Mega Dälek & related groups (iconⒶclass, Deadverse Massive) post for New Year

This morning I was looking in Discogs for Arvo Part's early 1960s USSR recordings, since I have got some good unexpected money. Unfortunately the prices were too high for me to afford, but I laughed because Discogs lists 666 Arvo Part releases. And think that Arvo is the closest I get to Christianitty during Christmas and Easter, since I usually play chants of his to my students.

At my dear friend Samuel's request, here's a - hopefully - comprehensive discography of one the greatest hip hop groups of all time, Dälek, plus some related projects involving MC Dälek - Will Brooks. I have already expressed my love for the dense industrial and experimental rap innovations Dälek have offered, so I won't really go into great  detail, and without further ado, here we go.

1998 - Negro Necro Nekros (Gern Bladsten)




2000 - Techno Animal/Dalek -  Megaton/ Classical Homicide (Matador)



2002 - Dalek vs Dalek 7" (Music Is My Heroin)



2002 - Kid606 vs Dalek - Ruin It EP (Tigerbeat 6)



2002 - From Filthy Tongue Of Gods And Griots (Ipecac)




2003 - Dalek vs Velma 12" (M:Narsitik)



2003 - Faust & Dalek - Nummer 3 (Bomb Mitte)



2004 - Faust vs Dalek - Derbe Respect, Alder (Staubgold, Klangbad)



2005 - Dalek / Oddateee split 7" (Delboy Records)



2005 - Absence (Ipecac)



2005 - Dalek vs Zu 7" (Psychotica Records, Wallace Records)



2006 - Streets All Amped 12" (Ad Noiseam)



2007 - My Education vs Dalek spit 12" (Thirty Ghosts Records)



2007 - Abandoned Language (Ipecac) - their absolute masterpiece and one of the five best hip hop albums of all time



2007 - Dälek / Destructo Swarmbots / Oddateee ‎– Deadverse Massive (Public Guilt)



2007 - Deadverse Massive Vol. 1: Dälek Rarities 1999-2006 (Hydrahead)



2008 - Dälek vs. Ifwhen ‎– Hear Less / No Good Trying (Claire's Echo)



2009 - DJ Baku vs. Dälek ‎– DJ Baku vs. Dälek (Daymare)



2009 - Gutter Tactics (Ipecac)



2010 - Untitled (Latitudes)



2010 - The Young Gods And Dälek ‎– Griots & Gods - Les Eurockéennes Festival de Belfort (Two Gentlemen Records)



2016 - Molten (track)



2016 - Asphalt For Eden (Profound Lore)



2017 - Endangered Philosophies (Ipecac) - here's my original post



2019 - Respect To The Authors 12" (Exile On Maistream) - here's my original post



iconⒶclass

The solo project of Will Brooks after the breakup of Dalek. Not as experimental and challenging but highly enjoyable and dark too

2011 - For The Ones (Deadverse Recordings, Drugfront Records)




2011 - I Got It EP (Deadverse Recordings)



2015 - Changing Culture With Revolvers (Deadverse Recordings)




Deadverse Massive - Takeover (2010, Deadverse Recordings) - project featuring several Dalek associates, mainly Oddateee, DLEMMA, Skala and Gym Brown, which was written and produced by MC Dalek

Danish String Quartet - Prism II: Beethoven / Schnittke / Bach

On this second installation they start with Bach's "Fugue In B Minor BWV 869," continue with Alfred Schnittke's unsettling "String Quartet No. 3" and finish with Beethoven's lengthy "
String Quartet No. 13 In B-flat Major." Excellent again. 2019 cd on ECM.

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Danish String Quartet - Prism I: Beethoven / Shostakovich / Bach

Some music for the Xmas dinner. I find the concept of Danish String Quartet's Prism albums very interesting, as they start and finish them with tracks by Beethoven and Bach which envelope another, more modern composer. In this first installation, they set off with Bach's "Fugue in E-Flat Major" from The Well-Tempered Clavier and continue with Shostakovich's "String Quarter No.15 in E-Flat Minor," which is super-dark and droney (written juts a year before his death), with the violins occassionally sounding as if they had been played with an e-bow. They round the recording off on a much more optimistic tone with Beethoven's "String Quartet No. 12 In E-flat Major." DSQ is a talented group with great dialogue between the instruments and I think they are one of the most forward-looking classical music groups at the moment. 2018 cd on ECM.

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Avishai Cohen / Yonathan Avishai ‎– Playing The Room

Avishai Cohen's previous album on  ECM Cross My Palm With Silver was excellent and in this new collaboration with pianist Yonathan Avishai he continues offering beautiful nightly jazz. I love his trumpet tone, he is very close both in accent and feeling to Chet Baker, and I dig that there are no Euro-jazz elements, the ones that ECM keeps releasing and I keep avoiding,but there are huge blues undertones, reminding of Keith Jarret's best moments. Excellent album, highly recommended. 2019 cd on ECM

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Stefan Jaworzyn ‎– Eaten Away By Shadows

Impressive early experiments by master guitar torturer Stefan Jaworzyn dating from 1982-1983. Guitar noise, bleak industrial with the awesome murk of early Throbbing Gristle and the metal banging of early SPK. Must hear insight into the starting world of one of the innovators of noise music. 2013 on Shock.

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Matt Lajoie - The Accidental Eye

Mind-blowing ambient folk guitar experiments by Matt Lajoie. 2017 tape on Early Music.

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Xqui - Elemental

Xqui always manages to end the year with a superb release. In this third full-length, which is dedicated to the chemical elements, he seems to have foregone of most "musical" features (beats, guitars, voices) present in his previous - and stellar - Capitulate, and focusing instead on the most elemental aspects of his work. In other words, this cd is dominated by creepy subdued ambient sounds with a very lo-fi quality (be reminded that Xqui works mainly with mobile phone apps), which accentuate what I have called his urban Lovecraftian atmospheres. Everything sounds as if it has been extracted from basements, underground tunnels, manholes, and there are also several howling voices, offering a ritualistic and menacing feeling. Only the last track, "Vanadium," has a more musical approach, sounding like a noise string orchestra. Xqui never disappoints, so go now to his bandcamp, and get the last remaining copy of this excellent year finisher. 2019 cdr on Wormhole World.

Xqui's bandcamp
Wormhole World's bandcamp

Serfs- Moon Mellowed River

Serfs was the guitar duo of blog-loved artists Jon Collin and Tom Settle, playing a more playful version of Jon Collin's deep psychedelic ambient folk, with a more electric and jammy feel to it. 2012 tape on Golden Lab Records.

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Sarah Hughes, Jon Collin ‎– Washington DC, 11 April 2019

Wailing, mourning psychedelic ambient jazz folk by Jon Collin - the true successor of early-Pink-Floyd David Gilmour - and alto saxophonist Sarah Hughes. Highly recommended. 2019 cdr on Early Music.

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Jordan Perry, Jon Collin ‎– Charlottesville, 10 April 2019 cdr

The expected beauty created by Jon Collin's ambient folk guitar coupled here with Jordan Perry and recorded live. 2019 ddr on Early Music.

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The Dogmatics - Chop Off The Tops

Second  excellent album of macabre atonal jazz exploring the limits of music space and clarinet potential by The Necks' Chris Abrahams and Kai Fagaschinski. 2018 self-released LP.

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The Dogmatics - The Sacrifice For The Music Became Our Lifestyle LP

Mentioning The Necks the other day in the new Swans album post, I've come to think that the best albums there are the two where the Australian trio participates, owing very much to Chris Abrahams's hazy piano. What better way to listen to some more Abrahams than this duo he maintains with German clarinetist Kai Fagaschinski. Awesome slithering and unsettling improvised avant-jazz with emphasis on music spaces, microtones and a very entertaining black metal aesthetic as you can see in the album cover and the logo. Excellent stuff. 2012 lp on Monotype Records.

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The Mickey Guitar Band ‎– From The Beaches

Continuing where the album with Gerogerigegege left off, Mickey Guitar Band offer yet another hazy and zoned-out piece of acid-drenched psychedelic and kosmische rock. Yeah! 2019 cd on Bam Balam.

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Chris 'Pause' Richardson ‎– Gasoline Fever

One of the most idiosyncratic of field recordings artists, Chris "Pause" Richardson's output consists of TV/radio recordings of car races. Once I was listening to a tape of his and my mom was wondering where the raging engine sounds came from and looked out the window. After listening to this, which is kind of low-key and could be considered his "drone" album, you have to buy his two tapes on Matching Head. 2009 cdr on Cidershed (label of Martin Gregory of Fuckin' Amateurs label, so you know this is great).

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William Basinski ‎– On Time Out Of Time

One of his most "compositional" albums - if that term applies - in which he utilizes sound sources from the LIGO observatory, including the sounds of two black holes merging. Yes it doesn't have the dying loops epic sound of The Disintegration Loops or Cascade, but it's fun to hear Basinski making more conventionally structured spacy ambient. And the second - and smaller of the two - track called "4(E+D)4(ER=EPR)" is just a gorgeous piece of mournful celestial ambient that I could listen to all day. 2019 cd on Temporary Residence Ltd.

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Newt Extinction ‎– Everything I Say Is Of The Utmost Importance

Criminally-insane synth/field recording muzak, like old James Ferraro on really bad drugs trying to play Jean-Michelle Jarre or some 80s arcade space battle game. Pure evil 2009 cdr on the always unpredictable Fuckin' Amateurs.

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Kit Downes - Dreamlife Of Debris

The second album of Kit Downes on ECM retains the church organ basis of the previous album Obsidian, but incorporates other instruments, namely piano played by him, saxophone (already present in Obsidian), cello, guitar, and drums. The sound is deeper, more unsettling, with the instruments creating worrying atmospheres, reaching drone levels at times, and the reverberating sound giving the album a very unique quality. 2019 cd on ECM.

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Mickey Guitar Project ‎– Flowers

Spacey and fizzy psychedelic ambient music with slight new age leanings and heavy inspirations from science/space documentary music by Ken Matsutani. Seventy 1-minute tracks that seamlessly blend into each other and gradually add more levitation. 2007 cd on Captain Trip Records.

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Ohyda - Koszmar

Rarely do I care about new hardcore punk releases, although until the age of 24 it was my favorite music genre. It's not only that I have grown up, I really think that music standards in this scene have dropped so much that most things are completely unoriginal. But here comes this great Polish band playing a mix of d-beat, post punk and psychedelic sounds, like a mix between legendary Polish band Abaddon, the legendary Siekera bits, Killing Joke, and huge Hawkwind and Voivod influences, with tons of delay in the vocals and chorus/reverb/delay in the guitar, and even blast-beats, making an explosive mix of apocalyptic post-nuclear explosion hardcore. Amazing. 2019 Lp on La Vida En Us Mus.

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J.G. Sparkes - Gor West

Picking up from the superb Past Lives, Near which I previously reviewed, J.G. Sparkers brings out one more excellent study of ambient paradoxes: both nostalgic and distantiated, beautiful and threatening, frosty and warm, his music has a very narrative and painterly element in his shaping of soundscapes. And there's a beautiful almost pop track called "Eccentric Orbit," something like an ambient ballad! Looking forward to more stuff! 2019 cdr on Wormhole World, where you can get it from for only a few pounds (and also land a preorder for the forthcoming third Xqui full-length!)

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Johann Wlight ‎– All Thee Starres Laugh Softly Like Five Hundred Million Little Bells

On the occasion of Johann Wlight's very rare (if not also the first) live performance at Tusk Festival a month ago, here's a rare recording of his, playing esoteric, mystical drone/ambient. While perhaps not as sophisticated as his excellent release A.Y. under the moniker itdreamedtome, this one also has this elevating, angelic but also occult feel to it. 2005 3 cdr on First Person.

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Swans - leaving meaning.

2019 has been a year of disappointments with regard to albums I've been expecting: Earth's successor to Primitive & Deadly was completely unimaginative, Martyrdod's Hexhammaren was a shit turn to metal, a predictable development since they signed to Century Media, and of course Mayhem's Daemon proves once more why we should all spill blood to Satan so that Blasphemer returns. So, all these months I've been thinking that I will be disappointed by the return of Swans, or to be more precise of Gira and friends. The guest list is extremely impressive and promises an amazing listening experience: The Necks, von Hausswolff sisters, all members of the 2010-2016 run, as well as Ben Frost (who I don't really like but anyway). Plus I really liked the demos of What Is This. However, the album is quite calm if we compare it to the sonic onslaught of the previous years, and reminds more of Angels Of Light with a more psychedelic feeling. OK, objectively the songs are amazing, but I don't feel the vibes of the previous ones, of if I should be more precise it reminds me kinda strongly of To Be Kind, the most boring of the four albums, and the one with the weakest production, an element the new album shares, especially in the more rocking and drum-filled tracks. But then, with the things that are happening in my life the time to devote completely to demanding albums is very limited so perhaps this is the problem. 2019 2 X cd on Mute/Young God Records.

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