How To Destroy Angels - How To Destroy Angels EP

New Trent Reznor band named after a Coil song. You know its got to be good!

Pitchfork says:

When Trent Reznor made the decision last year to put Nine Inch Nails on hold indefinitely in order to pursue new projects, the assumption was that whatever he had planned next would be a significant departure from the music he had been making under the NIN name. Reznor had already shown signs of restlessness and an eagerness to move beyond his band's core aesthetic, most obviously on the all-instrumental Ghosts I-IV box set. It stood to reason that he was about to reinvent himself, and given his good taste and formidable talent as a musician, the prospect was very exciting.
As it turns out, he wasn't too interested in a full creative transformation. How to Destroy Angels, the self-titled debut of his new trio featuring his wife and ex-West Indian Girl singer Mariqueen Maandig and his regular collaborator Atticus Ross, essentially sounds just like a Nine Inch Nails record, with the only major difference being that Reznor has turned over lead vocal duty to Maandig. Even that is a relatively superficial change. Somewhat disappointingly, Reznor's first major project with an outside vocalist-- aside from his gigs as a producer for Marilyn Manson and Saul Williams-- doesn't involve him exploring new approaches to integrating vocals into his music or working with a singer capable of performances far beyond his own range, but instead has him writing parts for Maandig that stick to his usual melodic style and phrasing. Reznor had integrated a female voice into his music once before, on "La Mer" from 1999's The Fragile, and the result wasn't entirely different from what we have here: a softer, more feminine gloss on Reznor's established style.
This isn't a bad thing. Over the course of two decades, Reznor has expanded his repertoire to the point that his music is instantly recognizable even if he avoids the sort of all-caps declarative screaming that characterized Nine Inch Nails' biggest hits. How to Destroy Angels skips over that aspect of Reznor's work entirely, instead placing its emphasis on plaintive downtempo ballads and tracks dense with rhythm and harsh electronic noise. The songs in the latter category take sounds explored on more recent NIN records to interesting extremes-- "Fur Lined" is like a dizzier version of "Only" from With Teeth; "The Believers" further explores the glitchy, discordant textures of Year Zero; "Parasite" includes some of the filthiest guitar noise in Reznor's discography.
When the songs move further away from rhythm and atmosphere, Maandig's flaws as a vocalist become more apparent. Her voice is pleasant and well suited to the material, but she is somewhat lacking in character. When she sings the opening track "The Space in Between", her cadence is similar enough to that of Reznor that it's easy to just imagine his more distinct voice singing it instead. In some ways, the EP is like an inadvertent argument in favor of Reznor as a vocalist, proving its value to his music by omitting it almost entirely. When his voice turns up, as when he shadows Maandig's parts with a faint whisper on "BBB", it adds a weight and sexual tension to the music that is preferable to her all on her own.
Reznor is his comfort zone here, but that could be part of the point of the project in the first place. Without having to promote this as a Nine Inch Nails record, he's allowed to make greater risks, but he can also enjoy lower stakes. Future How to Destroy Angels releases may find him and his collaborators going further out into unfamiliar territory, but the contents of this EP mostly sound like Reznor working through musical ideas in the studio with his wife and his right-hand man-- being himself and doing his thing with some people he trusts. The changes that are apparent are subtle and incremental, and have more to do with feeling out the mechanics of collaboration and shaking off unnecessary outside pressures than aiming for something fresh and radical. It's not Reznor's best or boldest work, but it's a promising first step down a new path.
— Matthew Perpetua, June 14, 2010

Download:

http://www.mediafire.com/?lwydyvyzijt

Trentemøller - Into The Great Wide Yonder

More oragnic than his previous releases, yet still maintains the sparse, electronic minimalism...

Pitchfork says:
Whether you like your beats to purr or roar, chances are there's something for you in Dane Anders Trentemøller's debut album The Last Resort in 2006. Trentemøller's always possessed the wide-ranging vision to balance minimal and maximal tech-house, as first evinced by his singles and hired-gun remix work with regional peers the Knife and Röyksopp. Now on Resort, his compositional range and palette of wintry textures are on full display. It's becoming increasingly obvious that Trentemøller accomplishes this by infinitely re-inventing combinations of a relatively scaled-down toolkit: The frequent intermingling of shadows of minimal techno beats, the cutting austerity of surf rock whammy dives, 8-bit orchestras swelling into static. It's maybe most charming that Resort throws everything but the kitchen sink at you, but "everything" could pass muster at your local supermarket's express aisle.
Such moody, humanistic motifs dominate Into the Great Wide Yonder. Surf-inspired reverb guitar dots the record's highlight tracks, especially on "Silver Surfer, Ghost Rider Go!!!", on which cymbals and synthetic handclaps ride a wave of guitar fuzz and synths into surprisingly psychedelic territory. Unfortunately, Yonder's further analog forays are met with sometimes mixed results. Featuring the vocal talents (!) of fellow Dane Marie Fisker, Yonder's first single "Sycamore Feeling" opens with sleigh bells and the strums of an acoustic guitar: not exactly your everyday Nordic producer-type cut. The happy accidents only occasionally hit paydirt, however, as Fisker's smoky vocals somehow manage to vamp awkwardly over the chorus. There's almost too much to process considering Trentemøller's studiously prepared low-key arrangement.
Throughout, Yonder's melo
dic sensibility is only occasionally led by vocalists, featuring the guest talents of Solveig Sandnes and Josephine Philip (also Danish) and Guillemots vocalist Fyfe Dangerfield, but at all points the collaborations want for Trentemøller's melodic instrumental sensibilities. Take "Neverglade", which under-utilizes Dangerfield's suitably dangerous yowl. The head Guillemot recalls echoes of Elliott Smith and incessantly repeats Pavement homages to the "weatherman's sign of crooked rain, crooked rain." His contribution's confused homage seems counterintuitive considering the co-collaborators' varied talents.
However, not all the tracks lack the verve of Trentemøller's best instrumental work. The closing "Tide"'s lilt, its piano, live percussion, and church-bell effects soar. Some of the record's instrumental tracks, conversely, distort Trentemøller's agnostic stance towards dancefloor beats and electronic textures. You certainly don't blame him for seeking his own analog path, but some of Yonder's instrumentals lean on variety at the expense of a compositional base. Take The Last Resort, released in October 2006: That singles comp was an autumn record that nevertheless pounded down (in its special-edition, two-disc glory) like a premature hundred and 50-minute winter. By comparison, Into the Great Wide Yonder toes the line: Either it's a cold and intricate mélange of kaleidoscopic, cybernetic styles, or it's a simple hot mess.
— Mike Orme, June 8, 2010

Download:

http://www.mediafire.com/?eiyzwdiy2do

The Caretaker - A Stairway to the Stars

So, who liked the movie The Shining? Of course, we all did! Imagine a lavishly sinister, deserted hotel that is haunted by the spirit of your previous life... This is what this album feels like to me: a haunting experience that takes me back in time... The Caretaker evokes a strong sense of place, tone, and mood. Culled from mutated samples of “forgotten” ballroom classics on the 1930s and 1940s, this is a collection of those very snippets of faded memories and hazy snapshots, ones so powerful and strong in their ability to burn into our minds that not even the passage of time can erase them.

The true strength of this album comes from the fact that rather than just conjuring that notion of a forgotten time, The Caretaker builds ballrooms for his tracks, and then populates them with the ghosts of aristocratic dancers of days gone by. The band is somewhere in the back while hallowed spirits wander back forth in slow motion, never breaking stride amidst a hazy ambient atmosphere. The record manages to sustain its overwhelming sense of loss and foreboding throughout the entire disc without ever lapsing into kitsch or obvious sentiment. Simply put, this is a most delightfully, surprising record, rife with emotion and eerily capable of painting clear pictures and sentiments with each subsequent listen. The tracks seem to become deeper and stronger each time out. It might be hard to take it all in one sitting, but you'll find very few discs as rewarding, intimate, and evocative as this one. Find it. Buy it. Play it with the lights down low and let the spirits enjoy it with you. Stairway To The Stars is a truly wonderful little gem that will have you dancing in the haunted ballroom, over and over again.

Download:
http://www.mediafire.com/?deanzzmgnnz

All Hail The Transcending Ghost - All Hail The Transcending Ghost (2009)

A joint collaboration between Henrik Nordvargr Björkk (MZ.412, Toroidh, Folkstorm etc) and Tim Bertilsson (Fear Falls Burning, Switchblade). Together the Swedish legends have created arguably one of the most haunting drone-dark-ambient-industrial works in recent years, invoking the spirits of old Nordvargr, meets the sludge-doom vibe of Tim's hellish guitar. This has to be the most unsettling work from Nordvargr, as the man himself states "truly the most scary music I have recorded". An icy chill down your spine... a cold hand on your shoulder... you are never alone in the darkness.

After one listen, this has become one of my favorite dark ambient albums! Imagine yourself in attendance at a nightmare scene: a large burned-out cathedral, eerie, shifting light... a disembodied voice occasionally implores a bleak prayer... an innocent soul corrupted and reincarnated as a being of evil...

Download:
http://www.mediafire.com/?lmo3yfnyyui

Henrik Nordvargr Björkk - I End Forever

How do you describe something that is unclassifiable in the traditional sense? Dark, electronic, futuristic soundscapes! Yeah, that sounds pretty good... perhaps I should add eclectic and engaging, as well as a deeply satisfying listen. I can't even recall how I discovered this musician, but in the short time since I was introduced to his works, I have managed to amass a collection that numbers at least 12 strong. Not much considering the large number of items in his catalog, but in my defense, he is exceedingly hard to find - at least in the amount of time I am willing to devote to hunting his works down. I highly recommend I End Forever; it is the most accessible album of Henrik Nordvargr Björkk that I have found to date. And now a little bio about the man himself...

Henrik Nordvargr Bjorkk has long dominated the postindustrial music genre with his multiple musical projects that breach numerous genres and musical styles. Henrik Nordvargr Bjorkk has lead such eminent musical projects as the black industrial MZ412, Hydra Head 9, and the now decommissioned Folkstorm as well as the legendary martial orchestral / ambient project Tordoih. Having penetrated so many domains of postindustrial music, it makes sense that Henrik would eventually leave his mark upon the dark ambient music arena. It is very telling when a musician who works under numerous personifications chooses to assign his own name to an individual project. Having led the assault under various monikers, it remains Henrik’s dark ambient music production that has earned the right to exclusively bear his name upon its title.

Download:
http://www.mediafire.com/?4mywymumzkt

Boards of Canada - Music Has The Right To Children

If you have been studiously following the journey through the music that I find most interesting, you have surely noticed that the last several posts may have been a wee bit hard to stomach - in fact, many would hesitate to call it music at all; so now I will be nice and present you with a classic album that promises to take you someplace pleasant... A little bit ambient, a little bit psychedelic, a little bit trip-hop.

Enjoy!

Here's what Pitchfork has to say:

Sometimes an album is so good and makes its case so flawlessly that it spawns a mini-genre of its own and becomes shorthand for a prescribed set of values. The Velvet Underground's third and Miles Davis' Bitches Brew are two older records that spring to mind, and I'd toss in Spiderland as well. It's not a long list, but somewhere on it belongs Boards of Canada's Music Has the Right to Children.

Boards of Canada's sound is not wholly original. Seeds of it can be found in Eno, Aphex Twin (in a big way), The Orb, and all over the home listening electronic scene that sprang up in the wake of Warp's Artificial Intelligence compilation. Boards uses drum machines, samplers, and an unfathomable collection of analog and digital synths, like others in their sphere. Their chords are typically gauzy ambient, their beats head-nodding downtempo. Properly speaking, they invented nothing.

And yet, the parts have never come together quite like this. The first thing to note is that Music Has the Right revealed Boards of Canada to be geniuses with texture, where god is in the details. The incredibly simple melody of the short "Bocuma" becomes a lump-in-the-throat meditation on man's place in the universe through subtle pitchshifts and just the right mist of reverb. The slow fade-in on "An Eagle in Your Mind" is the lonesome sound of a gentle wind brushing the surface of Mars moments after the last rocket back to Earth has lifted off. The long history of the electric piano was nothing but a lead-in to the tone Boards used on "Turquoise Hexagon Sun", the perfect evocation of a happy walk through the woods in an altered state. Every IDM artist since has at least once labored over their modular unit to get a patch that sounds like one of the many brilliant sounds found here.

Boards of Canada had released some singles and two EPs previous to this record's release, material which showed that they'd already developed their sound. But with Music Has the Right to Children, the duo set out to make a proper album, and approached the album from a rock perspective, carefully mixing and editing the track sequence, while drafting interludes and tightly restricting the palette. You aren't likely to hear more subtly effective layering of sounds on any electronic record in the last 10 years: Music Has the Right to Children is as unified and complete they come. Here, Boards of Canada set their sights on a small set of moods and characteristics-- innocence, apprehension, wonder, mystery-- and probed every possibility in minute detail.

What's it all about, then? "Childhood" is the usual answer, but that's not as easy a connection as it seems on the surface. The giggling voices of kids that crop up are a sure giveaway, as are the song titles ("Rue the Whirl", "Happy "Cycling"), but Music Has the Right to Children avoids the twinkling music box melodies that Múm has been coasting on for a while now. Boards managed to evoke childhood without seeming cute or twee. It's childhood not as it's lived but as we grown-ups remember it, at least those of us with less-than-fond recollections. The shades of darkness and undercurrents of tension accurately reflect the confusion of a time that cannot be neatly summed up with any one feeling or emotion.

When you discover that Boards of Canada took their name came from an organization committed to educational film, the overriding idea of their project clicks immediately into place; tapes with narration and incidental music accompanying filmstrips that were always damaged from age and overuse on poorly maintained equipment. The warbly pitch and warped voices mirrored the anxiety that came with the "carefree" days of being a kid and living subjugated by others. Boards of Canada tapped into the collective unconscious of those who grew up in the English speaking West and were talented enough to transcribe the soundtrack. No need to get hung up on specifics; however we lived and whoever we were, Music Has the Right to Children reflected back the truth for a lot of us. You can't ask more of an album than that.

—Mark Richardson, April 26, 2004

Download:

http://www.mediafire.com/?dymn2kizzmt

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Could you just leave a few words about your impression of the music posted here?
I'd really appreciate it; even if its just 'I liked it', or 'I hated it'...

Thanks!