For Hallowe’en

Happy Hallowe’en, All Hallows’ Eve, Samhain and Hop-tu-Naa, one and all.

May your ectoplasm run freely and copiously.

Some soundtracks for the day when the veil is thin…

First, The Heartwood Institute on amazing form:

Second, some a dark ritual in the forest from the Russian label Black Mara:

Next up, the opening titles to a film, ‘Bethany’s Cradle’, that was never made, by Klaus Morlock:

And then one of the many stand-out tracks from a brilliant compilation from Burning Witches Records:

And then we must leave you with the traditional dodgy goff. And probably one of the lowest budget videos ever made:

 

Party today and tonight, because tomorrow you die…

 

 

The Mortlake Bookclub: Exquisite Corpse

The Mortlake Bookclub are a shadowy collective whose first release on the brilliant Reverb Worship label is “inspired and directed by the surrealist parlour game Exquisite Corpse” wherein each collaborator adds to the previous person’s output. One of these members is Melmoth the Wanderer. Add to the mix a reading group centred around Dr. Dee’s library and surrealism, and you won’t be surprised to hear I was hooked immediately.

Opener, ‘The Sexton’s Dream’ sets the phantasmagoric tone beautifully: hazed and throbbed electrics, distanciated plucking and a spoken sample that is as threatening as it is cautionary. And it’s this sample that places the Exquisite Corpse squarely in a spectral rurality, where half-glimpsed simulacrums spook and uncanny survivals pervade.

‘Live Deliciously’ has ritual purpose. And I say this in a the same way an archaeologist digs into the land, finds something that can only be surmised as significant, and deems it a ritual object. Here this translates into a vague sense and aural awareness of a ceremonial performance whose importance and meaning is both enlivened and obscured by a resonant dissonance and distant chants. Only a tolling bell gives some clarity that a ritual is happening or has happened here. And no amount of polishing your obsidian stone will allow a clearer view.

With its swirling strings and baritone spoken word, ‘Exquisite Corpse’ could not be more haunting. The reversed voices, the shards of whispered narration, the funereal atmosphere – it’s definitively one of the heart-rending and poignant pieces of music I’ve heard in years. In short, it’s incredible.

With samples from – I think – this documentary, final piece ‘The Trial of Margaret Brown’, tells of witchcraft and cunning folk, and brilliantly envelopes and haunts like its predecessors.

Exquisite Corpse is available here in a limited and desirable edition. It’s on its second run so be quick

Here’s a sampler:

Sack of Streams #12: For Hallowe’en

 

Here we are again, that time of encroaching darkness. So happy All Hallow’s Eve, Samhain, Hop-tu-naa, Nos Galan Gaeaf, Blodmonath or Goth Xmas, to you all. Here’s some music to soundtrack the revenants, that scream in the forest and to honour the Great Divide.

Probably our best yet…

(photo by angrybonbon)

Katharine Norman’s stunning sound sculpture:

Night of the Living Dead re-scored:

Creeping haunted wyrd folk from The Hare And The Moon:

EMA on scoring duties for #HORROR:

Mater Suspiria Vision in all out giallo shocker:

House in the Woods. Our Head Technician again?

Creeping haunted wyrd folk The Hare And The Moon:

Tuonela on spooked drone duty:

Terrifying  noise Brilliance from The Dead End Street Band:

And of course, to finish, the customary dodgy Goff. Here we have the Sisters covering Hot Chocolate. Yes, you read that right.

Sweet Dreams…

Oscillotron: Cataclysm

Swedish metal is not something we cover here at BBO terraces. However, when one of said fraternity – in this case David Johansson, front-man of KONGH – delivers a beautifully menacing six tracks of synthscapes, you take note.

The wonder of this album, as with most horror-synth workouts, lies in its affective simplicity: many tracks are constructed through uncomplicated leads dancing with grace across foreboding swirls of sound. The stunning ‘Pioneers’ illustrates this perfectly with eddying and airy melodies giving way to eldritchian peril with real bravura. Three note leads evolve with ominous resonance, as siren-call chords warn of some hideous transformation of matter on ‘Mutation’. And the delightful choral eeriness and zombie pacings of ‘Terminal’ and ‘Cataclysm’ can only spell creeping fear.

Four years on from the also brilliant first album Eclipse, Oscillotron’s return seems to be immensely well-timed: John Carpenter playing ATP in Iceland in July and touring later in the year; Goblin performing their soundtracks live; and the likes of Ubre Blanca, Umberto and Zombi in our midst – this is a very good time to be a fan of the horror-synth nexus.

Buy Cataclysm here (from May 27th or pre-order now). Do it now before some killer virus lays us all to waste.

You’ve been warned.

Happy May Day!

Happy May Day, readers!

From Darren Hayman’s excellent album of last year, based on William Morris’s Chants for Socialists…

Colossloth: Outstretch Your Hand for the Impress of Truth

So you go to a pub in another city and drink. Complete strangers (a couple) join you at the table. You somehow get chatting (band T-shirts = the ultimate ice-breaker). The conversation turns (inevitably in my world) to music. “What sort of stuff you into?” the gentleman asks. “Oh, sort of electronic, noisy, rocky stuff”, I respond. “Such as?” [Thinks of best way in]. ”Umm, Teeth of the Sea?” “Oh, I’ve supported them.” “GNOD?” “Yep. Supported them as well.”

Enter Colossloth. A bloke I met in the pub in Birmingham. Who gave me a CD of his latest offerings. Was this chance meeting meant to be? Such musings are beyond our remit.

Outstretch Your Hand for the Impress of Truth has blown me away.

Opener ‘The Flavour of the Weak’ has it all: menaced drones, shards of sharpened static, treated guitar, face-disfiguring crunching oscillators. ‘Your Flag Stands for Nothing’ is a sonic pummelling that sees a jack hammer bass obliterating idiotic nationalism, both overt and banal, whilst knives sharpen and cut away at apparent ‘stirring’ patriotic orchestrals.

What engorges the soul here is the plethora of questions that arise as you experience the assembled noises: where did that sound came from? What was its original form? What variety of torture has been performed upon it? What Hammond Organ was cruelly, yet brilliantly, maimed to make the inserts on the album’s title track? Is this the recollection of a significantly bad day in Blackpool?

The disturbing undertow to ‘The World Keeps Turning (On Me)’ could well be a voice detuned and stretched to intimidating proportions. The riff on ‘Of Talons and Teeth’ is incredible in its visceral abrasions. The circular feedback on ‘Paint Her Face to Simulate the Bloom’ is pure pleasure and the most sublime pain. ‘The Nameless Saint’ stands out with its devastatingly heart-wrenched piano and high frequency whines. It’s the closest thing to soundtracking death’s inevitability that I have heard for a long while. Both terror and redemption are here.

This is superb uneasy listening in the vein of Haxan Cloak, a more considered Merzbow perhaps, with echoes of Fennesz.

It’s essential. PURCHASE

Both Bars On: Top Thirty Records of 2015

2015. Our seventh end of year list, this time augmented by our two new writers, Matt and Pete. Which means double the confusion and argument, though actually our choices overlapped more than usual. Sort of. Anyway, you don’t need to know about the infighting, gerrymandering and filibustering that went on behind the scenes – someday it will make a great film but now you just want to know about the List, right?

This year it’s our top thirty records, to fit in all the choices of the four of us. It’s an eclectic mix, though it has the signature BBO elements you have come to know and love – well, OK, know and shake your head over while muttering “you boys”. In a disappointed way. But it’s very definitely us – the new, improved, BBO us.

Feast your mince pies on this little lot.

In the bubbling under category: Downtown Boys: Full Communism; King Khan and BBQ Show: Bad News Boys; Dead Sea Apes: Spectral Domain; Thomas Brinkmann: What You Hear (Is What You Hear).

Reissues: British Sea Power: Decline of British Sea Power; Super Furry Animals: Mwng

30. HOX: Duke of York

29. White Hills: Walks For Motorists

28. Het Droste Effect: Soar

27. Container: LP

26. Steve Hauschildt – Where All Is Fled

25. GNOD: Infinity Machines

24. Tim Bowness: Stupid Things That Mean The World

23. Girl Band: Holding Hands With Jamie

22. Diebenkorn: Magnox

21. Bad Guys: Bad Guynaecology

20. Pega Monstro: Alfarroba 

Distortion, zippy tunes and reflective scuzzy ambience from Lisbon’s Julia and Maria Reis.

19. KoMaRa: KoMoRa

Industrial drumming, dark riffs and atmospheric noises; it is truly, in the bands own words, a “dark, deviant and explicit detective story”.

18.  Sufjan Stevens: Carrie and Lowell

Heartbreaking, immmensely affecting songwriting, bringing beauty out of sorrow.

17. Outblinker: Pink/Blue

Menacing but ecstatic, juddering but groovy, starting small but ending huge, you could dance to it, but you wouldn’t in public.

16. Evan Caminiti: Meridien

Drones, crackling static, dark pulses and minimal percussive elements – a horror soundtrack for a post apocalyptic landscape.

15. Sauna Youth: Distractions

As we said, “Short sharp post-punk pop songs, propelled by insistent no wave guitars”, and more besides.

14. Orlando & Tomaga: Play Time: Music for Video Games

Out in the space forest, the neon frogs are looking for romance to a bossanova beat, before boarding the interstellar cruise – but the slomo robo crew are still marching over the tarmac, nodding and calling to themselves as they come.

13. Ultimate Painting: Green Lanes

On very heavy rotation at the London office this year, this is guitar music full of pop hooks and irresistible harmonies.

12. Godspeed You! Black Emperor: Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress

Decried by some, celebrated herein, this album rekindled our love of the Montreal titans (and was semi-religious performed live).

11. British Sea Power: Sea of Brass

Performed by BSP and a full brass band, these songs become something completely different, capturing something of the live spectacle.

10. Heroin in Tahiti: Sun and Violence

Well this came from seemingly nowhere, but was a stunning tour-de-force that left us partly uplifted and partly disturbed.

9. Titus Andronicus: The Most Lamentable Tragedy 

A rock opera about manic depression and um I don’t know in five acts, this is also a collection of exactly the kind of rabble-rousing songs you were hoping for from one of the smartest and most interesting guitar bands in America.

8. Steven Wilson: Hand. Cannot. Erase.

A huge brooding slab of a concept album, about a woman who chooses to disconnect from society in a big city and whose disappearance goes unnoticed. Wilson’s output is getting better and better with each album.

7. Parastatic: Recall Fade Return

Reverby twangy echoey tuney goodness, with a beat that cries out to be drummed on the steering wheel over the Pennines.

6. Adderall Canyonly: Beneath The Crystal Canyon A Spark Remains

Adderall Canyonly has practically owned 2015. Stupidly prolific, it was between this and Museum of Fire as a pick for our list. Beneath The Crystal Canyon A Spark Remains reveals an almost sickening level of talent.

 

5. Du Blonde: Welcome Back to Milk

Power ballads, anger, music-hall silliness, tenderness – Beth Jeans Houghton’s incredible voice made it all sound so natural. An unexpected best of the year for one of us.

4. Zombi: Shape Shift

Living fully up to the hyped expectations, Shape Shift kept the funked horror and progressive rhythms. They’ve never sounded tighter and more exciting. And that last track, ‘Siberia II’…Oh. My/Our. Word!

3. John Carpenter: Lost Themes

The master returns. There was much excitement from at least half of BBO when John Carpenter’s first ever non-soundtrack album was released, and the lack of a film to tie these songs to doesn’t detract from Carpenter’s ability to terrify and amaze us in equal measures with his signature horror sounds. A simply sublime album.

2. Ubre Blanca: The Sadist

Horror theme this year? You betcha phantasmagoric bits there is! This Glaswegian duo simply blew us away with their Occult rock and spooked atmospheres. Incredible release and no mistake.

1. Teeth of the Sea: Highly Deadly Black Tarantula

They did it in 2013 with Master and they’ve taken our highly prized top spot again. With HDBT, Teeth of the Sea retained something of their former selves but evolved into something more cerebral, yet guttural, sweaty and appealingly disfigured. As all truly great albums do, it just gets better and better with every listen. Brilliant. Really and actually, very brilliant.

 

So you can do yourself a big end-of-the-year favour and go buy some or all of the above albums. They are available from shops and sites – independent ones, big shiny ones, online ones (who pay their taxes), ones where there isn’t really a shop but you have to email some bloke. We like buying records – actually, we really do. And we think you should too.

Merry Xmas and a happy Newest Year one and all.

angrybonbon, JKneale, matthewpetty & Pete Collins

Teeth of the Sea: Highly Deadly Black Tarantula

The announcement of a new Teeth of the Sea release is always a seismic event round these parts. I think it’s fair to say they’re a band that unites all four of us in effervescent delight having fan-gushed over their previous albums (here, here and here). With the news of Highly Deadly Black Tarantula a collective ‘Ye Gods! YES!’ could be heard in Manchester, London and Abu Dhabi.

If ‘classic TOTS’ is now a permissible phrase, opener ‘All My Venom’ is such. It feels like a nod to classics (yes, I can use that) such as ‘Swear Blind The Alsatian’s Melting’ as trumpet, guitars, drones, and beats build and weave. What amounts to the single from the album, ‘Animal Manservant’, is even more venomous than its predecessor, with vocals akin to a catatonic fit, macerating beats and the lightest of stargazing melodies. If Perc were to collab (as the kids call it) with Keith Emerson I think this would be the mutated, but nonetheless lovable, offspring.

‘Field Punishment’ is the standout on this release. A chest thumping robotic funk, it’s EBM for an ageing rave generation and conjures images of TOTs bedecked in crisp white vests with legs spread in heroic übermensch stances (and a whole host of other Front 242 or Frontline Assembly imaginings). That’s probably not what they’re going for, but there’s no accounting for interpretation is there?

‘Have You Ever Held A Bird of Prey’ reveals the confidence of the band: four of its seven and half minutes are composed of a bare throb before it erupts into another dirty pulsating rhythm interspersed with keyhole surgery guitars. Please note: I give you those timings deliberately as the exploding of the upbeat section has caught me unawares on numerous occasions (twice involving hot coffee). It’s that moment in Jaws when the heads rolls out – you know it’s coming, but it doesn’t mean you won’t jump.

‘Phonogene’ continues the TOTs tradition of experimental tracks with human voices; this time it sounds like an answering machine having a bastard of a day.  Final track ‘Love Theme for 1984’ finds the band in more melancholic and poignant mood: a beautiful evolving slab of kosmic Berlin School, with hints of Klaus Schulze and Edgar Froese, brought together by tremolo guitar and distant brass melodies. As a final track ‘Responder’ it ain’t, but expecting something similar is a tad unfair.

Indeed, whilst Highly Deadly Black Tarantula is no Master in its overriding impact, it’s still undoubtedly and by far and away one of the best things you’ll hear all year. And that’s something we can all agree on. BUY

 

 

Sack of Streams #10: For Hallowe’en

Time for our annual celebration of the thinning of the veil and all that is, basically, a bit Goff. So happy All Hallow’s Eve, Samhain, Hop-tu-naa, Nos Galan Gaeaf, Blodmonath or Goth Xmas, to you all. Here’s some music to soundtrack the night, the phantasmagorical, and the darker arts.

First up, the magickal Wizards Tell Lies with nigh on forty minutes of darkly ethereal sonic mesmerism:

Second, we have eighty minutes of necronomiconal drone dedicated to, nay attempting to invoke, the Great Old One. (Eighty minutes, really? Yes, R’lyeh. I thank you. Here all week. Don’t eat the squid):

Next, with its refrain of ‘Through the trees, witches wander there’, ex-Stereolab member Morgane Lhote as Hologram Teen, evokes all sorts of pastoral horror and straight-to-VHS nasties on this top tune:

Celluloid horror flicks are referenced more directly in this mix by Ryan M Todd; one of six mixes he has done made up of soundtracks from the familiar and to the downright obscure. Brilliant stuff and ends on a real, umm, high! (And listen to the rest while your at it):

And here it comes…watch out…the traditional slab of dodgy Goff for your displeasure:

Have an evil one.

Ubre Blanca: The Sadist

In the lead up to Hallowe’en, it seems apt to finally get round to reviewing this stunning EP/album by Ubre Blanca (out on the ever reliable Giallo Disco Records). If you don’t want to read any more of this review, then your take-home message is that this is a stonking slab of Goblin Carpentry with all the bravura dramatics and creeping atmospherics you could want, and then some. Go buy it.

‘The Sadist’ will be many people’s flagship tune from this release: sinister surveillance pervades the first half, replete with synth sweeps, power chord crashes and anxious drone builds, until it gives way to an upping of the tempo, as something intent on doing its hideous worst closes in on its prey. It’s ace. ‘The Quarry’ accentuates the VHS aesthetic with woozy pulses that succeed in scoring a sense of urgency across the skin and synapses, whilst Mellotrons tell of something supernatural in the air.

Some may baulk at the ominous glockenspiel-esque opening to ‘Fear of God’, but the sheer dramatism of the song as it erupts into life engenders a knowing smile and a desire for theatrical posturing. It’s a tune that reveals that Ubre Blanca know exactly what they are doing with The Sadist and are doing it with a knowing sense of origins and genre. ‘Saeta’ places Flamenco theatre and passion firmly in the horror soundscape and acts as brilliant prelude to the exquisite closing credits of ‘Invocation’ – all shards of ghostly choirs, tensed drums and grieving synths.

When The Sadist finishes it is difficult not to stand up, clap furiously and scream ‘Bravo! Bravo!’ in some cod posh accent befitting the realms of High Culture. Given that Ubre Blanca obviously found their inspiration in B-movie slashers and bucket-bin horror, you realise how far this release can take you. Problem is, you may never come back.

 

‘Fear of God’: