Exsanguinate/ La Infame Turba De Nocturnas Aves - Allegory Of Death

Misanthrope Studio, 2003

More top-notch Exsanguinate material split with the mysterious project of one Marco Alcocer, La Infame Turba De Nocturnas Aves. Garrison's side is as excellent as The Black Acts and follows in the same general form, but what's really remarkable here is his split mate. Really no info about Alcocer or LITDNA is out there but his short side is some truly high quality work, blending impressive noise/power electronics with ambient in a way that stays raw, reminding a bit of Sutcliffe Jügend's use of atmospheric drone or an analogue Cathode Terror Secretion minus the vocal frenzy. The sounds are sharp, uncompromising, and surprising, and benefit greatly from Garrison's mastering technique seen with both his and numerous other artists' releases.

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Zoät-Aon - Star Autopsy/ The Triplex Bestial

Star Autopsy (Aural Hypnox, 2005)

The Triplex Betstial (Aural Hypnox, 2008)

Turgid elucidations of the ethereal flesh of the celestial bodies by Helixes associate Jaakko Vanhala. The consistency & quality of the Aural Hypnox releases is surely ineffable - as far as is revealed, Vanhala doesn't share his membership in any of the other Helixes projects and is yet another separate shining example of the brazen oneiracoustic explorations of their ritual sonics. The sound here is perhaps most easily spoken of as between the cosmic electromagickal surgery of Aeoga and the more subterranean, subdued graveside moments of Arktau Eos or latter-day Halo Manash, but Vanhala has truly uniquely touches the sounds with resonant blue starshine and sidesteps the ritual aspect of the usual æsthetic into territories more soundscapelike, generating external visions of time and place rather than sheer nameless emotional transmutation. On The Triplex Bestial his sound undergoes violent astral mutation as transcendence is achieved through primal transcendent gore, the stripping away of the veils of the universe like the skin of the reindeer of the sacred hunt.

 

Exsanguinate - The Black Acts/ Inhuman Treatment

The Black Acts (Crionic Mind, 2002)

Inhuman Treatment (Misanthrope Studio, 2002)

A now classic album & Mini-CDr EP by the ambient-industrial project of Thomas Garrison (Control) themed on the torture instruments of inquisitions past, present and future. Control has always had a great affinity for rounding out its power electronics sound with fat-sounding, dark, resonant, highly atmospheric, yet raw synth tones that in many occasions beats out the oldschool high-pitched wailing phaser and feedback that many continue to ape. This sound continues directly over to Exsanguinate, only there is a differently powerful ambient magick going on here, completely devoid of vocals and occasionally marked with explosive metal-on-metal percussive strikes. Intense, professionally-produced work that generates an incarnation of the "death industrial" aesthetic well within the side of the respectable (read: far better than most of the Cold Meat Industry stuff).

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Year Of No Light - Nord/ Ausserwelt

Nord (Radar Swarm, 2006)

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Ausserwelt (Music Fear Satan, 2010)

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I hadn't realized that I had this post sitting in my drafts. I recently got back into this band after a long hiatus from metalloid type musicks, except for my continuingly growing love for the healing bleakness of Corrupted. And French group Year Of Light is not too unlike some of latter Corrupted's more epic and blissful moments. Year Of No Light seem to really get how to work this whole "post-metal" way of thinking; the pseudo-orchestral rapture of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and their ilk is here but with openings into even blacker abysses, but best of all minus the usual metal baggage, specifically blackened/ deathened vocals that when not done as well as the instruments causes a really sick feeling in my ears (here's looking at you, Altar Of Plagues). Shining particularly well of these two releases, in this regard, is Ausserwelt, completely devoid of vocals, but fraught with intense and meaningful drone, and epic storytelling chord progressions nonetheless. Either release is not to be missed, anyways.

Keiji Haino - ここ (Koko)

PSF, 2003

In what will be hopefully the start of regular uploads of Haino's solo discography (collabs may come later), this here is a perhaps unusually blissful slice of the vast, difficult, yet spiritually rewarding Japanese prodigy's œuvre. Released as a limited giveaway in the winter of '03-'04 for PSF's "Keiji Haino Fair" (what a lovely thing that must be), this half-hourish piece occupies the same austere, voidsome, bardolic black meditative territory as all his work, but moves in a more ethereal direction. Perhaps akin to a bliss-inducing version of his Nijiumu project, it almost moves into the shimmering moonlit territory of much of traditional Japanese psych, specifically Suishou No Fune or Les Rallizes Denudes and in its longform dronescaping not unlike a more strictly boundaried Kawabata Makoto solo piece. Ends in a positively rapturous forwards-reverse pure reverb that lasts almost a minute, perfectly peaking out this remarkable piece.

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