See that cover huh? It's Dan Seagrave, so hey blind purchase, no? Here we are talking about completely unhinged and chaotic death metal Finnish-style (even the name is derived from the legendary Funebre) with members of Evoken, Taste Of Fear, Abazagorath and early-90s hardcore heroes Citizen's Arrest. What more do you want? 2003 7" on Midnight Records.
Completely cinematic and agonizing Anglican church music by English organist Herbert Howells. 2014 cd on Naxos.
Late 90s slab of Swedish melodic death metal. Mind you not, cravers of evil noise, this ain't no In Flames/Dark Tranquillity/NWOSDM diarrhea, this is Dissection/Necrophobic-like death/black metal with lots of emotion and technicity, and how could it be any different since this band boasted fucking legends such as Konstantin Papavasiliou of Kaamos/Head Of The Demon on guitar, Nicklas Eriksson of Kaamos on the other guitar and Tomas of Head Of The Demon on drums. 1996 7" on Near Dark Productions.
Legendary - now broken-up - Greek band (proteges of Manos Chatzidakis, one of the three most prominent Greek composers of 20th century) from the early 90s playing a mix of new-agey/ambient folk with purported influences from ancient Greek music (though, as we know, there are no actual musical indications of what ancient Greek music sounded like) and lyrics derived from the poetry of Sappho, the 6th-century-BCE godmother of lesbianism. The final two tracks, "I Siragga," and "Simoun," are among my all-time favorite tracks ever since I was a teenager and I discovered this album and I play "I Siragga" very frequently in my car. 1991 LP on Sirius (Manos Chatzidakis's label)
Yes, more of the same repetitive clarinet melodies, and yes it's equally mesmerizing.
1999 cdr on Hey Joe.
Don't remember how I ran into this band, but due to the Russian invasion in Ukraine, it was quite hard to manage to pay a Russian guy who sold it to me, as all common platforms have banned transactions with people from Russia.
This is one of the most mesmerizing, bewitching, meditative musics ever recorded. It is just clarinet-led psychedelic ambient drone essentially playing the same thing over and over but it's so beautiful I would include in the soundtrack of the movie Tangerines.
Originally released as a tape by Nefryt in 1996, my rip is from the 2001 cdr reissue on Lollipop Shop.
So hey since I mentioned Ligeti's "Requiem" why shouldn't I post Amebix, who sampled it in of the most powerful intros in all music, "The Moor?" I don't think I have to say anything about the definining album of crust so I'll just say that this is a reissue containing the two full-on Motorhead classics "Right To Ride" and "Beyond The Sun" and a second cd with a 1985 live gig. Granted, Amebix weren't really that good live performers but hey. Originally released in 1985 on Alternative Tentacles this is the 2 X CD 2014 reissue on Amebix Records.
PS: Yes, it was a big disappointment to learn that The Baron associates himself with neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers. Fuck him.
Yes, I admit it: my first contact with Ligeti was the sampling of "Requiem" in Amebix's "The Moor" from Arise! Only when I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey did I realize that it wasn't Amebix who had written that stuff. Here's some great stuff with organ, a three-piece piano recording with one piece called "Selbstportrait Mit Reich Und Riley (Und Chopin Ist Auch Dabei)" and some more stuff. 2002 cd on Deutsche Grammophon.
These three works of Stravinsky, the Pulcinella and Apollon Musagete ballets the string Concerto in D are not much like the cataclysmic music of Rite Of Spring or Firebird for example but the execution of Orchestre De Chambre de Lausanne conducted by Joshua Weilerstein is amazing. 2016 cd on MDG.
Apart from putting the blog on hiatus for all this time, I also mainly abstained from looking at what other fine bloggers post, so I'm not sure if Bleak Bliss, who has been gracing us with the majority of American Tapes's catalog, has actually posted this - if they have, I'm sorry for stealing your thunder. In any case, here's John Olson doing his regular fried electronics. Track 4 is really cool evil noise. 2005 cdr on American Tapes.
Doesn't really have any info on who actually plays on this and I don't know if Nate Young was still a member at that point, but this quite fun wanking with dictaphones and household percussion. Posset could have recorded this. 2005 cdr on Heresee.
For those who might have heard Byzantine and Orthodox hymns, they will notice the difference with the lowest vocal tones used by chanters in Orthodox churches, with a low-tone droning voice called "iso." Especially Russian chanters are quite well-known for their guttural voices. This awesome rendition of Rachmaninov's vespers and the All-Night Vigil rocks so much. Essential. 2022 cd on Alpha.
Aaaaand the follow-up tape after which they produced nothing more. This one sounds closer to Silvester Anfang = there's also flute wanking all around. 2005 tape on Funeral Folk.
Per & Öystein were an improv psych drone duo who also played in Silvester Anfang and Sylvester Anfang II. The music is not very different from what Silvester Anfang were doing, that is noisy underground psych, albeit in a much more abstract manner and with more use of electronics and even more lo-fi. There is a nice guitar epic chord sequence building up around 11:30 but then it stops. 2004 tape on Funeral Folk.
Greek trio playing free jazz. Agamemnon Moustakas on piano, Perseas Rizos on saxophone and Stephanos Chytiris on drums. I like this a lot because despite being sufficiently abstract and improvised it also has several quiet moments and repetitive parts. 2020 self-released cd.
An earlier recording to 2020's excellent Lonea (check here), again piano-based but with a slightly more frequently use of electronics. Sparse, forlorn, ambient elegies. 2010 self-released cdr.
Quite subterranean and hypnotic two-track ambient by Maurizio Bianchi's alter-ego. 2019 cdr on Tavole Anatomiche.
Fuck yes new Satanhartalt tape after like 5 years and it's still as ominous and cavernous as ever revolving around an unbelievable dissonant chord. Amazing shit, much better than all that sketchy and untalented bm, punk or whatever Legion Blotan does. 2022 tape on Legion Blotan.
Yep, last Waz Hoola release that evaded now in my hands. Deep sinister droning ambient, one of his best recordings hands down. 3" cdr on MUZZeDIA VERHEAD.
The godfathers of skronky impro drone on a very heavy fuzzed-out jam. "Shribble By The Shoals And Stepping Stones" is an amazing hypnotic track. Sounds somewhat like Burzum' "Tomhet" but without the melody, just a monotonous synth drone. Really good. 2005 cdr on Gold Soundz.
In an older bandcamp Friday post I had written about Estonia's Threes And Will's Lkhumbe as an example of cannibalized psychedelia. In his most recent album Blood River Poort he collaborates with Huerequeque, also from Estonia, in a fucked-up psychedelic acid freak trip informed by Skullflower (eternally upwards guitar astrophysical jets) and also similar to Xazzaz. Seriously deranged stuff, with its concept based on the Boer Wars. Download it on Threes And Will's bandcamp or buy on Love Earth Music.
I have really liked Spencer Dobbs ever since I heard his 2016 tape Changed Fool (check here), and I've listened to all his later releases in which he plays bluesy/folksy acoustic depressing music with great lyrics. He was kind enough to send me links to two of his most recent releases and If The Moon Don't Turn Its Back On You is the most extraordinary of his work, as it doesn't follow his usual acoustic pattern, but is more improvised and psych folk centered on electric guitars with slides, glissandos, in-song detunings, quite close to Neil Young's Dead Man soundtrack and Karen Dalton freaked folk invocations. It's certainly slightly more ugly and sinister than most of his stuff and it's superb. Get your ass up and download it at the Dust Press bandcamp here.
His most recent 2023 tape is called Lunar Yearling, he says that he recorded it in one take drinking Genesee Cream Ale, and is closer to his more expected beautiful melancholic stuff. I'd dare to say that it's probably my favorite album of his. It's hard to emphasize how heartbreakingly desperate and down to earth it is. Go order it right away at the Dust Press bandcamp here.
As I wrote in my All My Ideas Are Stolen blog post two days ago, I really like blogs that are obsessed with a particular topic and research/ write the shit out of it. This is also the case with Pop Thruster, a blog/website I learned about after its creator Eric Berlin wrote to me, in which he makes a countdown of his 1000 favorite albums of all time, and actually goes into the trouble of writing in detail about them, much like what Mark Prindle did with the most amazing music review site of all time, albeit without the scatological humor I guess.
At this point he's at #393 with Public Enemy's Apocalypse 91. I'm not sure I agree with lots of his album choices, mainly some hip hop and punk ones (dude, Wu Tang's The W and A Better Tomorrow really? - I'd also go for Faith No More's Angeldust over The Real Thing, Cappadonna wtf he sucks, the whole pop punk Green Day/NOFX abhorrence, Alice In Chain's Dirt - I worship the s/t), and I haven't heard many of the albums presented, mainly the 60s rock/pop stuff, but just for the record I'm going to give a heads up to Immortal Technique's Revolutionary Vol. 2, ODB's Return To The 36 Chambers, Wish You Were Here (though I'm more of an Animals or Live at Pompeii type of guy), Soundgarden' Superunknown (hands down their best album, I was very lucky as an 11-year-old to have a cousin who had it on vinyl and lent it to me to get blown up by fucking "Mailman" and the title track), Motley Crue's Dr. Feelgood, Black Flag's Damaged, Whitesnake, Fleetwood Mac's Rumors (too low, though), and most Neil Young.
So, just for the record I'm also going to throw in some of my all-time favorites, although not in the most particularly correct order, as I tend to change opinions often. Some of them however are in order of preference. Say readers, would you like to give some thoughts too?
Anathema - Pentecost III
Chet Baker & Wolfgang Lackerschmid - Ballads For Two
Darkthrone - Transilvanian Hunger
Aphrodite's Child - 666
Soft Machine - Third
Robert Turman & Aaron Dilloway - Blizzard
Burzum - Filosofem
Arvo Pärt - De Profundis
Keelhaul - Subject To Change Without Notice
Shora - Malval
Foreigner - 4
Merzbow - Venereology
Thin Lizzy - Johnny The Fox
Grouper - Ruins
Culver - The Reincarnation Of Tara
Smut - Piano One
Alice Coltrane - Ptah, The El-Daoud
Miles Davis - Bitches Brew
Christian Death - 1982 - Only Theatre Of Pain
Riot - Fire Down Under
Witchblood - Ecsed
Popular Radiation/Witchblood - Split tape
Whitesnake - Slip Of The Tongue
Skullflower - Thou Shalt Not Suffer A Witch To DieSystral - Fever
Integrity - Systems Overload
The Gerogerigegege - Yellow Trash Bazooka
Integrity - Humanity Is The Devil
His Hero Is Gone - Monuments To Thieves
Neil Young - On The Beach
Neil Young - Harvest
Slint - Spiderland
Dying Fetus - Destroy The Opposition
Hawkwind - Hall Of The Mountain Grill
Idris Muhammad - Power Of Soul
Burial - Rival Dealer
Stephan Micus - Athos
The Haters - Drunk On Decay
Neurosis - Souls At Zero
Bohren & Der Club Of Gore - Sunset Mission
Rainbow - Rising
Shostakovich - King Lear
Shostakovich - Hamlet Suite
Voivod - Dimension Hatross
Godflesh - Streetcleaner
Cave In - Jupiter
Urban Sax - Live In Pori 1984
Metallica - And Justice For All
Knut - Challenger
Psychic TV - Themes
Dalek - Abandoned Language
Clock DVA - Buried Dreams
SPK - Zamia Lehmanni
Iron Maiden - Somewhere in Time
Digable Planets - Reachin' (A New Refutation Of Time And Space)
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity
Kickback - Forever War
Throbbing Gristle - Heathen Earth
Lonnie Liston Smith and the Cosmic Echoes - Astral Traveling
Curtis Mayfield - Curtis
Guru - Jazzmatazz Vol. 1
Congress - The Other Cheek
Earth - Hex Or Printing In The Infernal Method
All Out War - For Those Who Were Crucified
Anouar Brahem - Blue Maqams
Harm - Everything Turns Out To Be A Triangle Of Death
Ved Buens Ende -Written In Waters
Virus - The Black Flux
Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx
Gate - Saturday Night Fever
Oxbow - The Narcotic Story
Current 93 - I Have A Special Plan For This World
Eric Lunde - Suites For Solo Analog Cassette Recorder
Khanate - Things Viral
Herbie Hancock - Headhunters
Swans - Young God
Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972
Calineczka - The City Behind The Fence
Dead Can Dance - Spleen & Ideal
Merula - Sleep
Nico - Desertshore
GZA - Liquid Swords
Uphill Battle - Wreck Of Nerves
Guts Pie Earshot - Wait
Stuart Chalmers - The Heart Of Wilderness
King Crimson - Red
King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King
Genesis - Trespass
Shub Niggurath - Les Morts Vont Vite
Tonetta - 777
Watch Repair presents The Mystic Umbrellas - Journey To The West
Pauline Oliveros - Stuart Dempster - Panaiotis - Deep Listening
Blutwurst - Tenebrae
The Necks - Mindset
Coil - Love's Secret Domain
Death In June - All Pigs Must Die
Edward Artemiev - Stalker, Solaris, Mirror
Makiladoras - Discography 2001-2004
Envy - A Dead Sinking Story
Troum - Tjukurrpa (Part 2 - Drones)
Waz Hoola - Multiply Infinity By Reality
Zao - Self-Titled
Thanos Mikroutsikos - O Stavros Tou Notou
Kyriakos Sfetsas/Katerina Gogou - Sto Dromo
Manowar - Hail To England
Immolation - Harnessing Ruin
Culver - Vampires Of The Third Reich
Magma - Kohntarkosz
Sunn O))) - White2
Bathory - Blood Fire Death
Candlemass - Epicus Doomicus Metallicus
Corrupted - Dios Injusto
Primordial - The Gathering Wilderness
Necromantia - split with Varathron
Extreme Noise Terror - Are You That Desperate
Atrax Morgue - Sickness Report
Dolorian - Dolorian
Electric Wizard - Let Us Prey
Halo - Guattari
Katatonia - Last Fair Deal Gone Down
My Dying Bride - Turn Loose The Swans
My Dying Bride - The Dreadful Hours
Wolf Eyes - Undertow
Nausea - Extinction
Dirty Beaches - Stateless
Catharsis - Passion
Brainbombs - Fucking Mess
William Basinski - The Deluge
William Basinski - On Time Out Of Time
Malign - Divine Facing
World Burns To Death - No Dawn Comes...Night Without End
Gehenna - The War Of The Sons Of Light With The Suns Of Darkness
Amebix - Arise
Black Sabbath - Sabotage
Deep Purple - Deep Purple
Wu-Tang Clan - 36 Chambers
Lustmord - Rising
Tragedy - Vengeance
Etta James - Life Love and the Blues
Death - Human
Swans - White Light From The Mouth Of Infinity
Isis - Oceanic
Bad Brains - Bad Brains
Emperor - Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk
Mayhem - De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
Mayhem - Ordo Ad Chao
Cursed - Two
Ire - I Discern An Overtone Of Tragedy In Your Voice
Robert Rich - A Troubled Resting Place
Talk Talk - Laughing Stock
Pink Floyd - Animals
Pink Floyd - Live At Pompeii
Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
Deep Purple - Made In Japan
Mercyful Fate - Don't Break The Oath
Judas Priest - Sad Wings Of Destiny
Otis Rush - Mourning In The Morning
Led Zeppelin - Houses Of The Holy
Maurizio Bianchi & Land Use - Psychoneurose
Soundgarden - Superunknown
Shikari - Complete Discography
Alice In Chains - Alice In Chains
Pain Of Salvation - The Perfect Element
Fates Warning - Perfect Symmetry
Heaven Shall Burn - Whatever It May Take
Suffocation - Despise The Sun
Benjamin Britten - Sinfonia Da Requiem
Sed Non Satiata - Mappo
Amanda Woodward - La Décadence de la Décadence
Having grown-up in a communist family, while I was a primary school kid during the early to mid 90s I used to idolize all sorts of armed struggle and especially worshipped the freedom fighter of the PLO, the IRA and the Basque fighters of ETA. So, it shouldn't be any surprise that I'll shake my ass for anything related to Basque Country music, and more if it involved the great Mattin (check some here). A relatively recent duo of his is Al Karpenter playing with Alvaro Matilla, and The Forthcoming is their new album released by ever/never records. This is hard to categorize; it has too many ideas and styles thrown in, you get improvised skronk rock not unlike The Dead C and with some surprising Scott Walker-like croons, there's psych noise, there's electronic Aphex Twin-y stuff, oooffff. Really nice album. Go over to the ever/never bandcamp and buy it.
Al Karpenter and ever/never released on the same day a collaboration album between Al Karpenter and CIA Debutante, which is equally good or even better. It possesses the same musical references as the Al Karpenter album but it has a little bit more electronic AND bluesy stuff going around. Loving this. Buy it here.
I love blogs that are dedicated to a particular theme or music period, because they are more often than not very well researched and erudite. One such case is the blog All My Ideas Are Stolen (link here) which is run by none other than the one and only Joe Murray aka Posset, the best dictaphone brain haemorrhaging drooler noise maker straight outta Tyneside, who I actually had the deep honor to meet in person some time ago in Newcastle. It was such a rock-star meeting/Santa Claus type of encounter for me as I have been raving about his stuff for a long time and he also brought a good amount of goodies, so I feel like a small child getting to meet his idol.
But enough of my Posset worship and onto his great idea of a blog that All My Ideas Are Stolen is, as it is devoted to exposing us to the awesomeness of the early 90s tape label Union Pole Tapes from Olympia, WA. In this blog not only does he write about the actual music made on the first 76 tapes produced by the label but in fact conducts interviews with the groups/artists. Can't describe what a great idea and execution this blog is, so I'm just gonna take my hat off before Joe and just post some links to a few Union Pole releases I really dig and note that you can get download the whole Union Pole discography for five dollars on bandcamp, so go over there and do your duty. Oh, don't forget to listen to Posset and his several incarnations, either on this blog or on his bandcamp.
Wallpaper - The Various Decorative Examples: noisy, skronky weird psych pop shoegazy fuckness
Wallpaper - Slow Love Songs About Drugs & Horsies: lo-fi Dinosaur Jr/Slint /blues hybrid
Wham-O - Confused Over Expressions / Impressions: Wham-O (along with Coits) has also been covered by me here, but this is way out, stretching over acoustic black metal ala Impaled Northern Moonforest to improvised noise rock to acoustic beauty.
Action Pussy - Hi!: mainly calm psychedelic rock with a Syd Barrett cover and great guitar work, not unlike the music of early Jim Jarmusch films. Kinda seems to me this thing had a great impact on early Dirty Beaches music.
Wallpaper - Domestic Landscape Activities Vol 5: far out noise garage surf madness.
Dancing Test Tubes/Cock E.S.P: Gerogerigege-y like live noisecore attack vs dictaphone harsh noise fuckery
Neil Campbell - Face Of Scurf: noisy drone and acoustic improv damage by a master
Coits - Construct Your Own Guitar: as it is well-known, Coits (check out other Coits posts here), is an awesome project of Joincey here doing everything from kitchen field recordings to acoustic guitar noise to excerpts from old techno songs.
Helena Ford is a Chicago-based transgender musician whose work expands all over drone, improv, dungeon synth, dark ambient, industrial noise, electroacoustic, and microtonal deep listening ambient. Much of the themes on which she has based her music revolves around gender dysphoria, hormone replacement and psychotherapy. Really, her recordings are so multifaceted you should just devote two or three days listening to the whole shit, which is also free on her bandcamp here, but I'm just going to pick a few which really impressed the shit out of me. Also loving the corpsepaint and the Burzum-like skullcrasher bat thingy, guess Varg would be really pissed at! Links on titles. Goes without saying that this blog upholds difference and the challenge of gender/sex stereotypes along with fighting fascism, racism, capitalism, patriarchy and homophobia and is open to any non-binary/LGBTQI+-themed music that will be appealing to me.
Therapy Goals: revolving around psych/Eastern scale guitar meanderings and full-on Sunn O))) like power drone.
The Human Veil - s/t: holy fucking shit dungeon synth and organ vespers-like goodness
Examinations in Minimalism & Transgender Musicality: weird alternation between sine waves, modular drone, mellotrons and deep listening ambient
Larsen Symphonique + Organ Works: microtonal drone, organ holiness and avant-garde drone.
Elegy for 1992: bro this is soooo good. She's taken figures from John Cage's prepared piano Sonatas and added huge reverb to it.
Pieces for Electric Bass, Baritone, and Guitar: can't say how much I'm loving this, especially the second baritone track. Get it. Now. It's free.
Hemicrania: ambient noise wall discordant bliss.
Music for Bows and Rosin: this sounds quite a bit like post-reformation Skullflower, especially around the period Lee Stokoe was in. Great.
Ok most of you will probably think that I'm a big asshole but I have tried my best to resolve this but to no avail: So, last September I got in touch with Juntaro to order some new stuff he had made, namely the Hand Made Broken Orgel tapes, the 新宿に命さびしむ歌多し Cassette in wood box and the Back Ground Music For Midnight Driving reissue. He told me to send him the JPY equivalent of about 130 euros through and he would prepare them for me. Up until we arranged the amount he answered promptly. Then after I sent the money he took a week to reply to my two mails in which I asked him if he had received the money, replying that he was unwell and asked me to tell him again what I had ordered and then asked for some time to prepare the order. Then a month later he answered again after several emails saying he needed to prepare the box and said he wanted to send back the money or if i could wait, to which I said I preferred to wait because I really wanted the items. Then he said again he wanted to send back the money, and I replied he could do whatever he felt would be better but I'd rather he kept the money and take his time to send the package. Our last contact was in November. After that I sent him an email every month asking about the order until some point when I decided to ask to get my money back. He never answered.
For some time it seemed he didn't make any new posts on his FB account, but now I see he's active again. I have hesitated to write about this debacle on his account for fear of people thinking he might be a ripoff. Of course I have never for a moment thought he is a ripoff, I guess it's probably bad communication and disorganization on his part, but hey it's 130 euros and things are shit economically. So, even if he never replies, is there a chance any of you have these tapes and could kindly share them for my poor ass that is 130 euros poorer at the moment?
OK enough whining, here we have the Heavenly Cover Songs cdr that came with the Uguisudani Apocalypse reissue through Inundow mailorders and it's snippets of more lovely Japanese pop and rock songs. 2021 cdr on Vis A Vis Audio Arts.
Then we have the As If It Had Always Been Determined Since This Day Was Born release, which essentially is the Sexual Behavior In The Human Male 1988 7" with several remixes of the same tracks, which sound even more perverted than the originals. The second cd is a 1990 punk noise live version of the title track "Sexual Behavior In The Human Male" with Juntaro or sb else screaming. 2022 2 X CD on Inundow.
Download cd 1 (As If It Had...)
Download cd 2 (Sexual Behavior... live)
The next morning I drove to my hometown. At night I went out with friends and I told them about her. And I wrote to her that I talked about her to a girl I knew. And she got slightly jealous saying that that girl was smarter and cooler than her. While driving back home in the night I listened to this album in my car and I sent her a link to the second track. And I texted her that I don't know what other women I like, because you are the only woman ever. And how I much I ache that I can't have you here in my arms, listen to this song and run my fingers all over your beautiful body.
I won't see her ever again, I'm sure. And I won't even try to call her or text her. I will listen to this and cry and ache and wake up in the night. And bang my head because I was stupid enough to block her and not see what she wrote to me for the final time. Hoping that one day she will call me and with just a look in her eyes I will follow her and be her slave. 2022 cd on ECM.
PS:
Yes, I know I will never see your eyes again, I will never hear your voice again. You hurt me so much. I could be anything you would ask me to be, apart from what you asked me to be. I refused that. But I love you and I cry every night. Every time a woman comes to have sex with me, I think only of you and I regret having sex with them, because all I want to do is mourn your absence. If you ever read this, just know that
For you and I to be born
Just for this
Just to meet you
Just for this was the world made my eyes
Just for this
Just to meet you
Listening to Coil for the first time at the age of 15 (it must have been Musick To Play In The Dark 2 or Scatology or one of the Unnatural History compilations) really was a life-changing experience, even without knowing anything about their musical backgrounds or their personal identities, which I would start discovering a bit later. And I still remember the day I read about John Balance's death on a DC++ hub/chat; it was one of the few artist deaths that really shook me. And in 2002 they performed live at my hometown, I really can't describe Balance with his hoodie, the xylophones, man.
So I actually also heard Love's Secret Domain very little after I had heard the three aforementioned LPs but boy. Until then I knew next to nothing about more "conventional" electronic music and this was one experience that was confounding, to hear sth that sounded slightly mainstream - for my then black metal and hardcore punk and kinda harsh noise standards - but also so sinister, and far out and hypnotic and sensual and whatever. First I was shocked by "The Snow" and by "Dark River" and I thought, "bro how much has Ulver listened to this shit," and then "Lorca Not Orca" with that reprise of "Teenage Hospital" in the background (though I must say that the version on The Ape Of Naples is by far my favorite) and then fuuuuck "Windowpane" and how many hours I've spent watching the video clip and even playing it non-stop at my university department's occupation we did years later.
So, this is the double cd reissue with some liner notes by Stephen Stapleton if I remember correctly (the cd is in my car actually so that I listen to "Lorca Not Orca" on repeat during nighttime driving, and the second cd is full of goodies: a latin guitar rendition of "Teenage Lightning" that is different to "Lorca Not Orca" that is utterly beautiful, a rhythmic version of "Dark River," the heartbreakingly beautiful cabaret-like "The Dark Age of Love," an instrumental of the title track. Must hear, a really respectful reissue to one of the best albums of all time. 2021 2 X CD on Infinite Fog Productions.
PS1: I reached the age of 37 to actually feel for the first time that I fell in love with a woman and actually made a move for her. I doubt she will ever read this. She is the most beautiful, confounding creature ever and she broken my bloodthirsty communist iron-clad heart to so many pieces it will never be glued again. Last Easter I spent a whole night awake with her, staring at her, caressing her, bringing tears to her eyes. After countless joints and drinks I said goodnight to her with an embrace and a kiss on her forehead. She drove home and I slept in my car for two hours until the morning came to drive to my hometown 500 km away for Easter holidays. When I got into my car, I played Love's Secret Domain and sent her a link to "Lorca Not Orca." She loved it. I loved her. I love her. But it was destined to die from the first moment. So I destroyed it. Now the memories of her will continue with the musics I sent her and that I loved and that I hoped we would listen to together.
PS2:
That was in your words the best Thursday of your life. Do you remember that the quintessential breakup song of all time was the song that brought us together? A day earlier you told me that I was that excerpt from Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human. And do you remember that I told you that I pictured you as the following lyrics from "Black?"
I know someday you'll have a beautiful life
I know you'll be a star in somebody else's sky, but why
Why, why can't it be, oh can't it be mine?
Do you remember the road overlooking the whole city? Do you remember that blue dress you wore just for me? You looked like an angel, just the incarnation of your name. Do you remember the stockings you tore with your nails so I could penetrate you? Do you remember how much I wanted to be with you but was scared because I knew you would be a star in somebody else's sky, but it couldn't be mine? And that that desperation drew you to me? Yes, I eventually broke that promise I gave you that day, but I did it because you wanted me to act in contrast to my promise. And next year, on the anniversary of that Thursday I will go again up there, on that road. And how I wish there would be a miracle and you would come up there too to wipe the tears from my eyes.
Just one of the absolutely best Wolf Eyes-related release. Unrelenting cryptic noise/free jazz/ambient darkness. 2012 tape & 2 X cdr on American Tapes.
