Leviathan - Tentacles of Whorror

Most of you will scratch your head when you actually listen to this album and wonder if I have gone quite crazy for not only listening to this genre of music, but also for unleashing it on my unsuspecting friends... but then most of you will realize that it's in my nature to shake things up.
What sets these guys apart (I think) from bands like TKK and Ministry is that these guys (those in the Black Metal genre) actually believe in the evil and don't use it as a kitschy vehicle. Kinda scary, but then again, I can't really understand the lyrics anyway... This is just grinding, evil metal to make your ears bleed and your soul weep! Enjoy!
Oh, and lest I forget, this connects to my previous posting because this guy collaborates with Sunn O))) - that's how I discovered the disturbing world of Black Metal...

Here is what Crysis from sputnikmisuc has to say about this album:

Quality Metal in the United States is few and far between. The country is awash with trendy, unoriginal, and badly written excuses for Metal. The Black Metal scene in the United States is even more dismal, with Agalloch straying farther and farther away from Black Metal, Xasthur getting worse as time goes on, and other bands which aren't up to par with their Scandanavian brothers, it seems that Black Metal is going extinct in the United States. However, there is still a light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. San Francisco's blasphemous, one man Black Metal act Leviathan is still going strongly, playing the incoherent and evil Black Metal so many fans admire. It's everything one could want from a Black Metal band and then some, consistently putting out quality material which is worthy of comparison with the likes of European Black Metal, something which almost every USBM band can't say.

If you have heard Leviathan's first full-length album The Tenth Sub Level Of Suicide you will know that Leviathan means business, and that you will only find the darkest of the dark, and the most evil and blasphemous of Black Metal. The man behind the mask, or should I say the man behind the corpsepaint, Wrest is a very talented individual who plays every instrument and provides the vocals, and everything is of the utmost quality (production aside). Also if you know a lot about Leviathan, you will know that Wrest is not afraid of experimenting with various sounds and instruments, whether it be a piano or acoustic guitar, Leviathan has used pretty much all of it at least once. Most of the time, though, it's all straight-forward, in-your-face Black Metal. Wrest is not one to screw around, and he is dead serious when it comes to his music.

The guitars on the album are of the typical Black Metal type, lots of grinding and buzz-saw like sounds, but also every once in a while there is a break from the action, like in the middle of A Bouquet Of Blood For Skull, where the heavy instruments break off to reveal a calming, yet chilling, bridge, with ominous guitar picking and strange ambient effects in the background. There are also some great riffs featured here, but don't expect them to be melodic, they are all very crushing and hateful, and thats what makes Leviathan different. Wrest isn't afraid of breaking away from grinding, fast guitars and to go into a catchy, dark, and sinister riff which will get any metalhead moshing in a matter of seconds, perfectly portrayed in the song Heir To The Noose Of Ghoul, which showcases tons of riff changes and great variety. The drumming is very, very well done, and it is part of what makes the overall sound Leviathan produces. Wrest often strays away from the typical blast beat and adds his own touches, whether it be a fill here and there or a nasty double bass kick, and it will knock you off your feet and take you by surprise.

The vocals are another thing which makes me grin from ear to ear. Wrest is one of the best vocalists in Black Metal, and even though his voice is layered and sometimes distorted, Wrest has one of the most evil Black Metal shrieks I've ever encountered. They are high-pitched and ghastly, it's hard to imagine a human being can make a sound like that. Needless to say they fit the music with the utmost perfection, and you won't even notice the lack of variety in the vocals, since none is needed. It's a shame that the vocals are so well done, because the production of this album is pretty terrible. The guitars are a bit overpowered by the drums, and the bass is a bit swallowed, but since this is a Black Metal album, I won't complain too much.

The album clocks in at a very lengthy 1.2 hours, and it's hard to take in with one sitting. The good thing about the length though, is that you get a ton of high quality Black Metal, and this album proves that Leviathan is at the forefront of the current USBM scene, producing album after album of quality material which is easily accessible to the fans of this band. Tentacles Of Whorror is a superbly written piece of music, that is worth the attention of Black Metal fans all over the world.

Download:
http://www.mediafire.com/?mwdwdmem1jy

Sunn O))) - White 1

OK, congratulations if you made it this far! You are now at the Final Test. If you make it past this one, you will be invited to the Drone Graduation Ceremony and be welcomed to the ranks of The Musical Fringe. But beware, this final installment will test your endurance the most...

Pitchfork says (with tongue firmly in cheek):

Please please, come inside. Welcome to Magnetic Park. We've just finished drawing the pentagram in goat's blood on the floor and we're almost ready to conjure up the seventh level. What? Just a "door-to-door encyclopedia salesman," huh? Well, there'll be no need for encyclopedias where we're going, but I'm afraid you've already seen too much for us to simply let you leave... alive! OH, I'm kidding. Relax. You'll only have to stay until the ceremony is complete, at which point you'll hopefully be a true believer like the rest of us. Now please put this cloak on, say a prayer to the severed head, and prepare your body for the fluid of the infants.

Let me just introduce everyone, then. Those two around the black ring of fire, Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley, are the originators of this sacred music and ceremony you are about to experience, Sunn O)))'s White1. The individual resting on the mystical stool of the beheaded is Rex Ritter, formerly of such cults as Fontanelle and Jessamine, and to his right is Joe Preston, of Earth and The Melvins, who prepares the accompanying drum machines to our din of sin. The one awash in his own feces is Julian Cope. He'll be regaling us with one of his famous odes this evening, and hopefully making his exit shortly thereafter. Between you, me, and the skinned bunny rabbits, he sort of gives everyone here the creeps.

It has begun. Since you are new to the ceremony, I will walk you through the dark and deafening sounds your aura will soon be cleansed with. The music currently loosening your bowels is the obstinate bass feedback the group is known for in this community. It serves as the breaker upon which the guitar tremolos crash, giving the duo their distinctive and brooding sound. Julian arises now to begin his exercise in theatric word painting, "My Wall". It's really quite enjoyable to listen to, and even more fun to recite once one gets past the coquettish nature with which he refers to Anderson and O'Malley.

The key to deciphering Cope's abstract speech can be found in the line, "My wall, my wall, caught beneath the thrall of my wall," referring to both the weight of the song and his faux-epitaph-- "here be the wall of Johnny Guitar." Ready? Repeat after me, "Old mother-fucker, she was a cock-sucker." Isn't he a lyrical genius? And now begins the instrumental outpour. Be sure and pay attention to how the tonal washes of the electric strings continue to lull you into a false security while the occasional crashes harshly bring you back to the reality of your knocking knees.

Don't be frightened, that's only Runhild Gammelsaeter of Thorr's Hammer fame. She marks the beginning of "The Gates of Ballard" portion of the rite by rising from the throne of discarded headcheese. Her chant serves as the high-end compliment to the single rising tone of instrumentation. The strong bass kicks in, stalls, and eventually progresses into a rhythm outfitted by a programmed drum, courtesy of Ritter. This atmosphere is explored off and on for the remainder of the song, until it eventually gives way to "A Shaving of the Horn That Spared You".

This "Shaving of the Horn" track is meant to explore the more experimental yearnings of the dark Lord that oversees all such doom metal. It pulses at times like a Stockhausen-directed helicopter, with hissing and popping that's occasionally cut by angular guitar noises. The humming you hear is meant to provide an accented beauty to the harsh sounds and effects that O'Malley and Anderson usher forth from their instruments. The truly remarkable moment has not yet come upon us, though. Be patient, you will see.

AH! THE HUMMING HAS TRANSFORMED ITSELF INTO A GNARLED AND UGLY GROWL! ALL THINGS ONCE CONSIDERED STUNNING AND ATTRACTIVE ARE NOW PEPPER TO YOUR EYES UPON BEARING WITNESS TO THE POWER OF THE SATANIC DRONE!

HEY! Where you going? Don't leave yet! BUT YOU LEFT YOUR ALL YOUR CLOTHES AND PAPERS HERE! Yeah, I don't know what his deal was, guys. I guess some people just can't handle the brute power of music like this. What a pity...

Download:

http://www.mediafire.com/?mtq1day3ann

Coil - Time Machines

Here is the second installment in the industrial drones trial. Like the NWW album, this release is also subtly insidious in its psychological effects...

"We attempted to dissolve time." That's how the late John Balance, half of the now disbanded British experimental musical duo Coil, described the aim of their 1998 release Time Machines (Eskaton). Balance said this with such matter-of-factness that you hardly notice the ludicrousness of his claim. No mere sensation-hungry dabblers when it came to tearing down the doors of perception, Coil certainly had reason to stand behind their assertion. Having logged countless hours drifting in the lapping tides of Time Machine's slowly unraveling synthesizer drones, I can tell you that Balance and musical partner Peter Christopherson definitely succeeded in their attempt. Coil's m.o. with Time Machines can be best summed up by the title of Spacemen 3's 1990 demos compilation Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs To (Bomp). Starting from the premise that hallucinogens can remove oneself from one's temporal reality, Balance and former Throbbing Gristle member Christopherson (with assistance from William Breeze and Drew MacDowell), set out to synthesize music that would catalyze and tease out the temporally-disruptive effects of specific chemical compounds. If that sounds a bit dry, there is indeed an aura of scientific self-seriousness to the release. Each composition is titled with the chemical name of the substance it has been designed for - track one, "Telepathine" (an earlier term for the compound found in Ayahuasca or yage, popularized by Burroughs and Ginsberg); track two, "DOET/hecate"; track three, "5-Me0-DMT"; and track four, "Psilocybin." But for Coil, science was another form of magic, something driven home by the album's cover design: a black, glossy oval that alludes to the obsidian "scrying mirror" of Renaissance magician and astronomer John Dee, who supposedly used the stone to conjure spirits. (A limited number of albums also came with a set of stickers that when placed on top of each other depicted Dee's sigil, the Hieroglyphic Monad). I should confess, with much embarrassment, that for the many times and many different contexts in which I have listened to Time Machines, I have yet to experience any of the tracks while on the substances for which they were specifically engineered. That said, the album's transportive effects are noticeable even while listening sober (and are certainly heightened by strong doses of THC). My experience has largely been subtractive: it is hard to do anything or to think about anything with much success, or even "actively listen," while Time Machines is playing. It is the aural equivalent of an isolation tank, in that you don't even notice the vessel falling away, you're so immersed. Turn it on, tune in, and dissolve. - Matt Sussman

Highly Recommended!
Download:
http://www.mediafire.com/?qzmmddnd3zm

Nurse With Wound - Soliloquy For Lillith (Six Songs For Lilitu)

For the next several posts, you will be tested!
I am taking you on a journey through the haunting and surreal world of industrial drones!

Our first visit will be to a soundscape created by Stephen Stapleton (a.k.a Nurse With Wound)
The album was recorded by Steven Stapleton and his wife Diana Rogerson in May 1988. The only sound source was a number of effects units which he had set up to operate in a feedback loop - there was no original input signal being processed, simply the feedback hum generated by plugging the original chain of pedals back into itself. However, when Stapleton went near the pedals he found the sound changed in accordance with his proximity to the various pedals and units. Stapleton created the album by gently moving his fingers above the various units to create the slow, subtle changes in the sound. This fortuitous accident is utilized to stunning effect on the six sidelong pieces that comprise the album. As this shouldn't happen, Stapleton has put the album down to an electrical fault of some sort in the studio. This was acknowledged on a later reissue with the credit "our thanks to Electricity for making this recording possible".
Soliloquy for Lilith is an album of complex, powerfully realized moods, both somber and fragile; one of the most rewarding "ambient" albums ever made. Giant sheaves of majestic, glacial sound are wielded in repetition, with the inevitable effects of sound decay and distortion creeping in at the high end and bottom tones. It's a gleaming sound full of depth and dimension, like a work of modern metal sculpture in which you can see your distorted reflection. When given your full attention, the coldly warm tones have the effect of rendering thoughts, and therefore time itself, neutral. The same sound palette is used throughout, but each track manages to be very different from the last, birthing its own unique phantasms.

Highly Recommended!
Download:

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ymyz3z5wjtm

Loscil - Plume

Boomkat says:

Frequent visitors will already be aware that we like Loscil a great deal here - Scott Morgan's incredible 'First Narrows' album turned many a head (including ours) with it's carefully realised blend of dubby minimalism and gorgeous windswept instrumentation. 'Plume' is his latest emission, again for the on-form Kranky imprint, and this time he takes the ideas explored on 'First Narrows' even further into the cinematic territory and ends up with an album which is maybe closer to Cliff Martinez's seminal Solaris score than Basic Channel's dubbier work. The echoing, glitchy and soft percussion is still present as ever, but xylophone and vibraphone sounds make up the album's backbone, trapped amongst curls of static and deep, subtle synthwork. Plume' is deeper than any of Morgan's previous efforts and opens itself to you very slowly - the more time you allow it, the more enjoyment you will mine from it's rich cavernous depths. Tracks such as 'Steam' build up gradually out of very little, cyclic percussion rolling around deep underneath the dense chords and thick basslines, it's impossible not to let this music transport you into a world much sparser than our own. Look out of the window and into the sky and as you concentrate your eyes start to blur slightly - this is the world of Loscil and we like it very much indeed...

I say:

Exquisitely precise and delicate. This music reminds me of the beauty that can be found in an urban landscape if you take the time to find it... soft and course, peaceful and haunting. Highly recommended!

Donwload:

http://www.mediafire.com/?dtzldmmd5nt

Plastikman - Closer

Amazon says:
The first full-length in four years from 28-year-old post-techno electronic musician Richie Hawtin under his Plastikman alias, Consumed has more going on underneath its cool, minimal surface than first meets the ears. Contrasting pretty heavily with previous Plastikman efforts, Consumed is a slowly evolving, serious work of tranced out microgrooves with deliberately paced, almost textural changes in synth washes and percussive sounds. Neither ambient nor techno, but existing in a delicate, contemporary space between, Consumed reminds one of a less harsh-sounding Porter Ricks or a sedated Mouse on Mars with an even heavier Kraftwerk fetish. The music has a serious metronomic thing going on, but it foregoes traditional beat tyrannies and bowel-rattling buzz bass in favor of an altogether more ethereal, subsonic groove. It's delightful.

I say:
Very deep, very dark, very hypnotic, very minimal. Get the rebreather out for this one; it'll be awhile before you come back up for air...
Headphones recommended!

Download:
http://www.mediafire.com/?wo14olojmgm

Boduf Songs - Lion Devours The Sun

Here's what Brainwashed says:
Lion Devours The Sun is the first full length release from U.K. resident Mathew Sweet following his self-titled kranky debut EP released in the fall of 2005. It was recorded at home with a 4 track and a single microphone, using acoustic guitar and voice along with well placed touches of a cymbal-playing monkey, some bricks, an e-bowed autoharp, a homemade gramophone, and daggers. The title derives from alchemical imagery, the sun representing consciousness and the lion symbolizing emotion. Some of these songs contain actual invocations of demonic forces. Not really. Mathew states that "this is not folk music", and that someone told him that they think the first record "sounds humble and withdrawn and the new one sounds righteous and bitter". He agrees. The debut Boduf Songs release garnered high praise from all reviewers. He has performed limited live shows in the U.K. and Europe, and recently recorded a live session for the legendary VPRO in Amsterdam.

Here's what I say:
Eerie. Minimal. Acoustic. I think most of you will like it; it's out there, but still fairly accessible. Enjoy!

Download:
http://www.mediafire.com/?mtnzetznnz5