Stuart Chalmers - Sound Environments 2: Woodlands

Following his Sound Environments 1, which Stuart Chalmers recorded in caves in the UK, for this releases wandered around forests in Cumbria and Yorkshire and made a series of recordings out in the open with sounds of birds, insects, and flowing water interfering. He used his beloved swarmandal, a destroyed piano, bones, pieces of wood, and other things and created a hauntingly beautiful collection of material that shifts between pagan ritual music and magnificent physical ambient created mainly by the swarmandal. I love Stuart's noisy and loop-centered stuff, but when he plays on this Indian instrument, the results are always outstanding. This is a digital-only release accompanied by a number of pics of the forests where he recorded, but don't be content with downloading for free. He gives half of the proceeds from this release to the Woodland Trust that is in charge of preserving these forests, so I highly recommend you give something back through bandcamp, mmmmkay?

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Fuji Yuki, Michel Henritzi, Harutaka Mochizuki - Shiroi Kao

The most mournful record of 2018 is this one, a collaboration between Japanese singer Fuji Yuki, Japanese alto sax player Harutaka Mochizuki, and French lapsteel and various strings Michel Henritzi, whose collaborative LP with Rinji Fukuoka and Luca Massolin received high praise here. On this one, Henritzi collaborates on two tracks with each of the two Japanese artists, creating a hazy soundscape of despair, grief, and fragile beauty on the two tracks with Fuji Yuki, which are some kind of drone folk with banjo, lap guitar and noise, while the two tracks with Mochizuki are noisier, with the latter achieving desperate sax tones over a grinding droning noise. A true masterpiece. 2018 cd on An'archives.

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Lipowski - Groń Umarł tape

If I remember correctly I discovered this at the disc stalls when I went to the Obscene Extreme Festival in Czech Republic in 2006. I've never found any information about this band, which is a shame because we're talking some really hard-hitting dark apocalyptic and violent metallic hardcore punk in the vein of His Hero Is Gone and Artimus Pyle, but with their own personality, some really hymnal-almost black metal-parts, and sung in Polish. Check it out-it rocks. 2001 tape on Insane Society.

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TQ Zine # 18, 19 & 20

Time's very limited for reading the latest TQ issues in depth, let alone write about them, but there's been some cool that is worth mentioning.

On #18 the most interesting piece was the interview with Bloxham tapes, which has released the stellar All Is Quiet At the Ancient Theatre by Alison Cotton, a superb album of pagan drone. There's also an interview of Graham Thrower of alt.vinyl, in which I discovered the amazing Vampire Blues tape Knocking on the Dragon's Door, an offering of ecstatic guitar drone folk. The free cd offered with the issue is a label sampler from Bloxham Tapes and its sister label Stars, Dots and the New Junk, showcasing experimental folk, drone, and ambient. Some tracks are really good; I distinguished Greenidge Lambourne's track. Check it out here.

#19 is dedicated to minimalism and is centered around Tone Quanta, a double-disc compilation of minimalist tracks offered by artists worshipped in the blog such as Posset, Chow Mwng, and Xqui. Proceeds from the cd's sales will go the Westgate Ark, an action providing homes for stray cats. Half of the issue is filled with artists reflecting on the tracks they created for the compilation, something TQ had done with its previous compilation, too, and I think it's a great way to get into the working styles of noise musicians. The most important part of the issue is a piece on Arvo Pärt, plus an interview with legendary French experimental composer Éliane Radigue, whose Triptych album I completely adore and crave for when I feel sleepy.

The new issue (#19) offers a cd of Sheer Zed featuring cool ambient soundscapes and field recordings, plus a free download of the album Glass In Your Ear by Robert Weis, which features electronic compositions generated by glass sounds. I like it because it has a Coil quality to it. The mainpiece in this issue is a bio of Eurock zine and label, keeping at promoting experimental music since the 1970s. I got to know Eurock through its collaboration with the amazing Urban Sax/Gilbert Altman, and of course the contributions of owner Archie Patterson to underground music cannot be diminished. His praise of Richard Branson, though, as a "music legend," without referring to his political activities, which now include a financing of a concert aid in Colombia which acts in support of US-backed self-appointed president of Venezuela, Juan Guaido, and aims to assist in the overthrow of the government of Venezuela, is kind of too naive and apolitical. Of course, this isn't TQ's fault, I'm just noting that music and politics cannot be completely separated.

As always, TQ Zine is a great endeavor that requires the support of undeground and DIY music fans, so go to http://tqzine.blogspot.com/, and land a subscription!

Inseminoid ‎– Waiting For Ms. Hayden cdr

Well, this will be the last one. Deep drone burn, with Culver tones having the upper hand here, especially on track two. 2008 cdr on Bells Hill.

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Shit Creek - Prozac Rainbow

Shit Creek became a household name to me through TQ#15, when the guy behind the project (and the Luxury Bucket label) Lewis Duffy was featured in an interview. The early Shit Creek material I head on his bandcamp featured fleeting/epic/fairytale ambient experiments for violin and loops. But it now seems that Lewis has moved into an entirely different territory, with several recent releases and this new album called Prozac Rainbow. Here we get hyper-modern hypnagogic electronica and soundscapes. There's a very fizzy and liquid feel to the sounds, which tempts me to label it as muzak for aquariums; it's kinda like the aquatic levels on Sonic the Hedgehog 2! One could find similarities to the more recent James Ferraro material, or even Vektroid; there's also a hint of labelmate Xqui's material; that said, there's a strong personal identity, not a rehash of said artists. Preorder it on Wormhole World and get lost in the waterworld.

Inseminoid - Plague tape

More dark and hazy black drone wall. 2014 tape on Turgid Animal. Last Inseminoid release I'll be posting; there are more tapes brought out by Lee Stokoe's Matching Head but he's not into having audio links of Matching Head tapes being posted, so you can find them out and buy them.

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