Sunday, March 27, 2011

Blue Sabbath Black Cheer / Wicked King Wicker / Irr.App.[Ext]











Blue Sabbath Black Cheer & Irr. App. [Ext.]
Skeletal Copula Remains
Gnarled Forest Recordings [GF42] / Errata In Excelsis [eie010]
LP. 500 copies. Comes with 18” x 35” poster and insert

Blue Sabbath Black Cheer/Wicked King Wicker
Gnarled Forest Recordings [GF43] / Noiseville 95
Split LP. 300 copies plus insert.


Theres only so much you can do with a guitar tuned all the way down to ‘e’. It’s a great sounding doomy chord but If you want to further explore the deepest corners of doom and desolation then you need something else to get you there. I guess thats why bands like Wicked King Wicker and Blue Sabbath Black Cheer exist. Taking the premise that dark is good, noise is good, death is good, destruction is good and all things black are good they take that darkness mix it with a noise aesthetic and create whole new worlds of sonic nihilism and swirling vortexes of despair into which the likes of Earth and Sunn O))) get sucked only to be spat out the other end with with their monks cowls torn and dripping wet.

To be honest I never got my head round those early doom heavy bands - wave after wave of ululating low end hum, dry ice and expensive double albums - if I wanted something heavy to listen to then I’d dig out an old Sabbath album. I remember seeing a John Fahey interview in which he said he’d been experimenting with tuning all his guitar strings down to e and hawking the results round various shops and labels only to be told that the genre was called doom metal and was already quite popular. Listening to the odd doom related album does me no harm though. I theoretically place my back to the wall, turn up the volume and get down with the low end vibes. Its mutating though and mutating into something far more interesting.

Blue Sabbath Black Cheer have graced these pages before, their collaboration with The Nihilist Assault Group went down well here. It was an interesting construct with both artists striving for the same result whilst coming from different angles of the noise spectrum. Sadly I feel it doesn't work with Irr. App. [Ext.].  Irr. App. [Ext.] come from a background linked with Nurse With Wound not doom and destruction. Skeletal Copula Remains feels like a case of too many cooks too. Throw in the guitar of Mason Jones and the synth of John Lukeman [albeit on one track] and you can almost feel the claustrophobia. Theres four tracks with the titles giving you clues; ‘Subterranean [Insurgence]’, ‘Brennschluss --> Extinction’, ‘Crawling Eruptions’ and the side long ‘Glutton’. Couple all this to the black and white art work of viscera, bones. ethereal creatures and the enormous fold out poster and you have somebody going all out to make a big impression. And then you play it and it all seems a bit messy. Death, doom and destruction are there in spades but it feels like everybody involved here tried to cram in every one of their nuances and it makes for an unbalanced listen. Starting with a gong crash the three tracks on side one do their best to create symphonic death ambience with hyenas tearing flesh apart and the squealing noise guitar of Mason Jones [which comes at you like a thousand squeaky gates all banging together at three in the morning] but it never quite gets off the ground. The side long ‘Glutton’ works best but spoils itself by introducing actually introducing those low e tuned guitars when it would do better to dispense with. Thrum thrum thrum thrum slow steady droney thumps and then a suction pump stuck into the open gut wound of a dying alien, stalking music, guttural wolf growls, limbs being twisted apart, cartilage popping, it gets louder then cuts to the sound of animals chewing, zoo screams, someones shooting all the parrots whilst someone else plays with a squeaky door. Door shuts. Record ends. Its hard to engage with much of this with one sound being replaced by another before it has chance to make an impression. The second half of Glutton contains some genuinely ear teasing sounds though but all the posters and fancy art work in the world doesn’t make up for the fact that is only half way there.


The split LP proves to be far more rewarding. Blue Sabbath Black Cheer’s ‘March Of The Damned’ is like being stuck halfway down a subway tunnel with the cars hurtling past two inches from your nose. Its Earth crossed with the low end rumble of a Merzbow gig. Sunspots erupt, Howler monkeys scream, demented souls are tortured for eternity, as it ebbs away slowly rotting bodies swing on charred tree limbs. The shorter ‘Into Nothing’ is even more sublime, it captures desolation perfectly; cold iron on stone, creaking boat timbers, dying breaths, distant bombs.
Utilising bass guitar and noise Wicked King Wicker create walls of noise doom. Its the next step up the evolving noise ladder with doom metal at its heart but with noise treatments giving it the room to unfold into ever more fractured and discordant patterns. On ‘Now That We’re Dead To You’ tumbling chords of ultra distorted bass guitar and noise gadgets create a claustrophobic atmosphere that builds to a wayward crescendo. Bass notes become muffled screams, noises become ever more disorientating the whole thing rupturing revealing its component parts on ending. Given a side each and left to their own devices both BSBC and WKW produce far more cohesive works. I think I may be a fan.



Contact:


http://gnarledforest.blogspot.com/


http://www.noiseville.com/home.html


http://www.myspace.com/irrappext

Midwich












Midwich - Months, Years
Midwich - Raised Ironworks

3” CDR. 50 copies each. No label.



The first time I met Rob Hayler was on the door of a Death Squad gig about ten years or more since. It was a Termite Club gig so there were only about ten people there, most of them Americans, but Rob was doing his bit for the cause by taking peoples money and flogging some of his newly pressed Fencing Flatworm Recordings releases. Rob was one of those people you find incredibly easy to get along with; softly spoken, infectious laugh, a ready grin, intelligent and for the next few years I saw a lot of him and his label. Then, as so often happens, he disappeared.

A few years passed and then out of the blue Rob reappeared, this time via a blog. He’d had problems with his head, or with the world or a mixture of the two [I’m not telling you anything you shouldn’t know here - he writes about it fluently and matter-of-factly himself] he’d got married, lost his job, found another, his wife lost her job, things were happening in his life. I discovered he supported Farsley Celtic and my heart burst with pride because I always kind of knew that if Rob supported a football team it would be a lower leagues three men and a dog set up. But most importantly he was back and being creative once more. 

Rob likes his drone which was reflected in FFR and his solo work under the Midwich moniker. Besides his own material he released work by Andy Jarvis, Neil Campbell and Klunk along with a few others. His diffuse cassette label OTO ran to fifty releases and gave all manner of oddballs there day out in the sun; The Bongoleeros, Killy Dog Box, The Ceramic Hobs, even old Unky Thurst chipped in. Then there was the FFR night at the Brudenell. My first encounter with laptops in a live environment. I was sat there chatting away only to be told ten minutes into the sounds appearing from the PA that this was it. But theres nobody on the stage said I. Thats because he’s playing a laptop from  the side of the mixing desk came the reply [this probably because there was less chance of it being knicked].

So Rob came back and started his blog and told us all how his head was getting better and how he was meeting people once more and going for a pint now and again and enjoying his married life and heres some old stuff I thought would never see the light of day but the urge is upon me to put stuff out once more. And why not.

Midwich produce very dainty drones by holding down various keyboard keys [I’m guessing]  and little else. To my best recollection Midwich drones were slightly flecked in their purity. Throbbing, aching, pulsing things with little motifs flitting in and out like the fish that used to adorn the early FFR covers. Some were short lasting less than a minute whilst other set themselves adrift up into the 20 minute mark. I quite liked the shorter stuff which is why I like the last track on ‘raised ironworks’ a perfect piece of two phase drone with the one playing off the other, each coming back to reinforce its beginnings like some clever piece of work by Steve Reich, it could go on much, much longer and I doubt I would tire of it. As for the rest, well, its drone. Simply done, effortlessly put together, maybe slight but who cares? ‘ months, years’ is one 21 minute piece [also its title]  and theres three others on ‘raised’ but it would take a far more brazen heart than mine to criticise either of these releases. If they were the biggest turds fished out of the beck this year I may drop a hint but theres no need. They may be slight but its what they signal that is far more important.



http://radiofreemidwich.wordpress.com/

Monday, March 21, 2011

Tony Conrad – Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain



What normally happens is this: I listen to what I’m reviewing through the week, thinking up thoughts and ideas about what I’m going to write and come Saturday the words magically appear on a white rectangle and I save them and post them on my blog. Except for this week when I was struck by a hideous malady. An illness so henious and insensitive in its effectiveness that it had the impertinence to appear on Friday morning and clear up on Monday morning [just].

This then to let TDOTEP, Hypnogogia, Rob Hayler, Stan Reed [I’m assuming its Stan but if its not then thank you to the person who sent me the two LP’s from the States featuring BSBC etc ..] and Hyster Tapes that their work is here and has been played. The words are in my head floating about. Its getting them onto the white rectangle thats the hard bit.

Here then, in place of my usual weekly ablution, a review from about five years ago. At the bottom you will find a link that will enable you to replicate this experience, if only for about three minutes.

Tony Conrad – Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain
Leeds City Art Gallery – April 3rd April

See that saw Tony? Saw it good. Take that violin and saw the saw, saw that fucker into little pieces in your Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain journey. Saw it up your arse and never come back and haunt the dark streets of Leeds ever, ever again. Nothing personal of course. Maybe I should have got stoked on some decent whiskey like Campbell. I could see his baldy head bouncing around down the front. I was sat at the back had been up since 5.30 that morning and had little sleep the night before. I wasn’t in perfect condition for an arduous ninety minute drone-a-thon so this review is somewhat tainted.

Maybe I should have got ripped on some appropriate drugs, spent all day in the Duncan or maybe stayed in bed a little longer the night previous. Whatever, I was beyond tired and had only really gone to see Kyle who had come all the way from NYC so I had to make the effort. We made small talk outside the venue whilst he doled out vegan sandwiches to his family, I could just about make out his accent from underneath his big bushy beard, his kids were cute and impeccably behaved, we should have gone to the Victoria instead.

It was a sell out. All of us sat there in rows with a four paneled screen to the fore. Each screen slightly angled. The violin began its sawing and the right hand screen flickered with a grainy image of black and white alternating strips. The one violin was joined by other instruments. I couldn’t tell which was which as the players were behind us but one of them made big boinging sounds like when you pull out the bottom ‘e’ of a bass guitar as far as you can and let it go with a massive TWANG. There was some kind of instrument that made nice resonating sounds that could have been played by a Japanese lady but I only got glimpses of them after the dust settled so I can’t be sure. And then another of the screens came to life with another jumping around black and white grainy image. The woman in front of me was beginning to fall asleep. I became more transfixed on her slowly descending nodding head as I was the flickering screens. Eventually all four screens were filled with jumping around black and white stripes. My back ached and I shifted around trying to kill the numbness in my arse cheeks. I resisted the temptation to look at my watch fearing that only ten minutes had passed and hoping that it was more like eighty five. I lost all track of time. I eventually noticed that the four images were slowly moving into each other. Maybe when all four screens merged into one the whole thing would be over and I could go for a pint before heading back home. I shut my eyes and could feel myself falling asleep. The sawing continued. I felt as if I was tripping, as if I was having a bad dream, as if I was trapped. Some people were walking out but how long had they stood it before realizing they could take no more. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to take it much more. My back was stiff. I moved my legs and watched the nodding woman for a bit more. Eventually the sawing and throbbing and TWANGING slowed to a halt. People applauded, some whooped and whistled but I think most people were just glad it was all over.

I eventually made it to the Victoria. Wire scribes propped the bar, copy already running through their heads, pints at elbows nodding knowingly to TC when he appears in his pensioner’s coat and bend in half shoes.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yCHstLAChs

Sunday, March 13, 2011

The Ceramic Hobs








Ceramic Hobs - OZ OZ Alice
Poot Records. Poot43. CDR. 148 copies.

Ceramic Hobs - The Best Of The Ceramic Hobs 1986-1989
Smith Research. SRV19 CDR. 50 Copies




It would appear that the further into the mire Blackpool sinks the more crazed, unpredictable and important do the Ceramic Hobs become. You can not help but tie the Hobs up with the grotty string that is their home town of Blackpool. The Hobs are now making music that is the mirror image of what Blackpool has become; a run down seaside  town full of shuffling zombies reliant on pharmaceutical crutches. Last week I was listening to these two latest offerings when I discovered that Blackpool is now the anti-depressant capital of Britain - a staggering 134,000 anti-depressant prescriptions for every 100,000 inhabitants. But if you believed the local tourist board or any of the thousands of day trippers that pile into the place year round you’d believe it to be a thriving palace of beer, sex and chips. The image I have in my head of Blackpool is of a rotting corpse upon which someone has stuck a big yellow smiley face. You don’t even have to scratch the surface anymore, its there for all to see.
Out of this psychotic mess the Hobs have somehow managed to release some of the most important music coming out of the country. Its all down to sole surviving member Simon Morris for the totally skewed spastic rock alley down which the Hobs now rattle. After years of teetering on the edge of psychedelic experimental rock it would appear that the Hobs have finally fallen in dragging with them the corpses of The Butthole Surfers, The Gerogerigegege, Wild Man Fischer and more bizarrely Deep Purple.

With Morris at the controls the Hobs have decided to bow out with a series of releases all called OZ OZ Alice. I think I’ve reviewed two or three of these [I’m easily lost and confusion seems to be a big part of the game] but this is the rawest of the bunch so far. Morris’s singing voice is one of the great unknown instruments and here its even more guttural and raw. He sings like an irate football fan, like he’s deliberately trying to ruin his vocal chords. That when he’s singing. Some tracks are monologues spoken to a background of washed out fuzz and band jams, endless riffs and TV samples - the more I hear of these OZ OZ releases the more I feel like someone trying to crack some kind of hidden code - samples of kids TV overlap each other, some tracks have two tracks going at once. All the tracks are untitled. The last two songs are covers of Deep Purple’s Child in Time and Black Knight, the first ending with Morris screaming out the chorus to ELO’s Mr Blue Sky with the latter ending with someone singing Starship AOR fodder We Built This City. Last track is found sounds; whistling, traffic, distant voices whilst the first is a song recorded straight from what sounds like a Christian TV channel via a condenser mic [all thirty seconds of it]. At its very heart lies a 13 minute riff of driven spazzed guitar, pumping drums and demented vocals thats as good as anything Faust ever did. In it Morris sings unintelligible lyrics, ridiculous over the top guitar solos come and go, monologues come and go, guitars crumble and die only to get back to their feet like dying monsters in the final reel, the wailing becomes more intense, sirens blare, gibberish is spoken, nothing ever settles.

The piece of A4 paper this disc comes wrapped in doesn't even mention the Hobs by name just some artwork and a list of starting points for conspiracy theorists [some of which I checked out and either don’t exist anymore or were never there in the first place].
I’m pretty sure I’ve heard some of this before but where I’m not entirely sure. Maybe these are tracks culled from tiny tape runs, hastily dubbed CDR’s on obscure labels, or demos that have found their way here via Hobs HQ? Compared to the last OZ OZ this feels like a mad rush, a desire to get it out of the system, a lancing of a particularly painful psychotic boil. The previous OZ OZ was a labyrinthine affair containing all manner of clues as to its existence, this is a coughed up lung oyster spat onto a piss ridden bus shelter wall, left to dry out amongst the discarded chip trays and anti PNE graffiti.  Roll on the next one.


The Best of 86-89 also contains material previously heard and found elsewhere but none [as far as I’m aware] that has come straight from Morris’s own Smith Research label. As Morris states in his sleeve-notes ‘We didn’t really know what we were doing … and the results were widely variable in style and quality’. He’s right of course but even here the seeds for what we’re hearing now are being sown. Skipping past the first few whimsical acne ridden starters brings you to Happy Hour where during eleven minutes of fucking around you kind of get the idea that the Hobs were never going to settle for a straight forward intro of ‘1,2,3,4’ for very long. There is indeed much whimsy here, track titles like Bob Holness Must Die and Patrick Moore Hernia Library being testament to such [and maybe taking something from Half Man Half Biscuit along the way?] but by its end and with tracks like Big Frog the guitars and the vocals are distorted to buggery.

When the Ceramic Hobs do eventually pack it in those early years may not be looked back on with the greatest of fondness - they really were just fucking around your honour - but go and listen to the last track ‘Oh Dear What Can The Matter Be’ with its squealing feedback, lumpen drums, wailing vocals and US government spokesman warning of the dangers of LSD - its all there just waiting to erupt.



   

Contact:

Smith Research - http://smithresearch.blogspot.com/



POOT - gordon_fucwitt [at] hotmail.com



*PNE [Preston North End - arch rivals of Blackpool FC]

Saturday, March 05, 2011

The Strolling Ones






The Strolling Ones - There Was A Terrible Ghastly Noise
Music Mundane. CDR



The Strolling Ones are Martin Walden and Stewart Walden who one day went to Richard Youngs house and inadvertently formed the A Band. Who never learnt to play their instruments but who became an important group due to the fact that they became a catalyst for many of todays UK experimenters. Including Neil Campbell whose Music Mundane imprint this appears on.
There Was A Terrible Ghastly Noise is a collection of early tape works [some of it unreleased] from the early to mid 80’s which on the whole could be described as just plain daft but if you’re in the mood for this kind of thing could also be described an English Dada Frankenstiens monster made from the bodies of Viv Stanshall, Monty Python and Spike Milligan and maybe, just maybe Throbbing Gristle
One track sounds like a Goons outtake [The Seventh Leg Society] replete with silly voices, ‘Arson’ is a Dennis Duck type stuck groove with the word ‘arson’ repeated for its 62 second duration, the last track ‘Music For Dead Zebras’ is 42 seconds of someone trying to screw in a light bulb before it cuts with the words ‘oh well, thats enough’. ‘Live in …’ at twelve minutes is by far the longest outing, over a background of jabbed keys, air horns and unidentified noises one of the Waldens ‘sings’ and I use the term in its widest sense, absolute nonsense in a heavily reverbed voice before dipping into White Christmas, for some reason I kept being reminded of Genesis P Orridge in one of his early TG outings.
‘Sock Eating Competition’ is a hysterical pair of Walden’s off their tits on something stronger than tea talking about a sock eating competition. ‘Crowd Scene’ is a straight recording of a group conversation in which several people are laughing and talking and laughing and talking of Dada and Mongolian armchairs. All at the same time. And on it goes. For 18 tracks and 50 lunatic minutes.

There’s no point in trying to make any sense of these 50 minutes. They are what they are - two people fucking about with a tape recorder [and a few tracks recorded with a Casio keyboard at Richard Youngs house] but having a great time with it. But what fine loam this is. Whether its worthy of repeated plays is a moot point. It is what it is. It has served its purpose.

Anyone reading this who has no idea what it was like to grow up in England in the 70’s and have to stay up until the middle of Sunday night to watch Monty Python or argue with their parents so as to watch Spike Milligan on one of his ‘Q” outings, [on one of the three channels available then] could do no better than listen to this. It could open up lots of doors, it could give you some kind of insight into the eccentric British psyche or it could just plain baffle you.

The last time I saw Stewart Walden he was throwing people around at a Smell & Quim gig. The time before that was at a gig in London where he’d turned up in a silver lamé suit carrying an ironing board. Not somebody you’d meet every day. What happened to his brother Martin Walden I have no idea.

Friday, March 04, 2011

Sudden Infant - Bye Bye Berlin









Sudden Infant - Bye Bye Berlin
No label. Self released C90 cassette.



When Joke Lanz left Berlin for Switzerland in the late 90’s he left behind Bye Bye Berlin as a leaving present.

Remarkably it seems to have disappeared from the records. No mention of it in Discogs or even the official Sudden Infant website. But here its, ninety minutes of found sounds, noise bursts, spastic utterances, sped up punk records, reversed tape, turntable abuse, schlager music, Nintendo noises, African drumming ... for the found sounds Joke Lanz spent a night wandering around Berlin with his tape recorder, at one time fixing it to a lamp post to capture whatever came past: footsteps, children playing, train stations, birds, beer bottles, whistling and someone shouting what sounds like ‘rape’ in a rather menacing fashion. Its all prime Sudden Infant material in other words but some years before an official SI release would ever appear. A full 90 minutes of it too.

I’ve been in touch with Joke and he’s happy for me to post this. He just about remembers releasing it and says it came in a plastic bag [which I don’t have] but apart from that and the fact that it was recorded all in one night details are few.







Top photo shows Joke Lanz recording Bye Bye Berlin in 1999

* schlager = ersatz pop music popular in Germany and many other European countries but not Britain.

Thursday, March 03, 2011

Misery













Misery [all track titles in Russian]
Liniya Shuma. 23 Copies.
Originally released in 1999/2000


http://www.myspace.com/miseryrus




Not a review but the first in a series of downloads culled from tapes from my own collection that I believe deserve a wider audience.



I first heard of Misery back in the late 90’s via one of the Betley Welcomes Careful Drivers catalogues. Misery were from Russia and that intrigued me a lot. There were Russians making noises? Well, why not? They make it everywhere else. So I bought the tape and got in touch with the man behind Misery, a certain Andrey Ivanov. We kept in touch for a few years and then as usually happens we stopped corresponding.
Then last week a review of one of Misery's releases appeared on the MuhMur blog and that got me digging around. I have a few things by Misery but the one that I cherish most is a homemade cassette that ran to just 23 copies.
Now I’ve seen my share of home made cassettes but this one blew me away: laminates, glued on dried leaf, tiny squares of card carrying logo and info, a personalized insert and all of it housed in a sumptuous little flip top box all held together with knotted string. Even the cassette itself has been sanded down with the Misery logo etched into both sides. Exquisite.
But its not all fur coat and no knickers. Having reacquainted myself with this C60 I can honestly say that age hasn’t harmed it one bit and I don’t mean technically. Its bleak Industrial ambinece at its finest. Side one track one [there’s four in all and my Russians not up to much so forgive me] is pure desolation. There's squeaky gate hinges, a recurring motif that sounds like a bleak wind, then empty bottles rolling down a street. The second track is equally morose featuring distant fog horns, looped voices, disintegration. Both tracks create the same kind of atmospheres as exemplified by William Basinski, sadness, melancholy, unease. If I’m being honest, the second side is a bit weaker than the first but don’t let this put you off trying it.

I’m pretty sure Andrey was using analogue tape at this time but as with all great works you’re never really sure how he creates his sounds. As far as I can remember most of his work was of a similar nature. I’ll have to dig deeper and reacquaint myself further.

I’m no longer signed up to Myspace so if someone could pass this on for me I would be eternally grateful.

A shorter version of track two side one can be found on the Myspace site.

Two other things: I can’t seem to rid myself of some kind of interference when transcribing these tapes [I’ll crack it honest - I think its the phone]. It is very low level though, barely audible and in no way detracts from the listening experience. Next up: Sudden Infant - Bye Bye Berlin.



Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Kylie Minoise







 

Kylie Minoise - Sid Vicious Occult School Of Motoring
Kovorox Sound CD. KOVO-053




Its been my pleasure to follow Lea Cummings career since its inception [I think]. Firstly with the Solmania like guitar noise group Opaque, then through Kylie Minoise and more recently under his own name producing drone works of outstanding natural beauty. Lea keeps Kylie Minoise interesting and worthwhile which takes some doing in a world full of noise. I genuinely look forward to each new KM release like a kid at Christmas, seeing as how KM are one of the few noise acts who seem to genuinely push the genre in new directions. Its a testament to Lea’s hard work on the live front and his creative force as a noise artist that he’s stuck with what I consider to be such a ridiculous name. Its probably cost him plenty of serious minded noise listeners. More fool them.


Sid Vicious Occult School Of Motoring sits cheek by jowl with that other fine Kylie Minoise release Spank-Magic Lodge, same laser eyes, same kind of artwork only this time the bird’s Di not Myra. Nice touch.
The first eight tracks of Sid Vicious race by in a clatter of styles. Typical KM material in that you never really know whats coming next: a mix of distorted beats, blitz noise, layered swathes of wash and plenty of scumminess. Things kick off in fine style with ‘You … Fetishist!’ [all tracks come complete with standout exclamation marks] a garbled treated vocal mashed into a distorted rock standard. Nigel Joseph used to be very good at this - like hearing a worn out Led Zeppelin record played with a stylus that has a fifty pence piece stuck to it for ballast. Avant-Gore Nudist Asylum! takes that trademark Whitehouse mind bending squeal and hits you over the head with it. ‘There Is A Policeman Inside Every One Of Us Who Must Be Killed!’ is a slowed down distorted Rallizes stomp where you can just about make out some inebriated vocals - it sounds like Mizutani singing down a tunnel after too much saki got into his system. All the tracks are segued so that when you arrive at the two twenty second tracks your full on noise melts into an eerie Eraserhead like soundtrack moment. ‘Cocaine Addict Hooked On Cock Pills!’ is a pounding PE like pulse over which there could be violin strings. ‘Wizard Puke In The Crypt Of Dark Secrets!’ is apocalypse survivor soundtrack. ‘Explosive Kundalini Awakening!’ sounds like the amplified Red Army march on Berlin played out to a background of old gramophone record distortion. At nine minutes in duration its the second longest track on the album but its the last and longest track that I’ll remember this release for. Tipping the scales at just under the half hour mark ‘Princess Diana 13th Pillar Ritual Sacrifice To Reptilian Hectate! is a noise triptych that builds from a moody slowly shifting Muslimgauze like ethnic start to a noisy middle before descending through some treated Gregorian chant into mill pond bliss. Its the drone ending that brings to mind some of Lea’s solo work and its pure bliss. For those that made it through it is anyway.



Contact - www.kovoroxsound.com