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Gli Putridissimi and Panzanellas – Comete, split album (2014)

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Gli Putridissimi and Panzanellas - Comete, Split album 2014

Gli Putridissimi and Panzanellas - Comete, Split album 2014 Lepers production from Itali it’s a free net label, we share weird music for free since 2005. They promote them self as the best free net label and it might be quite possible. But what I’m absolutely sure is that I love both Gli Putridissimi and Panzanellas and the positive madness they dislocate and spread around.
Gli Putridissimi it’s an experimental project from Bari which combines black metal with jazz. Hard not to love the rough insanity they deliver. But – for some probably surprisingly -, they manage to bring to the surface also memorable melodies and some pretty addictive grooves. They have a kind of friendly acid/psychedelia/space rock vibe from the 70’s mixed with modern grooves and non-conformity. We’ve got Read more Gli Putridissimi and Panzanellas – Comete, split album (2014) ›

Cynic – Kindly Bent to Free Us (2014)

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Cynic - Kindly Bent to Free Us (2014)

Cynic - Kindly Bent to Free Us (2014) Label Cynic as a metal band it’s at least ignorance. They grew out of that box pretty quickly and although they merged technical death metal and influences with jazz and progressive rock elements, their music was always something special and different. “Kindly Bent to Free Us”, their third full-length album, it’s a flawless mixture of modern sound and classic, progressive rock flavor with some jazzy reflections. Have some sort of King Crimson and Pink Floyd type of timeless and shiny (brilliant 🙂 ) feel.
The current line-up consist of veterans Paul Masvidal – vocals & guitars, Sean Reinert – drums & percussion and longtime, mainly studio collaborator Sean Malone – fretless bass, chapman stick.
Engineering by Jason Donaghy (Rob Zombie – Hellbilly Deluxe 2), mixed by R. Walt Vincent (Pete Yorn, Liz Phair, Tommy Keene and Jonathan Elias’ The Prayer Cycle), mastered by Maor Appelbaum (Adrenaline Mob, Sepultura, Halford, Armored Saint, Cathedral , etc), featuring the art work of Robert Venosa (among other works, the pre-sketches and conceptual design for the movie Dune), “Kindly Bent to Free Us” it’s a psychedelic sci-fi trip. Read more Cynic – Kindly Bent to Free Us (2014) ›

Fragment – Temporary Enlightenment (2013)

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Merging shoegaze flavoured gloominess and endless distorted guitar chords; slow pulsing electronic layers and bitter sweet clean vocals; cinematic tension and mechanical monotony; Thierry Arnal, the one-man army behind Fragment, is back with his new album entitled “Temporary Enlightenment”. This is a quite dizzy mixture of alternative rock and drone, post-modern psychedelia and slowcore, dream-pop and shoegaze, a bridge build of sound and noises, but on solid emotional pillars, between Sunn O)))) and Sigur RĂłs, between Pink Floyd and Candlemass, and everything ever-after and above.
Not an easy listening, not refreshing, probably not gonna make you feel better or released, but it’s gonna make you feel miserable and eventually make you cry, but that’s alright. Crying it’s not something you should be ashamed of. And “Temporary Enlightenment” have several quieter, less weighty and depressing moments as well (like the nice acoustic “From This Moment”), so, no need to be desperate, there is still a pale stain of hope. Read more Fragment – Temporary Enlightenment (2013) ›

The Dark Sides of the Moon

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“The Dark Side of the Moon” was a milestone, not only in the career of Pink Floyd, but in the history of the music and not at least, source for inspiration for many musicians since its release. There’s many tribute, cover and reinterpretations of “The Dark Side of the Moon” and I gathered here a few of the most intriguing and interesting of these releases.

Released on 10 March 1973, “The Dark Side of the Moon” is the eighth studio album by Pink Floyd and it was the record that moved, back or forward – it’s a matter of point of view – the English band from the closed circle of fans to the mainstream. “The Dark Side of the Moon” is a concept album that explore the themes of conflict, greed, the passage of time and mental illness, the latter partly inspired by Syd Barrett’s deteriorating mental state, but it lacks the extended instrumental excursions that characterized their work following the departure in 1968 of founding member, principal composer and lyricist  Barrett. The album was recorded in two sessions in 1972 and 1973 at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London. The group used some of the most advanced recording techniques of the time, including multitrack recording and tape loops. Analogue synthesizers were given prominence in several tracks, and a series of recorded interviews with staff and band personnel provided the source material for a range of philosophical quotations used throughout. Engineer Alan Parsons was directly responsible for some of the most notable sonic aspects of the album, including the non-lexical performance of Clare Torry. Read more The Dark Sides of the Moon ›

A Swarm Of The Sun – Zenith (2010)

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I actually miss this one last year, but thanks to Erik Nilsson, I had the pleasure to listen this Swedish duo’s full-length debut album now. A Swarm of the Sun was formed in 2007 in Stockholm by Erik Nilsson and Jakob Berglund  and they released the EP “The King of Everything” in the same year on Erik’s independent record-label Version Studio. “Zenith” was released on August 30, 2010 and their influences including a number of different genres from post rock and indie rock to assorted electronics and film score like music. It’s a gloomy, but colorful blending, their music shifting from slow glowing textures and spacy dimensions to powerful rock explosions, it’s flowing and floating, warm and cold moments, elements are melting down or sometimes frozen into a strange, touching soundscape. Read more A Swarm Of The Sun – Zenith (2010) ›

Rafael Toral – Space Elements Vol. III (2011)

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Toral plays experimental electronic instruments like electrode oscillator, modified MS-2 pocket amplifier feedback, glove-controlled computer bass sinewaves, filtered feedback circuit,  modified MT-10 portable amplifier, modulated noise, modular synthesizer and tamtam.  Sometimes it sounds like R2D2 are talking to you. Strongly interested in phrasing, he calls his style “post-free jazz electronic music”, described as “a brand of electronic music far more visceral and emotive than that of his cerebral peers”. His music actually it’s kind of abstract, but interesting, you never really know what to expect in the next moment. And some of these experiments are quit exciting. The music is not congested, it’s airy, Toral know to use the silence and he’s colored it with interesting noises and all sort of elements to create atmosphere without being overwhelming.  Read more Rafael Toral – Space Elements Vol. III (2011) ›

Between The Buried And Me – The Parallax Hypersleep Dialogues (2011)

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Expected to be released on April 12, 2011, through the band’s new label, Metal Blade Records, “The Parallax Hypersleep Dialogues” consist of three brand new songs and the material is over 30 minutes, so this extended play will mainly satisfy all the band’s fans for the two years of waiting. It’s true, meanwhile Tommy Giles Rogers Jr.- the lead singer and founder – of the band released his brilliant second solo album “Pulse” earlier this year, in February, also through Metal Blade.
Thomas and his band mates – Dan Briggs – bass guitar, Blake Richardson – drums, percussion, Paul Waggoner – lead guitars and Dustie Waring – rhythm guitars – made the conscious decision to preclude a studio album with an extended play in addition to being part of a concept album series, so probably we will hear other new materials from them pretty soon. Read more Between The Buried And Me – The Parallax Hypersleep Dialogues (2011) ›

Thomas Giles – Pulse (2011)

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“Pulse” is one of the most wonderful and exciting records I had the pleasure to listen this year and I admit it, it was a huge surprise. Tommy Giles Rogers Jr. is the lead singer and founder of the band Between the Buried and Me, one of the leaders of the new – twisted – metal wave, a powerful and extremely creative band wich show a new direction and proved once again: metal is not dead.
“Pulse” is actually the second solo album by Tommy, the first was released back in 2004 under the name Giles. The new material is extremely colorful, impossible to label, crammed in some particular box. And about the influences and different musical roots of Tommy we can get an idea by listening the cover collection released in 2006 under the title “The Anatomy of” by Between the Buried and Me where we have songs by Metallica, Sepultura, Depeche Mode , Queen, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Earth Crises, Blind Melon, Counting Crows, Soundgarden, Faith No More, Motley Crue, Pantera, and Smashing Pumpkins. Read more Thomas Giles – Pulse (2011) ›

Terra Tenebrosa – The Tunnels (2011)

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A tenebrous album by Terra Tenebrosa from Stockholm, Sweden. Build on the ruins of Breach, Terra Tenebrosa is a new band on the metal scene and “The Tunnels” is they debut effort wich contains 7 twisted and gloomy tracks. Since Terra Tenebrosa is a brand new brand, their biography is more or less a blank page, I found them only on MySpace and Facebook, but not any useful background info, so all I have are their songs. And as I said, their are deeply heavy and dark ones, not an easy listening for sure, but still, Terra Tenebrosa navigate on some troubled, but intense and interesting “waters”. Read more Terra Tenebrosa – The Tunnels (2011) ›

Boris with Merzbow – Klatter (2011)

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Boris is probably the best known name in the area of the experimental music in Japan. The band formed in 1992 in Tokyo and since 1996 released 17 albums and collaborated with dozens of artists on various projects. Last time they worked with Ian Astbury (from The Cult) on “BXI” last year. Merzbow is the stage name of Japanese Masami Akita inspired by the artwork entitled “Merzbau” by the German artist Kurt Schwitters, and Akita  since 1979 is involved in all sorts of musical experiments and avant-garde projects of Noise and Dark Ambient music,  he released more than 350 recordings since.
It’s no way that a collaboration between Boris and Merzbow not to work out at least interesting. Read more Boris with Merzbow – Klatter (2011) ›