Pollux - My Beautiful Melancholia // NMMREM XV

It took a while to find another Pollux album I really like after the brilliant Offer Their Souls a few years ago. No, I haven't tried them all, there are if not hundreds then dozens in between). Even though Pollux is a very productive artist, he still keeps a fine quality in his works. But the ones I've tried, mainly Abandoned Area, Lune Rouge and Wasteland have left me just quite pleasant aftertastes.

My Beautiful Melancholia which somehow has an enticing name, however leaves a very good impression. The varying beats give a lot of new grounds to the ambient of Pollux and make for a new interestspan. First track Absence (Blasted Version) even makes repeated hipsteresque background woman vocals work; without reminding of wool sweaters, MacBooks and instragram-jokes too much.

It is followed by Rain In Your Face & Stress In Your Mind (Loosening Version), which is rather a positive chillout vibe with nothing much happening except variation and growth circling around the same set of melodies. UAV Style (Plasma Version) continues the same but for me has a more complex variation. Not a huge amount of goosebumps but stellar progress and mild surprises.

Well, now with real eyes as well.

The real catch is the title track. Similar than Pollux's track "Black Hope", it is has a very Braid'ish melody; I can see the town in flames in the main screen in my soul's eye. The effect is very pretty. Pollux really works best when associated with a certain mental image. My Beautiful Melancholia even has a sort of evil twist in it, but it entwined between the beautiful parts that it doesn't bother like some evil horror ambient might bother. It just adds more to it.

One advice for even more enjoyable experience is to take any track from the all stellar Lune Rouge (lately i've preferred Espoir de Verre) and the intro of Wasteland "Fallout New Vegas - Goodsprings Wasteland, Day (Remix)" as the first and second track. Then you have an album that does last a bit longer and provides even a wider variety of welcome ambience. The darkness of Lune Rouge is brilliantly overtaken by pleasant ambient, beats and then My Beautiful Melancholia. As an outro the tense Corruption Eternelle is often my choice. It brings a nice, star-light eclipse wandering along the shining dust clouds in circles -effect to finish up the album, if you know what I mean.

As always, a free download: http://archive.org/details/siro416Pollux-MyBeautifulMelancholia

The nmmrem-extended album version as free downloads:
1. Espoir de Verre (archive.org)
2. Fallout New Vegas - Goodsprings Wasteland, Day (Remix) (bandcamp)
3. My Beautiful Melancholia (Whole EP)
4. Corruption Eternelle (archive.org)

Covolux - Paris // NMMREM XIV

As marketed for workplaces as a background music in an work environment

Covolux's Paris is an ambient release which is most suitable for light office work with little to mediocre background noise. The test subjects found this release most worthwhile while listening as a background music two to three times a day. Positive aspect of this release is also that the listener does not need a good sound system to enjoy it, the sound flows nicely enough from laptop speakers and provides a rich soundscape for concentration. Beautiful melodies flow on but only rarely fully consume the listeners attention (electric shock devices to prevent this from occurring can be bought at a discount from our store).


The legend of certain ambient noise boosting the effectiveness of work is definitely not untrue with this release. 80 out of 100 test subjects from the extremely picky group concluded that Paris is good concentration music and also sets up the mood for work with beautiful ambient tones keeping the mind light and intact. Just where you as a corporate businessman want your workers mind to be. We at Sirona-Records are permanently offering all our releases for free, so you and your massive corporation can boost your work-effectiveness for free! Forever!

Download for free: http://archive.org/details/siro170Covolux-Paris

Meklabor - Raw Reeds // NMMREM XIII

The cover is very black metal

Meklabor's is yet another interesting artist from Russia who is also involved in the martial & dark folk projekt Ostov. He states himself that Meklabor is bagpipe music with hardware-made ambient, distorted drums and drones. Certainly a very unusual combo for a Russian artist who says to be inspired by slavonic folk traditions! Judging by this release the inspiration doesn't stop in folk but goes deeper from folk straight into mystical terrains.

Meklabor's Raw Reeds serves as an intro that could well be based on a sludge record. Based on this, it would be too easy to just entitle this record Meklabore. The second song Fields already proves this wrong with odd rhythm and a fine melody with a... Bagpipe? A definite !?! upon the first listen. The sounds aren't top notch, for example the record would agree with a deeper and more organic bass sounds; somehow the sounds lack the final punch. The third, Bessarabaska continues the interesting experiment comprising an Alamaailman Vasarat-like klezmer-melody and applies a discobeat later. I still might not play this at a summer fest.

After three first tracks peak to a mildly annoying hippie-klezmerfest At The Gates, suddendly things go down the drain to dark ambient. Salamandra (Oil Edit) is mighty convincing dark ambient, but it is absolutely in the wrong place for the average Johns and Jacquelines. Bad trip, man. Multinational corporations in their oil-greed did this, man.

Salamandra does mark an imaginary B-side mark though, the following Thousand Years Beyond Kaspia continues the surprising industrial touch that Salamandra hints towards. Best of all Meklabor seems to be very natural with their industrial-side! The illusion breaks at 0.40 with, a very original, Meklaborish melody, but the industrial beat continues to throb on top of this mystic melody. After a month I somehow find myself thrilled by this melody though it didn't impress me initially and it does repeat too much. I would have definitely lived without the 1.43 trance-interlude too

Haze is a bagpipe song and impresses less than its predecessors. Largely that is because its driven by another very Meklaborish melody, which you have just listened for 20 minutes; and for me this melody is the worst of the record. It does try and I feel the hook at 2.40 and 4.00 would be a memorable one, if only the melody wasn't off my game. So unfortunately the album closes up in less memorable fashion than it started.

In the end Fields and Thousand Years Beyond Kaspia are the top cuts in the album, reclaiming the potential that other tracks only hint towards. The soundscapes in Raw Reeds are possibly more interesting than the melodies. There are lots of unique clever beat work and low-bass sections which throb in the back and may go unnoticed but still add in to the atmosphere. Also kudos to Meklabor for having the second edition of Salamandra as a clear bonus track.

Raw reeds encompasses a mystical atmosphere which adds to the value, it could be a swan song for a culture that never existed with its own glyphs, prophecies and gods. Music impresses and at the same time fails to capture its utmost potential. Still a very worthy release that surely people with an ear towards mystical ambiance and modern beats can appreciate!

7½/10

Free download: http://archive.org/details/siro318Meklabor-RawReeds

Avs_Silvester - Mansipal's Heaven // NMMREM XII

Avs_silvester is a Russian artist with lots of interesting concepts for albums, for example the "Periodic Table of Sounds". His new album or actually a compilation of old tracks is stated as Fusion, Progressive, ethno-rock with a very interesting concept.

"Mansipal - the historical name of the east Ural Mountains in the language of the native Finno-Ugric people of Mansi (Voguls).  Mansi World is divided into three parts - lower, middle and upper world. The heaven is also divided into three tiers, one of which goes after the death one of the five souls of man.

The album - a compilation of tracks from different years - sending you on a journey through the three parts of this world."



Sounds just like my cup of tea, but surely a very tough concept to pull out as well. Not every Average Joe is the next Omar Rodriguez or John Lennon, but it certainly doesn't stop some people from trying. And it certainly shouldn't stop people from trying. In essence that is a good thing, but when they try to form up creations like professional composers; sometimes physically challenged babies like Mansipal's Heaven come up. It is supposed to be Progressive ethno-rock. But it is not really progressive, it is random. It is pretty ethnic, but it is mostly not rock at all. It should be classified as experimental or improvisational guitar jam.

How many people really want to hear improvisational guitar jams of the greatest guitarists in the world? Hand to the heart, how many of you would like to hear an improvisational guitar jam of a mediocre layman guitarist with rather bad sounds? This is ultimately what Mansipal's Heaven is. The guitar lines have a lot of glitches and mistakes. This could still be acceptable if the songs were good. You can hear there are compositions behind but mostly it seems the tracks are a mashup of certain guitar elements which are repeated in random places in - semi-similar to not similar at all - forms. In theory this could be a pretty ingenious way for making songs if those guitar elements just happened to not be mostly awkward and the placings had more style and pattern.

Many songs do have pleasant background ambience, for example Wind in the gorge, Music of silver and suitably named This strange autumn. Hell the chorus of This strange autumn is even catchy. Guitars are incoherent, but not as much as in most of the album. This marks the main problem and specialty of Avs Silvester. For example the title track seems to consist almost solely on guitar layers seemingly in not much contact with each other, drumming or keyboards. All forming different entities and playing on top of each other. When I release songs like this, I call them experimental or shitcore, not progressive. After an incoherent jamfest like Mansipal's Heaven, This strange autumn sounds clear as a winter day when in earnest, it is a mess with a melody that when worked on could be very good.

The closest thing to a stable track is Mansipal's heaven 2008 as it builds up nicely, in real standards mediocrely, the build up gets boring and the melodies never top the beginnings touch, but hey at least this time the track never went berserk! 2009 and 2010 versions of the same track encompass a less minimal approach with more guitar layers which ultimately means worse. Again the main riff really is not too bad (like in Fatal Chainsaw Massacre), if it just didn't lead to a rather worthless improvisation after each repeat. Often less is more.

Most of the album feels like watching Journey Into Bliss on and on again, the shared sense of shame is always there. Maybe with some doses of mescaline this'd be a good trip with lots of laughing but with a clear mind it just boggling. The luck is, I'm a person having a liking in shitty and random music, so listening was in the end quite enjoyable, after getting through the disappointment of this not being a good album. But for any real music critic I can well believe this release effecting the tearing out of hair.

And hey, calling improvisational guitar jam progressive ethno-rock is just underrating the listener. If I'd known Mansipal's Heaven to be a guitar jam I most likely wouldn't have listened it at all - completely missing out the worst progressive rock album that I've ever heard! An eye opening release in a different way than expected.

Musicality: 2/10
Randomness: 9/10
Entertainment: 8/10

Free download: http://archive.org/details/siro484Avs_silvester-MansipalsHeaven

Psycho Mum - Riff Rough // NMMREM XI

Psycho Mum, an artist I genuinely have no idea about and a musician of genres which I loathe (Rave, "ugh" / Disco, "UGHH!" / Break, "just add in core please"). Being the first experimental review for Narrow-Minded Metalhead, this was certainly a good shock factor to start :). Anyway, Psycho Mum is todays reviewed release; sponsored by www.random.org.

The cover of the album looks ugly and cheap. Looks like a 2 minute paint work. So it made me expect something intentionally shitty. However the title track Riff Rough turns out to be a surprisingly interesting abstract and psychedelic track with a lo-fi vibe. So lo-fi is where the cover art hints to? Makes some sense.

The song starts out slowly and progresses first to an odd (I like oddness) psychedelic beeping (I like psychedelia and beeping) noise (and most of all I like noise). This is soon layered with a psychedelic beat. This progress steadily with a cool surprising, though a bit cheap sounding effects, coming in here and there quite melodically.

The song grows up nicely, and after multiple listens the seemingly random breaks can better be appreciated as well. I'm sure this would work great with fitting visuals. Odd sounds popping in from here and there add more flavour.

In the 2nd track. The beginning beats underline my loath for rave, two different deep bass-driven beats which sound to belong to a club, which I would not attend without an excess amount of beer. The pussy-sounding voice saying "Satan" is quite funny and very random, but more interesting is the nearly random beeping. The track underlines why im not a terrific fan of rave music. It gets boring even though there is stuff happening and variation.

As a release one song and one remix of the same song is a bit too little, though I must say the remix doesn't really sound like the original at all, which is a good thing especially as it seems disco and rave are fitted to the second track and the first compasses of psychedelia and break. I do not get a huge interest in repeating the tracks once I got done with the first crush.

Nothing mind-blowing here, but the release did rise my interest factor for a short while. Not an attention grabber after the first listens, but the first track does hold up listening well. The release could be interesting for you if the two previously mentioned big UGH's are your cup of tea. For me, I rather stay on my normal tea and keep looking for the first rave song to dig.

5½/10

Free Download: http://www.archive.org/details/siro030PsychoMum-RiffRough

Playing with Nuns - 1805 // NMMREM X

God knows how manyth split of Playing with Nuns, 1805 is named after Mary Nuns, an infamous woman born in 1805 and also by one of the base books of nunnerism "The nuns of the desert, or, The woodland witches", released in 1805. No really im just shitting you. The nuns of the desert is a rather hilarious title of a book anyway.

Playing With Nuns is a noise/experimental artist hailing from Argentina and like previously mentioned, he has made over a hundred splits, cd-r's and webreleases in just a few years. Of these releases my favourites include 4-way split "Origami Chupacabras", Cd-r "North Korea in 5 minutes" and another Cd-r "Horse surgery". I'm actually shitting you again, I've never listened to any of these but you must agree that the names of the splits are entertaining.

Time for your own thoughts
by maxon / HBC

From this baseline I placed 1805 to my record player, alas an mp3 in foobar2000 audio player v.1.1.8, a basic drag and drop manouver in between the artists Plain Ride and PMMP. Head-on collision with a soundwave is the easiest description of the beginnings of the first track, "The consequences of a chain reaction". Huge soundwave some harsh noise but overall a more pleasant sort; I find myself not getting petrified by it, no matter where I am. My most enjoyable moment with this release is 3 am at lan party, where it worked well as seclusing myself out of this world.

The consequences of a chain reaction has an almost metal interlude at 10:05 with lovely bass-soundwave bursting in. But then continues mostly the same except for some entertaining oddities, for example mechanics at 13.00 which; if made by the British Death Metal band Carcass; could be titled "Chainsaw & Circular Saw Macabration of Mutes".

1805, the title track, is considerably more soft, mostly half-way gentle glitching harsh noise. The end of it advances to Rainbosws (name dropping an obscure artist you haven't heard about) like glitching pleasant sound. Almost like water pouring outside and dribbling against the glasses. After two different tracks the fittingly named "One more to annoy you" closes the album like it started.

For a harsh noise release based on mostly just white noise 1805 has some interesting variation, but lacks originality. With some track notes and linear specifications of the tracks and or themes, harsh noise tracks such as these would be far more interesting. If there is any? Is there ever, really?

I Like noise, most of it is entertaining to listen for one or two times when you don't know what is behind the next hill of the voyage. After that many noise albums tend to lose much of their initial interest, if they aren't filled with nuances. Playing with Nuns - 1805 is one of those albums though I can imagine listening two thirds of it from time to time when in need of seclusion and concentration; and ordinary music isn't doing it.



Download Playing with Nuns - 1805 for free here: http://archive.org/details/siro274PlayingWithNuns-1805

On comes the overall scores!

After reviewing quite a few releases I can finally start keeping track on the overall scores of every album (from 0 to 10). To sum up, here are all the releases on this blog so far and the overall scores; which will be updated to releases as well.
In alphabetical order:

Alex Spalding - Amos In Flames 7½
Alex Tiuniaev Treedreams EP (modified) 8-
Fuck Your Speakers VOL 2 Disc 3 7
Golden Cloud & O.S.I.S. - Split 8
Hu Creix - The Present Forward 7½
John 3:16 - Sinner's Prayer 8-
Master Toad & Pollux - Offer Their Souls 9+
V3Rb tH3 N0un - Th3 dUbsT3p d3m0 5+

P.S. If you have a better word than "Overall Score" or "Ranking" throw it at me and i'll consider changing them all. I don't fully like the tone of "overall score".

The Skier representing me with Offer Their Souls Split by Master Toad & Pollux

Alex Tiuniaev - Treedreams EP // NMMREM IX

Surprisingly grand for a wee EP

Ever since I've been a kid I've been exposed to sequencer, synthesizer and ambient music from the likes of Klaus Schulze, Mike Oldfield, Jean-Michel Jarre etc. Even though they are undoubtedly geniuses, revolutinees of the music field and whatnot, I have never became very close to their music, though I have always kind of liked them. Still, Im sure this exposion has left some mark. Often things you've listened as a kid hit you hard later on and I think I finally found my first knack of sequencer-type music on Alex Tiuniaev.

Alex Tiuniaev is an ambient and piano composer from Russia. His EP Treedreams is a small piano driven release consisting of two tracks, both freely downloadable from last.fm. Small does not necessary mean simple, and minimalistic doesn't mean it doesn't have a lot of textures. Alex Tiuniaev's work reminds me subconsciously of Klaus Schulze's sequencer outputs (which of them, I cannot say). 

Treedreams I consists of a rhythmic melody circling around a rhythmic beat. Treedreams II:n has a similar beat present but it is more piano driven, than sequencer driven.Of these two Treedreams I is the simpler and clearly more memorable having a great catchy melodyline which took a few listens to materialize to its full potential. Treedreams II is a fine closer having more variation and more ambient. However for me Treedreams EP is not complete without a track from Alex Tiuniaev's newest album Blurred. Another free last.fm download "The Wild Winds Weep" can be cleverly bootlegged to serve as a brilliant intro to Treedreams. The Wild Winds Weep is my latest random find; a full on goosebump effect in the middle of a walk.

While I have only listened Blurred once I can say it does have lots of potential, especially the cinematic "We Were All Fishes Once" caught me unaware on first listen. I cannot fully express why, but somehow Alex Tiuniaev's music is extremely likable. If Treedreams or any of the synthesizer-artist-household-names-above make any impression to you Treedreams is, and free-to-listen Blurred may very well be, a shimmering find.

Overall score (modified EP): 8-/10

Download Treedreams for free here: http://www.last.fm/music/Alex+Tiuniaev/Treedreams+EP

John 3:16 - Sinner's Prayer // NMMREM VIII

Narrow-minded Metalhead reviews experimental music - VIII
[Siro247] John 3:16 - Sinner's Prayer

Hu Creix vs John 3:16 - Ambient Double Header

Introduction

I am starting to believe that the hardest music to make successfully is ambient. Just think about it, music that is minimalistic and repetetive, and you have to craft it to be interesting.

In this double header I am taking a look on two Ambient releases. In this review: John 3:16 - Sinner's Prayer and in the first part Hu Creix - The Present Forward. Both artists quite succeed in this trade, both with a fine release, but in the end fall in the same loophole. What is it? LENGTH. 

John 3:16 - Sinner's Prayer

The release is best described as Psychedelic gospel ambient and hell, is this quite a mixture! Very original sound with surprising heaviness, chilly yet chilling soundwaves and odd vocal samples.

John 3:16 release is only 22 minute long, but has the same problem as Hu Creix's The Present Forward - in a minor scale. The first track, Eternal Sin Offering, lasts 16 minutes and is a bliss for the first 7 or so minutes, but for the last 8-9 minutes it closes in and for the listener, becomes more minimalistic. At the same time the track has a long  speech sample going on, but it is only vaguely hearable and thus doesn't really grow to its full potential; lacking a clear message or something to grasp in the speech. It is everything but bad. But it just doesn't have the same effect than wave-like transforming first half. Again, this track could really have been split up into two parts...

Did anyone mention Twin Peaks? Fortunately, the second track has an awestrucking Lynch-esque start. Nearly dropped me out of my chair. It is a remix and I don't know how much it borrows from the original Fluid song, but the melody is something i would love to hear in a great movie.

Conclusion

Both artists definitely know how to spice up slowly transforming songs by adding new interesting sounds. But when it comes to full songs, they only have a couple songs that are spot on and without a significant weak spot. Albums that have a lot of merit but in the end work best cropped.

Overall score: 8-/10

The album is free to download at: http://archive.org/details/siro247John316-SinnersPrayer

Hu Creix - The Present Forward // NMMREM VII

Narrow-minded Metalhead reviews experimental music - VII
[Siro229] Hu Creix - The Present Forward (Sirona Edition)

Hu Creix vs John 3:16 - Ambient Double Header

Introduction

I am starting to believe that the hardest music to make successfully is ambient. Just think about it, music that is minimalistic and repetetive, and you have to craft it to be interesting.

In this double header I am taking a look on two Ambient releases. In this review: Hu Creix - The Present Forward and later on: John 3:16 - Sinner's Prayer. Both artists quite succeed in this trade, both with a fine release, but in the end fall in the same loophole. What is it? LENGTH. 

Hu Creix - The Present Forward

Hu Creix's The Present Forward clocks over 90 minutes. 90 minutes! Are you kidding me? After about 10+ listens I've gotten to a point where i love the first 26 minutes but after that get carried away and stop noticing the music.

By sense it is because the best 3 tracks The Detuned Awakening, Artist and One Thrill are placed as 2nd, 3rd and 4th. The next track I derailed is still interesting, especally because it has a major old-Scorn-like vibe (the Evanescence era). But the extremely repetitive Voodoo Bride and Dancing Fish are quite a fall. Having Voodoo Bride in two different versions, clocking over 20 minutes in one release doesn't feel like a good move for me.

However the best three tracks mix ambient, odd electronics and saxophone in a wonderful sense, making Hu Creix at best comparable to the Doom Jazz giant Bohren & Der Club of Gore. Something which can be transferred to two words. IMMENSE POTENTIAL. Somehow One Thrill manages to work great even without saxophone, with the help of an exciting tom-tom -drumbeat.

The record picks up its jazz roots in Lazy Shark and somehow manages to transfer it to sinister yet soothing trip-hop beat; crafting another fantastic event. However the ending is a trinity that resembles I derailed in quality, but falls slightly under it. Interesting, but not superb (and unfortunately also without the Scorn-nostalgy)

Im anxiously awaiting the time when all these good underground musicians stop to THINK before they release all their efforts in one packet. The Present Forward could have been divided in 2 packets, by easily just naming one part I and other part II. Now this 90 minute slab is just too repetitive and LONG to be fully enjoyed at one go. Unless you want fine sounds to turn into elevator music. Thats not really whats supposed to happen.

A release that manifests on listeners patience but can also provide immediate ambience; "filling up jagged spaces". Grows on time and certainly takes more than a few listens to completely open up. After digesting and excavating the sounds, some tracks grow but some lack the growth factor and end up on skipping wire. An enjoyable release packed with a lamentably common remark: "could have been a lot better".

Overall score: 7½-/10

The album is free to download at: http://archive.org/details/siro229HuCreix-ThePresentForwardsironaEdition

Fuck Your Speakers VOL 2 Disc 4 // NMMREM VI

Narrow-minded Metalhead reviews experimental music - VI
[TFR366] Fuck Your Speakers Double Header Part II Disc 4

Confusing = Entertaining Part II

A review with the most different sequels i've ever written I

The next part of Fuck your Speakers Double Header is sponsored by www.random.org, which im using to decide which disk i will review.  First part can be found here. Inserting numbers between 1 and 6 (the number of discs on Fuck your speakers) and pressing "Generate".  "3, okay I reviewed that part already". Pressing "generate" again. "3, meh, what are the odds to this?" "Generate" 4.

Fuck Your Speakers 2 - Disc 4 - Delicate Porcini-Flavoured goggles track-by-track first impressions (part 1?)

I actually had a quick glance of the opening track, Nathan Watson's Auf Deutsch, already. A very quiet 12 minute dark ambient epic I couldn't really listen last time as i was playing Nhl 2004. It officially got into my "Listen later with headphones" -list, along with Mutant Beatniks' drift (from CD 3). And yes, this is some really minimalistic shit, with echoed german speech and other well, echoes, in the background. At about 7 minutes it starts to gain more of an edge and scary sounds, jumping from one place to another. After continuing scary boosts for a few minutes it fades back to similar flow than in the beginning with only vague speaking. Fit with a well adjusted last.fm pic, bringing up, if possible nothing to relate to in regards of the track.

German dark ambient groovy hippie with an afro 

NB,PD! - Budapest In A Dyke's Spike

Glitching, is that german again? Breakbeat. This is nearly the kind of stuff i was expecting of this release, but even this has a melodic stellar beat.

NB,PD! - Gentle Nibbling Of Goat Babies And The Jealous Ramming Of Goat Mothers

NB,PD! is quickly becoming the foremost contender of best track titles of the album, with indeed, Gentle Nibbling sounds. The track becomes something that I would expect to happen in a twisted upside down world of Jack Vance's book, The Dying Earth. Adorable. Knowing that RedSK has multiple tracks in the end of the Disc 4, i am expecting him to take the challenge.

NB,PD! -  Trying To Tie A Ligature Around One Testicle

Definition of Ligature:

a. A cord, wire, or bandage used for tying or binding.

I imagine the first 1:20 are the actual process of tying a ligature in the testicle and after it we progress to the inner feelings of the other testicle, who seems to have quite a groove on. Horny, perhaps? The second part of the track is pure testicular love. Very different than the first half. 

Omajinaakoos - Aegrus

Noise rock? Quite groovy beginning with a riff hinting you to hit the highway, and melodic leads, er, improvised? The sounds are good, musty, thick and dirty. The track seems to just skip from one part to another incoherently. At 2:26 we can hear a vague keyboard melody in the back, along with the oncoming boredom of the listener. 2:55 minute mark suddendly puts in a black metal melodic lead, with slow drumming. Honestly that part could be a good basis for a song, very potential. It ends to a lead which almost manages to be good but avoids it somehow. Then a basic riff offering nothing special. I love the band title i love the song title, i just wish the song had something more compact to offer.

Pheonix FM - Cougar Town

Pheonix is a common typo, i suppose the artist is really Phoenix FM. First sounding like cheap folk, but having an uplifting chorus with harmonica. One thing lacking, whiskey, son drink more whiskey and then try singing again. The harmonica is joyously providing steady melodies throughout the song.

Pigeon Cadaver - Just the ordinary Terror

Speedcore, with a melodic glitchbeat. Memorable! Now we are addressing the best track so far. Turning a beat into a melody works. What helps the case is the nice logo of the project. Unfortunately the beginning beat which was clearly the most memorable part of the track doesn't repeat. It had a making of a fine chorus. Son, your track just needs a more coherent structure.

Pigeon Cadaver - Rhythmic Hetzjagd Action Terror

I have to admit the first love of Pigeon Cadaver wears off quite quickly...

But it comes back as quickly! Very African-spirited beat and a similar promising glitchy chorus at about 0:50 than in the first track. If we have some repetition this time, we are heading towards very memorable.

Pigeon Cadaver - Danphy Fanpy

I can imagine listening Pigeon Cadaver for an entire album. The atmosphere created by such beat oriented music is extraordinary when you are used to not having the beat as the main instrument.

Danphy consists of a hardhitting heavy metal-like beat with a small vague african voodoo vibe. Some doom interludes to launch a what? Galloping beat!? Again the great beats are a bit wasted of having no repetition of the most juicy parts, but another beat flowing after each other. Fluently, and definitely the track stays surprisingly interesting even without any melody.

Playing with nuns - Links to your parlante´s

Harsh Noise. A vision of an object trying to rise from liquid jelly: scratching on psychedelic colors the jelly reflecting glimmers. falls back inside the water, twists disproportionately to different directions. Ends midst of movement.

praytor - live your life

Ambient noise. Why not. Lots of intersting manouvers. Eclectic.

praytor - kogiga woodlands

For noise this is surprisingly calming. Fitting japanese samples and gentle white noise. Effortless.

praytor - melodii

Continues praytor's ambient noise aspects, with a real start up melodii reminding of a really fucked up wind instrument. The calming ambient wears off at 1.15 with evil sounds. Entertaining.

praytor - a name in death

The gentle white noise seems to be an ongoing topic of praytor.

praytor - gypsy curse

Yes there is a gypsy reminding melody in the background. Praytor is pleasant background music noise. Hell in a perfect world in the elevators of any regular mall, you would listen Praytor.

Purulent Headache - Brutal EBM

Expecting something VERY brutal, but... Haha, brilliant laughs. Slow europop with cookie monster growling. Another thing i never imagined of existing. Reminds a lot of a band called Nightsatan and one of their main idologies: "Laser metal or horror pop".

Purulent Headache - Clot of seminal fluid

Purulent Headache is a truly thrilling project! Oh my god, what a deep growl! Getting even lower than Demilich (oldschool death metal band from the 1990s). Another thing i did not know was possible. At least not naturally... I reckon this growl must be edited, Demilich got pretty far down, without any editing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxizB02d0gE) growling starting at 0.30.

Raiding The Crimson Tides - From A Grave (Feat Falcon Pawnch!!!)

Death metal and deathcore mixtured. The sounds are nice and muddy, except for the machinized drums. The deep growling is competent, the higher is clearly a notch down, though maybe it is just the deathcore aspect in that sound which brings it down for me. 1.27-2.00 offers an original breakdown with good guitar and synth melodies entwining. Unfortunately only for a short while as that was clearly the best moment of this track and showed that there is promise. The chorus and the synth melody are not very exceptional, however the synth manages successfully to avoid the worse casio sound.

A good break amidst all the completely electronic music. Will i listen this song another time? Probably once.

RedSK - Acoustics And LSD Part 2 (Feat. TJ Greggs & Lady Cumdumpster)

A guy playing off-tune guitar, laughing. The melody closes off being on tune but manages to avoid it. Idiotic. The 2:19 part is awesome. Clearly lots of fun (for about 5 seconds). I started laughing even before the music burst out of laughs. This is not ominous but Im sure this stuff would terrify any basic person on LSD. Im surprised if they weren't terrified themselves.

RedSK - Live Segment Beat Up Tape 1

Rising soundwave sliding pitch shift featuring inhuman cookiemonster

RedSK - Pretty Asian Painted Toenail (RedSK Remix)

Wrap the ace toaa toaa wrap the ace tooaatoaaa. This IS ominous.

RedSK - I Wanna Fuck That One Chick That Screams In Iwrestledabearonce

THIS is the very essence of Redsk's noise-sound. Raping loud soundwaves which are repeating in small sections inside each other. Volume changes are notable, this time the quiet section is in the very end.. Song ends soon enough for you to want a relisten.

The collection is free to download at: http://archive.org/details/TFR366-VA-FuckYourSpeakers2

Fuck your spankers!

Fuck Your Speakers VOL 2 Disc 3 // NMMREM V

Narrow-minded Metalhead reviews experimental music - V
[TFR366] Fuck Your Speakers Double Header Part I Disc 3

Confusing = Entertaining

I am going to disregard my normal reviewing habits this time and make a double header of reviews solely based on first impressions of MAMMOTH compilation FUCK YOUR SPEAKERS VOL. 2, which has been released by multiple weblabels.

Inspired by Kai Nobukos review in archive.org of Sirona Records MONOLITH compilation Sincerity Is The Key (http://www.archive.org/details/siro300VariousArtists-SincerityIsTheKey, free download *wink* *wink* *nudge* nudge*). I decided to do the same thing but cut out the "i love everything" -aspect and take the ground in my own pessimistic way.

In this first part I am reviewing the record a day after listening and the second part will be a track-by-track review.

So if I will offend you by listening your tracks without the needed insight and deep constellation im sorry. (Actually im not but when you are angry you can pretend you didnt see this sentence). However collections like this tend to be listened only once or twice, after which the listener may or may not pick up a few favourite tracks for more constant repetition.

Fuck Your Speakers 2 - Disc 3 - Orange Nippled Hedgehogs

Fuck Your Spankers?

No, Disc 3 doesn't actually have a name but the title looks better that way.

So I decided to pick up CD 3 and expectactions didn't surely rise when I noted that the tracks are in alphabetical order. After discussing this with an anonymous internet person (anonymous cause im not sure he wants his opinion public) it seems im not the only one who considers that a cheap option. By the way the person was tooth_eye.

With heavy heart I have to admit that I was very pleasantly surprised of the quality. Expecting more pure noisechaos the instant highlight was the wondrous glitchy vibes of Assassins in the Sky by Kanellos.

The variation, interest and weirdly even quality of FYS Disc 3 seemed notable and along with Kanellos top moments include brilliantly promising Godflesh-esque industrial metal by Marc Broude. To go with that Lucky Oddy's Wet Fuzz (2011 Mix), which for me is just plain fun with stupid vocal-performances, making it even funnier. Is the guy really singing the extremely high-pitched vocals 1:08 onwards. Or is it a melody?

Lord of Sp33d's entertaining nintendo-speedcore piece also provides some giggles. A harsh beat with a Nintendo-melody always brings a smile on my face. I will also send cheers to "Umilaj Czas Czy Pedofil To Szum Widelczykowy Kutas", actually mainly cause I fucking love the sound of Polish letters. I cannot really be the only one who finds Polish extremely fascinating, especially when theres 4-5 consonants in a row. And hey the track itself also sounds clearly above average noise with lots of stuff happening.

Im likewise quite sure that mECHONATHEREG's Activate Damage's main riff is stolen from Doom! And I love that riff. Instant kicks! Otherwise the track belongs to the weaker side of the entity mainly because of the annoying vocals. I know, I must be a fucking sovinist as I can rarely stand screaming female punk / indie / vocals sang with attitude. However the male vocalist isn't making things any better. Talking about vocal performances, Machinoir = nice chaotic arrangement, but weak drum sounds and deathcore vocals, no thanks. Another vocal style I cannot stand.

The second mECHONATHEREG, Snipe hunt has a CRUSHING and so professional main riff it sounds like its stolen from somewhere. Unfortunately, this song either, is instrumental. After mechetaeytaqolgrep comes up Mitä? with two oddities. These tracks stand in the midst of the crushing sextet of Marc Broude, mECHONATHEREG and Mortal Void, making them largely inefficient.

Picking up the other weakest pieces is also surprisingly easy. The lovelily disgustingly named Lady Cumdumpster's Mothafucka!!! (Feat. Chasing Stupid) feels to have already reached the stupidity. Do I have to mention that her last.fm profile picture looks awfully out of place for such an artist name? Is that two 16 year old chicks singing Elton John? On second though. if that or similar indeed is the case the picture suddendly became fucking amazing.

Out of the blue. Mortal Void The Great Pretending sounds fucking solid on the second go, but on the first I got too overwhelmed by again, Last.fm. Just look at this artist-description (I cut the samples freely this is not the whole text):

"What is a mortal void?
It exists within a soul

It creates and destroys.
It loves and hates.
It lives and dies."

Seriously. Only the French can come up with artistic shit like that and Mortal Void isn't even French. Funnily, not seeing the Last.fm, my girlfriend commented that Mortal Void sounds like bodybuilding music imagining a big guy lifting weights and grunting. Not a far fetched image though im not sure if the body building-type can relate to Mortal Void's poetic imaginary. Probably they can as I cannot and im skinny as fuck.

Mutant Beatniks' drift also drifted largely past (lamest pun of the day) me as the huge volume difference to Mortal Void ate its power. Again, after second listen sounds like it could grow to be a fine track.

However none of the weaker tracks are without merit and some in their weakness actually provide a giggle to us fine folk who enjoy our bad music with the good. Entertaining entity with lots of variation, could even work as a background music for beer-drinking. For an open minded person wanting to have a mindfuck this CD is a great place to start. Mind expanding drugs may come next but don't ask me where to get them.

Overall score: 7/10

Overall ranking so far

1. Master Toad & Pollux - Offer Their Souls
2. Golden Cloud & O.S.I.S. - Split
3. Alex Spalding - Amos In Flames
4. Fuck Your Speakers VOL 2 Disc 3
5. V3Rb tH3 N0un - Th3 dUbsT3p d3m0

Alex Spalding - Amos In Flames // NMMREM IV

Narrow-minded Metalhead reviews experimental music - IV
[Siro177] Alex Spalding - Amos In Flames

A few months ago I noted quite a lot of cheers and satisfied listeners of Alex Spalding's effort Amos in Flames, which is why I decided to give it a real chance. Alex Spalding is the owner of the label Noise-Joy and has been actively releasing albums and committing to the underground music scene since 2006.

First impression, the refreshing cover art, gives Amos In Flames a headstart. Amos in flames equips my favourite kind of underground cover style, a blurry image. To make things better, the image is stylishly topped with cool oldschool font and lines.

It is only natural that also the music impresses instantly. Amos in Flames is quite a varied album and gets an ambient and promising start in Golden Ships, followed by oddly shortly ending, but extremely pretty, Funeral Flowers which leaves you hungring for more. Turns out this track seems to shape out much of the album in an unfortunate way. Many tracks, for example Succor and In Essence seem to either end too soon or sound like sketches in need of a few more layers. And amongst them there are a few jewels which sound a lot more ready than the rest.

My clear personal favourite is the 4th track, Glimmer. It is packed with an hypnotic beat and excellent varying ambience making its 6 minute length feel like 3 minutes. It would be a perfect track for a demo (demoscene, "non-interactive multimedia presentation made within the computer").

After the wonderful first 4 tracks Bluelids / Breaking Apart isnt a worthy successor and Succor, while having interesting variety and a beautiful background melody sounds like an unfinished track. It could become a fine one if worked on though.

Disappointing and and in essence are made of similar fruity loops -reminding sound and not much happening under an okayish background. Where did all that glimmer go so soon? Amongst the way to the end, Crushing Spirit brings more bread to the table with a danceable rhythm, making the biggest peak in the "just ok" mid-album 25 minutes.

Just when you think the record has said everything, the 13th track Nazca flows into psychedelic oddbeat. The track starts off with dreamlike enticing ambience and turns on a wicked and odd beat, giving you some examples what Alex Spalding can do when he is on his game. Unfortunately unlike Glimmer the beat doesn't hold its ground and lingers along a bit too much (probably cause its odd and when you've listened to for a while it stops being odd and loses catchiness), making this track good instead of great.

Following its name the 15th and last track 5th Cup - Divinorum has an extremely druggy feel. Starting a buildup it sets out its ground ready to explode... But instead keeps tripping up and down on acid and turning up new melodies and oddness. As a sistertrack to Nazca it closes up the album in a memorable manner. 

All in all Amos in flames is an interesting piece of work and if you can find your way through all sketch-like tracks it delivers some fine nighttime music. With more self-criticism, it could have been an excellent ep. Had Alex Spalding read my mind and only released the 7 clearly better songs Amos In Flames would surely be a contender for my top 10 albums of 2011.

Overall score: 7½/10

Download the release: http://www.archive.org/details/siro177AlexSpalding-AmosInFlames


Overall ranking so far (Hell, do I actually like anything else than nighttime music?)

1. Master Toad & Pollux - Offer Their Souls
2. Golden Cloud & O.S.I.S. - Split
3. Alex Spalding - Amos In Flames
4. V3Rb tH3 N0un - Th3 dUbsT3p d3m0


Narrow-minded Metalhead reviews experimental music, why?

Being an avid underground rock/metal listener and huge fan in finding new music and genres I stumbled to TRASHFUCK Records, RedSK and their noise in 2009. A lot of their releases at best make me bored, scared and entertained at the same time. This impressesed me to try out more of the weblabel scene and introduced me to Sirona Records' Arnaud. I decided to start reviewing electronic music records after I realized Im really not sure what is going on in half of Sironas' releases.

Im trying to give my humble opinions on some new music, whose genres, I may or may not have any familarity, but sure thing is they are far from my normal music grounds. I have a feeling, if by chance I happen to stumble to albums with genre titles like "rave" "deathcore" or "techno", I might have a hard time saying a single positive thing, but nevermind that. You can always bypass it by the fact that im just narrow-minded metalhead reviewing experimental music.

Electronic artists which I can say im a fan of are few, but some. Including Venetian Snares, Scorn, Nothing, Boris Clitoris / The Amoeba, Master Toad, Godflesh, Slagsmålsklubben. P.S. I know its hip to hate dubstep nowadays, but some dubstep can be mindblowing.

V3Rb tH3 N0un - Th3 dUbsT3p d3m0 // NMMREM III

Narrow-minded Metalhead reviews experimental music - III
[Siro187] V3Rb tH3 N0un - Th3 dUbsT3p d3m0

My First Wub Wub Re cord/view

I've never dag deeper on dubstep except a few uninteresting tracks, Scorn's majestic Stealth -album and occasional Skrillex track (from which Scatta is the only one that i've listened outside of beer-infused-moments).

However lately, from a reliable source, I came to realize there indeed are a few categories!

Take a look: http://www.explosm.net/db/files/Comics/Rob/intervention.png

The actual review record The Dubstep demo falls heavily to the wub wub category. And that is just fine as it is where Scorn belongs too. First thing that cames to my mind after encountering the record is why sane people still use numbers in their titles? It does not look cool for people 15+, in fact, vice versa. Secondly, the cover photo is pretty damn cool. A bit 2000s (probably cause of the paint shop pro reminding text) but cool, glitchy. Love it.

The beginning of the first, rather randomly named track, dooF esenihC, gives an image that the music is produced better than it actually is. Anyway promising beginning, but after a while it becomes obvious this basic beat isn't going to hold for a long time. The drop lacks the unexpectedness and doesn't fill the soundvoid like a supreme drop is supposed to. Varying background noises don't make it significantly better (even though they are much more interesting than the drop itself), nor do the dapdapdap dabadada breaks. Thank god the track progresses into a nintendo-like intermission at 3 minute mark because the constant repetition makes it drag badly. Much more interesting. Then we "progress" back to the oh-so-boring wubwub drop. Allright, brains off.

My brains turn back on itself as the second track type03, inflates me with some Scorn-like darkstep sounds. So much better! Atmospheric. Unfortunately the track takes a hippier aspect with the 1 minute break. Then on comes the next break, furthering the downward spiral into another less interesting part. The package ends like it started, only now it sounds uninteresting and off-place. The structure of the song is in need of serious finetuning.

Third track is finally something fresh! Hungryshima is CHAOTIC with lots of breakcore edge and filled with cool noises and distinctive melodies! First part ends to a rather sick random break. This drop has so much more than the previous. OUCH THE TREBLE! Not dubstep for the masses thats for sure but for a noisehead this is pretty amazing. The end is absolutely sick too. Maybe a bit more volume-balancing should have been done with the obscure sounds? When listening this with headphones it is generally advised to turn the sound down so the trebles won't bust your eardrums.

On the next track, dubstep with a mario clip, the perverse chaotism of Hungryshima is long gone. This track takes a a basic wub-wub approach, sounding unfinished. Same goes for the last track, which has nothing more than an interesting title. It is just screaming for some proper south london grime vocals. At least it made me google the genre grime to see what the hell it is.

All in all, the release has a feel of being "my-first-dubstep-record" as it delivers a very random package and odd unfinished tracks. Thus the name "Dubstep demo" suits it well and you can't really expect the quality of a normal ep from a demo.

I have no will to put most of the tracks on my playlist but the throughoutly entertaining Hungryshima is for sure going to visit it regularly. If I have to pick a throughoutly mediocre release or mostly uninteresting release with one great track, I'll pick the latter any time.

Overall score: 5+/10

Download the release: http://www.archive.org/details/siro187V3rbTh3N0un-Th3Dubst3pD3m0


Overall ranking so far (I listen to enough dubstep to have MORE than 2 sub-categories!)

1. Master Toad & Pollux - Offer Their Souls
2. Golden Cloud & O.S.I.S. - Split
3. V3Rb tH3 N0un - Th3 dUbsT3p d3m0


Narrow-minded Metalhead reviews experimental music, why?

Being an avid underground rock/metal listener and huge fan in finding new music and genres I stumbled to TRASHFUCK Records, RedSK and their noise in 2009. A lot of their releases at best make me bored, scared and entertained at the same time. This impressesed me to try out more of the weblabel scene and introduced me to Sirona Records' Arnaud. I decided to start reviewing electronic music records after I realized Im really not sure what is going on in half of Sironas' releases.

Im trying to give my humble opinions on some new music, whose genres, I may or may not have any familarity, but sure thing is they are far from my normal music grounds. I have a feeling, if by chance I happen to stumble to albums with genre titles like "rave" "deathcore" or "techno", I might have a hard time saying a single positive thing, but nevermind that. You can always bypass it by the fact that im just narrow-minded metalhead reviewing experimental music.

Electronic artists which I can say im a fan of are few, but some. Including Venetian Snares, Scorn, Nothing, Boris Clitoris / The Amoeba, Master Toad, Godflesh, Slagsmålsklubben. P.S. I know its hip to hate dubstep nowadays, but some dubstep can be mindblowing.