Sands, and concerns how only dead people are trustworthy and that you need to keep your weapon ready at all times. The lyrics are delivered in that unmistakable Cazazza style, with soft voice and no distortion. Killing, and dying, with a smile.

The Cynic is an update of the style Monte Cazazza had on his earlier music, while retaining the general musical philosophy of the industrial movement. The instruments might sound newer and some of the tracks are very different from the primitive, nearly infantile, obsceneties we all remember so well, but it is what it is, and I'm glad for it. I wouldn't want an album where a legend tries to recapture the days of his youth. Monte Cazazza is certainly not about nostalgia. The album ranges from guitar and singing, to techno, dark ambient and other less easily defined styles. Highly eclectic, and not catering to anyone's tastes – unlike what some other "legends" do. Personally I don't care much for the techno tracks, as they seem a bit like filler and somewhat uninspired, but the presence of tracks like "Interrogator", "A gringo like me", "Terminal" and "Birds of Prey" well makes up for them. I do miss the poorly veiled sociopathic threats from tracks like "To mom on mother's day", or the fascination with mondo aesthetics, but like I said: this is not about nostalgia or catering to anyone's tastes. I also have a distinct feeling that this is one of those albums I will like better and better for each listening.

Also worth mentioning are some of the other people who contributed to the album. Production, mixing and additional programming was done by Lustmord, while Fred Giannelli supplied guitars and sitar, and Lydia Lunch co-wrote the lyrics for "What's so kind about mankind?".

The album cover is fittingly low tech. It's a digipack with extreme closeups of a dead rat being eaten by flies on the front and back, and a single page of credits inside. Not over designed in any way. The focus is on content.

As far as I have been able to figure out The Cynic doesn't have any sort of distribution, which is very sad. This album deserves to be in your collection if you're at all interested in the original industrial movement. It's easily available from blastfirstpetite.com however, both for ordering or download.

So now I guess we'll just have to wait another 28 years for his next album...

1 Interrogator
2 A gringo like me
3 Break number one
4 Terminal
5 Venom
6 What's so kind about mankind
7 Birds of prey

United States of America, Blast first (petite), 2010,
http://www.blastfirstpetite.com/monte-cazazza.html
http://brainwashed.com/tg/monte.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Cazazza

Kaytwo - Trash art

Reviewed by Batcheeba.

I worked with a young man suffering from schizophrenia a few years back. He was a street artist, and was madly obsessed with wild style graffiti and chemical formulas to name a few. His graffiti is the only style I can compare to Kaytwo's. Kaytwo has the same crazy lines in his work, this fucked up, unstable and unpredictable theme. His work makes me imagine the whole world being pulled into a maelstrom. Everything is dissolved, chaotic and sickening. Our mind is programmed to recognize and categorize everything into the big black box. Kaytwo will make you question conventions, and I can just picture him smiling.

Kaytwo is not fine art by any means. His work will never be exhibited at some posh upper class gallery, and not everyone will enjoy his style and technique. He is not a classical painter, I would categorise him as an illustrator and I doubt he's had any schooling or classical training. This is underground style, and his style of art must never leave the dirty city walls or underground galleries. That is where Kaytwo belongs, and I'm sure he is more than content.

Kaytwo works in different mediums such as paintings, graffiti (started out in 1982), sculptures, logos and CD covers. He explains he is very much interested in textures, which I see as the main inspiration for my own work. So cred for that. His paintings and graffiti share a common factor: organic compositions and the constant flux of everything. His wild style graffiti is out of this world and unlike anything I have ever seen before. He is exceptionally talented. I honestly don't feel worthy of giving his graffiti pieces a review. That takes someone a lot more knowledgable than my self.

What strikes me with his paintings is that many of them have propper art quality, while others have this fantasy art quality which I personally don't care for. The quality varies more than I have seen in most creative persons before. I find that strange, but fascinating. I love the dissolved paintings that are like Kaytwo puked some memory onto the canvas, and then blew it all up with a shotgun. They have this really interesting and strange composition and they make me wonder for ages. What the hell is going on inside Kaytwo's head? They have a dissociative quality, confusing and hard hitting but at the same time they have an occult and mythological vibe. It's a very curious mix. His painting certainly confirms the impression I have of Kaytwo himself, and I am completely fascinated. My fav pieces are by far "Rox", "Tits Squish" and "Phood for the phoenixxx". He certainly shares some qualities with Dave McKean. McKean on LSD that is. His paintings are both figurative, non figurative and abstract. Often they contain faces,and dissolved bodies and shapes. I can see references to Giger as well, but more as a homage - and more organic where Giger is bio mechanic. He has a unique way of creating depth to his paintings, and some of his works has a hazy, milky transparency adding to the layering. Kaytwo also has a very distinctive way of mixing colors one would normally never use.

He works with a large variety of materials, from the stuff he finds in dumpsters, to blood, oils, water colors, aerosol cans, garbage and more. Kaytwo's art thrives on what most people would overlook or be disgusted by, like dead animals. Kaytwo says, however, that no animal used has been killed by him. He states "There is as much beauty in death as there is in life". He gives life to inanimate objects that has lost their purpose. In some strange way Kaytwo is actually creating urban necromonicons.

The industrial world, with it's waste and treasures and it's run down concrete walls is Kaytwo's perfect playground. Thankfully this fucked up world will never run out of material for Kaytwo to force into his own creative mental blender.

This review is an intro the the works by Kaytwo. We will post a follow up interview with in depth details. Stay tuned.




For more on Kaytwo
http://www.myspace.com/neuroptix
http://www.k2wcf.com/

Verfallssymptom – Written in Blood : Industrial ambient / Power noise / Electronic Black Metal

Reviewed by Gird_09 and Batcheeba

We have no idea what kind of equipment he's used to produce his album, but it really takes us to countless hours spent in various basements with fasttracker II and other primitive equipment. Old school. In addition to the minimal electronic beats and phrases Verfallssymptom utilizes vocals very reminiscent of black metal in portions of the music. (And in fact black metal inspiration can be heard on several tracks.) This combination could easily land you in endzeit hell, but not on this release. The most similar music I have heard would be K.I.F.O.T.H.'s two first album, but certainly much more minimalist, less EBM-like, more scrapy and less disco friendly. But the comparison is certainly good.

The production is notably lo-fi, and one might expect Verfallssymptom to sound muffled and grungy, but he has a talent for finding sounds that fit together without turning into porridge. The drums carry the music steadily and with enough punch that the rest of the music can ride on top. The music is very introvert and doesn't ask for anyone's approval. It's not over produced in any way, and the focus is more on emotion than sound construction. While the two don't need to clash there is no doubt that if we have to chose we'll go for emotion any day. Especially when the content is as interesting as this. There is nothing we hate more than over produced trite.

There are two things we miss on this album though. There could have been more vocals, as Verfallssymptom's vocals really fit the music and adds depth. The instrumental tracks are certainly good on their own, but the vocal tracks were the best of the bunch. The other thing is that there are too many tracks on the album. At certain points we find ourselves losing concentration because some of the tracks are a bit similar to each other. Each single track is a killer track, but as an album it tends towards monotony in some portions. This is mostly a problem with the midsection of the album however, as both the first and last thirds of the album is one interesting track after another.

The coolest tracks on the album are definately on the last third. Abstraction, with its intensely noisy beat and drudging arrangements is a hard hitter and heavier than most anything we've heard. It has layers of distored sounds, noise, beats and all the while retaining Verfallsymptom's melodic sense. Inspiring. This one is certainly going to be played over and over. The track is followed by Stacheldraht and Written in Blood, which are ambient black metal tracks with electronic sounds. The vocals are intense and the melodies subtle, as well as the beats. Still it's consistent with the rest of the album. This is what Aphex Twin would sound like if he was into black metal. More of this! We beg you!

Verfallsymptom is kind enough to release his album free of charge through thee Brad Miller's Kill Your Godz (a blog we will certainly return to from time to time here). If you're sceptical to people who release their music for free, perhaps because you expect it's not good enough to meet the "high standards" of a record company, you should download this release and let it dispel any disbelief you might have.

Tracks:
1 Bigotte Hybris
2 Kollaterale Hysterie
3 Agapes Jahwist
4 DHKDF
5 Homogene Kontradikturie
6 Polyaeon
7 Todeskandidat
8 Abstraction
9 Stacheldraht
10 Written in blood
11 Gefilde der Tristesse
12 Misanalog

Germany, self released (file), 2008

http://www.myspace.com/verfallssymptom
http://theebradmiller.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/verfallssymptom-written-in-blood-2008/

Dangerkoma - Modern surrealist collages

Reviewed by Batcheeba.

Let Dangerkoma show you the world as it really it. This cultural terrorist, this misantrophic anarchist, will not wait until your mind is ready. His art functions as a two dimensional traumatic experience, and once you've looked, you will never see the world the same way ever again.

Welcome to the world of Dangerkoma. This man from California is a visual genius on a mission. He masters the art of collage like few others in modern time, both in technique and content. He has the one thing most art today is so desperately lacking: intent.

Dangerkoma knows what he wants, and he goes about it with a vengeance. He uses his scissors and glue, to cut up and reshape both beauty and the grotesque. He is a cut up artists in the truest sense, worthy of standing side by side with Genesis P-Orridge, William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin themselves.

Dangerkoma's intention is not to confuse. Nor is his purpose to enlighten the people who don't understand. The world he portrays is not surreal to me, on the contrary it's a familiar world. It might be surreal to those who are not able to understand his work, but that does not make Dangerkoma's work Dada. It only makes him an elitist.
Stylistically however, I would place Dangerkoma more in the vein of surrealism, his work depicts internal landscapes and fragments of the world around us, filtered to make them more lucid.

Dangerkoma speaks through his art directly to his own choir, and his work is a message to the people he detests: The capitalists, the ignorant, the followers - and he is brutal in every sense of the word.

He only cares about the reaction he creates - even if it is only hate. He creates anti-apathy - and that is to me the core of his work. It's seething out of every collage he's made: it's an intelligent hate, focused and directed. It's intended. Hate is not a valid emotion in our day of age. Dangerkoma states he "hates responsibly". I stand by that statement.

There is so much beauty in his work, most of his pieces are in constant motion, with perfect golden ratio and perfect composition, and while looking your eyes are led through this motion picture of impressions, colors, sensuous shapes and textures. Dangerkoma is in control and drags you, be it kicking and screaming, through this traumatic battlefield of imagery. His work comes alive before your eyes and taps into your brain, then starts working on a whole different psychological level. Dangerkoma's work is the perfect mind drug. It takes a certain someone to see the stunning beauty in say skulls and dead animals. You have to be able to see the beauty in the grotesque, and since that has been one of my mantras for years, his work really hits home with me. His colors varies from rusty dirty brown, red, yellow, black onto crisp and cold, clean and bright, over into black and white. He covers it all, leaving nothing out. His lighting is perfection, in many of his pictures it's hard to understand that it is in fact a collage as they are seamless and technically perfect executions. Dangerkoma is in short, old school.

His works are also filled with magickal references, symbols and religion with references to both Christianity and occultism. The human body is often combined with skulls or other symbols of death, dead animals, skeletons and bones. Baphomet is referenced in several of his works, while others contain iconography lifted from secret societies and mystic religion. His work captures the dream and the nightmare all in one.

I see humor in his work, sarcasm and tongue in cheek irony, and I see playfulness. Sometimes it seems like the shapes and/or patterns themselves triggered his collage, not only anger, hate and social critisism. And I appreciate that because it is yet another stamp of quality. A true artist can lose him or herself in textures, colors and shapes just because thar is what gives them pleasure, and it also is a true form of escapism.

Dangerkoma has clear references to the Renaissance, his collages are sultry, pompous and in lack of a better word: grandiose. His collages employs a drama we recognize from masters such as the medieval surrealist Hieronymus Bosch, both use the surreal and the potent imagery of religion, death, politics, sin and evil. Even though Dangerkoma depicts a world that is unmistakably contemporary, he manages to make use of a sensibility that has more in common with the old masters. His work is so vibrant one can almost taste it, it literally makes me short of breath to study his art. It's a very bodily experience. We know grand architecture can cause people to faint due to the massive impressions, and I certainly feel faint hearted in the house of Dangerkoma.

To see more of his work please follow these links:

http://koma-komadanger.blogspot.com/
http://www.myspace.com/dangeramokkoma
http://s221.photobucket.com/albums/dd27/dangerkoma/danger%20collages/

Veil of Thorns – Necrofuturist: Electronic industrial / Industrial Ambient

Reviewed by Gird_09

I recently did a review of Veil of Thorns' Salon Apocalypse for Heathen Harvest, and I hope this is not the last time I get to do it. Veil of Thorns is P. Emmerson Williams' project since 1991, but the project also includes a long list of other musicians who are clearly adept at their various instruments. Williams is an experienced musician who's worked on a number of projects in different styles, as well as a very skilled visual artist. This is his first release on the legendary label Inner-X-Musick, recently resurrected after a lengthy absence.

The foundation for Necrofuturist is something in the vein of Skinny Puppy's more ambient tracks, firmly rooted in electronic industrial soundscaping, but without the emphasis on sculpting through samples from various media. The focus lies more on dense layers of instruments and skillfull arrangements. The album contains elements of a flurry of genres, even hip hop, blues, jazz and country and a consistent foundation in experimental rock music. Track six, Wailing Glass (perfect title) even conjures up a hint of funky off beat italian prog ala Goblin, with a touch of pure California surf riding on top. If there is such a thing as progressive industrial it has to be Veil of Thorns.

I have said it before but one element that really makes Veil of Thorns stand out against any background is Williams voice. The disparate landscapes form a backdrop for his strange disharmonious singing. He manages to convey a clear sense of confusion and alienation, and his vocals are more reminiscent of David Bowie than the common post industrial fare. In addition deft instrumentation and production makes every Veil of Thorns release worth listening to – and we certainly hope there are still many of those in store.

All this adds up to just what the title promises: observations of a dead future. Debris of western civilization, both plundered and home grown, floats around in a rusted cityscape of sounds for the listener to observe, almost as a time traveller of sorts. Necrofuturist is something like an archaeological account of the current state of affairs, at times comforting, at other times claustrophobic and harrowing. Pure underground gold, which is exactly where gold is found.

It's impossible to review a Veil of Thorns album without atleast a passing mention of Williams artwork. The cover for this release fits the genereal theme of the recording, with its stylized skull and trademark red and white colors. Hopefully we'll get to do an exclusive review of some of Williams other artwork in a future update here at Kaliglimmer, so stay tuned for that.

1 Thought Pollution Evolution
2 Through the Fire
3 the Vandals Exquisite Corpse
4 the Lifeless Trio Kept Planning
5 Wailing Glass
6 Waltz
7 Pleasure in Nightmare
8 Giving Ascent
9 Dancing Revelation
10 Let Loose Into That Good Mourning
11 The Reflection
12 Deny Fascination
13 The Only One Left
13 Die as One
14 Entertainments Subsume Concern
15 Head Up Get Out
16 the Dead Channel

USA, Inner-X-Musick, 2009

http://innerxmusick.wordpress.com/
http://www.veilofthorns.com/

Hadewych – Hadewych : Neo folk / Dark Ambient

Reviewed by Gird_09 (Image courtesy of Hadewych.)

Hadewych is a dutch collective working in the no man's land between neo folk, post industrial and dark ambient, with a heavy emphasis on rich ambient atmospheres. This release took me by surprise when it shifted quite suddenly from low fi synth atmosphere to industrial drums, heavily distorted guitar and slow brooding vocals, and then back to ambient, to folk, to massive rock and soundscapes, all without losing track of its original vantage point. And that is exactly what this release is about. The tracks are vowen together like parts of a whole, and the various arrangements and instruments work together towards a total experience. I actually couldn't imagine playing this album without playing all of it - and that is what good ambient music is about.

As for totality, the hand made cover is a story all to itself. The cd comes packaged between two thin slabs of wood, lined with red fabric - along with several picture inserts. The cover image depicts a person, presumably a band member, desperatly grasping soil and leaves in his fists, and true to this concept, the cd comes packaged with dried maple leaves! Impressive and consistent are keywords here. (Evidently the leaves are even Norwegian, and dried in incense. No details are random here.)

This also reflects further on the textures, tonality and instrumentation of the album. I don't know if it makes sense, but there is a certain feeling of mildew to the sound. That is to say something damp and slightly dissolved. While the instruments, samples and vocals are crisp and clear they are expertly filtered to convey an advanced state of decay, albeit a very soft and comforting decay.

It is hard to compare Hadewych to anything. Certain portions remind me of ambient music released by Origo sound back in the nineties, such as Neural Network and Dystopia – or even Biosphere. But then there are other portions that are more akin to tribal ritualistic music or industrial music with references to Coil or neo folk. There's even a touch of late period SWANS in the mix. And just when you think you have it all figured out, they hit you with something you didn't expect – but somehow still feels and sounds perfectly natural. I don't really know what to call it, but I do know I want more.

Finally I need to tell you that the album is pure contemporary mythology. Not necessarily in the sense that it deals with myths on some level, but in the sense that it contains a rootedness in nature and spirituality which it manages to convey marvelously. There's atleast twenty bands to a dozen who attempt this without managing to do what Hadewych does – seemingly with ease. The album makes you feel alive and connected in a very special way.

1 Broon
2 Ava
3 A forest for Riss
4 Prone
5 Bordun
6 A forest for Wyrd
7 Gentle Art of Incarceration
8 Dwaling, Star of Moth,
9 A forest for far
10 Gentle art of incarceration reprise, asrequiem,
11 Rike
12 A forest for eoh.


Holland, 2007, Self released.
http://www.myspace.com/hadewychband