1. V/A – Amplified Humans Festival 2xDVD [ New Forces / Skeleton Dust Recordings ]

FILE UNDER: HARSH NOISE / EXPERIMENTAL / INDUSTRIAL NOISE
I am old, and so this is how I prefer to experience festivals now. Fuck having to buy a plane ticket, travel all the way to a distant city only to spend countless hours holed up in a dingy club. Now I can appreciate the festival sights and sounds, energy and vibes all in the comfort of my living room. This DVD has really incredible quality featuring mixing …

Janzeits/Altered Form 7″

Anthems Of The Undesirable Bandcamp Link

Janzeits and Altered Form both hail from the US but conjure a nostalgia for German ambient and modular artists of the 80’s that hits the hammer on der Kopf.

Janzeits’ name might be recognizable if you’ve dug into the deep discography of Chad Davis whose work includes playing for Hour of 13 and Subklinik. Fresh from his recent full length called Cosmic Orbits, here he takes a chaotic and spacious axe to the modular palette of jagged triangle waves and precise envelope filtering to …

Compactor/Vitriol Gauge – Economic Devastation CS
Bandcamp link
It’s been a minute since I last reviewed something, but I have to say, this review pulled me out of the tomb I’ve been in. Destructive sounds from two similarly minded industrial artists comprise this take on economic progress, and damn is it a rewarding experience.
The oversized tape box format is underutilized for the most part. Thankfully the team at Waste Management knew how to maximize the dimensions perfectly. It’s not often that I am taken aback by how thoughtful inserts are since most …

Silent Chaos – micro CDr
Bandcamp link
Scottish dark-ambient outfit Silent Chaos hurls five tracks of experimental dark-ambient and hopes listeners will be patient enough to see what sticks to the wall.
There’s very little that coheres Silent Chaos‘ meticulous filtering, EQ-ing, and general attention to detail to the concepts presented in the digipak. The first two tracks – “Odysseus’s Journey” and “Ab Orgenes” – plunge past the ten minute mark. Too much stuff is present. Grueling climbs, oscillating hisses, awkward percussion, resonant filtered crackles, and synth string stabs are stacked much too …

Atrox Pestis – Hewn By the Hands of the Damned CD
Chryptus records
Waste management is the topic for Atrox Pestis‘ most recent ambient project. It attempts to capture the murky haze of the place where our shit goes.
Groups like Desiderri Marginis and Raison d’Etre have been successful by obscuring direction and even melodies, leaving them lurking in drawing out their respective elements with just the right amount of creep. Contemporaries like Husere Grav also accomplish this effectively by layering deceivingly simple ideas into warping currents. I’m not picking alot of this …