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 …

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 …

Atarah – S/T CS
Auric Records
Atarah is a mysterious project devoted to occult ambient music with a slight hint of black metal. Instead of a haphazard jam fixed under the pretense of some mystical vaguely-eastern-dipped “exotic” experience, Atarah have conceived a diverse piece of music that glimmers with an aura of ritual without much of the fluff.
The compositions on this tape are seemingly deliberate and intentional offerings that do feel ritualistic in the same way a project like Ark-Tau-Eos does in that there is a subtle but distinguished eloquence …

James Reindeer – Om – A Tribute To John Coltrane, Vol 3 C60
James Reindeer Bandcamp
I feel like a lot of good writers sacrifice a disproportionate amount of life energy crafting perhaps a line or maybe even a single phrase that can really make their audience feel revitalized, moved, or inspired. Maybe that’s why James Reindeer has opted for a very hard right turn towards the field of dark ambient than his former/current role as an experimental underground rapper (of sorts).
The 3 Om – A Tribute To John Coltrane tapes …

Dieter Müh & Mnem– Atomyriades CD
Cipher Productions
I was looking forward to hearing this for quite some time before I actually gave it a spin. I have been a Mnem fan for years and enjoy his lo-fi cut-up musique concrete weirdness. Dieter Müh is a name that rings some kind of familiarity bell, but not one to which I actually know the tune. What these two artists have cooked up in collaboration here is hefty album spanning industrial, ambient, and even some kind of electronica influences which can be found …

Satori – Kanashibari LP
Dogma Chase
Immediately noticeable is the gorgeous print and artwork that surrounds this this black disc of vinyl. Housed in a thick textured sleeve with glossy pattern trim and a hole in the center opening to a dramatic piece of artwork contained in the paper sleeve underneath the whole package appears as a relic of ages past if it weren’t for the hand numbered list on the inside. Very beautifully realized, a nod most certainly goes to whoever designed and assembled these puppies. This is …

Torso/GACK/Sandy Saunders – The Human Disease Zine+CDR
Divorce Records
The Human Disease is a collaboration between two artists I am not familiar with (it seems like they just keep popping up) Torso and Gack. Immediately apparent is the care in the concepts with the accompanying “zine” style packaging. A booklet filled with an insert which the CD is mounted on, and several pages of propaganda style art which appears to have little-to-no agenda but exemplifying death, disease, and hopelessness. More or less right up my alley.
Clocking in …