Venetian Snares - Winnipeg is a Frozen Shithole (C)

Listen to the sounds of Winnipeg… Intense glitchin'sanity. I've never listened to more than the first track of this album before because the first track is so amazing. That's all I have to say for you to realize that you need to hear this, but if it's not then here you go. The first track (titled for the album) is basically literal insanity with a bass that makes you want to dance in traffic. But don't dance to it - because it's impossible. You'll probably actually die. It's one of the most intense songs that I've heard- only beating noise in intensity for the fact that it has the musical and beat-driven element that noise lacks. This is music to kick faces into. If you can listen to the first track, and not spend the whole time doing some sort of intense head-bob-bang-thing to it, then you're literally more insane than Aaron Funk. This track doesn't use breakbeats, it uses bullet beats. There's nothing faster. Nothing more filled with hatred for a place. Nothing more horrifyingly malicious.

Okay, now that I'm over that hump, the rest of the album keeps up the intensity. You can tell that Aaron Funk does NOT like Winni-glitch-Peg. This album is extremely clever, and extremely catchy. Each track reveals some new little trick of Funk's, as well as some new level of hatred he holds for his hometown. Some people shoot up schools; Aaron Funk lays down sickening beats. Winnipeg is a Frozen Shithole, and Vsnares in general is not for everyone, but if you're sad and like beer then this album is your lady.

Overall, I recommend that everyone at least check out both of these albums.

Venetian Snares - Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett (C)

This album by Vsnares happens to be one of my favorites. The album combines some classical-ambiance; some sampled Hungarian, Russian, and English classical; as well as those sick beats Vsnares is known for. Compared to Aaron Funk's other releases under the Venetian Snares name, this album certainly lacks the overall intensity of Winnipeg is a Frozen Shithole etc., but in no way lacking in intensity. Starting with a delightful piano piece (color tones? Atonal? Open Key? Too much heroin?), then shifting to a somewhat tense orchestral build up into some standard breakbeat-age, it all eventually gives way into a sort of drumsolo-madness. One of the highlights of the whole album is track 3, Öngyilkos Vasárnap (Literally "Gloomy Sunday"… Sound familiar?), a rather awe-inspiring remix/cover of Billie Holiday singing Gloomy Sunday, a song that on its own is one of my favorites, but as it is tactfully played with by Vsnares it becomes something more. The main beat of the song is simple in a way that fits the song well, but easily works into more drumorgasms throughout it. Almost giving you time to contemplate it is followed by another brief classical-esque piece, and then a very tense and chaotic piece more about the piano and the instruments than the beats, featuring a very sparse jazz-esque beat. The whole song is quite jazzy, featuring several "solos", most prominently for piano. Soon the beats take precedence again, and take the intensity to a new level. It all sets up the next few pieces (all very intense) very well, but before the storm begins, a brief calm sweeps through the album. The one thing that has always puzzled me was the choice of samples. The best track of the album begins with a somewhat odd sample regarding the concept of the album, the idea of being a pigeon at the Királyi Palota. The sample, practically bare except for some more pulsing strings, says "It's just a pigeon... Looking for its nest. It doesn't know that it's white. It doesn't know that it scares me. Why am I frightened so easily? Pigeon, why can you scare me? Am I not part of your life anymore? Am I not welcome anymore?" Almost immediately the chaos begins, starting as some simple fast-paced breakbeats, and slowly devolving into glitching insanity. Easily the next best track of the album, Masodik Galamb never ceases to amaze me with its strange choruses of pieces of the opening sample. This leads into the very glitch-heavy end of the album which is saturated with buzzing bass and some pretty high BPMs. Eventually it all winds down to a vaguely music-box ending.

Stars of the Lid - Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid (C)

Stars of the Lid. Where do I start? For one, this is how drone SHOULD be done. Stars of the Lid create ambient droning soundscapes that sound like nothing. They literally sound like nothing. The main bits certainly don't sound like the guitars they are, they're so effects-treated, and the few string and brass and piano parts are the only distinguishable parts of the music. Stars of the Lid are beauty. Pure, distilled beauty. Their music embodies aesthetic perfection in all its form. Simply stated, if you have not heard Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid, then you ought not to ever use the word "happiness." The soundscapes of Tired Sounds… are unencumbered by the drums and vocals so often added by other drone supergroups. This album is lying in the grass on a fair spring day, watching clouds passing overhead. It's the feeling of the sun on your face while you sit at the beach. It's lying cozily in your bed next to someone you care about on a cold winter night. Stars of the Lid have managed to concentrate emotion, add it to powdered landscape, and coat it over a perfect batch of chocolate chip fuzzy feelings. Sometimes I listen to this album and feel like I might cry (Which is okay, guys. Just let those tears out), and sometimes it makes me feel lonely and isolated, and other times it makes me feel warm and happy to be around so many wonderful people.

Stars of the Lid are a perfect dreamtime experiment. Spin Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid and get ready to start spinning.

Smohalla - Nova Persei (V)

Smohalla is really a fine example of the sort of progressive, atmospheric movement of what one might call post-black metal. Slo and company build up entrancing layers of keys, synthesized strings, acoustic guitars, heavy guitars, clean vocals, and more raspy vocals into a truly epic and glorious blend. While the complex layering of the music would tend to create something more noisy and harsh, this release fits into itself wonderfully. Even shifts to discordant riffs and blast beats just lend another taste to the atmospheric bewilderment of Nova Persei's tribute to the dreamworld.

Without ever abandoning the atmospheric layers, Smohalla freely shifts between well-written piano interludes and triumphant choruses, dark riffs that seem almost like black metal, thrash, and even doom. Everything remains, through effective transitions, consistent tempo, and distinctive Smohalla guitar sounds and ambience, part of the same story. The songs are distinctive and beautiful, and everything is well done. Recommended for fans of any of the artistic elites of black metal. Smohalla has earned its place long before the twenty minutes of Nova Persei have passed.

I understand that this is the last copy of Nova Persei, but the project isn't abandoned. I recommend following Smohalla's progress and snapping up anything you can lay your hands on.

Nordlicht - Nebelmeer (A)

Alright, a sentence might suffice, that being if you're a fan of Paysage D'hiver you will NEED this. Not to say this is a clone but there are some definite similiarities. Might also help to know that Nimosh, the man behind Nordlicht runs Kunsthall Productions with none other than Wintherr (Paysage D'hiver). Now, this being the only material put forth by Nordlicht (except for a song on the "Schneesturm" compilation) I'd say this is one of the best debuts (black metal or otherwhise) i've heard in awhile. A curious thing though, apparently the band was started in 1996 but "Nebelmeer" wasn't released until 2002. So perhaps this was a long in the works endeavor, even with the length not reaching a half hour. Anyways, onto the black and beautiful sonic mysteries that lurk within. Comprised of nine tracks, four being actual songs. The other five are murky, watery drone interludes underpinned by constant static. Transitioning from one piece to the next, they help to create a cohesive, almost one-long-song feel to the album. The songs themselves are walls of sound, thick tremolo picked guitars tangling up within each other making it hard to distinguish individual notes, smeared into a dense, blackened epic noise. All sorts of ambiences lurk beneath the surface, occasionally fully revealing themselves when the distorted guitars die down and offer some respite. Sometimes if listened closely enough to, you might hear, or think you're hearing the same murky drone that serves as interludes between the main songs constantly in the background. The guitars even slip into a downtuned chug every once in a while, reminding one of Darkspace. So again, completely recommended for those already under the wintry spell of Paysage D'hiver. It definetely creates the same image in the minds eye of snow blanketed forests, a shadowy figure hiding 'neath the branches ...

Released through Kunsthall Produktionen.

Navicon Torture Technologies - I Fucking Hate You All and I Hope You All Fucking Die (C)

Navicon Torture Technologies is the dark ambient brainchild of Lee M. Batow, now on its way to a polite and quiet grave. I Fucking Hate You All and I Hope You All Fucking Die is a NTT masterpiece, bested possibly only by Dripping with the Power of Her Flesh. It starts out with a haunting repetitive keyboard line, and then dives straight into the refined cesspool of gritty noise backing a series of effected vocals (repeating the phrase "I want to hang myself, I want to die." and noisy swoops. The album itself is noisy, but not loud. It's truly "dark ambient" in its unique style of unobtrusive, yet compellingly haunting noisescapes.

After a couple similar gritty noise tracks, NTT eases into a very minimal, pulsing noise line, which is soon overtaken by a clean sample of a distraught-sounding girl saying over and over again "I love you, and I'm so sorry that I'm so awful to you. And I don't know, I don't know what to do or what to say. I hate this, and I hate myself…" Over the pulsing underline, a more traditional ambient cloud slowly fades in, adding to the morbid beauty, and striking one-two punch of the track. After Personal Apocalypse, there are a series of more non-noisy, psychedelic-esque sample tracks featuring tribal beats, and more traditional ambient elements, as well as a series of more in-your-face noisy tracks.

The real highlight of the album, however, is Personal Apocalypse II, featuring another sample of the same girl, with a similar backdrop. All in all, this album is one that can only be expelled from an extremely dark and disturbed psyche, and received well by a comparable one. I do not recommend it if you are depressed, alone, or breastfeeding.

Nature and Organisation - Beauty Reaps the Blood of Solitude (V)

The lineup: NAO itself is the child of longtime Current 93 member Michael Cashmore, and this album features guestwork from David Tibet, Douglas Pearce, Rose McDowall, and Steven Stapleton. Beauty Reaps the Blood of Solitude features all the usual elements: soft acoustic guitar, mixed percussion, keyboards, strings, woodwinds, industrial noise . . . really, all the elements. And they're all well-done. And all the songs are excellent. And there's incredible variety. "Beauty Destroyed" would almost fit in on a more harsh Nadja record - but there's enough Nadja in this issue. "Obsession Flowers as Torture" starts off with classical guitar and moves into incredible heavy martial industrial sounds.

Since this is Michael Cashmore's project, not a vocalist's project, there's a LOT more going on instrumentally here than with most neofolk albums. In Gowan Ring comes to mind much of the time, particularly with the well-developed interaction of strings and guitar. Tibet's lyrics are as bizarre as ever. The melodies are beautiful and thoughtful. The rendition of Paul Giovanni's "Willow's Song" is beautiful. "My Black Diary," notwithstanding the heavy ambient music at the beginning, would fit wonderfully on a Death In June album. The record as a whole flows beautifully, with connected themes and lyrics throughout. Definitely recommended, for anyone.