Emeralds – What Happened CD
No Fun Productions
Looks like this is the Emeralds full-length following their last release on Hanson entitled Solar Bridge. They’ve released about 2 splits between these two albums with What Happened having been released in 2009, has it already been 3 years?!
The first two tracks kick off with weird experimental wankery but both are commendable for the emotional rifts they eventually open up with their slow building climaxes. Alive in the Sea of Information using vocal chants and Damaged Kids using strummed guitars while both employ layers …
Cathartec – Lithogenesis C30
Sonic Munitions
Here’s a tape from the Seattle based musician Cathartec presenting roughly 30 minutes of ambient drone. Simply packaged with earth tones and runes the design is a decent implicator of what is contained within.
The tape kicks off with Orthoclase which is a floating and airy drone piece with a ton of great textural layers in the mix to add detail and subtlety. The piece swirls around the listener like a raging blizzard, but peaceful in it’s beauty. A really nice amalgamation of sounds here. Lithogenesis is …
A Wake A Week – Little Black Cloud CD
Spectral Liquid
It’s always interesting to dive head first into a project of which every aspect is completely unknown to you. I’ve never heard of the label, the artist or anything else having to do with this release. All I know is that the disc is contained within a carefully and professionally designed digipak.
Little Black Cloud has an undeniable soundtrack-like quality. If this was a proper soundtrack disc linked to a film I would not at all be surprised. It has several features …
Streetmeat – Nails C20
Anabolic Dimensions
Here’s some more traditional power electronics delivered for the fans of a classic sound out there.
The general sound is of warm, lo-fi electronics. Pulsating oscillators, cheap distortion, flangered vocals all culminate into the typical formula for a brutal power electronic assault. Style like this has been employed before but Streetmeat continues to further define the sound.
One of the better moments here is the closer of this quick tape Nail For Your Coffin which ups the ante for aggressive sounds with a nicely layered core of distortion. …
Nite Shadez – Black Holes For The Face And A Graveyard C47
Out-of-Body Records
Out of Body Records and Rob Buttrum literally never cease to impress me with fantastic aesthetic and a brand that is somehow “so Texas” in the weirdest and most sinister way possible. Black Holes For The Face and A Graveyard is the latest tape from the Nite Shadez project, a duo consisting of Rob Buttrum and Andrew Michael. The mood here is consistent with Out of Body’s regular output, and the influence that Buttrum has on the music …