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Full Album Premiere, Track-by-Track & Review: The Moth, Frost

Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on September 21st, 2023 by JJ Koczan

the moth frost

Hamburg, Germany’s The Moth exist in a world without genre, and their fourth album, Frost — also their first release for the likemided Exile on Mainstream — argues that maybe you should to. The three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Freden Mohrdiek, bassist/vocalist Cécile Ash and drummer Christian “Curry” Korr debuted a decade ago with 2013’s They Fall, answered back in 2015 with And Then Rise (review here), and made a declarative statement of persona on 2017’s Hysteria (review here), each record marked by incremental growth in an increasingly distinct stylistic context. Frost may arrive six years after the third long-player and through a new label, but as The Moth step forward again with this 10-song/44-minute collection, the many strengths of their approach are on ready display, whether it’s the intensity of chug in “Me, Myself and Enemy,” the sad hookiness of “Hundreds” or the thud and crush that caps with “Silent.”

One is tempted, perpetually, to think of The Moth as ‘experimental,’ but the truth is more complex. They’re not banging on steel girders or inventing instruments. They’re not looping effects until the cosmos seems to melt. Guitar, bass, drums, and the shared vocals of Ash and Mohrdiek are all they need to make Frost unpredictable front to back. They’re like the best present that noise rock never knew it got. Expansive and rolling in the Melvinsian tradition before the blowout on the title-track, loosely playing toward, well, Cathedral on “Cathedral” (could also say Type O Negative there), and set forth with punk-born fervor in the salvo “My, Myself and Enemy,” “Birmingham,” “Battlefield” and “Bruised” just before, the two instances of alliteration likely coincidental, but an example just the same of the identity and character in their material. A band not only saying they’re doing their own thing, but actually living up to that standard. And fostering an emotional expression as well.

“Bruised” seems especially well placed since, by the time one gets there it’s a potentially apt descriptor. Of the first four songs, only “Birmingham” is over three minutes long, and so where a psychedelic band might try to draw the audience in with some hypnotic, repetitive meditation, The Moth head out at a relative sprint and put their most driving material up front. That’s not a universal, blanket truth, by the way — because one must remember, The Moth are multifaceted, and a given track might do more than one thing — but applicable as a generalization. Certainly the penultimate “Dust,” which was also the lead single from Frost, has a suitably brash shove in addition to one of the record’s most satisfying nods, and “In the City” just before is tense enough to make your stomach hurt if you let it, with its weirdo effects in the second half lead over the double-time hi-hat and jet-engine rhythm layers of guitar and bass. But there is a definite transition as “Cathedral” picks up from “Bruised,” and “Hundreds” leans into its grunge-ish chorus melody with Ash and Mohrdiek together on vocals to end side A with a due sense of landing.

the moth (photo by José Lorenzo & Cécile Ash)

And it’s not the last one as The Moth move into side B and the last four, mostly longer, songs on the album. The rumble at the start of “Frost” boasts aww-yuck-face tone in only the most righteous fashion, and the sludgy crash and lumber that ensues is a redirect from “Hundreds,” which also ends thudding but in kind of a ’80s-thrash-tape manner. The title-track is the longest song at 6:52, and grows more consuming as it works toward its eventual fade, with Mohrdiek and Ash swapping back and forth in the vocal arrangement when not both shouting. With “In the City” after, they assure that the strides and vibe established on side A aren’t lost — that energy that comes through as “Me, Myself and Enemy” opens, I mean — and while one would hardly call the tremolo picking of “Dust” soothing, there is an overarching flow as it gives over to the avant raw riffing and toms of “Silent,” which brings back that forward-in-the-mix guitar-as-keyboard (unless it’s just a keyboard) sound from “In the City” as if continuing a theme across the final three tracks, pulling them together as a band might when considering the whole-LP impression of a work as well as the songs that make it.

Maybe The Moth sit and planned all this out before they hit the studio, or maybe the whole thing is magic. It matters only academically. What’s more relevant in terms of the listening experience is that Frost was tracked live, in a day. It is a band-showed-up-and-played record, and part of its sonic appeal comes from that. I used the word ‘raw’ above to describe the tones and I’ll stand by it, but it’s worth highlighting that while much of Frost can indeed be barebones from a production standpoint, the material neither sounds opaque nor difficult to engage. Even as they cap “Silent,” they do so on a march and a drone rather than some grandiose ending that would be out of place. If that’s a conscious choice on their part or just what felt right, the end result is the same. The Moth continue their progressive trajectory in these songs and meet the span of years it’s been since their last offering with head-on force of craft and delivery.

The Moth – Track-by-Track Through Frost:

ME, MYSELF & ENEMY

Sometimes the enemy can be yourself. That holds true for the emotional and psychological side as well as the physical side when something in your body turns against you and threatens your health and life.

BIRMINGHAM

The song is about people who want to change themselves or something in their lives and, despite being very motivated, have to realize how difficult it sometimes is to stop feeding the demons within them.

BATTLEFIELD

This is about being let down and emotionally injured by a person that you felt closest to. And about not being able to show or talk about the injury. So you smile though inside you are full of grief and not able to share it with anyone (yet). This denying of your feelings is (maybe literally) like killing parts of yourself over and over again.

BRUISED

This is about preparing for a fight and not being afraid of it, though the enemy may be strong. Because some fights are just necessary. Catching a few hits or getting bruised doesn’t scare you, because you know that you’ll get through this and though you may be smaller, you’re stronger.

CATHEDRAL

Some periods in life we feel like the present and the future are especially uncertain. It’s like walking through a fog and we just have to have faith in ourself, each other and that the good in humanity will win over the bad. In those times we should turn towards the other or the others, show that we feel the same, take each other’s hands (sometimes metaphorically speaking) and get through this together.

HUNDREDS

This is about past relationships and breakups. If they have truely loved, ex-partners may somehow stay connected on some other level even though they were not meant to be together in this life.

FROST

Sometimes what you most wish for and have fought for so long, just doesn’t happen or something puts a definite end to that vision you had: it will never become reality. So where is that hope that you fostered for so long, so suddenly supposed to go? Having to give up hope on something that was extremely important to you is a huge loss. So going through the grief that this brings feels like walking through a sea of ice, through the frost. And if nobody is sharing the grief with you, you have to confront this pain and emptiness on your own. Until the end of the frost.

IN THE CITY

It’s about people that are alive and have a lust for life and are not afraid to show it. They have dressed up, look sharp and walk the streets at night to go to a concert or a party and just enjoy themselves. They are being watched by others, half fascinated, half uncomprehending. The others are more ordinary people, who like to keep it „normal“, people with dead eyes. In this particular case we were thinking about four women from the Birmingham area who have supported us since we first came to the UK and definitely made the nights more colourful: Emma, Emily, Jess and Vic. Emma and Emily are also singing alongside Cécile on the chorus of this track!

DUST

Two years ago I (Cécile) had breast cancer. During that time I often listened to Anita Moorjani who once had cancer herself and a near death experience. She is just so encouraging. She says cancer patients should not accept the word „remission“ (fear-based) but should reinterpret this word as a shortform for „remember your mission“ (love-based). Our purpose is, she says, to remember what we came here for, what our mission is. And our first mission is, to truly be ourselves.

SILENT

The song is about the certainty or hope that someone is there for you and looks after you in tough times and will give you a hand.

German doom/sludge metal trio THE MOTH prepares to release their monstrous fourth album, Frost, through Exile On Mainstream this Friday.

Frost will be released on September 22nd digitally and on 140-gram pure virgin Black Vinyl including a bundled CD. Find physical preorders at the Exile On Mainstream webshop HERE: https://shop.mainstreamrecords.de/product/eom107
and digital at Bandcamp HERE: https://the-moth.bandcamp.com/

THE MOTH takes their approach to new heights with their fourth album, Frost. Catchy lines get stuck in the listener’s heart and mind like a dislodged meat hook, explaining why the band calls their style doom-sludge pop – “Kim Wilde-meets-Bolt Thrower” – or like a review for the 2017 album Hysteria put it: “pop music played with a bulldozer.” Lyrically, however, THE MOTH shows a new openness and vulnerability under the shell of raw power that the songs initially present. Experiencing and living through strokes of fate runs through the record as a recurring theme – all under a rough shell of distinctive and deliberately raw sound. Bassist/vocalist Cécile Ash, guitarist/vocalist Freden Mohrdiek, and drummer Curry Korr perform the dichotomy with a high recognition value. Boring riff hum and mantric stoner-esque repetition are not their thing.

Frost was recorded live in only 24 hours, the album recorded and mixed by José Lorenzo at Bombrec Recording, and then mastered by Timo Höcke at Die Wellenschmiede, and completed with artwork by Sarah Breen and layout by Cécile Ash. Emma Billingham and Emily Yardley provide additional vocals on “In The City.”

Frost will be released on September 22nd digitally and on 140-gram pure virgin Black Vinyl including a bundled CD. Find physical preorders at the Exile On Mainstream webshop HERE and digital at Bandcamp HERE.

THE MOTH has confirmed a string of release dates including shows with Thronehammer and labelmates Treedeon with more to be posted shortly.

THE MOTH Record Release Shows:
9/22/2023 Störtebecker – Hamburg, DE w/ Treedeon
10/03/2023 Alte Meierei – Kiel, DE w/ Thronehammer
10/04/2023 Fundbureau – Hamburg, DE w/ Thronehammer
10/05/2023 MTC – Cologne, DE w/ Thronehammer
10/06/2023 Immerhin – Wuerzburg, DE
10/07/2023 Keep It Low Festival – Munich, DE
11/17/2023 Thav – Hildesheim, DE w/ with Shakhtyor
11/18/2023 Die Trompete – Bochum, DE w/ Treedeon

THE MOTH:
Cécile Ash – bass, vocals
Freden Mohrdiek – guitar, vocals
Curry Korr – drums

The Moth, “Dust” official video

The Moth on Facebook

The Moth on Instagram

The Moth on Bandcamp

The Moth on YouTube

Exile on Mainstream website

Exile on Mainstream on Instagram

Exile on Mainstream YouTube channel

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The Moth to Release Frost on Sept. 22; “Dust” Video Posted

Posted in Whathaveyou on August 21st, 2023 by JJ Koczan

the moth (photo by José Lorenzo & Cécile Ash)

New The Moth track is a banger. The PR wire info below has all the details you could want about the Hamburg-based trio’s upcoming fourth album and first for Exile on Mainstream, titled Frost, and I’d encourage you to by all means dig in and learn a bit of the background as you listen to/watch the video for “Dust.” Apocalyptic and thus almost woefully catchy, it’s a first taste of Frost, and its tones don’t strike as being particularly cold in its rolling groove derived (mathematically speaking, of course) from ’90s noise and given a melodic foundation in its verse that the repeated lyrics make that much more memorable.

This song was recorded live in a day — apparently that also applies to the entire album — and so if it feels raw, good. That’s what they’re going for. But they’re not just raw, or just any one thing. They really are the perfect Exile on Mainstream band, in that they’re able to do six things at once and be confoundingly complex while still coming across barebones and utterly cohesive. “Dust” deals lyrically with bassist/vocalist Cécile Ash‘s cancer experience, as she recounts below:

the moth frost

THE MOTH: German Doom Metal Trio Announces Details Of Fourth LP, Frost, Confirmed For September Release Via Exile On Mainstream; “Dust” Video + Preorders Posted

Exile On Mainstream presents Frost, the colossal fourth LP from German doom metal trio THE MOTH, confirming the album for September 22nd release alongside preorders and other details. With the news comes the record’s first single, a video for the song “Dust.”

After three albums on the fantastic This Charming Man label, THE MOTH now presents their label debut on Exile On Mainstream with Frost. Having honed their no-nonsense approach to sludge/doom metal on numerous tours and gigs, the band’s songs are virtually void of frills, instead opting to turn out hammer heavy drums and riff-heavy rock as brutal as it is bewitching. Since their acclaimed debut They Fall in 2013, the Hamburg trio has regularly delivered tracks with a catchiness that is surprising for the genre. Kim Wilde-meets-Bolt Thrower, as they call it themselves, or like a review for the 2017 album Hysteria put it: “pop music played with a bulldozer.”

THE MOTH now takes this approach to new heights with their fourth album, Frost. Catchy lines get stuck in the listener’s heart and mind like a dislodged meat hook, explaining why the band calls their style “doom-sludge pop.” Lyrically, however, THE MOTH shows a new openness and vulnerability under the shell of raw power that the songs initially present. Experiencing and living through strokes of fate runs through the record as a recurring theme – all under a rough shell of distinctive and deliberately raw sound. Bassist/vocalist Cécile Ash, guitarist/vocalist Freden Mohrdiek, and drummer Curry Korr perform the dichotomy with a high recognition value. Boring riff hum and mantric stoner-esque repetition are not their thing. Anyone who experiences THE MOTH live will automatically find themselves in front of the stage with a biting head nod, a thirst for beer, and a fist clenched at hip height.

Frost was recorded live in only 24 hours, recorded and mixed by José Lorenzo at Bombrec Recording, and then mastered by Timo Höcke, at Die Wellenschmiede, and completed with artwork by Sarah Breen and layout by Cécile Ash. Emma Billingham and Emily Yardley provide additional vocals on “In The City.”

The first single from Frost, “Dust,” is delivered through a video by Niklas Krohn of Cruel Visions. Cécile Ash reveals the touching story behind the single, writing, “Two years ago, I had breast cancer. During that time, I discovered the writer Anita Moorjani and her own approach to cancer. After a near-death experience her tumor started regressing and she came out with a super positive, encouraging, and empowering attitude. One of the essences of her attitude is rewriting the meaning of the word remission, used to describe the 5-10 years phase after a treatment when signs and symptoms of cancer seem to be fading or completely going away – before doctors would use the word cure. Moorjani reinterprets and sees it as an abbreviation for ‘Remember your Mission’ postulating a pledge for asking yourself: ‘What is my mission, what am I here for?’ First and foremost, she says it’s about just being yourself. ‘Dust’ is about death holding the sword of Damocles of cancer recurrence over me. It says dagger instead of sword in the song simply because it did fit better with the music. It’s about remembering the mission of being yourself, which seems to be a strong force against a possible conquest and for a serious bye-bye to the ongoing threat.”

Check out THE MOTH’s video for “Dust” now at THIS LOCATION.

Frost will be released on September 22nd digitally and on 140-gram pure virgin Black Vinyl including a bundled CD. Find physical preorders at the Exile On Mainstream webshop HERE: https://shop.mainstreamrecords.de/product/eom107
and digital at Bandcamp HERE: https://the-moth.bandcamp.com/

Watch for additional videos and previews of the album to post shortly.

Frost Track Listing:
1. Me, Myself & Enemy
2. Birmingham
3. Battlefield
4. Bruised
5. Cathedral
6. Hundreds
7. Frost
8. In The City
9. Dust
10. Silent

THE MOTH has already confirmed a string of release dates including shows with Thronehammer and labelmates Treedeon with more to be posted shortly.

THE MOTH Record Release Shows:
9/22/2023 Störtebecker – Hamburg, DE w/ Treedeon
10/03/2023 Alte Meierei – Kiel, DE w/ Thronehammer
10/04/2023 Fundbureau – Hamburg, DE w/ Thronehammer
10/05/2023 MTC – Cologne, DE w/ Thronehammer
10/06/2023 Immerhin – Wuerzburg, DE
10/07/2023 Keep It Low Festival – Munich, DE
11/17/2023 Thav – Hildesheim, DE w/ with Shakhtyor
11/18/2023 Die Trompete – Bochum, DE w/ Treedeon

Founded in 2012, the feedback on THE MOTH’s first album They Fall was already quite enthusiastic. Right from the start, the band presented themselves as an international band that drew fans all over the world, from Tokyo to Vancouver. Between festival appearances at the Desertfests in London and Berlin, Stoned From The Underground, the Svart Festival Oslo, the Doom Over Vienna, and the Riff Mass Brighton, two more albums were released in 2015 with And Then Rise and 2017 Hysteria. On accompanying tours and shows throughout Europe and the UK with, among others, Treedeon, Conan, Eyehategod, Crowbar, Torche, and Red Fang, THE MOTH left enthusiastic fans behind.

THE MOTH:
Cécile Ash – bass, vocals
Freden Mohrdiek – guitar, vocals
Curry Korr – drums

http://www.facebook.com/listentoTHEMOTH
http://www.instagram.com/listentoTHEMOTH
http://the-moth.bandcamp.com/
https://www.youtube.com/user/listentoTHEMOTH

https://www.instagram.com/exileonmainstreamofficial/
https://www.youtube.com/@exileonmainstream3639
http://www.mainstreamrecords.de

The Moth, “Dust” official video

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The Moth Sign to Exile on Mainstream; New Album Due in September

Posted in Whathaveyou on May 15th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

Insert forehead slap here. I mean, of course Hamburg’s The Moth would end up on Exile on Mainstream. Their outsider sludge rock is a perfect fit for the long-established imprint, whose general taste and will to bend the rules of genre are defining aspects. It’s like a dodecahedron peg in a dodecahedron hole. Bordering on the obvious.

Been a minute, but The Moth‘s last album, Hysteria (review here), was released through This Charming Man Records in 2017. Their next one is coming in September, so maybe we’ll get more info in the next month or so, but for now the news is good and a new record from them is something to look forward to. They’ll be out on the road for it in Germany with Thronehammer in Sept./Oct., also making a stop to rile up Keep it Low in Munich.

Right on:

The moth

THE MOTH: German Doom/Sludge Metal Trio Signs To Exile On Mainstream; LP Due This Fall

Exile On Mainstream welcomes fellow Germans THE MOTH and their groove-heavy brew of doom/sludge metal to the label for their impending LP.

Label owner Andreas Kohl states, “Just as a good friend recently put it: ‘This band, with this lineup and this sound – it was just a question of time until they land at your shores. They just belong to Exile On Mainstream.” The friend, Germany’s renowned Metal radio icon Jakob Kranz, envisioned what we kinda felt but didn’t know. So did we finally achieve becoming a label that defines through a certain sound? Have we become so predictable? Not at all. I mean come on, THE MOTH might be a power trio with their sound deeply rooted in sludge, a woman on bass creating the most thundering base a lover of the heavy could wish for, and they might share a certain approach to music and loving what they do with the likes of Treedeon and Might, but it’s not the sound. The Hamburg-based act got here based on the binding element in our universe: friendship.

“I have said it before: we either are friends, or we become it by working together. So, welcome to the tribe, THE MOTH! With three albums under their belt, all released by the fantastic brethren at This Charming Man, the members are no newbies and have honed their no-nonsense approach to sludge/metal/doom on numerous tours and gigs. Their songs are virtually void of frills, instead opting to turn out hammer heavy drums and riff ready rock ’n’ roll. As brutal as it is bewitching. With a fourth album in the making, we are thrilled to welcome THE MOTH.”

The new album by THE MOTH is under construction now. Expect a release in September 2023, with more details to post over the Summer.

Before the new album is even finished, THE MOTH has already confirmed a string of release dates including shows with Thronehammer and labelmates Treedeon with more to be posted shortly.

THE MOTH RECORD RELEASE TOUR 2023
22/09/23 D Hamburg, Störtebecker (w/ Treedeon)
03/10/23 D Kiel, Alte Meierei (w/ Thronehammer)
04/10/23 D Hamburg, Fundbureau (w/ Thronehammer)
05/10/23 D Cologne, MTC (w/ Thronehammer)
06/10/23 D Wuerzburg, Immerhin
07/10/23 D Munich, Keep it Low Festival

http://www.facebook.com/listentoTHEMOTH
http://www.instagram.com/listentoTHEMOTH
http://the-moth.bandcamp.com/
https://www.youtube.com/user/listentoTHEMOTH

https://www.instagram.com/exileonmainstreamofficial/
https://www.youtube.com/@exileonmainstream3639
http://www.mainstreamrecords.de

The Moth, Hysteria (2017)

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Gavial Announce VOR LP Out May 19 on Exile on Mainstream

Posted in Whathaveyou on April 6th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

GAVIAL

There’s precious little you can trust in life and I know, I know, I know I’ve said this at least several times in the past, but you can trust the taste of Exile on Mainstream‘s Andreas Kohl when it comes to finding and issuing interesting, innovative and — perhaps most importantly — actually good music. I’m not saying the label and I are always 100 percent on the same page, but in all honesty, even stuff that I’m not super-all-over, I’ve never checked out an Exile on Mainstream release and regretted it. I hold the imprint to a pretty high, almost unrealistic, standard and have for a long time now. That standard has never not been met.

Gavial — and kudos to the band on changing their name from the former Tourette Boys — will release their debut-under-the-moniker VOR through Exile on Mainstream on May 19, and that’s all I need to know to get on board. Nonetheless, I’d be a prick if I didn’t actually include the PR wire info here, you know, for good measure, so here it is:

gavial vor

GAVIAL: German Blues/Psychedelic Rock Quartet Formerly Known As Tourette Boys To Release VOR LP Through Exile On Mainstream In May

Exile On Mainstream excitedly welcomes German quartet GAVIAL to the label, and is preparing to release the band’s new LP, VOR.

The story of GAVIAL began nearly fifteen years ago as a project adapted from a Nirvana song and pun as “Two Red Boys.” Having released three albums as Tourette Boys, two collaborations with UK-based blues musician Tim Holehouse, and a split EP with labelmates Gaffa Ghandi, the band played countless gigs and tours with bands like Acid Mothers Temple, Dyse, Gaffa Ghandi, The Skull, True Widow and Sleepy Sun. This musical project is based on friendship even though the musicians live in different cities. The vast and untouched landscapes between Berlin and Dresden may have contributed to the inspiration for the sound of the band, which repeatedly tries to ground Psychedelic abstraction in modern blues. The result is more reminiscent of the desert rock that we know from the vastness of Arizona than the urban hustle and bustle in big cities. Shimmering soundscapes, partly dark and melancholic, then again full of hope and glaring light filled with the comforting, but nonetheless ominous heat of the desert – GAVIAL remains true masters of that.

It’s 2023, and it’s time for a turning point… on multiple levels. With VOR, the band’s fourth album is for the first time distributed on a label, uniting with their friends at Exile On Mainstream. For the recordings in 2022 the band grew from a trio to a quartet, and with that move comes the name change that was long overdue, which the band explains by stating, “In the last few years, we frequently discussed our music, videos, and name and tried to reflect on our decisions during that time. Concerning the name of the band, we have come to the decision that it is no longer appropriate to continue using it. Affected people deserve respect and we think that this band name shows a lack thereof. For that, we want to apologize.”

VOR is once again characterized by the search for a contemporary expression of the blues without questioning its authenticity. GAVIAL weaves musical inspiration from ambient, soul, gospel, and country into different threads from a carpet of sound that simply ignores the sharp cliffs of redundant categories such as retro or stoner. The music doesn’t need name dropping, but if you still want to make room in your thematically sorted record shelf, you’re welcome to make some room in the compartments in which you put your Screaming Trees, Flying Eyes, Black Crowes, or Woodcocks, so that GAVIAL can find space in them. Sorted alphabetically, VOR also cuts a fine figure between Gaffa Ghandi, Geraldine Fibbers, and Giant Sand.

Lyrically, GAVIAL is cautiously concrete, exploring the ambivalent depths of the soul where there are more questions than answers. Singer Benjamin Butter intones lyrical sketches of emotional states between melancholy, quiet anger, and hope, reminiscent of Charles Baudelaire, and turns the voice into another instrument. The interplay with driving bass lines and Americana-esque guitars results in music as it should be: melodic but not profane, accessible but with a fragile base.

VOR was recorded in the band’s rehearsal room and mixed by Benjamin Butter and Bernard Camilleri, who has become their go-to sound engineer. Bernard Camilleri did the mastering at his Xekillton Studio in Malta. The artwork is from the Flowers Of Terrible series by Berlin-based artist Hamid Yaraghchi.

Exile On Mainstream will release GAVIAL’s VOR May 19th on Black Vinyl LP and digitally, and a limited CD version will be made available at the band’s concerts.

https://www.facebook.com/Gavialband
https://www.instagram.com/gavialband
https://gavial.bandcamp.com
https://linktr.ee/gavialband

https://www.instagram.com/exileonmainstreamofficial/
https://www.youtube.com/@exileonmainstream3639
http://www.mainstreamrecords.de

Tourette Boys, Zorn (2019)

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Obelyskkh Premiere “The Ultimate Grace of God” Video; Album Out Jan. 27

Posted in Bootleg Theater, Reviews on January 9th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

OBELYSKKH The Ultimate Grace Of God

Obelyskkh, “The Ultimate Grace of God” video premiere

Steve Paradise on “The Ultimate Grace of God”:

The Song ‘The Ultimate Grace Of God’ is about all those too many people who care about only themselves, thinking they are the crown of creation. But they are wrong. This role is, by the grace of god, already taken by us. We tried to express that in the video. And we think that was impressively successful.

Album preorder: https://shop.mainstreamrecords.de/product/eom104

Avant sludge doomers Obelyskkh are set to issue their fifth full-length, The Ultimate Grace of God, through Exile on Mainstream on Jan. 27. Lurching, slamming, willfully unmanageable and abidingly miserable, it runs seven songs and 71 minutes and is the follow-up to 2017’s The Providence (review here). While I don’t know over what period of time it was recorded — days, weeks, months, years, or some outside measurement that takes into account the horror-and-bad-pills-filled dimension the three-piece are working in — it was wrought at Mach Ma Mecker Studio in Breitenguessbach with production by Moe Waldmann (who also mixed) and Seeb Gerischer, mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege, and the scope of its component material is matched by how densely packed it is. So that not only are Obelyskkh pulling you over rocks for over an hour in ritualized fashion, they’re doing so with surprising efficiency considering all the atmospheric stretches of drone, changes within the individual songs, the collapsing universe around us about which we only continue to know less, etc.

Lyrically speaking, “Aquaveil” (8:30) might be a love song, or it might be about dropping acid, but it starts with what sounds like a kid playing amid apocalyptic winds before a rolling, driving riff takes hold and the first vocals arrive, sounding utterly disgusted. Obelyskkh — guitarist/vocalist Crazy Woitek, drummer/vocalist Steve Paradise, bassist Seb Duster — will come back again to this kind of “eww look at that” delivery throughout The Ultimate Grace of God at various points, and it becomes an underlying thread drawing the songs together along with the bitter, sometimes grueling, churn of their grooves and all-brown psychedelia that overlays.

Following the stomping verse and low speech eerily moving across channels, the first of many layered solos sweeps forward, and “Aquaveil” returns to that initial shove riff and moves into gruff incantations over lumbering crashes before coming apart at 3:40, letting the fuzz bass and drums set up a return for quieter guitars. It’s a build, and not necessarily slow, but not hurried, and kicks into more lumbering, almost Electric Wizardly, or at least Ramesses, but twisted, after the five-minute mark, delivering its title in what feels like reverent repetitions. This too will be a theme as the title-track follows, but first, “Aquaveil” lets a non-lyric “ahh” become a layered wash, cosmic as much anticosmic, the guitar’s threat never far even as they seem to be fading and the drums carry a layer of effects, the guitar fades out, rises up again in a dual-channel solo, the vocals gross-howl — moving toward and past seven minutes now — but eventually stop alongside the drums and a low frequency drone becomes the most dominant element, synthy ambience arriving but leaving quickly in the fade.

If one would look to “The Ultimate Grace of God” (9:55) to help solve some riddle, don’t bother. This is post-modern, the name comes from a hair salon, nothing means anything, take a scrub-sponge to your mind and rid it of the crust of expectation before you get dishpan hands, existentially speaking. If you can’t bask in absurdity, first, how do you survive?, and second, you might as well go back while you still can. The title-track is quicker into full volume at its outset, the drums plodding behind a start-stop riff that comes to be topped with dramatic, echoing guttural layers before two verse rhythms start happening at the same time. Is that Paradise and Woitek? Maybe, but this record isn’t about to go around explaining itself for you, so you’re better off accepting the mystery. In any case, the affect is overwhelming, one voice barking at you to look at this beautiful face, the other cultish moans faux-worshiping the wretchedness of beauty and excess as described in the lyrics.

It’s class warfare, and right. fucking. on., but Obelyskkh aren’t necessarily bound stylistically by these bourgeois concerns. Some of “The Ultimate Grace of God” reminds of mid-period Neurosis — unless that’s just the way the word “grace” seems to echo out — but they move from that manic dual-vocal back to start-stops to cycle through again, breaking into standalone guitar at about 4:45, wistful and classic rock in all but its layering, snapping at 5:41 into a heavier embodiment of the same part, now triumphant. Synth, or guitar effects, or horns, or something, add to it ahead of more left/right soloing, and the title-track makes clear once and for all the bleak, drugs-and-drear vision of prog that Obelyskkh are fostering. A xylophone shows up, purposefully grandiose, purposefully over the top, and they ride that movement as long as they ride anything throughout the entire album, slowing gradually around eight and a half minutes in, drawing out by nine, and making no attempt to hide their intent, finishing at a still-cohesive crawl until the last crash leaves a residual rumble behind.

“Black Mother,” which follows, is the shortest inclusion at 5:46. I haven’t seen a lyric sheet for it, so I won’t speak to the intention behind the title, but from what I can glean listening — and mind you these things don’t always come through with the utmost clarity on a record so prone to delivering headfucks — it’s at least not directly about race, i.e., a Black woman with a child. If I’m wrong and it is, or if I’m not and it’s not, the more important question is what ‘black’ portends in terms of the song itself, and that’s what I don’t know. There are lines about ‘Blissful mother’ protecting children and her own soul and ‘bewitcher and destructive lord’ (?) amid a nodding, counted-in riff, chugging in the verse, etc. After two minutes in, they shift to ’70s horror organ and another riff emerges behind repeated pleas to “Break me apart” and “Open me up,” the song growing more intense as it pushes deeper, not quite a traditional build, but increasingly urgent anyhow. They stop, jangle-chug to hold place with noodly lines overtop, build in with the ride cymbal, then they’re heads-down in shove, crashing quickly into a slowdown after four minutes, bringing back the cult-chant vocals, layering with shouts, before the stomping ending turns back to the beginning chorus in a surprising bookend. Had to end somehow, and fair enough.

The first of two songs over 14 minutes long, “Afterlife” (14:26) is a culmination for the first of the 2LPs and like its side D counterpart, an album unto itself. Noise drone starts, guitar enters slowly, sparse but setting a progression in motion. At 1:35 a clearer figure arrives over the noise, which starts to spiral in rhythm then evens out again. The lead line is sweet ahead of the full-on crash-in at 2:49, giving way to lumbers and drags that are hypnotic before galloping forward with the verse. A drum switch to hi-hat/snare from and then back to ride cymbal makes a difference in energy behind the same riff. The sound of Paradise‘s hi-hat there is sharp and biting, and the vocals are in that disgusted modus like “Aquaveil,” before cutting, getting quiet but staying tense as “Afterlife” moves past six minutes, building back up as signaled by drums and ferociousness of the guitar layers.

An oddly timed march is introduced at about 5:45 and starts in earnest around a minute later, the track full of unexpected turns like The Ultimate Grace of God. At 7:23, the same movement surges louder and that’s just fine. An echo-coated but nonetheless more traditional verse, gives over to psych-sludge shouts and drawls, two voices intertwining again, before a guitar solo takes hold at 9:09, layered again but righteous. All seems to be rolling along smoothly enough, so Obelyskkh pull the rug out from underneath and shift into Khanate crashes over empty space, becoming furious quickly — we’re past 10 minutes in now — until a snare hit quick-turns back to the galloping verse, crash, then hi-hat — this is a band with a marker board in their rehearsal space — repeating the song’s title in lyrics. A current of feedback builds after 11:30, the crashes become consuming, looped, the vocals open wide and swallow the song until after 12 minutes it’s a noise wash. The drums crash and everything else kind of fades away save for feedback and effects drone, synthy manipulations; caustic noise rising, receding over that drone, and then gradually the drone fades too. Death in “Afterlife.”

If that was the record, you’d probably call it complete, but the point here is that being digested by cruel aural antireality takes time and Obelyskkh aren’t about to loosen their grip. The Ultimate Grace of God might be ‘epic’ were it not so poisonous. Either way, there are more terrors to come as they engage the seemingly-purposefully-paired “Universal Goddess” (6:28) and “Dog Headed God” (9:26) — interesting that the two shortest tracks are about women idols/archetypes — land ahead of the finale. “Universal Goddess” has a creeper riff at its outset before the drums kick in and ends up using feedback like a sustained drone, cycling through four measures before turning to the next onslaught-take on that breaking-fragile-things rhythm, moving to a chugging march to offset as a transition to the feedback fading, a clearer, starker line of guitar used as backdrop for gothic-style melodrama in the vocals, laced with whispers of the title-line, a particularly religious-feeling call and response, like at a mass.

This seems to trail off but then “Universal Goddess” bursts to life before the halfway point, grueling vocals dug into lyrical paeans to the titular deity. There’s a noise rock jabber of a riff that’s given its due before it straightens out to a run and obliterates itself just after five minutes in, and from there, the sludge freakout is on. A layer of feedback noise returns, becomes the constant, then the drums crash out and the riff stops and the song ends with what sounds like the speaker cabinet howling in agony, or maybe worship. “Dog Headed God” comes on as immediately more together, and is already into what will become the weighted shove, into the first verse before hitting the one-minute mark. Obelyskkh dare a bit more melody in the layering, saying the title-line deep in the mix compared to the verse.

OBELYSKKH 2022

A churning riff pushes “Dog Faced God” forward — the Anubis reference clear — then there’s a sudden turn just before two minutes to a riff established then fleshed out with fuller fuzz. It stops, turns, attacks, and when the vocals sneer the line “My soul is pure,” before the layering and whispers start, the threat is real. They march and swing for a while, some shoutback response make the stretch even less lucid-seeming the second time through. Not quite a chorus, there’s shouting over the churn: “God of the dead/With a dog god head/Claws of red.” They turn back to churning verse past halfway, hits around on crashes and takes off again with “God of the dead…,” growing more distraught and witchy. I’m not sure if it’s percussion or keys/synth or another layer of guitar, but the ensuing movement is topped with weirdo bloops and beeps, as the song behind becomes even more out there and decay-stenched, manipulated and pulled apart molecularly while the drone of synth remains. Keyboard and sharp noise after eight minutes set the final haul in motion, but it’s all noise from there on out. They aren’t coming back. It ends: electronic stutters and the drone, then just the stutters, like a helicopter far away, then nothing. Mindfully praising chaos.

From this silence arrives “Sat Nam [Vision]” (16:49), the longest track on The Ultimate Grace of God and arguably the most ritualistic, despite abundant competition.

Pops of electronic or other noise over drone at the outset — maybe an answer to the end of “Dog Headed God” — and there’s a deep inhale (is that you,  drugs?), another, a cough. Thus the stage is set for trip to find universal truth, or at very least the unmaking of all things. After all this ambience, they crash in just before two minutes, finding semi-angular lumber, then proggy bounce, the bizarre chanting given suitable instrumental accompaniment, straightening out to horrifying lines about being saved. A layer of sub-caustic synth, like you just dialed the wrong number to one of those galaxies billions of lightyears away, backs more headfuck vocal layers thrown at you. A relatively quick transition results in, “I am the way the way, the truth, the life,” delivered like Monotheist-era Celtic Frost, back to the bops and that drone, a turn back to this chorus, layer of death growl or throat-singing underneath, nodding crash, coming apart as these parts do, capping with the keywords “way, truth, life” repeating over timed crashes.

There’s a moment of respite — surprising, considering — to “Sat Nam [Vision]” after five minutes as it oozes to feedback and drone, then on to throat-singing, cymbals, some other percussion, and the vocals reveal themselves as making a mantra of “Sat nam,” chimes and bowls and a noise like running water that isn’t comprising an atmospheric backdrop, also an undulating waveform drone. They’re not yet halfway through. A programmed beat starts circa eight minutes in, the chant still looping at first goes away before guitar reenters at 8:34, the bed for a low semi-spoken verse with keys prominent amid rumbling and light-plucked guitars. More layers are added for the repetitions of “be buried in oblivion” after a second cycle through that verse,  and just after 10 minutes, Obelyskkh move into a more guttural, “I was living in a sat nam vision,” the slow roll behind almost cinematic. This too is stripped away to just “sat nam” spit out, and at 11:48 another vocal layer enters and brings lead guitar lines, creating a fray that comes and goes around various “sat nam” repetitions.

It’s dramatic as it song moves toward the 13-minute mark, but feels like it’s drawing down, then noise drone rises over ’80s horror vibes, snare bends time deep in the mix. Lines of piano and guitar complement each other like they don’t know the world’s over yet, and eventually they go and the noise finishes and the album finishes and everything is finished, you, me, the mantra of one god that is “sat nam” and all else. Exhausted and undone, the closing piece of The Ultimate Grace of God leaves on a fast-fading line of guitar after a long stretch of drone, and if that’s the last bit of consciousness receding into the grim ether that’s been at the heart of Obelyskkh‘s work all along, that submission is well earned by the extremity, the oppressive reach, of the band’s tonal, ambient, conceptual heft and the experimental scope of their purposes. Too molten to be just-brutal, The Ultimate Grace of God is an accomplishment in bringing together such disparate notions of what makes music progressive, and its warped otherworldliness is visionary in the challenge it issues to its audience. If you can meet it on its level — and if you’re still reading, I’m not going to claim to have done that — it has the presence of dogma dragging you down with it. And to where?

Obelyskkh on Facebook

Obelyskkh on Bandcamp

Obelyskkh on Twitter

Exile on Mainstream website

Exile on Mainstream on Instagram

Exile on Mainstream YouTube channel

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Obelyskkh Announce The Ultimate Grace of God Due Jan. 27

Posted in Whathaveyou on December 14th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

OBELYSKKH 2022

You know, for some reason, I can never seem to spell Obelyskkh‘s name right. I guess when you get used to typing a certain word a certain way for so long, it’s just where your brain goes. But Germany’s Obelyskkh are consistently worth the effort of spelling their moniker correctly. Their last album, 2017’s The Providence (review here), was an otherworldly ripper, and it would seem the consciousness-shredding intention continues to hold sway over the impending The Ultimate Grace of God. There isn’t a track streaming yet, and I suspect that after you watch the teaser trailer for the album below — which starts, suitably enough, with a line of cocaine — you’ll share my opinion that that’s a bummer, because the swirling malevolent sludge doom this band conjures is likewise distinctive and disturbing. Righteously so. I’m gonna see if I can line up a single premiere ahead of the release — you never know if you don’t ask — but in the meantime, check out the album info, the killer AI cover art, and the teaser below.

By the way, about the art: I’d be genuinely surprised if we don’t see a lot of AI-born covers coming down the line in 2023 and maybe beyond. If you can get a look like this, why wouldn’t you? And if you don’t think that AI art is art, then AI art has made you feel something and form an opinion, and therefore it is art. If you disagree, it just proves it more. See also Marcel Duchamp and all those blank canvases at the Guggenheim.

From the PR wire:

OBELYSKKH The Ultimate Grace Of God

OBELYSKKH: German Psychedelic Sludge Metal Trio To Release Fifth LP, The Ultimate Grace Of God, Via Exile On Mainstream Records In January; Cover Art, Teaser, Preorders, And More Posted

German psychedelic doom/sludge metal goliath OBELYSKKH returns with their fifth album, and first in over five years, with The Ultimate Grace Of God. The band’s long-running allies at Exile On Mainstream will release the album worldwide on January 27th, today unveiling the record’s cover art, track listing, preorders, a brief teaser, and more.

Having remained quiet in recent years, OBELYSKKH celebrated a brilliant return at the South Of Mainstream Festival in September 2022. The show, which consisted only of new material, already showed clearly where the sonic journey is going: the psychedelic elements fade into the background and make way for increased pressure and a furious reckoning with noise and slamming riffs, focused, direct, and without frills. The Ultimate Grace Of God is a child of the times and its challenges, whose story began in April 2017 with a walk through Antwerp: In the middle of an uninviting district with cold-looking apartment blocks, there is an unassuming, run-down hair salon with the words “THE ULTIMATE GRACE OF GOD” emblazoned across the shop window. The idea for the next OBELYSKKH album was born. At the time, no one could have guessed that it would take almost five years from then until the idea for a physical release was implemented.

When their second guitarist left right before the release of their prior album, The Providence, OBELYSKKH had to restructure. They remembered the punk attitude of the early days and decided to pick it up again as a classic bass/guitar/drums power trio. Influences from old noise heroes such as KARP, Todd, Jesus Lizard, and the Melvins became more noticeable when writing the new songs and they were written just as quickly as they were direct. A studio was found. A test recording by Moe Waldmann and Seeb Gerischer in the lovingly furnished Mach Ma Mecker recording studio in the remote solitude of the Franconian town of Breitengüßbach convinced everyone involved. Rosy future. New album almost in the can. It could start.

Then, Corona hit… Several studio dates were repeatedly postponed due to contact bans, until a small Summer gap finally opened. In a week, OBELYSKKH pounded The Ultimate Grace Of God in, live and raw – a few overdubs here and there, followed by gorgeous mastering by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege Studios the beast was done and waiting to be released. The cover art was created by an AI, fed with keywords from the OBELYSKKH lyrics, and the beast was done and waiting to be released. But Corona was still there. A year passed and the album was gathering dust in a drawer. Then came the energy crisis. Then came inflation. The beer got so expensive that there was no money left to finish the album. And in no time at all it was 2022.

But what underlies through it all: the OBELYSKKH crew is tough, just like the music: a loud, angry hunk of noise. And despite all the crises, the hair salon in Antwerp is still styling.

The Ultimate Grace of God will be released on January 27th as a bundle of LP and CD as well as digitally. The CD and digital contain two additional bonus tracks. The CD is included with the LP; there is no separate CD release. Find preorders at the label webshop HERE: https://shop.mainstreamrecords.de/product/eom104

The Ultimate Grace Of God Track Listing:
1. Aquaveil
2. The Ultimate Grace Of God
3. Black Mother
4. Afterlife
5. Universal Goddess
6. Dog Headed God
7. Sat Nam (Vision)

OBELYSKKH:
Steve Paradise – drums
Crazy Woitek – guitars, vocals
Seb Duster – bass

https://www.facebook.com/TheObelyskkhRitual
https://obelyskkhnoise.bandcamp.com
https://twitter.com/OBELYSKKH

http://www.mainstreamrecords.de
https://www.instagram.com/exileonmainstreamofficial
https://www.youtube.com/@exileonmainstream3639

Obelyskkh, The Ultimate Grace of God teaser

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The Obelisk Questionnaire: Andreas Kohl

Posted in Questionnaire on March 11th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

andreas kohl

The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Andreas Kohl of Exile on Mainstream Records

How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

I keep saying it happened to me and that’s pretty much the truth. 25 years ago VISIONS magazine from Germany was asking for writers in an advert and I applied. I was doing shows and fanzines by then already. In 1999 I was offered a job at a big German independent distribution company by an employee who I was publishing a fanzine with. I took the chance and ended up being representing all my favourite labels for Germany as PR rep: Southern Records, CRASS, Dischord, Constellation, Southern Lord, Ipecac, Skin Graft, Alternative Tentacles, Touch And Go, DeSoto, Thrill Jockey among others. That company then went down and I started my own company with my wife keeping most of these clients and started Exile On Mainstream Records as my own label.

The joint morphed into a full running agency with booking, backline and van rental, amp and cabinet repair and build and even a festival. All the steps basically came naturally (‘happened’) as through time I was more than often driven by something like ‘I can do that, so why don’t I?’ and then I just did it. Nowadays only the label remains – this due to probably the only decision I ever failed in prevision – to stop PR business when I turn 40 and leave the field for the younger. And that’s what I did in 2012. Nowadays I keep the label up and work in management in a record pressing plant. Dream job by definition for me.

Describe your first musical memory.

I grew up in a family where music played a big role and was constantly around me. My dad is a true Rock’n’Roller, very much into ’50s stuff like Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran but he doesn’t like Elvis. My mom is a big Elvis fan, so I remember them both arguing over Elvis Presley. And so there was constantly cool music, mainly ’50s Rockabilly or early ’60s Soul being played at home (what was kinda unusual in an early ’70s East German household). My earliest memory probably be like: I’m on the floor playing with some Lego or something while there was some tunes blasted into the room coming from an old Czech Tesla B54 reel-to-reel recorder and my mom yelling at my dad “don’t you think the baby is listening to too much music?” and him answering wordlessly by cranking up the volume.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

Oh well, there have been way too many. I gotta pick four if that’s okay and they’re all related to a live experience:

Bizarre Festival Cologne 1999 – I smoked some earth-shatteringly heavy pot and went for the Masters Of Reality gig. During the set I all of a sudden was able to listen to each instrument separately and completely blocking the others out. And not only that. I had the feeling I could pre-vision the next note played. I couldn’t believe it and freaked out completely how awesome that was. Been trying it again and again since then but it never happened again.

Stoned From The Underground Festival 2006. The last bands on the outside stage on the day had been rather trippy and jammy – Causa Sui, Brant Bjork, Colour Haze. The first band on the aftershow party inside of what usually is a disco place was VOLT, a band whose album we had just released and they were kind of AmRep-styled Noise. So the crowd walks in and you could feel some tension already. Everybody seemed to be into something heavy, massive and challenging after the rather loose sets outside. When VOLT started I felt the joint gaining speed and halfway during their set it was like if the whole room would go up in flames. 300 people completely losing it. The band played insanely tight and the crowd freaked out like I’ve never seen a crowd freaking out before and never since then. The whole room was chaos, even the last rows, the bartenders and the security guys couldn’t resist – fists in the air, screaming, dancing, rocking out like if there’s no tomorrow. I never had the feeling again of a whole crowd being so completely ‘on the bus’, quoting Tom Wolfe. And to be honest it could have had been no tomorrow. The planet exploding could have happened the next day and it would been the perfect ending.

Blisstrain 2008, Berlin @ Magnet Club. In 2008, 2009 and 2010 we had this tour lined up called Blisstrain where five of our bands would go on tour together but not playing their normal sets but in ad-hoc collaborations. We did set up two full stages in each venue, facing each other, crowd sandwiched in between and the bands would play against and with each other, their sets kinda morphing and by the end of the tour it always was just a big clusterfuck of 20++ musicians playing together each other’s songs. At the Berlin show on that first Blisstrain it clicked for the first time. WE INSIST! started into their song ‘Early Recollections’ – a very ritualistic, stomping track. During the song all other musicians joined in, subsequently. Five drummers, six guitar players, five bass players, one violinist, one piano player and two saxophone men completely in the zone managed to suck the crowd in as well. That one track probably lasted for 30 minutes or more and no one wanted them to stop. At the end of the set I looked into my wife’s face and she had tears all over claiming that she now finally ‘gets’ what this label and the vision seems to be about.

South Of Mainstream Festival 2012. For a few years we hosted our own open air festival in a very rural area, not far from where we live. It always was a blast and was more a gathering of friends than a commercial endeavour, to cushion the fact that we went almost broke each year after it. Not saying we lost money, we basically just bought ourselves a weekend of what we had a vision of how a festival should be and we just never compromised. The 2012 edition was the last one, it happened on my 40th birthday and it actually was the day I closed the agency and announced it there. So it was already a bit emotional but this all got topped by the all-around perfect vibe this weekend presented. The bands, the weather, the food and the music. The backstage area was fully empty the whole weekend and all artists were outside in the crowd celebrating each other. In fact it was a goal achieved, a musical experience not to be made better and the perfect ending of an era. The charge my batteries received from that weekend will probably last forever.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

That’s a hard question. I consider myself quite the ‘anything goes’-guy who is focused and always has a plan, but mostly for myself. So it doesn’t hit me as hard if things go different ways. Nailing it down to a special occasion where a belief was tested seems to be impossible. But of course it always baffles me, makes me sad and angry if artists I admire turn out to be walking questionable political or social paths. Don’t get me wrong, I have no issues with different opinions, I even can admire arrogance as it plays in with what defines stardom in some ways, but when artists and musicians from our scene start biting the hand that feeds them and acting violent, racist or misogynists, I’m losing faith. When their political agenda turns into some right-wing bullshit following leaders and ideals that work completely against the freedom based on empathy that made Rock’n’Roll possible in the first place (as I see it) I’m standing there in awe how this is possible. I really don’t wanna name anyone but truth be told, how could you, in the US, support a Trump/ GOP agenda if you are a musician? How could you be a self-employed artist but be against a concept of public healthcare? How could you as a UK artist support Brexit? How could you be violent (verbal and non-verbal!) against women and or people of colour but simultaneously building your career on Worksongs, Ragtime, Soul and Blues? How could you even care about a sexual orientation of people or, even worse creating an issue over it publicly while you expect people letting you live your way of life? Or in other words, how can you use your talent for being AGAINST something instead of FOR something? I’m not sure if this accounts for beliefs being tested but it remains baffling for me, over and over again.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

To beliefs being tested, haha.

How do you define success?

Money. Tons of it. No, seriously, here’s how I see it: you wake up on a good morning. I mean, a REALLY good morning. You slept well, sun is shining and that morning welcomes you as a friend, the day is gonna be your partner, your acolyte, and it seems like you can do whatever you want. You take a piece of paper, write down what you wanna achieve on this day and then you go out and do it. Live that day, use that day. In the evening, before you go to bed you look at that piece of paper again and realize the day brought you what is written down there – being it a day on the beach, a nice hangout with your partner, playing with the kids, rocking a club to pieces, recording an album, fixing the roof or just a simple to-do-list that has all points crossed off and there’s nothing left to achieve. You made it. Now that is success.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

Coven live at Roadburn 2017 – In little more than an hour they ruined everything they ever meant to me.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

A wide open area in some rural spot. A nice house built on it to live in, with an open air area and a big garage – both well designed to host events without any governmental and financial restrictions, lovely neighbours, appreciating the arts, where people can come and hang out during the summer months, camp, BBQ and play music at their own gusto, with some arranged gigs from time to time. No admission, no obligations. Just arts.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

Bringing people together in the wish and will to charge their batteries by creating something together or appreciating the creation of others. Art shall be the counterweight to accomplishing requirements by society, whether it be in your job, your family, your partnership or whatever. It’s the place where your mind can run free by creating something in opposite of meeting someone’s expectation and adjusting your actions to it.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

The mountains. Always and ever. A year without at least two trips to the mountains for skiing in winter and climbing in summer would be a lost year. Dolomites preferred. It’s ritualistic and mind-clearing to not to worry about anything else than the next curve or the next peg.

https://www.facebook.com/andreas.kohl.399
https://www.instagram.com/exileonmainstreamofficial/
http://www.mainstreamrecords.de

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Quarterly Review: Hum, Hymn, Atramentus, Zyclops, Kairon; IRSE!, Slow Draw, Might, Brimstone Coven, All Are to Return, Los Acidos

Posted in Reviews on October 7th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

THE-OBELISK-FALL-2020-QUARTERLY-REVIEW

Day three of the Quarterly Review. Always a landmark. Today we hit the halfway point, but don’t pass it yet since I’ve decided to add the sixth day next Monday. So we’ll get to 30 of the total 60 records, and then be past half through tomorrow. Math was never my strong suit. Come to think of it, I wasn’t much for school all around. Work sucked too.

Anyway, if you haven’t found anything to dig yet — and I hope you have; I think the stuff included has been pretty good so far — you can either go back and look again or keep going. Maybe today’s your day. If not, there’s always tomorrow.

Quarterly Review #21-30:

Hum, Inlet

HUM INLET

One has to wonder if, if Hum had it to do over again, they might hold back their first album in 23 years, Inlet, for release sometime when the world isn’t being ravaged by a global pandemic. As it stands, the largesse and melodic wash of the Illinois outfit’s all-growed-up heavy post-rock offers 55 minutes of comfort amid the tumult of the days, and while I won’t profess to having been a fan in the ’90s — their last studio LP was 1997’s Downward is Heavenward, and they sound like they definitely spent some time listening to Pelican since then — the overarching consumption Inlet sets forth in relatively extended tracks like “Desert Rambler” and “The Summoning” and the manner in which the album sets its own backdrop in a floating drone of effects make it an escapist joy. They hold back until closer “Shapeshifter” to go full post-rock, and while there are times at which it can seem unipolar, to listen to the crunching “Step Into You” and “Cloud City” side-by-side unveils more of the scope underlying from the outset of “Waves” onward.

Hum on Thee Facebooks

Polyvinyl Records webstore

 

Hymn, Breach Us

Hymn Breach Us

Oslo’s Hymn answer the outright crush and scathe of their 2017 debut, Perish (review here), with a more developed and lethal attack on their four-song/38-minute follow-up, Breach Us. Though they’re the kind of band who make people who’ve never heard Black Cobra wonder how two people can be so heavy — and the record has plenty of that; “Exit Through Fire”‘s sludgeshuggah chugging walks by and waves — it’s the sense of atmosphere that guitarist/bassist/vocalist Ole Rokseth and drummer Markus Støle bring to the proceedings that make them so engrossing. The opening title-track is also the shortest at 6:25, but as Breach Us moves across “Exit Through Fire,” “Crimson” and especially 14-minute closer “Can I Carry You,” it brings forth the sort of ominous dystopian assault that so many tried and failed to harness in the wake of NeurosisThrough Silver in Blood. Hymn do that and make it theirs in the process.

Hymn on Thee Facebooks

Fysisk Format on Bandcamp

 

Atramentus, Stygian

Atramentus stygian

Carried across with excruciating grace, Atramentus‘ three-part/44-minute debut album, Stygian, probably belongs in a post-Bell Witch category of extreme, crawling death-doom, but from the script of their logo to the dramatic piano accompanying the lurching riffs, gurgles and choral wails of “Stygian I: From Tumultuous Heavens… (Descended Forth the Ceaseless Darkness)” through the five-minute interlude that is “Stygian II: In Ageless Slumber (As I Dream in the Doleful Embrace of the Howling Black Winds)” and into the 23-minute lurchfest that is “Stygian III: Perennial Voyage (Across the Perpetual Planes of Crying Frost and Steel-Eroding Blizzards)” their ultra-morose procession seems to dig further back for primary inspiration, to acts like Skepticism and even earliest Anathema (at least for that logo), and as guttural and tortured as it is as it devolves toward blackened char in its closer, Stygian‘s stretches of melody provide a contrast that gives some semblance of hope amid all the surrounding despair.

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20 Buck Spin webstore

 

Zyclops, Inheritance of Ash

zyclops inheritance of ash

As it clocks in 27 minutes, the inevitable question about Zyclops‘ debut release, Inheritance of Ash, is whether it’s an EP or an LP. For what it’s worth, my bid is for the latter, and to back my case up I’ll cite the flow between each of its four component tracks. The Austin, Texas, post-metallic four-piece save their most virulent chug and deepest tonal weight for the final two cuts, “Wind” and “Ash,” but the stage is well set in “Ghost” and “Rope” as well, and even when one song falls into silence, the next picks up in complementary fashion. Shades of Isis in “Rope,” Swarm of the Lotus in the more intense moments of “Ash,” and an overarching progressive vibe that feels suited to the Pelagic Records oeuvre, one might think of Zyclops as cerebral despite their protestations otherwise, but at the very least, the push and pull at the end of “Wind” and the stretch-out that comes after the churning first half of “Rope” don’t happen by mistake, and a band making these kinds of turns on their first outing isn’t to be ignored. Also, they’re very, very heavy.

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Zyclops on Bandcamp

 

Kairon; IRSE!, Polysomn

Kairon IRSE Polysomn

It’s all peace and quiet until “Psionic Static” suddenly starts to speed up, and then like the rush into transwarp, Kairon; IRSE!‘s Polysomn finds its bliss by hooking up a cortical node to your left temple and turning your frontal lobe into so much floundering goo, effectively kitchen-sink kraut-ing you into oblivion while gleefully hopping from genre to cosmic genre like they’re being chased by the ghost of space rock past. They’re the ghost of space rock future. While never static, Polysomn does offer some serenity amid all its head-spinning and lobe-melting, be it the hee-hee-now-it’s-trip-hop wash of “An Bat None” or the cinematic vastness that arises in “Altaïr Descends.” Too intelligent to be random noise or just a freakout, the album is nonetheless experimental, and remains committed to that all the way through the shorter “White Flies” and “Polysomn” at the end of the record. You can take it on if you have your EV suit handy, but if you don’t check the intermix ratio, your face is going to blow up. Fair warning. LLAP.

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Svart Records webstore

 

Slow Draw, Quiet Joy

slow draw quiet joy

The second 2020 offering from Hurst, Texas’ Slow Draw — the one-man outfit of Mark “Derwooka” Kitchens, also of Stone Machine Electric — the four-song Quiet Joy is obviously consciously named. “Tightropes in Tandem” and closer “Sometimes Experiments Fail” offer a sweet, minimal jazziness, building on the hypnotic backwards psych drone of opener “Unexpected Suspect.” In the two-minute penultimate title-track, Kitchens is barely there, and it is as much an emphasis on the quiet space as that in which the music — a late arriving guitar stands out — might otherwise be taking place. At 18 minutes, it is intended to be a breath taken before reimmersing oneself in the unrelenting chaos that surrounds and swirls, and while it’s short, each piece also has something of its own to offer — even when it’s actively nothing — and Slow Draw brims with purpose across this short release. Sometimes experiments fail, sure. Sometimes they work.

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Slow Draw on Bandcamp

 

Might, Might

might might

It took all of a week for the married duo of Ana Muhi (vocals, bass) and Sven Missullis (guitars, vocals, drums) to announce Might as their new project following the dissolution of the long-ish-running and far-punkier Deamon’s Child. Might‘s self-titled debut arrives with the significant backing of Exile on Mainstream and earns its place on the label with an atmospheric approach to noise rock that, while it inevitably shares some elements with the preceding band, forays outward into the weight of “Possession” and the acoustic-into-crush “Warlight” and the crush-into-ambience “Flight of Fancy” and the ambience-into-ambience “Mrs. Poise” and so on. From the beginning in “Intoduce Yourself” and the rushing “Pollution of Mind,” it’s clear the recorded-in-quarantine 35-minute/nine-song outing is going to go where it wants to, Muhi and Missullis sharing vocals and urging the listener deeper into doesn’t-quite-sound-like-anything-else post-fuzz heavy rock and sludge. A fun game: try to predict where it’s going, and be wrong.

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Exile on Mainstream website

 

Brimstone Coven, The Woes of a Mortal Earth

brimstone coven the woes of a mortal earth

Following a stint on Metal Blade and self-releasing 2018’s What Was and What Shall Be, West Virginia’s Brimstone Coven issue their second album as a three-piece through Ripple Music, calling to mind a more classic-minded Apostle of Solitude on the finale “Song of Whippoorwill” and finding a balance all the while between keeping their progressions moving forward and establishing a melancholy atmosphere. Some elements feel drawn from the Maryland school of doom — opener the melody and hook of “The Inferno” remind of defunct purveyors Beelzefuzz — but what comes through clearest in these songs is that guitarist/vocalist Corey Roth, bassist/vocalist Andrew D’Cagna and drummer Dave Trik have found their way forward after paring down from a four-piece following 2016’s Black Magic (review here) and the initial steps the last album took. They sound ready for whatever the growth of their craft might bring and execute songs like “When the World is Gone” and the more swinging “Secrets of the Earth” with the utmost class.

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Ripple Music website

 

All Are to Return, All Are to Return

all are to return all are to return

Take the brutal industrial doom of Author and Punisher and smash it together — presumably in some kind of stainless-steel semi-automated contraption — with the skin-peeling atmosphere and grueling tension of Khanate and you may begin to understand where All Are to Return are coming from on their debut self-titled EP. How they make a song like four-minute centerpiece “Bare Life” feel so consuming is beyond me, but I think being so utterly demolishing helps. It’s not just about the plodding electronic beat, either. There’s some of that in opener “Untrusted” and certainly “The Lie of Fellow Men” has a lumber to go with its bass rumble and NIN-sounding-hopeful guitar, but it’s the overwhelming sense of everything being tainted and cruel that comes through in the space the only-19-minutes-long release creates. Even as closer “Bellum Omnium” chips away at the last remaining vestiges of color, it casts a coherent vision of not only aesthetic purpose for the duo, but of the terrible, all-gone-wrong future in which we seem at times to live.

All Are to Return on Bandcamp

Tartarus Records website

 

Los Acidos, Los Acidos

Los Acidos Los Acidos

I saved this one for last today as a favor to myself. Originally released in 2016, Los Acidos‘ self-titled debut receives a well-deserved second look on vinyl courtesy of Necio Records, and with it comes 40 minutes of full immersion in glorious Argentinian psicodelia, spacious and ’60s-style on “Al Otro Lado” and full of freaky swing on “Blusas” ahead of the almost-shoegaze-until-it-explodes-in-sunshine float of “Perfume Fantasma.” “Paseo” and the penultimate “Espejos” careen with greater intensity, but from the folksy feel that arrives to coincide with the cymbal-crashing roll of “Excentricidad” in its second half to the final boogie payoff in “Empatía de Cristal,” the 10-song outing is a joy waiting to be experienced. You’re experienced, right? Have you ever been? Either way, the important thing is that the voyage that, indeed, begins with “Viaje” is worth your time in melody, in craft, in its arrangements, in presence and in the soul that comes through from front to back. The four-piece had a single out in late 2019, but anytime they want to get to work on a follow-up LP, I’ll be waiting.

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Necio Records on Bandcamp

 

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