E.V.P. – The Postmortem Canticles Of Necromancy CD
Autumn Wind Productions
EVP creates music that will fall squarely into the neo-classical genre. If you don’t dig that stuff, I’d recommend you stop reading immediately because this is not your cup of tea. I tend to enjoy some of it however, so I was pleasantly surprised when I popped in The Postmortem Canticles Of Necromancy and found an excellently mixed variety of atmospheres, sounds, and compositions.
The first part of the disc focuses heavily on the neo-classical side of things. EVP likes to do …

Zerfallt – To Know The Love of Young Witches C46
Semata Productions
Zerfallt is a project I am well aquainted with having gone on the road with Mr. Tindell last year. I feel my bias might be worth mentioning, although I truly don’t think my friendship with Lee affects this review. To Know the Love of Young Witches features 4 tracks, two on each side of this 46 minute cassette tape. The design is quite well done using black and green tones with shifty text and featuring a J card which is …

Swamp Horse – Gravity C45
Husk Records
Swamp Horse is 2 man project featuring Josh Lay who records noise under his own name, and an unknown to me; Morgan Rankin. These two apparently create lo-fi drone/experimental with some folk influences. The sounds on Gravity are succinctly exemplified in the artwork which features bleak, muddy textures, a sketchy rendition of horses on one side, and a fading sepia photograph of treetops on the cover.
Gravity consists of two tracks on side A and one longer track on side B. I’m assuming they’re all untitled …

Blessed Sacrifist – Falling CDR
Bullart
Blessed Sacrifist’s latest effort Falling is a release fraught with contradictions. It’s a quiet power electronics album, filled with moments of silent sound textures, it begins with “An End” and each track contains at least 3 or 4 different tracks in itself. All this and it still only clocks in below the 30 minute mark. Is it a full length, or an EP? Only one thing is certain here and that is that Falling is one strange beast.
The opener “An End” really does feel like one. …

Carlos Giffoni – Adult Life CD
No Fun Productions
After witnessing 4 of Giffoni’s sets live at No Fun Fests this is actually the first time I’ve ever heard any of his recorded material. Adult Life has all the aspects that should make up a great release. A thick cardboard digipak with great printing of some classy artwork, interesting and cryptic track names that give the illusion of depth, and some great thick and full production for the sounds. Adult Life does offer some solid strange synthesized atmospheres but tends to be …

Medroxy Progesterone Acetate/Regosphere – Split C60
Dumpsterscore Home Recordings
Here’s a great split from these two artists who are both new to me. The tape is nicely packaged on some off-white paper stock with clear black print. It’s simple and effective and looks quite classy right off the bat. Each artist has one side with Medroxy Progesterone Acetate kicking things off on side A.
MPA’s track – entitled “Scum of the Morning Star” – is a noisy drone fest that makes up all of side A. Screeching synths, shiny wails of feedback, incessant …

TL0741 – Back To Minus CDR
HC3 Music
Back To Minus is a detailed disc of ambient textures ranging from squirming digital synths, to analog hums, delayed guitars, subdued feedback and probably even some subtle samples here and there. Clocking in at about 50 minutes the tracks are layered, lush and dynamic. There is almost too much going on here as one sound leads into the next so quickly. The overall feel of the record has a mostly digital synth quality, the sounds are well produced, mostly light sometimes wandering into glitch …

Mystified – Phantoms 3″CDR
Jesimoth Entertainment
I really love 3″CDRs. Their whole concept goes so against the idea of “convenient listening” which permeates so much of people’s music listening habits today. Only allowing about 25 minutes on a disc really let’s the artist focus on each second with more fervor then before. Something about their restricting play time just encourages artists to really “make it count” a bit more. Mystified uses the 3″CDR format in a good way with Phantoms delivering 4 noisy digital drone tracks in about 20 minutes.
Each one of …

Sektor 304 – Soul Cleansing CD
Malignant
Here’s a little something different from the Malignant camp. Sektor 304 plays rhythmic industrial in the old school vein reminding me much of bands like SPK, Test Dept., and maybe even a little old school Skinny Puppy thrown in there. A lot of drum-machine type rhythms and beats but always on the more distorted and aggressive side of things. That combined with noise, subtle guitar layers, and plenty of synthesizers and samples create a densely layered and composed album.
Probably my least favorite track of the …

DeepKiss720 – DK720 CDR
Unverified
Another one from Unverified which I was really dreading and rightfully so. Although the disc is off to a decent start with some choppy, very noisy experimental electronics a la Jazzkammer. Once the “vocalist” is introduced into the mix during “Removals/Set One” – an epicly annoying 19 minute track – this gets pretty unbearable. The first 10 minutes are ok, not at all my preferred style of noise, but fine for what it is but I really wanted to just turn it off after about the 10 …