Cloama – Municipality of Marionettes LP
Freak Animal Records
Here’s the latest offering from Finland’s Cloama. This massive LP covers a mix of his more power electronics/noise influences and his drone and electroacoustic influences.
Splitting side A into 4 tracks things are kicked off with Municipality of Marionettes Pt. 1 which features noisy layers of texture over beautiful harmonic drones. Transgressions of the Mountain Lord immediately starts off on a different note with droning feedback, industrial sludge, and PE vocal deliveries. Once again reminding me of the odd amalgamation of sounds that …

Astro / Marax – Split CDr
TRASHFUCK Records
Astro is a Japanese noise project that has been floating around for quite some time now. Since 1997, Hiroshi Hasegawa of Astro has collaborated with the likes of Richard Ramirez, Government Alpha, and Bad Sector. Alongside Marax, who I have previously not heard but has nearly been around for the same amount of time, this split essentially qualifies as HNW but still has a very swirling, Japanoise flair to it.
Astro’s track, Sounds For Unconsciousness Behavior, is a long, pulsating whirl of harsh, spaced noise …

Facialmess/Sleep Sessions – Excessive Force CD
Somnolent Shelter
Fuck yea, it’s been awhile since a harsh noise record really excited me, but this is a pretty incredible pairing of excellent spastic cut-up harsh noise acts. Actually, based on the Sleep Sessions material I have been exposed to before I was expecting longer tracks but I can settle for the merely 12 minutes of his material that this split offers because it’s heavy as fuck and unrelenting with an excellent array of sounds.
Facialmess is up first though and offers roughly 20 minutes of …

Selfish Implosions – Radical C23
Brise-cul Records
Selfish Implosions is an anonymous power electronics project which focuses on the concept of underground skateboarding culture in an extreme form. Hailing from Montreal you can be sure that this is going to have a rough edge as they deal with a good 5 months of snow year round so it’s gotta be tough to be a skater up there.
Side A contains 3 tracks each very aggressive with some impressive vocal convulsions. Very impressive are the vocals which remind me of Atrax Morgue in the …

2673 – In Dreams 3″CDR
Dokuro
On In Dreams 2673 presents a minimalist journey much reminding me of the sounds of Francisco Lopez and Pulse Emitter, drones from modular synthesizers and slowly evolving compositions.
The bulk of the 20 minute track is a low hum which is joined by other tones about 8 minutes into the piece. Eventually the sound works up into an all-out ambient bed with reverberation and low wind tunnel elements. it’s just when it seems things are getting exciting that we are immediately cut off and the piece has …

Revival Lake – Brothers Without Arms 3″CDR
Self Released
Here’s a real shorty that is a collab between two Connecticut based projects Reviver and the now defunct Medicine Lake. Knowing their respective styles one can speculate on how this would sound and they probably wouldn’t be far off.
Electric buzz hums, distorted vocals moans and various layering together forms a deep drone track with ritual elements. There is a lot of space and quite an organic feel mainly being a result of the vocals but this could also be coming from Reviver’s use …

Sanctimonious – Hypocritical Sages C24
Nil By Mouth
Here’s a quick tape of very lo-fi and primitive power electronics. Housed in a cardboard box with a fold-out poster inside and a sticker on the front the packaging is as simple as the music.
The first thing I notice is that the sounds are not very creative at all. Standard pedal feedback, delay, some metal banging here and there. There’s a lot of boring feedback drones, things that sound like they might be the result of homemade instruments or circuit bent pedals. Always …

Steel Hook Prostheses – Cut off the Nose to Spite the Mouth 2xCD
Syzmic Records
Here is a mighty 2 disc set of reissued material from the ever bleak Syzmic Records camp. Delivering 100% dark and hopeless sounds here Steel Hook Prostheses is as unforgiving as ever in their apocalyptic vision. Coming housed in a pro digipak with simple artwork the packaging comes off with a succinct retrospective feel.
Disc one contains the releases Sadistic Surgery, Cold Embrace of an Iron Lung, Controlled Sense of Decay all released in 2003 and 2004. …

Klit – Sodomy is Birth Control C10
Danvers State Recordings
I think most people would expect searing power electronics and blistering noise when confronted with the art and concepts that this tape presents but instead what we have here is 2 quick tracks of spaced-out experimental weirdness with a very creepy vibe.
It sounds like there’s a lot of manipulated vocal or animal sounds in each of the tracks with soft yet swelling noise loops lurking in the background. Synth drones also tend to pervade things to form thick, cohesive walls of noisy …

Luasa Raelon – Vampyr: Light of the Beast CD
Fatal Beliefs
It’s always good to hear a new Luasa Raelon CD if even the release itself is older. You know what to expect and you can be sure David Reed – with his very specific multiple projects – will deliver exactly that. Vampyr: Light of the Beast follows the Luasa Raelon formula by the book delivering over 40 minutes of glistening drone and subtle industrial.
This is dark ambient with plenty of harmonic movement. Slowly played synthesizers layered with alternating pitched pads and …