1727 & Möbius - Burning The Black Candles

The new release of Möbius is a collaboration with 1727, a Gateshead project of Esmé Louise Newman (also of Penance Stare), and the droning noise of 1727 accentuates the ritual chants of Möbius perfectly and makes them even scarier. 2020 tape on Panurus Productions.

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Stuart Chalmers & Yol - Discarded Bag Epiphanies tape

Maniacal incomprehensible skronk mayhem on this collaboration between the super-talented Stuart Chalmers on tape loops and tortured swarmandal and Yol on a completely fucked-up stream-of-consciousness vocal performance full of anxiety and chaos. 2018 tape on Beartown.

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Möbius - Above The Clouds, Night cdr

Those readers who remember the TQ anniversary post will remember my raving about a track featured on the compilation that accompanied that issue contributed by Möbius. This is a vocal drone duo from Newcastle consisting of a guy doing very low pitched hums and occasional death grunts similar to background synthesizers or a Tibetan monk and a woman singing, moaning and mourning above with a gorgeous voice. Their approach is narrative and generating images of demons, witches, cauldrons and Cthulhu. Möbius is really the new breaking out unit from the ever prolific and inspiring North-East  English/Tyneside womb of drone/noise. From what I see in this video they also have a ritualistic aspect to them that reminds me a little bit of Phurpa, something that makes them even more adorable in my eyes and mind. And to make things even better, I saw that an oncoming TQ issue will be coming with the new Möbius recording for free, so I hope that more people will become exposed to them; this means that a subscription to TQ to get the cd is a pressing necessity! And for those who still haven't made the right move to contact David Howcroft of No-Audience Underground for live tapes of the great artists of the North-East region, I think that this cdr will convince you to do so, as David has already recorded and generated four Möbius gigs on tape along with other great people such as Death In Scarsdale, Womb, MP Wood! Admire this amazing cdr and do any necessary action now! 2017 cdr on Inverted Grim-Mill Recordings (cool name).

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Sakis Papadimitriou, Georgia Sylleou, George Bandoek Apostolakis - Nosferatu

 

Free improvisation drawing on jazz, atonal and ambient by these three Greek musicians, consisting of piano/organ, soprano vocals and guitars, mixing dark menacing sounds and more playful ones. The whole recording was made live while watching the original Nosferatu film by F.W. Murnau, trying to capture its essence.

2002 cd on LeoRecords.

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Kabukimono - Strega cdr

 

Haunting, spectral, ominous, dungeon-sounding gothic and post-punk by this German (I think) singer and piano player. Her influences include Diamanda Galas, Chelsea Wolfe, Zola Jesus (especially that foggy masterpiece with LA Vampires) and her piano playing shows classical influences, especially from Satie, as well as Middle-Eastern traces. Some tracks include guitar, bass and drums (I'm not sure who else is playing) and a slightly dronier and more improvisational tone. I like this a lot. 2017 cdr on Reverb Worship

Check out and donate some money on her bandcamp.

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Charlemagne Palestine - Sacred Bordello aka March 7, 1975 CD

Before I bought this cd I didn't notice that the first track is a recorded lecture lasting an hour and that there's only one music track included, so one could say that the joke was on me. Anyways, this cd is a companion to the book Sacred Bordello, which is a biography-cum-reader/collection of essays, scores and photos of Charlemagne's long career. Now, the lecture in question took place at the Nova Scotia Art and Design College in March 1975 after one concert of his, and Charlemagne analyzes and responds to questions about his music philosophy. You can hear him writing with chalk on a blackboard creating shapes and charts, and ends up talking about incidents of his life, like a car accident and a meeting with a guy making a magic ritual, which he narrates to the university students. Frankly, at this moment I'm too busy to sit around to pay attention to the whole thing, but it does seem like a really interesting talk. The second track is a voice study recorded during the early '60s, involving multiple layers of vocal humming in different pitches. It has a mystical quality and sounds quite similar to Stockhausen's Stimmung and Steve Reich's vocal pieces. 2003 cd on Alga Marghen.

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