It’s been a while since I’ve opened the great grimoire of doom and inscribed a new entry. I’ve been busier than a kobold berserker with St. Vitus dance. Since we last met (over brimming tankards of dark ale), a lot of new music has been released, and I’ve written up some reviews and recommendations to serve you well on your journey… (more…)
Since 2002, Nadja — the Toronto-based duo of Aidan Baker and Leah Buckareff — have released over 40 full length LPs, split records, singles, CD-Rs and a live DVD. Nadja began as an offshoot of Aidan Baker’s solo career — a place for the darker and heavier sounds he wanted to explore.
Nadja create music that is brutally slow, heavy and deliberate, but with multiple layers of sound — swaths of ethereal shimmer, various reverbed tonalities and feedback. The effect is extremely hypnotic and even downright pretty at times. Like watching a little blue butterfly landing on your wrist as you watch a tall building collapsing over your head.
This year looks to be their most prolific yet, including When I See the Sun Always Shines on TV, a covers album featuring everything from Slayer’s “Dead Skin Mask” to a-ha’s “The Sun Always Shines on TV.” There’s even a cover of “Long Dark Twenties,” a Paul Bellini-penned song that originally appeared on the Kids in the Hall Brain Candy soundtrack. (more…)
MONOLITH OF DOOM AND DESTRUCTION UNLEASHED UPON THE POPULACE – BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED
The Black Box (Flingco Sound System)
The box had been devised long ago by an evil wizard. Balsax the Cleric placed the mysterious relic on the table and turned some magical switch. In a moment, the sounds of the wizard’s demonic magic filled the air and many of us fell to our knees retching and trembling…
A few years ago, Chinese electronicists FM3 created “The Buddha Machine” – a pocket-sized box that played multiple loops and drones. The Buddha Machine became a worldwide sensation and people bought several machines so they could create layered soundscapes. Even Sunn O))) got into the act with a track on the compilation LP Jukebox Buddha which featured various artists utilizing the machine. (more…)
II.
Kromrod the Fierce wiped the blood from his massive broadsword. The chill fog of the Northern Wastes cleared the fetid dungeon air from his senses. He adjusted his loin cloth and stepped down the stony embankment.
There was a dwelling ahead – a crude yurt made of skins and hempen rope. A woman peered out of the doorway at the swarthy barbarian. Her eyes were as dark as her hair and her breasts as ample as a king’s banquet. The smell of sorcery and some sort of roasted meat was about her.
“Would you…like to…listen to some records…and warm yourself by my fire?” She asked in a slithering tone.
Kromrod grunted a reply, and pushed his way into the smokey darkness of the hut.
The woman presented the barbarian with a curved clay pipe and lit the bowl with a wave of her fingers.
“What is it you seek, barbarian?” she asked, crawling over to a box of crow skulls and LPs.
“I seek a standard.” Kromrod said, exhaling blue smoke from the hash pipe, “Two snakes, coming together, facing each other…but they’re like, one…” He drew heavily on the pipe again. “Like on a shield, or a banner, or the side of a van.”
“Or a bass drum head?” The woman whispered, putting the needle on the record and ripping off her flimsy silken kimono and throwing herself at Kromrod’s heavily muscular form…
Sometimes when I’m listening to the new Gates of Slumber record, I feel like I’m watching an epic sword and sorcery film play out in my mind. Or an especially spirited round of D&D back in the day.
The cover of the power trio’s fourth epic-length album, Hymns of Blood and Thunder, features an obsidian-armored warrior, dealing the death stroke to some wretched goblinoids, while a scantily-clad sorceress babe looks on. Oh yeah, and there are some lightning bolts and crows too. (more…)
Once upon a time, in my 16th or 17th year, I had but two concerns; one, whether or not the punk chick with the red bob at Rainbow Records had a boyfriend; and two, which was slightly more dire, was which band logo I wanted to have my friend Ron airbrush onto the back of my leather jacket.
If you wanted to get a fuggin’ perfect Crimson Ghost or GBH logo on the back of your leather, Ron was the guy to do it. His dad had an old truck camper in the side yard and Ron had turned it into his workshop. He had a box full of chains, spikes, and needlenose pliers to turn your jacket into the ultimate garment of bad-assery.
Had Isis been around then, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. ISIS in big red block letters. ISIS without a fucking doubt. Just thinking about it now makes me want to go get a leather jacket, go visit Ron in the clinker, and have him do his magic once again. (more…)
Since the world is about to end, I figured I would get into the spirit and post this — the first Test of the DOOOOMERANG!!! DOOOOOOM is the serious bidniss, as we will learn today.
I used to work in San Francisco. After work, I would get a vegan raw almond milkshake at Cafe Gratitude and then go over to the fantastic Aquarius Records on Valencia Street. I would spend hours in that cool little shop and look through the new releases. Crazy reggae dub records, crazy experimental stuff, crazy field recordings, and some seriously intense metal and psych records.
That’s where I learned of the mighty Sunn O))) and the sonic sitar drive of Lamp of the Universe. I was set hip to Kiss’ prog rock album (produced by none other than Bob Ezrin and featuring additional lyrics by Lou Reed, no less) and I bought my first Jesu records.
I also discovered Monarch.
Monarch are, or were actually, a French drone/dooooooooom band fronted by a young lady named Emilie Bresson. This three (sometimes four)-member unit of unholy sludgemerchants poured out the slow and lumbering death-lurch like so much black sticky hash resin. They released a handful of records — three full-lengths, some EPs, a few platters split between other artists, and a ‘Best Of’ release. It was unusual for such a slowwww and doooomy band to have a female vocalist, but Emilie has seemed to attract quite the following. (more…)
