Satori Junk - Venezia

A new release from Italian label Industrial Ölocaust Recordings, the latest release by an Italian band called Satori Junk. Not industrial, noise, ambient, etc... but gothic-tinged epic-doom metal! It's not actually what you would expect from this label! The band has been around since 2015 and has released 2 albums so far, and this mini-album is therefore their third release. 

Let us get to the interesting cover artwork, u get this nice thick textured paper that has been carefully folded, you open it, and all the cool information is beautifully printed/stamped inside with the CD as well. Really love the cool chosen font for the letters! Lovely aesthetic feel so far! All this is being locked inside by the iconic Industrial Ölocaust Recordings wax seal offcourse!

The concept of the album is inspired by the events surrounding the Plague, which killed approximately 50000 people in 1630, in Venezia. 

This mini-album has come out as a CD and as a cassette. The CD has only 1 track on it, and on the cassette, this one track has been spread out on the two sides of the cassette.

The album starts with the sound of wind and watery waves, is it the sound of how plague-ridden rats were traveling on ships? There is also the sound of crowes later on, and something... scittering about on small feet. Steps made by booted heels, and the painful sound of something fighting to breathe. The booted heels start to run, while the sound of a heart is beating faster and faster. Behind all this, there is a cool-sounding hammer-horror sort of string arrangement.

After all this subtle bass guitar, church bells, and evocative drums are added. And then the heavy funeral-doom metal sound kicks in! Not that far away from Electric Wizard, Danzig I'm also thinking of this band called Zombi as well. Lovely-sounding melancholic piano work and some horror retro-feeling organs are added. Quite magnificent! 

There aren´t any vocal parts here, but I think the piano has that role. And the piano works great with the metal guitars, love how the atmospheric tension gets more and more dramatic and epic. Any fan of classic Italian horror (Romero, Fulci) would love this!

About halfway through it gets more... psychedelic. Retro vintage sci-fi synth and electronic sounds and warped acid-drenched ambient soundscapes. Atmospheric vintage psychedelic guitar work is added, something which takes me back to bands like Pink Floyd, Hawkwind, and even Fleetwood Mac. Some really dramatic solo guitar work later on with an almost story-telling-like quality. Quite obvious that this band works so incredibly good together! 

It´s a 30+ breathtaking thing, even for listeners who aren´t a big fan of doom-metal. The band has a large repertoire of various styles and sounds, and they incorporate it perfectly into this epic mini-album. Perfectly balanced between soundtrack-driven ideas and incredibly talented musicianship, as I mentioned earlier. These guys know how to work together, at least it sounds like it. As for me, I´m sitting here thinking. Think I need to buy their former albums, I really loved this album. 

Bandcamp (band):

https://satorijunk.bandcamp.com/album/venezia

Discogs (band):

https://www.discogs.com/artist/4319388-Satori-Junk

    

       

  

  

 Flagorne - Les Couleurs D'une Fièvre

The first time around that Kalteldur gets to review releases from this interesting French label called Cioran Records. The first label to have a focused dedication to pessimist writers, such as Emil Cloran. The same writer from whom the neo-folk band Of The Wand And The Moon had their cover-art idea, the choking arms photograph. One of the later releases by this label is with an act called Flagome. The people behind the act, are some guy doing black metal and another guy doing hardcore industrial techno. Interesting mixture? Could be.

This release is their debut, released as a limited 199 copies! The artwork is really nice. A nice digibook with matte and worn vanish,  lyrics booklet inside, and some ripped pages from books containing the writings of some pessimist writers who inspired the band. 5 tracks, almost 40 minutes in total. 

The first track called Salutations starts the album with high-pitched echoed space effects. A nicely done bass is added, and 2 kinds of vocals as well. One screams the lungs out, while the other has a kind of David Tibet sort of chanting. A thumbing heartbeat later, additional cosmic-horror moods and the screaming vocals turn into a ritualistic spoken-word death chant. Some really intense stuff is going on here! The drums also tune into a more hardcore techno feel. Never been much into hardcore techno, but so far it works like a charm!. The track suddenly turns into mysterious radio chatter (with voices) and some atmospheric and surreal ambient moods. Lovely experimental/fusion vibe going on here.    

The next track is called Addresses. Here you really get the idea of how black-metal vocals can be mixed into a rhythmic industrial soundscape. Thundering industrial rhythms quickly pulsate the track into being, melodic and distorted elements and with that lovely mixture of two chanting and screaming vocals. Imagine an aggressive technoid In Slaughter Natives with raw black metal vocals. The ceremonial (and epic) intensity is hard to ignore here! And yup, there is actually a nifty melody in there.  

The third track Dévore has the sound of a thousand small ringing bells, with the slowly rising sound of a machine-driven militant rhythm/beat. Additional metallic and electronic percussion are being added as well. With some mind-blowing layers of heavily reverbed screaming sounds, I'm feeling the sensation of being frightened of heights here! That thumbing rhythm is really a charmer! A haunting and strange fluting melody in the ending here gets me back to some classic 80s horror flick.

The fourth track De Rien De Bien contains the most torturous vocals on the album, in company with cosmic ritualistic soundscapes and an icy-cold bone-crushing death-industrial rhythm that could stomp an Ed-209 completely flat on the ground! I don´t know a word in French, but the nihilistic and apocalyptic feel is there for sure!  

The fifth (and last) track is called Comme Plusieurs starts in a gentle way. Spine-tingling synths and sounds, religious chants, and a slowly building ambient-driven melody. The singing vocal parts are really good here! Strangely soothing and disturbing. At this point, the listener will tell him/herself... these guys are actually serious! When the listener reaches the last track on the album, it gives the listener a feeling that all the madness we´ve heard actually makes sense... in some strange way.

Les Couleurs D'une Fièvre is an amazing thing, it's just a small debut!... but it bloody kicks like a strong mule! I tend to be a conservative bastard when it comes to industrial music, especially when it´s fusion stuff! But this thing happening between these two musicians is obviously.. quite magickal! The stuff works. It´s not just the mixture of two styles of music, but the presence of new thinking and experimentation being present in there as well! Could be a new sub-genre, a sound where black metal kids could meet up with power electronic kids maybe? Highly recommendable for anyone who has a need to hear something fresh and new!                     

Bandcamp (label):

https://cioranrecords.bandcamp.com/album/les-couleurs-dune-fi-vre-3

Discogs (band):

https://www.discogs.com/artist/14020270-Flagorne

PARADOX ENCOUNTER GROUP – Supersede

written by Mads Heilskov

Paradox Encounter Group is a fairly new project, with its first release being in 2017 according to Discogs, but Paul Harrison, who is the man behind it, has been around for a long time both as label owner and noise maker. On Supersede, he delivers 6 tracks of quite varied and enjoyable noise music. There is an old-school vibe on this release. It sounds like something that could have come out in the mid-‘90s, and there is a fair amount of darkness and claustrophobia present as well.

The first track features a blend of metallic and reverberated sounds, eerie choral work (I think…) in the background, and some more rhythmic structures. There is a handmade quality to this that I like a lot and it sends me straight back on a nostalgia trip to a different era of industrial noise in the best of ways from the very onset. 

The second track picks up where the first left off with metallic clanging and rhythms that coil in and out of each other. The fine line between the erratic and the structured is balanced perfectly for uneasy listening, where buried shouted vocals and eerie spacy sounds blend seamlessly into each other.

The third track is more rhythmic and drum machine-heavy and features some sound effects that make me think of vintage video games; the kind you could play on arcade machines. This style is taken further and mangled more on the next track, which sounds like it’s perpetually breaking down. I like the broken sound of this track and the way snippets of vocals (or whatever those are?) blend in on occasion but are buried so deep in the mix that they mainly act as mood-makers.

The fifth track is even more cut-up and broken; making it seem like an engine or some other machinery is breaking down, whereas the final track seems like a stylistic mixture of all the previous ones, but at a higher pace. Like the rest, it is cut up and broken, but maintains a rhythmic pattern throughout that is just recognizable enough to keep up the feeling that there is both structure and intent present.

The general feeling on this release is dark, often erratic and energetic as well as varied in equal measure. Supersede is dystopian in the sense that many of the sounds that are used recall heavy machinery breaking down. At the same time, it maintains a playful feeling throughout, perhaps because of the recurring sounds that have that certain vintage arcade game vibe to them. The sound palette is mostly mid-range throughout all six tracks, which adds to the vintage feeling. If you can look past the, let’s just say it, overtly bad cover “art”, then you’re in for a pleasurable old-school noise experience.

Bandcamp (label):

https://abhorrentcreationtapes.bandcamp.com/album/paradox-encounter-group-supersede

Discogs (band):

https://www.discogs.com/artist/6369979-Paradox-Encounter-Group

 Incanus - Chant To Life, Ode To Death

Last year we had the pleasure of reviewing the first album by the solo project Incanus. The second album is out now, called Chant To Life, Ode To Death. The last album was released as a cassette, and this one has come out as a limited advanced CD-R on a Japanese label called VLZ Produkt. The cover artwork is amazingly beautiful and simple! Lovely cardboard box with a sticker on it and the graphical inner sleeve has been glued to the box itself (inside), with a circular foam that secures the CD-R attached.    

It was made between 2020 and 2023, with binaural effects using the digital plugin Ambeo Orbit (Sounds technical right?). Some of the field recordings within have been sampled/used from the BBC Sound Bank, maybe it has been recorded by Chris Watson? (Cabaret Voltaire). It´s a single-track album, 40:20 in total.

The first thing that pops into my mind is a cold and misty morning, with the warm rays of the sub slowly rising over the natural landscape. With the warmth comes the buzzing of insects, and then the chirping of various birds getting ready for another day. Getting a sort of Erik Satie vibe here with the distant piano sounds. 

Almost as we are moving through the picturesque soundscape, there is also the sound of a nearby stream... and something rustling in shrubs and bushes. An old mysterious and mechanical banging machine is also in the background, giving the overall mood a kind of shamanic element. Incredible stuff here, sounds amazing!. At this point, I am halfway through the album.

At 26:20, it gets a little bit weirder. The working machinery has a certain kind of ethereal sound to it, it actually slowly begins to sound... alien. Other sounds of spirits moving through my stereo at this point, or could it be faeries?... messing up with my mind. The machinery stops, and we´re closer to the stream. Also, the sound of a horse in there as well, making those snorting noise sounds. 

The album then ends with some dreamy vintage-sounding Boards of Canada ambient synths. Actually, I wouldn´t mind if I pressed the repeat button on my CD player, actually, I´m gonna press the play button just one more time!  

Chant To Life, Ode To Death is a modern ambient masterpiece from the underground. It deserves a re-issue on a real CD (not a CD-R), hell... vinyl? It´s incredibly beautiful, simple, and highly effective in getting your pulse down. Dynamic, and gives the listener the authentic feel of actually being there! Hell, I can almost smell the sounds. Everything is perfect here, I only have one minor complaint. Be sure to take 100% care of the physical media itself, a minor scruff on the CD-R will make the CD jump and skip. So if u intend on buying it, keep the CD-R safe (maybe even hidden!). 

Bandcamp (label):

https://vlzprodukt.bandcamp.com/album/chant-to-life-ode-to-death

Discogs (band):

https://www.discogs.com/artist/12444319-Incanus-2

 Devil´s Breath - Embrace Of The Serpent

The latest with an "unknown" act on Kalteldur from a Greek label called Zazen Sounds. Devil´s Breath has existed since 2015 and has (mainly) released digital albums, this one is a physical release. The physical album has been sold out on the label´s Bandcamp site, but it can be easily obtained via Discogs (link below). A nifty-looking slim (and shiny) digipack, with the CD inserted inside. A 4 track album,  almost 70 minutes in total. That´s what we call a proper full-length album! 

The band itself is a very conceptual-driven thing. Via their Discogs entry, it says :

"Rights and liberties of indigenous people, the mysticism and horror of the inevitable suffering and inexorable death, misanthropy, and the natural environment are the themes that inspire Devil’s Breath most."

Which is also the same theme to be heard on this album. The concept is about the Amazon tribes. Trying to defend the forest from our industrial de-forestation, the album is a tribute to them (Amazon Indians) trying to preserve the natural environment.

The first track Embrace Of The Serpent I, starts with sleek retro-futuristic synthy ambient drones and tribal-inspired beatings on metal sheets. A charming start! Blade-runner meets Steve Roach, Z´ev with a touch of the Belgian ritual-act Hybryds. Additional tam-tam drums are added, while an evolving, menacing dark-ambient background is rising. A fantastic and dynamic 34-minute soundtrack-driven piece/track that you will enjoy listening through! 

The second track Embrace Of The Serpent II continues (in a good way) where part I ended. Some crunchy industrial sounds are added, sounds like machinery splintering massive trees. Is that the sound of a blow torch?  Again, a fantastic soundscape with an inspiring way of using sounds instead of words in delivering the message/story. 

The third track part III is different than the 2 former tracks. The sound being more harsh and cold, the ambient/drone elements are replaced by harsh distorted sounds, technoid rhythms, and eerie altered sounds. The album so far, is getting darker and darker... no doubt about it. A lovely Test Dept vibe here as well! 

The fourth part IV sounds like the most experimental track on the album, also a very heavy machine-driven death-industrial/ambient sound as well. Elements of despair and the sound of something dying are present in the recording. Where the first track had a certain, warmth to it... this ending track has a kind of ... murky clinical feel to it. I guess we´re at that point where we are imagining a wasteland, instead of a thriving jungle. It then enters a beautiful percussive soundscape, a minor hope maybe?

There is no doubt that Devil´s Breath´s Embrace Of The Serpent is an epic and thorough masterpiece with a clear focus on their concept. The whole thing works from the start to the finish. It sounds fresh and dynamic, and you will NOT get bored a single moment. I also noticed that the album has been mastered by the great sound wizard Anatology Grinberg! Highly recommendable album for these proto-post-apocalyptic times we live in!

Bandcamp (label):

https://zazensoundspublishings.bandcamp.com/album/zzs-096-devils-breath-embrace-of-the-serpent-digi-format-sold-out-available-now-in-high-quality-digital-download

Bandcamp (band):

https://devilsbreath.bandcamp.com/

Discogs (band):

https://www.discogs.com/artist/5410980-Devils-Breath

    

 

 M.B. - Bacillusmetrai Entopathogen

M.B. (Maurizio Bianchi) shouldn´t be a stranger to anyone (if you ask me). Has been active since 1979, and hails from Italy. He is an absolute pioneer in industrial, noise, and electronic music, like the Italian´s answer to Merzbow, although having a broader sense of various styles of expressions incorporated in his numerous releases. You can also call him the godfather of the Italian industrial and noise scene, I can´t (really) think of anyone getting close to that! ( do read the Wikipedia link below about M.B.)

Bacillusmetrial Entopathogen is one of his latest releases, and it has been released on limited CD and cassette via Grubenwehr Freiburg, both encased in a 7-inch vinyl bag, with the CD in an informative cardboard sleeve. There are also some nice and nifty-looking collage graphics attached to this, which has become a sort of trademark for some of the newer M.B. releases. 3 long tracks, about 75 minutes in total.

First track Bacillus, a specific genus of bacteria that we encounter daily. Is an incredible sort of uplifting melancholic dreamy piece. Really gentle it starts with some spacious and distant drones, drones made by human breath, or the sound of watery waves in reverbed slow-motion? A mesmerizing ambient synth levitates the listener into another plane of existence, actually a slight trace of melody in there! Might just be the most mellow and pleasant M.B. I´ve ever heard, not that its approach makes it less efficient. A filtered human voice speaks slowly through the hypnotizing aural soundscape as well. It has a kind of ambient/techno-dub feel/sound, just without the rhythms offcourse. Amazing track, the depths of it are absolutely jaw-dropping! The thing is, you (and me) don´t really want this track to end!   

The second track Metrial (Uterus) gets slightly more depressing. It kind of gets back to that classic M.B. sound, the sound of utter doom and microscopic despair. A spacy Tangerine Dream in a Bad Trip, or an ambient version of the soundtrack for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Lots of reverbed sounds, echo sounds, delayed sounds. Some organ there, human voices here, etc. Hard to put your finger on it (with words) easier to understand when you actually hear it. Even Genesis P. Orridge got depressed listening to M.B. which in my words is a good thing! If the first track represented a fresh apple, then this track shows how the first steps of decay are setting in!

The third track is Entopathogen (Fungoid parasitic microorganism), which turns slowly into a slow-driven sci-fi horror thing. Why I'm thinking of the first Alien film, I don´t know! I do know that certain ants can get infected with this fungoid organism, the result? The mushroom grows out of the body of the ant, just like the alien eats its way through the host. The track works in a very unpleasant way, totally opposite regarding the first track. It really is the sound of something, taking host inside a living being... and slowly killing it. First, u get sick ( like flu), then u get irritated by small things, next u succumb to a longer sleep and occasionally vomit at times. Everything from here leads only to your death. And that is how this track is, really murky stuff here! 

I can't help but think about when I get sick (regarding the last track). About the whole process of how I feel... certain things in motion (in my body) when I'm actually getting sick (in one way or another). The first stage of catching a cold, being strangely... pleasant? Maybe your body feels slightly heavier, but you feel more relaxed nonetheless! And then it just... creeps up on you. Getting worse and worse, like the whole body is going through a change. And that is how this latest M.B. album feels and sounds like! Although it makes you feel utterly unpleasant, you will (still) want to return for more. The experience hidden within this recording is quite amazing! Constant and repeating listening is recommendable! 

Bandcamp (label):

https://grubenwehrfreiburg.bandcamp.com/album/bacillusmetrial-entopathogen

Wikipedia (band):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurizio_Bianchi

  

 Tone Generator & Body Without Organs - Control

Been looking so much forward to doing a review of this one! Who is Tone Generator? He is ( or was ) a key member of the legendary pioneer industrial band called SPK, a band which (alongside) Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire started the whole industrial genre ( more or less ). In my world of industrial music, those 3 bands are the first and most important bands of the genre. From 1978 to 1983, SPK paved the way for power electronics, dark ambient, noise, and even ritual music. And still, to this day, no one has reached ( or even touched ) that insane sound that SPK has to been known for. Around 1984 SPK became a (rather boring) full-fledged pop act, delivering danceable electro-pop for the "masses". 

So here we are in... 2024? Tone Generator (Dom Guerrin) is out with his new act, and he has teamed up with Scott Barnes. This one came out last year, and it´s a live recording from Smith´s Alternative in Australia, Melbourne 2022. This is actually the second release by Tone Generator & Body Without Organs, I am also going to review the first one as well.      

The release comes out as a beautifully matt-laminate mini-LP sleeve, including manifestos by SPK and Tone Generator, limited to 100 copies. 8 tracks, bout 38 minutes in total.

First track is called Intro by Jack Sargeant ( don't know who he is, do yourself a favor and look him up! ). Someone presenting the act, and someone saying... ´We´ve heard that you were disturbed´. And then the track descends into a nightmarish and sludgly blended soundscape. Sounds of people screaming, warped spacy synth sounds, distorted sounds with an almost liquid vibe and the crowds in the background... cheering. It sounds absolutely incredible, considered it to be a live-recording of a experimental industrial band. 

The second track Drowning, slurred human voices and some intense high-pitched sounds. Lots of massive machines and lots of metallic things bangs together and breaks apart in the process. Sounds like a earth-quake in some old and rusty steel factory! Really like that the disturbing aesthetic from the old SPK albums and strongly present here! 

The third track Control, starts giving me that vibe of early Dr Who, city of the Daleks more like. Intense multilayered soundscapes, pulsating bass-sounds, torturous analog-synths whins and squeaks in some strange dimension. Cant remember last time I have heard something with that sort of powerful sound, the reverbed cave-like feel is enormous. Religious experience if you ask me. 

The fourth track Dugongs, glitch stuff on tons of adrenaline. Has a kind of Autechre sort of liquid-metal feel to it. Lots of bleeps, blops and underground explosions. Really out there, beyond description! Ends in a chanting sensation, being droned in pure ecstacy of acid-drenched sounds here!. Great with the industrial-sounding percussion elements here, something I have missed a lot in these days.

    

The fifth track Construction 23 1-1b, with it´s robotic voices talking and screaming, while a great and thumbing rhythm relentlessly thumbs on. Some eerie and weird acid-jazz elements creeps in, giving it all a really... well... William Burroughs sort of a feel. Kind of getting back to Ground Zero: Infinity Dose for some reason, although they don´t really sound alike. 

The sixth track Wastelands and the seventh track The Chosen One really gets back to that classic SPK Leichenshrei sound. There can be no mistake, the mixture of those sounds and samples... It´s still mad (and "evil") as fxxx and makes perfect sense that it can be enjoyed aswell! The vocal elements are so good here, again with that SPK aesthetic. Dosn´t sound old at all, or retro for that matter... sounds like SPK ( from the old days ) in 2023. Can´t help but thinking how much vocal parts Tone Generator have delivered in the early SPK days?

The last track Coronaring, delivers a punishing noisy soundscape. All the stuff which u have heard in the former tracks, can be found somewhere in these last two tracks! Not that far away from the style found on SPKs debut Information Overload Unit.

As a hardcore fan of SPK, I was absolutely amazed and surprised with this. Like I said earlier, the aesthetics of SPK are there but in a modern up-todate sort of way... makes sense. Maybee it´s just because that the sound SPK, still makes sense today? Im also surprised in how... relevant is actually sounds? Soundwise it´s pretty extreme and disturbing, but without the straightforward (and snappy) attitude. A mature vine if you please. And regarding the recording! The live recording is absolutely gobsmacking! Might just be the best live recording I have heard from this sort of music, in a long time!

Bandcamp (label):

https://ultramailprod.bandcamp.com/album/control-2

Discogs (band):

https://www.discogs.com/artist/9439921-Tone-Generator-The-Body-Without-Organs