Cloama – Lernaean Catacomb Complex C55

Erratic Sporadicism Tapes

Now here is some elaborate packaging! With 2 plexiglass pieces screwed together containting a tape and transparent inserts to form an odd-looking object here I’m boggled at how Erratic Sporadicism had the time and resources to make 199 and of these puppies. Very creative but unfortunately not very practicly designed as the case is extremely frustrating because you have to assemble/disassemble the tape and artwork every time you want to listen to this. But definitely worth picking up for the odd packaging alone, not to mention this is fucking CLOAMA!!!

Lernaean Catacomb Complex has a wide range of styles featured on it’s variation of tracks. Although Cloama spans several different styles over separate releases it’s usually not so common when he does it all on one release. This tape is an exception, where power electronics, death industrial and even some of Cloama’s more electroacoustic influences can be heard – sometimes even in the same track like with the live set on side B with its morphing textures and styles.

If I were to compare Lernaean Catacomb Complex to any of Cloama’s previous recordings this would probably be most similar to his collaborations with Blutleuchte. Especially since “Lingering Loyalty” features some moments that use guitar as a sound source. The noticeable and incredible thing about this release is how beautifully the tracks evolve. Alternating from rhythmic to more drone influenced ‘Voices Transformed Into Oblivion” offers a great old-school industrial rhythm mixed with Cloama’s token power electronic belts. Just when it started to wear out “Artificial Weather Manipulation” kicks in with a lo-fi alternating synth arpeggio stuck on one note. The track eventually works it’s way into a howling industrial noise machine with alternating frequencies, crashing junk noise and subtle creepy melodies.

And that is just side A!!! Side B features a recording of a live performance with minimalistic morphing and twisting into different textures which offers great contrast to the varying songs of side A. There are moments that remind me of side A, but also moments that bring to mind Cloama’s self titled CD and even some of his earlier work. But the track ebbs and flows into unfamiliar territory which really brings things around full cricle and despite the meandering factor Cloama manages to use his explorations as a strength rather than a weakness.

Lernaean Catacomb Complex is a great release with a wealth of material and the fact that it’s all new is even better. This is essential listening for any fan of Cloama and for fans of dark experimental industrial electronic music in general. Cloama is one of the best long standing noise acts around and should not be ignored!

The Teratologist – Cabinet of Curiosities C30

Cathartic Process

Cabinet of Curiosities is a standard tape in a plastic case with simple text and graphics in high-contrast black and white adorning the j-card. It’s a simple, professional looking item and after dealing with all this weird packaging I’ve been collecting it seems somewhat refreshing. The tracks are simply named “Cabinet of Curiosities Part I & II” one track for each side.

Slow, dirgy, awkward, The Teratologist delivers industrial experimental music here. The strange torture device that adorns the cover seems so fitting for these sounds that bring to mind an awkward first killing – like the American guy from Hostel. See what happens when you burn your restrained victim with a blow torch, then cut them with a dull knife. Pretty sick images somehow conjured through this instrumental music.

Part II picks up right around where Part I left off. The sounds are similar but this time it seems a little thicker, denser, and more layers added to the mix. Inevitably this means things are a bit louder as well. Some of the textures and sounds in here I really enjoy like the little spurts of sounds so similar to rusty gears or the moving drones sounding like manipulated string glissandos. The Teratologist’s sound here is basically a thick core of shiny metallic drones with many synthesizer and metal-like sounds on top, sweeping in pitch, filters, and ebbing and flowing. The atmosphere is very creepy, the production is a bit compressed but the sounds themselves are detailed and interesting which make for a great journey through the darkest dungeons of old.

A unique and pleasing release for the weirdoes. If I could compare this to anything it would probably be Beastia Centauri who is another great act, but where Beastia Centauri is more on the ambient side of things, The Teratologist is very industrial influenced. The electroacoustic elements here are prominent as well and serves to give Cabinet of Curiosities so much of it’s character. Excellent release!

The Vomit Arsonist

Force of Nature/Cipher Productions

The Vomit Arsonist is the project of Andrew Grant based out of Rhode Island. Although he has been coined as power electronics in the past Wretch walks the line between death industrial, dark ambient, and power electronics effortlessly blending the genres together to form a cohesive and strong work. As the first proper CD release from the project Wretch is a success in all aspects.

The opener “The Warm Body Complex” introduces the disc well with a low-end drone that builds into textured ambience with swells of distorted noise and subtle vocals seething into the mix, add to that atmospheric industrial sounds and subtle spoken samples and The Vomit Arsonist is already presenting a consistent and strong mix of sounds with this first track. “Until Death” brings things around to more death industrial territory with low drones and more metal clashing, creaking, and high-pitched feedback tones. The music brings to mind images of filthy isolated wastelands, abandoned warehouses and coupled with lyrics like “mine is a life of dissappointment” it also calls to mind negative attitudes, and generally the dark side of humanity. The movement of the tracks are slow and plodding, but always persistent and contain a great deal of depth that is less common among much noise today.

“A Moment of Clarity” is the weakest track here with low-end synthesizer tones reminding me of something Angelo Badalamenti might have produced from the soundtrack of Twin Peaks. Combine this with subdued harsh noise, feedback, and screamed vocals and it just seems like the track is a bit confused on where it wants to be. Luckily the rest of the tracks are up to par with the first two, as “Time Passing” brings in the more focused death industrial rhythms nodding to influences such as Megpatera and combines some great melodic synth work in here that harkens to some NTT influence as well. In general The Vomit Arsonist has a knack for combining these floating synth melodies with dark and noisy atmospheres.

“The Light” works on this combination of almost new-age synthesizer pads and harsh noise but is more successful than “A Moment of Clarity”, especially when the apex of the track is reached and scathing, distorted vocal attacks take center stage. The final two tracks “Beating and Twitching” and “Power” are the most consistenly power electronics tracks here, but still maintain some of the industrial atmospheres that help to make The Vomit Arsonist’s sound unique.

Wretch is a great effort and one that well deserves a full CD release. It’s an album that spans the depths of several of the “dark” noise genres and does it with clarity and precision. The atmosphere is one of bleak hopelessness and there’s little room to breath in the suffocating low-end production. Very good work and recommended to fans of acts like Gruntsplatter and Brighter Death Now.

Irukandji – Urine Nation CDR

Audio Immolation Industries

Irukandji is the harsh noise project of Michael Page who is also the man behind the former power electronics project Fire in the Head and the current ambient/noise/industrial project Sky Burial. Out of the three Irukandji is certainly the harshest, but the least atmospheric as well. Generally there are small bits of 80s and 90s music mixed with with just a touch of sarcasm, but not as much irony as Page professes to being a large fan of much of those songs.

Urine Nation is more than just a new Irukandji release though. Not only does it contain a new 15 minute track of material but also a re-release of his earlier releases Pulp Electronics (previously reviewed here) and Resuscihate (previously reviewed here). All this and the DVD sized artwork is delivered in a neat biohazard specimen baggy to create some freshly original packaging design (my only complaint is that the CDR is plain black with a blank top).

Since I’ve previously reviewed the other two releases featured on the disc I’m going to stick to the one 15 minute long title track. Kicking off with an acoustic guitar obviously sampled from some cheap radio song the blast of harsh noise comes in on the downbeat. Immediately this is harsh noise attacks of the best quality, panning, spitting, biting, barking, flailing all over the place. It’s spastic and out of control. The first few minutes take some time to set up for the more creative changes that take place about 5 minutes in. At this point there are some alternating alarm-like synth harmonies presented letting the noise drop back a bit. It’s a great change up and offers a significant change to the sound that Irukandji has previously released. After this mark the textures seem to get more varied and creative, going from more glassy styled feedback and immolated frequencies to passages that sound like a dying tuba thrown in a wood chipper.

This is some of Irukandji’s strongest material to date because it goes beyond just the sharp, focused, and tongue-in-cheek harsh noise that the project has already established. In addition, the excellent packaging combined with the extra audio content makes Urination a perfect starting point for those who are unfamiliar with the project. Great release all in all aspects!

Sistrenatus – Magnetic Resonance CDR

Sophisticate Pleasure Records

Yet another nail to your coffin hit right on the head by Sistrenatus. Magnetic Resonance is a CDREP from this behemoth Canadian industrial project taking the genre by storm and treading new ground in the realm of death industrial. This little release is no exception.

Magnetic Resonance consists of one track that spans 20 minutes and more-or-less contains 4 separate movements. The first portion is a throbbing industrial dirge that slowly builds to a heavy rhythmic séance and straddles the line between death industrial rhythms and “beats”. This portion of the track reminds me a lot of Negru Voda. The drums are processed to hell with filters, added blasts of noise and other industrial sounds in the background (the very subtle incessant beeping is inescapable and really makes me feel like a dump truck is driving over me).

The evolution of the track is palpable, especially when finally there are echoes of the initial rhythmic passages that reappear in a new guise with more musical elements sounding like a heavier and clearer Sektor 304. The track moves on to epic distorted synth drones with some vague glassy textures on the fringes and finally builds to a thick wall of noise before exploding into a very slow pulse of pure sound. The production is absolutely phenomenal, with the distortion having a perfect blend of crunch and grit.

Magnetic Resonance is an epic track packed to the brim with industrial samples, distorted textures, carefully constructed synth work and succinct sound manipulation. Sistrenatus is easily one of the best industrial acts active right now and Magnetic Resonance is testament that he is still improving with every new release.

K11 – Waiting for the Darkness CDR

AFE Records

The packaging for this was deceiving. From the photos of forests and runes that adorn the graphic art I was expecting something in the realm of neo-folk or neo-classical, or even dark ritualistic ambient. What K11 delivers here quite different and reminds me much more of the recently reviewed Anemone Tube, or the long-ago reviewed Canadian project Nebris.

Waiting for the Darkness makes a lot more sense after reading the liner notes: “Waiting for the Darkness is an action of instrumental transcommunication with short wave radio receivers.” That’s exactly what a lot of the tracks sounds like, long periods of dead air either made noisier or just a touch more harmonic with guitar feedback, or wispy drones scattered along the edges. The recording quality is very lo-fi and distant with a cheap sound.

Most of the tracks are too long and dry for my taste. There are some moments in “300 KHz” and “29 MHz” that work quite well, but are still held back by the production quality. The CDR also comes with a video from one of the recording sessions and it’s own audio soundtrack which I enjoy more than anything on the album.

Two of the five tracks that appear here are kind of interesting and the audio on the video is good, but I was definitely bored by too many tracks to really give Waiting for the Darkness much credence. Be that as it may, if you are interested in radio signals “atmosphere sounds” and dead air broadcasts this may be just what you need.

Anemone Tube – Dream Landscape CD

Silken Tofu

Here is something quite a bit different from the Silken Tofu camp. Regarding the packaging here, this is a phenomenal looking release, very professional and quite gorgeous. The CD is housed in a 10 panel, odd sized, folder with black and golden print. The text and minimalist artwork look great and reflect the atmosphere of the sounds well.

Anemone Tube is mostly a dark ambient project that wanders into noisier realms every once in a while. The general rule of thumb for Dream Landscape seems to be that the noisier it is, the weaker the material is. Anemone Tube does a good job in the dark ambient department; the opener “Above The Dark Waters” is a creatively textured track that is followed by “Dream Landscape” which seethes in glowing drones.

“Demoniac Reign” ups the noise factor a few levels and it becomes apparent that there is some serious lack of low-end in the recording. It’s almost as if in post-production Anemone Tube ran his finalized two tracks through an equed digi-distortion and equally cheap reverb. This takes away any potential punch the noisier stuff on Dream Landscape could have. “Winds Of Fire” suffers a similar fate but luckily Anemone Tube is able to end strong with “L’Enfer C’Est Les Autres” in which the airyness and distortion serves to deepen the textures a bit rather than do more damage than good.

For the style of this music, which may be able to be compared to Locrian – or perhaps some other more generic ambient project – Dream Landscape is surpringsly short clocking in at under 30 minutes. The disc still works at this pace, but it does seem to be over before the tracks are really able to sink in. Generally the cheap “plastic” production quality of this takes away of lot of it’s potential but the right compositional elements seem to be present so I’m crossing my fingers for future releases from this artist.

Lavas Magmas – Toxic Communion C26

Self Released

I had the opportunity to witness Lavas Magmas live and it was a barrage of sights and sounds which I could only behold in wonderment. I was lucky enough to be given a few releases of his among which this one-sided tape was one of them. Housed in kind of shabby and bedraggled scrap material with stickers and wrapped in wire this D.I.Y. effort is just a bit deceiving because Toxic Communion delivers one hell of an auditory experience that transcends your typical limited noise release.

The tape has a sticker on one side, a smart move to prevent idiots like me – who didn’t read the label – from playing the blank side and thinking the tape is defective. When the sound kicks in, I’m still not expecting a whole lot because the track kicks off with some more experimental noise textures, sputtering electronics, and blasts of glitchy noise. They all sound great, nice production in a lo-fi kind of way but just wasn’t up to par with the live set I experienced.

To my pleasure the bass pulse that booms in at about the one minute mark totally kicks off the hypnotic textures and just sends the best kind of vibrations through my skull. Joined by pitched horn-like electronic wails and just constantly bursting with intensity the track builds and the harmonies change ever so slightly as large drones just pile one on top of one another. There’s a lot going on here but the sounds manage to converge into a fiery miasma of psychedelia. The track is pretty consistant and finally, awkwardly, cuts away only to reappear with some of the strange shuffling distortion from the beginning. That idea seems a little unnescessary at this point but it’s awkwardness somehow kind of fits.

This is a great release from this unsung artist and influences could be anything from Inade to Aaron Dilloway but it comes out sounding as if Halo Manash and Xombie birthed an estranged love child. My guess is this artist will die in obscurity after an creating an incredible catalog of top-notch releases. C’est la vie.

Cloama – Death Certificate 7″

Freak Animal Productions

Cloama is a project with many faces. Check out the Self Titled CD from a few years ago and you will hear a clean electroacoustic ambient atmosphere. Listen to his earlier Revisionist Knowledge CD on Freak Animal Productions and you will find searing power electronics noise attacks. Finally, pick up one of the collaborations with Blutleuchte and you will discover a surge of blackened noise. Whatever the face though, Cloama always tends to please in one form or another and this quick 7″ is no exception.

Death Certificate is the more power electronics side of Cloama (I’m starting to see a pattern as most of the PE influenced Cloama appears on Freak Animal). Side A offers a phenomenal track entitled “Rat With A Human Face”. The track almost sounds entirely acoustic with persistent rhythmic drumming on what sounds like an old oil tank. Eventually it’s joined with more scrap metal pounding and huge bass hits along with lo-fi gruff vocals to form a caveman-like power electronics track. Original and intense like no one else can execute.

Side B keeps the pace going with 2 more tracks the first being “Death Certificate” which is a bit more airy and features some harmonic movement of distorted textures. I really enjoy the second track “Sacrifice” however with it’s eerie floating synths in the background and building scrap metal junk noise which eventually fades to the foreground. Once again, both of these tracks feature the lo-fi distorted and yelling vocals that graces the majority of Cloama’s power electronics work.

If Cloama is unknown to you his sound here is probably most easily influenced by Grunt. He is also one half of Strom.ec so that influence isn’t too far off either. Either way, this is great work and one of the best power electronics 7″s I’ve ever heard. Great variation in tracks and excellent production quality while retaining a lo-fi aesthetic. Strongly recommended.