Posts Tagged ‘avantgarde’

Human Antithesis
Human Antithesis

If today I were to give a background to the apocalypse, I would not doubt in writing the Void Of Silence by its composition: to be precise I’d take directly Human Antithesis as soundtrack and will embroider my personal destruction film on it.

Reading the book presentation of the disc, I realize that Alan Nemtheanga involved in the project as a vocalist and the presence of the Irish Primordial in this third release of the duo from Rome can only make me great pleasure, knowing how these benefits in its anger, suffering and passion. In fact, precisely these are the ingredients that you can find in 60 minutes of this very precious disk.

The Void Of Silence are now able to mix, with personality and originality, the dark atmosphere almost post-conflict, the doom and atmospheric steps (worthy of the masters My Dying Bride and Unholy), and the martial and black-industrial cadences that in some moments cast me back listening to the dear unforgotten Thorns).

Ban, however, words are wasted and comparisons are too trivial: I recommend you to headlong dive in this maniacal, impressive and nuanced production. If you do not want to tickle the mind, or simply engage in a thorough and customized listening, so… forget the V.O.S, but if you hold and insane hungry for unique and disturbing sounds, then… do like me, just involve an hour of your gray afternoon, draw your own destruction and oblivion scene and devour this album, suspended … timeless. Great.

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Bastia Centauri - Teratogenesis
Bastia Centauri – Teratogenesis

So Eibon is getting a taste for it: here’s another dark-ambient project. Of course here we are far from the echoes of the industrial-nihilistic apocalyptic First Human Ferro, with Bestia Centauri we are facing an ambient avant-garde so sizzling to border on surrealism.

It’s over 60-minute journey through space enveloped into suspended sensations that seem to never find peace, as the continuous flow of sound manipulation, pouring and upsetting. Adjoining worlds switching on and off, star-gates that open wide in front our unbelieving senses, always rotating galaxies that seem to swallow any daring remnant twirling in their vicinity.

Teratogenesis is a deadly and menacing shadows, ready to suck you in as you fail glancing over your shoulders, this feeling of immersion never forsakes, like throes of death inflicted by the most patient and ruthless persecuter.

Here is much food for friends who love the more brash avant-garde experimentation, for people who want to themselves be be dragged into thick and threatening liquid given birth by the creature, Bestia Centauri.

For those that can not be influenced by the extreme sonic oddity that can make way for a relentless nightmare.

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Ulver - War of the Roses
Ulver – War of the Roses

I admit to being a great admirer of Ulver’s changes, I have followed the “Norwegian wolves” since the beginning of their never linear musical journey, always surprising and unsettling, so as to label them (what an ugly word …) as the cutting edge of an extreme music scene so bleak as the present one. I’m one of the lucky few who have seen them in both their two Italian concerts and if last year I came back excited by their live performance at Rasi theater, a few weeks ago I was rather puzzled by their show at Bronson, in Ravenna again.

First I had the proof that a band like that is to listen sitting back and letting the mind and the images resulting from their music to travel free and undisturbed, without any kind of distractions due to standing up or the inability to remain enveloped in the visual projections so dear to our scandinavian. Then disappointment, is the dominant feeling in hearing live this War of the Roses enhanced by the revival of just one old song (Hallways of Always). Backing home, comforted by the wonderful just purchased Ulver T-shirt , I tried a more carefully second listening without finding the expected satisfaction. The former Shadow of the Sun once more had my ears blown away, slipping into a gentle and resigned intimacy leaving very pleasant background sensations, one thing is certain: with every album, Ulver, taught me not to live with old memories and the fact of never knowing what to expect, a sort of excitement that only the unknown can give, is what I always liked about Kristoffer Rygg‘s band.
Album production is by John Fryer (Depeche Mode, Cocteau Twins, Swans), then a guarantee, but the opening February MMX has the feel of a song already heard, something like Lost in Moments lost oll gasp, but most of all (worst to me) feels like an episode completely detached from the rest of the disc: a “filler” track more than the single that launched the album on Facebook. Listening to Norwegian Gothic brings back the good mood: the track is not linear, noir, bizarre, and his distortions are so nice to merit more than a play. The intimacy of Providence wakes for a moment the atmosphere of Shadow of the Sun and the female voice is a sweet caress, September IV has a gait that you immediately appreciate, but only in the second part it shows off its best part. England has the thickness of a piece of interim but Island is an avant-garde gem that finally lets me back nicely displaced and takes me Blood Inside strong and mixed emotions. The voice of Daniel O’Sullivan reigns in the final”suite”, the minimal and sacral Stone Angels, a song that almost moved me in the live performance, but heard in the album contest and despite a really thrilling final, results a bit bulky with its 15 minutes out of 45 total.
I will always love Ulver, that’s for sure, but I cannot mask my disappointment, and despite the merit that (maybe) will have to launch the band to a slice of the broader public, in my modest opinion”War of the Roses” signs a small step back from my feverish expectations.
the dominant feeling in listening to the new live album

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