Posted in Whathaveyou on August 17th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
You’ll forgive me if I’m late posting these Ghorot tour dates. The Boise-based deathbringers will issue their second album, titled simply Wound, on Oct. 7, and the tour starts that very same night n their hometown. They’ve got Chrome Ghost out for part of the trip, but if you look at the list of shows, badassery abounds from all sides, with the likes of Destroyer of Light, Sorxe, Behold! The Monolith, The Cimmerian, Nebula Drag, Sky Pig, and others showing up on bills throughout the West Coast and Midwest, whatever Texas considers itself part of these days. Another universe, maybe, if you ask their dickweed of governor.
But don’t let me get sidetracked. The news of Ghorot‘s release date is welcome and I’ve been waiting for it. Fall should work well for the band’s particular brand of extreme sludge, which at least on their 2021 debut, Loss of Light (review here), carried a fervent scent of rotting dirt along with its harsh tones and purposes. One would expect no less of Wound upon its arrival in October, which the band confirms through the PR wire below:
GHOROT – MAJOR TOUR ANNOUNCEMENT
Boise’s blackened-doom bastards Ghorot are headed out on an 18-date Western US Tour this October in support of their sophomore album WOUND, which drops on Friday 10/7 on Lay Bare Recordings, King Of The Monsters Records, and Transylvanian Recordings!! Tour support on our west coast leg will be provided by Sacramento’s sludge heroes and our TR label-mates Chrome Ghost!!
WOUND ACROSS THE WEST TOUR DATES 10/7 Boise, ID @ Neurolux with Possessive + TBA 10/11 SLC, UT @ Aces High Saloon with Swarmer + Harvest of Ash 10/12 Denver, CO @ HQ with Matriarch + VOIDEATER 10/13 Albuquerque, NM @ Ren’s Den with High Hover + Nomestomper + FaceRipper 10/14 Dallas, TX @ Three Links – Deep Ellum, TX with Mountain of Smoke + Imperial Slaughter + Kólga 10/15 San Antonio, TX @ Hi-Tones with Nocturnal Hell + Earthen 10/16 Corpus Christi @ Boozerz Rock Bar with TBA 10/17 Austin, TX @ The Lost Well with Destroyer of Light + Deathblow + Ungrieved 10/18 El Paso, TX @ Rockhouse Dive Bar Kitchen Venue with Heinous Mutation + TBA 10/19 Tempe, AZ @ Yucca Tap Room with MutilatedTyrant + Sorxe + Stone Witch 10/20 San Diego, CA @ Til Two Club with Chrome Ghost + Nebula Drag + TBA 10/22 Palmdale, CA @ Transplants Brewing Company with Chrome Ghost + Behold! The Monolith + The Cimmerian 10/23 San Francisco, CA @ Kilowatt Bar with Chrome Ghost + Snakemother 10/24 Sacramento, CA @ Cafe Colonial with Chrome Ghost + SKY PIG 10/25 Eugene, OR @ Sam Bond’s Garage with Chrome Ghost + Red Cloud 10/26 Portland, OR @ High Water Mark Lounge with Chrome Ghost + Drouth + TBA 10/27 Seattle, WA @ Funhouse Seattle with Chrome Ghost + Empress + Grim Earth 10/28 Bellingham, WA @ Karate Church with Chrome Ghost + Empress + Inpathos
Madrid-based four-piece Loma Baja encompass a complex psychedelia throughout their debut album, Piscinas Verticales, which is set to release this week through the significant label consortium of Spinda Records, Lay Bare Recordings, Clostridium Records and Echodelick Records. To wit, amid the hypnotic post-psych rollout of opening track “V70,” guitars all bendy around the central march, vocals present and melodic but still obscure, some element of Pixies in there somewhere, an ambulance drives by periodically. It happens four or five times as the malleable mix demonstrates early the sort of experimental tinge to the band’s songcraft.
But as with much of what follows, the interplay of that drone (synth? sample?) and the guitar solo isn’t just about the group — guitarist/synthesist/vocalist/sampler Jorge García (Adrift, Gentemayor and formerly El Páramo), guitarist Victor Teixeira, bassist/keyboardist/vocalist Pacomoto (G.A.S. Drummers) and drummer Raúl Lorenzo (who also works with Toundra) — being able to make a sound, but also what they do with that in terms of songwriting. Shades of shoegaze-era Sonic Youth are cast under the sample and before the emergent cymbal wash of “La Emboscada,” the bass thick underneath the various noises and guitar lines going in and out as the low end and drums guide the procession into a melodic bridge and back through where it came from, that original sample continuing, like a news reading or an airport announcement, vague for being in another language that maybe you know and maybe you don’t.
One in each channel, García and Teixeira seem to be having a conversation on guitar early in “Canción de Manuel” that reminds a bit of the most out-there Fatso Jetson ever gets, but is tinted atmospherically darker and is more progressive in its presentation, but it’s Lorenzo moving to toms that signals the shift into classic prog stateliness, like something out of a sci-fi soundtrack transposed onto a space rock arrangement, severe with the synth lines and thud after that transition, working into and through a build as the keyboard melody holds, vocals or a sample echoing over the final moments as you realize the payoff isn’t coming and the song stops, letting the longer “Crónica Negra” (7:08) take its time waking up with feedback as the end of side A, mirrored later by the 10-minute “Hierros Viejos” in a show of structure that’s further evidence for a masterplan at work behind the material as opposed to it being a hodgepodge of ideas rather than songs.
It is not that. The brooding unfurl of “Crónica Negra” is mellower and feels like it’s raining outside, but there’s threat of breakout in the lightly-slogging lead guitar, synth in the left channel winding through frequency manipulation before a quick stop brings the next stage, with the drums louder and more forward, the guitar and keys swelling to a wash of fuzz, voices singing out — maybe a sample, maybe Pacomoto and García; hopefully they wrote down somewhere what they did — and a convergence around a dramatic-feeling crescendo that drops at 6:22 to the bassline, guitar skronk and repeat swells either of synth or manipulated feedback, probably both.
It’s not gonna get less weird in the vertical pools. Side B, which features a corresponding four pieces, starts with “Invocación,” which meanders before landing after about a minute in a Melvinsian repetitive nod that’s rich in tone and all the more righteous when the left-side guitar spaces out and the drums open up in the second half. All of a sudden, Loma Baja are instrumental heavy post-rock — except there might be vocals; ha — but dug into a purposeful melodic riff like those in the second halves of “La Emboscada” or “Canción de Manuel,” toying with cinematic grandiosity but never losing their ultimate direction, ending again with a return to the central march.
What was the album’s lead single, “Boda Final / Velorio” is more indie rock at the start, and the as-yet-most-definitely-vocalized inclusion on the record — hence single — but holds to the intention toward breadth in the material that surrounds, the keys in the left channel and the lead guitar in the right again working to surround the listener as the vocals reinforce notions of otherplanetary classic prog before the jabbing kinda-waltz resumes, makes a riffy turn, then rights itself to finish, shifting immediately into the underlying buzz and quiet interplay of guitars in the intro of the penultimate “Hierros Viejos,” making the bed for a robot-voice verse that will stay for the song’s four-minute duration, threatening heft and volume while, like “Canción de Manuel” before it, making a point of defying expectation and giving over to the drone at the end, the ambient stage set for “AAAAA” to cap.
And “AAAAA” is itself the awaited riffout. At 10 minutes long, it is a substantial portion of Piscinas Verticales, and its echoing vocals remind a bit of Ufomammut‘s earlier kosmic heavy, but the line of guitar introduced at the outset holds through the volume surge and comes back that much stronger for it. It is a solid one, two, three, four, count, and made to be repetitive, but the progression morphs subtly as time goes on, the next verse leading to another chorus-ish push carrying through the midpoint before the keys take a solo and the guitars seem to melt to feedback. Vocals — not a focal point for most of the record — announce the arrival at the next stage of the march, the volume seeming to get deeper as well as louder and noisier.
By the time they’re in the seventh minute, “AAAAA” has been stripped to a wall of feedback and noise, rumble beneath and scorch above, and somewhere in there the drums turned backwards but are largely gone as Loma Baja let that moment evolve, play out, and die on its own terms. They make a point of noting that Piscinas Verticales was recorded live. Fair enough, but it must have been a hell of a mixing process, though one can’t argue with the results as each consecutive part, track, side, feels rife with purpose even when that purpose is counterintuitive to the expectation of heavy rock/psych/prog songwriting. Those, in fact, are some of the record’s highlight stretches — it’s not every band willing to challenge the listener on their first long-player.
To coincide with that challenge that the material offers, Loma Baja accomplish a feat of world-building across Piscinas Verticales such that the context of the songs becomes their own regardless of names dropped above or other influences at work. Pieces like “Crónica Negra,” “Boda Final / Velorio” and “Hierros Viejos” working toward divergent ends at different angles from the same foundation. In this way, Loma Baja convey breadth while keeping their tones and melodic reach consistent, so that the album comes through as a complete statement that deserves to be heard.
So here we are. I’m excited to host the premiere of Piscinas Verticales on the player below. You’ll find it followed by the album particulars courtesy of Spinda Records via the PR wire, the video for “Boda Final / Velorio” and the many links from which the album can be ordered.
Please enjoy:
Loma Baja, Piscinas Verticales album premiere
Produced by Rafa Camisón and Loma Baja. Recorded in a live session at Metropol Studios (Madrid, Spain) by Rafa Camisón, with the assistance of Arturo Rebollo, between 27th and 29th July 2022. Mixed by Rafa Camisón at Estudio Setentaynueve (Jerez, Spain). Mastered by Víctor García at Ultramarinos Mastering (Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Spain). Artwork by Bol Estudio (Jorge García). Idea album title by Diana Calabaza Cósmica.
The album is coming out on 26th May 2023 through the collaboration between indie labels Spinda Records (SP), Lay Bare Recordings (NL), Clostridium Records (GE) and Echodelick Records (US). Album pre-order available at label sites from 21st April.
200x STANDARD BLACK VINYL 200x ELECTRIC BLUE VINYL DIGITAL / STREAMING
1. V70 2. La Emboscada 3. Canción de Manuel 4. Crónica Negra 5. Invocación 6. Boda Final / Velorio 7. Hierros Viejos
It is arguable of human art that no matter what it is or does, it will never completely encapsulate the drive behind it or the inspiration causing it to be made. I tend to believe this of great historical works — your Mona Lisas, your Sphinxes, and so on — as well as of the statues-of-nothing one finds outside office buildings. It certainly applies to my work — already, three sentences in! — and over the last two decades I’ve heard from countless songwriters and bands that it’s true for the greater part of theirs as well. Not that you can’t be happy with what you’ve done, but that some part of you always knows the motivation behind it was even stronger than the realization.
So imagine a momentous occasion. I bring this up because Australian heavy psych r-o-c-k-ers Seedy Jeezus last summer released The Hollow Earth through Lay Bare Recordings, as a double-LP, and more, as a moment captured. I could summarize, but here’s the band’s recounting:
In Melbourne we had some crazy lockdowns, some of the strictest in the world. There was a window between lockdowns we had the chance to get a group of friends together without social distancing etc… so we took the chance to get into a studio, and have a bbq, catch up and a jam. Mark flew in from Tasmania for a rehearsal the day before the recording session.
What we got was a great testament to where we were after lockdowns and very little time together. During lockdown Lex had learnt to play Voodoo Chile and dropped it on the band to cover it… we selected a mixx of old n new for the session. We played 2 sets, and thought wed get a album out of it, but as it turned out we had enough for a double album.
This went down at Studio One B here in Melbourne, with David Warner engineering it all. Tony Reed came on and mixed n mastered what we sent him, and did a killer job. Stephen Boxshall took the cover photo and with a little help from our friends it all came together.
And there you are. That guitarist/vocalist Lex Waterreus learned Jimi Hendrix‘s “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” is something that comes up between the songs as either bassist Paul Crick or drummer Mark Sibson chimes in, after Waterreus says “I was bored during lockdown and learned it,” that then the rest of the band had to do the same to make the cover. Fair enough. They rip the galaxy open with it though, so I assume it was all worthwhile.
That cover is also the tip of the 75-minute 2LP iceberg that is The Hollow Earth. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of engaging Seedy Jeezus‘ studio work — their latest proper full-length is 2018’s Polaris Oblique (review here) but they’ve done live stuff and one-offs since — you’ll know they walk the line between stretched-out heavy psych and more traditional rock, structure and ‘out-there’ vibes pervading at the same time. They’re not the first with a similar blend, but they do it exceedingly well, and as they run through two sets on The Hollow Earth for a lockdown-era gathering of friends, you can hear them digging all the way in, getting it while they can because who the hell knows when they’ll be able to again?
Even before you get to the bass leading the way through “Echoes in the Sky” with the drums at the foundation and the guitar gone a-wanderin’ in a fantastic display of classic chemistry and Seedy Jeezus‘ own dynamic in particular, or the 11-minute Floydian highlight “Dripping From the Eye of the Sun” with its own jam giving a slight return to the earlier parenthetical in the Hendrix tune, as a concept it’s a beautiful thing to capture. However many people were there, it’s enough to sound like at least a small crowd in between songs, and for all the implied intimacy of that, Seedy Jeezus bring the full breadth of their sound, be it Wattereus‘ scorching solo work in “The Golden Miles” or the later fuzzy shove of “Oh Lord Pt. 2.” I know everybody’s tired of hearing about the pandemic and I am too, but this isn’t about the lockdown so much as the vital creative spirit that persisted through it. The same need that had humans drawing on cave walls tens of thousands of years ago made this. What an incredible species we can be when we’re not busy killing or otherwise being complete assholes to each other, the planet, animals, and so on.
They start quiet and gradual with the ‘strap yourselves in, kids’ unfolding of “Is There All That Is,” which immediately demonstrates the malleability of structure in the band’s grasp, the openness with which they approach their own work. They’re jammers, is what I’m telling you, even when the jam has a set destination in mind via a vis the next chorus, the quiet part, whatever, to which it will eventually return the audience. But man, these cats really go, and The Hollow Earth, for every moment like the righteous crash into the second verse of “Wormhole” and the freelance fiending that ensues has a corresponding fleshout, like the 16-minute take on “How Ya Doin'” that for most acts would be a career landmark but here is delivered, well, not with no ceremony, because certainly it’s a good time, but with some sense of being understated when it comes to the actual vibrancy of the material being explored.
I wonder if they had chairs or if people sat on the floor. Studio couches for those who got there early? How was the barbecue? Burgers and dogs, curried sausages, what? How long was the party? How soon after did Melbourne go back into lockdown? Did they know it was coming? Just how true is the getting-away-with-it narrative around the record’s making?
Maybe it’s better not to know. Maybe it adds mystique so often absent from the world of immediate access, cloying social media content and storyline positioning. In any case, Seedy Jeezus did two sets as part of one show and got a double-vinyl out of it, and if you ever needed an example of an offering hurt by the pressing delays that slammed record manufacturing between 2020-2022, this is it. Beset by bullshit. By the time it came out last summer, it already seemed to be a historical document, and it may be years before it can be rightly and fully embraced for what it captures and the vibe throughout, never mind the actual sound of the thing. Such as it ever ended, it was a weird time to be alive. Tucked into the middle of it, this must’ve been a hell of a night.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
—
My alarm went off at 3AM. The first time. Then four. By the time the last one came around at 5:30, I was already up, but it felt like a luxury nonetheless. I needed the sleep, I guess.
Was feeling pretty light on motivation this week after finishing the Quarterly Review (for now), thinking about what a bummer it is to lose the Gimme Metal show because they’re shutting down the app, and so on. That and dividing my attention between writing and keeping up with the GoFundMe for Leanne from Riff Relevant/Mettle MediaGoFundMe for Leanne from Riff Relevant/Mettle Media as it met, passed, met and passed again its goals, plus a decent amount of fuckoff time was where my head was at. I’m glad to have reviewed the Black Moon Circle, Fuzz Sagrado and Dozer records. Next week is Ruff Majik and I’ve already talked about that. There’s other stuff too, but in my mind that’s the centerpiece of the week. It’ll be posted on Thursday.
This weekend I’m in Maryland for wedding of The Patient Mrs.’ brother, who lives in Baltimore. That’ll be fine, if a little harried chasing down The Pecan, whose new dress for it is lovely and bound to be wrecked by wearing if not immediately then almost certainly soon thereafter. So it goes in the way of things that go. Pretty much nonstop.
I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Wherever you’re at, I hope the weather is good and you’re comfortable and not worried about money or some other bullshit. Watch your head, don’t forget to hydrate, and don’t tell me spoilers for the ending of Star Trek: Picard, because I haven’t watched it yet (yeah I read a review but comprehension is low and of course I want to see it for myself). In any case, thanks for reading.
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 21st, 2023 by JJ Koczan
If you want to take a look at what Euro tastemakers think is the shape of things to come in heavy rock, it’s young. And as someone in my 40s, I enjoy how much Mojo and the Kitchen Brothers aren’t. The Belgian five-piece — who’ve been confirmed as well to appear at Down the Hill this August (info here) — self-issued their funky debut album, Mojo’s Heavy Cream, on April 7 and even before the post-release dust has settled, the full-length and their 2022 EP, Flaming Tiger Lizard, have been snagged by Lay Bare Recordings for wider distribution. Think Slomosa signing to Stickman. Lucid Void with Sound of Liberation‘s label wing. Mojo and the Kitchen Brothers on Lay Bare seems to me to be coming from a similar place. It’s a pointed endorsement of the next generation of European heavy from parties who not only will help shape these bands, but who’ve helped make the heavy underground (in Europe and beyond) what it is today.
And in addition to being wonderful news that will perpetuate the subculture blah blah blah, the music’s cool and I hadn’t heard it yet, so vibing to the 12-minute psych meander of “I’ve Been a Fool” after the funkified “For the Greater Good.” I’m gonna keep digging into the rest of the album, because it’s sitting right, and if you’d like to do the same, the playlist is down at the bottom of the post. I couldn’t find a Bandcamp for them, which is kind of interesting.
Lay Bare posted the following to socials:
!!! NEW BAND SIGNING !!! *** MOJO & the Kitchen Brothers***
A 5-headed omnium gatherum of eclectically inspired music freaks from Belgium who mixes the finest late 60s, early 70s heavy psych and prog rock –
We are really excited to announce that Mojo & the Kitchen Brothers have signed to @laybarerecordings for their upcoming debut ep ‘Flaming Tiger Lizard’ and their full length album ‘Mojo’s Heavy Cream’ !
M&TKB: “Super proud and honored to be on board as a member of the Lay Bare family. Can’t wait to have our music on those shiny pieces of wax!”
PRESALE info on both albums will follow soon.
BIOGRAPHY
Mojo and the Kitchen Brothers. A 5-headed omnium gatherum of eclectically inspired music freaks from Belgium cooking up a late 60’s early 70’s minded mix of heavy progrock soaked in psychedelia. The smells emanating from our kitchen recall bands like Black Sabbath, Wishbone Ash and Pink Floyd. However, M&TKB is more than a nostalgia trip. Firmly tuned into the spring of our contemporary psych rockers, Mojo & the Kitchen Brothers’ catchy tunes, proggy riffs, deafening drums, roaring basslines and spacy, triple-guitar jams take the listener on a Janus-faced journey through the limbo between past and present.
@mojoandthekitchenbrothers are: Warre Brits, Drum – Lead Vocals Jon Geboers, Gitaar Mathijs van Meensel, Bas Luca Fazioli, Gitaar – Backing Vocals Jules Meyvis, Gitaar
The fucking intensity of this band. Following on from last year’s divine-comedic EP, Seconda Morte (review here), Alicante, Spain, heavy noise rock trio Rosy Finch offer further evidence of their general not-screwing-around nature with the 20-minute/three-song pro-captured live-in-studio clip ‘Live on Creative Madness Sessions.’ Premiering below, the session features three tracks — “Oxblood,” “Gin Fizz” and “Ruby” — taken from the band’s 2020 sophomore full-length, Scarlet (review here), and makes no apologies either for the fullness of its tonal assault or the way in which, like the record itself, the songs are able to shift between melodic, atmospheric heavy and rawer punishment.
Founding guitarist/vocalist Mireia Porto and bassist Óscar Soler share vocals in a way they couldn’t on Scarlet since the latter hadn’t joined the band yet when the record came out, representing their live presence with Juanjo Ufarte holding the march steady on drums. On paper, their approach shouldn’t work at all, but like Seconda Morte, these new takes on Scarlet cuts harness noise vibes without losing their ambience, cacophony without sacrificing groove, and have enough space to account for melody as well as the caustic, “Gin Fizz” blending grunge, riot-grrrl screams and sludge metal with purpose and force alike after the outright nastiness that emerges in “Oxblood” and before “Ruby” digs even deeper, comprising most of the second half of the video by itself.
Worth noting that Marcos Baño, who directs here, also helmed the clip for “Purgatorio” from the EP last year, the indoor portion of which was filmed at the Creative Madness Lab, and the collaboration is successful again in conveying the righteous fury as well as the scope of these songs. It may be that some of the intent behind ‘Live on Creative Madness Sessions’ — the last three words there indicative of a series — is to demonstrate the way Rosy Finch now handle the work of the band’s earlier incarnation, which they wield like a weapon, but to more generally showcase what they bring to the stage in a live setting; considerably more than simple aggression but plenty of that as well, deliberate in execution and the build and release of tension as it is.
That aggro sensibility has been a defining feature of their output to-date — though I’ll emphasize that it’s not all that’s happening in their songs and this video proves that again — and as such they’re somewhat subject to the perils of inhabiting a place between styles, crossing lines of heavy rock, punk, metal and noise while refusing to commit to just one approach. Or three. The tradeoff there is Rosy Finch are a more interesting band for the breadth, and if a given listener/viewer was undecided on whether or not to catch them performing, say, at Desertfest London 2023 where they’ll play next month, it’s hard to imagine taking in ‘Live on Creative Madness Sessions’ and not coming down in their favor.
Please enjoy:
Rosy Finch, ‘Live on Creative Madness Sessions’ premiere
Rosy Finch full performance at Creative Madness Lab
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 31st, 2023 by JJ Koczan
The upcoming second album from Ghorot — no, I don’t know when it’s out with any further specificity than the “Fall 2023” stated below, and since they don’t I’ll refrain from giving you the title though I will say it’s appropriate for the brutality of the band’s intentions — has been in my possession for a couple hours. That’s barely enough time to skim through it, but in doing so I can confirm what they also say in this signing announcement as regards “fucking brutal.” If you heard 2021’s Loss of Light (review here), you know that’s part and parcel to who they are as a band, but they do seem to wield the caustic with increased lethality, and next time I’m really, really pissed off about some probably inconsequential bullshit and want to smash my face into the fucking wall, I’m looking forward to greeting that impulse with the volume of Ghorot‘s new effort.
Lay Bare Recordings in the Netherlands and King of the Monsters in the US Southwest will handle the release, and just for a refresher, bassist/vocalist Carson Russell doubles in Ealdor Bealu and guitarist/vocalist Chad Remains formerly conjured riffs in Uzala, which remains relevant information even though Ghorot are far more geared toward slow-motion throatripping than either of those outfits. To wit, Loss of Light streams below. Have at it if you’re in that kind of place.
From the PR wire:
MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT
We are beyond stoked to announce a new partnership between Ghorot and 2 world-class record labels; the mighty Lay Bare Recordings (Nijmegen, Netherlands) and King of the Monsters (Phoenix, AZ)!!
LBR and KOTM will be working with us on the release of our sophomore full-length album, which officially drops this Fall 2023!! We can’t wait to share more details with you all soon…
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 9th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Based in Madrid, Loma Baja will make their full-length debut through Spinda Records — whose announcement appears below — Lay Bare Recordings in the Netherlands, Clostridium Records in Germany and Echodelick Records in the US, and the multinational synergy of its backing should tell you something about the record. Namely that it makes people want to be involved. Honestly, they had me here at the involvement of Jorge García, formerly of Adrift and El Páramo, but I did bother to go as far as to listen to the demos they put up last year on Bandcamp, and the warm-psych bass is only part of the appeal, as there’s proggy movement and ambience to coincide and the songs feel like nothing so much as blueprints from which to expand their sound. I hope they do just that when the record arrives.
I’ve done a few of these announcements now, and I remain on board. Think it’s a coincidence that everyone can do more through collective action? Hell no. Riffers Union Now! Rising tide of fuzz lifts all amps. Then probably blows a tube or something and has to stop the show for a little bit.
From the PR wire:
SPINDA RECORDS NEW BAND ANNOUNCEMENT: LOMA BAJA
Can you imagine a band featuring members of Adrift, El Páramo, G.A.S. Drummers, Giganto, Another Kind Of Dead and Sou Edipo? Well, that band already exists and it’s called LOMA BAJA.
In our family we didn’t think twice and we opened our doors to them a few months ago when they presented us their debut album ‘Piscinas verticales‘ (vertical pools), about which they tell you this:
“[…] it’s about nightmares, places that generate strange feelings and about the hidden side of things. The songs seek to generate that feeling that stays with you after having seen something weird. This album is the result of the search for a common point between four guys who come from different places and who found a place in the darkness. We like “trial and error” and this is the way we wrote ‘Piscinas verticales’, mixing elements from kraut-rock, post-punk, alt-rock, post-rock and other exotic music […]”
The album will be out this Spring thanks to a collaboration between Spinda Records (ES), Lay Bare Recordings (NT), Clostridium Records (GE) and Echodelick Records (US). But do not worry as a first single is coming out very soon.
They’ll be playing on May 26 in Madrid at Sound Isidro Fest.
Loma Baja is: Victor Teixeira – Guitarra Jorge García – Teclado/Guitarra/Voz Paco Moto – Bajo/Teclado/Voz Raúl Lorenzo – Batería
Eindhoven-based dark heavy experimentalist outfit Soothsayer Orchestra release their new album, The Last Black Flower, this Saturday, Feb. 4, through Lay Bare Recordings. At the behest of multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Pieter Hendriks, the album pulls together a sometimes-lush, sometimes-minimal, broadly-scoped approach to songwriting and arrangement, reminiscent on album opener “Celestial Virtues” of goth rock but by no means limited to that as it flirts with elements of dudely-swinging blues und drang on “The Bonediggers Blues” — one doesn’t know if the band or Lay Bare have considered alternate revenue streams, but there has to be a tv show Western or video game they could license it to — all foreboding in its later electric guitar ringouts. Neither of the first two cuts its really a tell for what’s to come, but the opener is also the longest of the 11 inclusions (immediate points) across the 41-minute release, which follow’s the band’s 2021 self-titled debut, and the Mark Lanegan-style vocal style Hendriks uses there suits the attention to detail that creates both the wash at the end of that track and the build that takes place across the next.
From there, Hendriks guides the listener skillfully through the meat of the record. “Galaxy Gazing for Supernovas” is ambient and seems to have fading sirens in the background that put one in mind of covid ambulances going by in a tense late Spring three years ago as the piano at the forefront and lyrics look outward with poetic and a purposeful sense of being half a song — it’s the shortest cut at 2:46; more than an interlude, but a definite pull away from the first two tracks — with a windy transition to “Kissed a Tyrant,” which brings an Ableton-style industrial march to a particularly Ulverian vocal melody, recalling that band’s “Shadows of the Sun” as it leaves space open in a mix that sounds like it was duly fretted-over only to fill it with layers of guitar and synth, ending up in a post-doom anti-genre moodiness that should appeal to fans of Crippled Black Phoenix but in reality is no more actually that than it is Ulver. The songs function deceptively quick thanks to an efficiency in creating an atmosphere, each one having a crux and persona of its own as it adds to the whole. Acoustic guitar at the outset of “The Gleaming of Beryl” contrasts against the beats of “Kissed a Tyrant,” and echo-stretch vocals atop Hendriks‘ (and someone else’s) gritty voice reminds of Steve Von Till‘s more recent solo work, but is on its own path, with strings and a closing sense of drift that carries into a soft breath of drone before fading to silence.
That puts “Black Dust” as the centerpiece of The Last Black Flower, building on the electronic vibe of “Kissed a Tyrant” with buried-under-rubble beats behind Hendriks‘ voice and various other ambient sounds surrounding in a not-empty-but-guitarless stretch that shifts into slow industrial doom, a few admirably sludgy screams arriving near the end not so much as a payoff as what you’ve found in this specific horror mine. Is that as far in as the record goes? Not a chance. “Everlasting Wings” brings back the acoustic guitar and a kind of muttered spoken word before the old-soul, rough-throat croon, piano and twanging rhythm mirrors the feel of “The Bonediggers Blues” back on side A while holding to an organic version of the march of “Black Dust” prior.
The work of artist Alexander Von Wieding in the swampy Larman Clamor comes to mind, but Soothsayer Orchestra is by and large slower, more willfully patient and atmospheric, starting from a different foundation in what used to be called neofolk but has morphed with time into ‘folk noir,’ and fair enough; can’t be ‘neo’ forever. In any case, to the credit of “Everlasting Wings,” it folds in some bassy wub-wubs for a suitably dystopian-future wreckage of an ending, and the bright electric guitar strum that starts the sub-three-minute “Destroy Humanity” is a pointed contradiction, snapping the listener back from the hypnosis that Hendriks (and company?) has cast, with an easy swing and horn-ish sounds like Peter Gabriel gone grim and later twists as the track melts and a giant bee seems to buzz it closed. Anybody remember pollinators? Those were the days.
“The Shadow,” which follows, is the first song over four minutes since “Kissed a Tyrant” at least a handful of lives ago, and brings arrangements of lush electric guitar, a meditative rhythm and layers of vocals arranged almost geometrically before breaking to sitar in its second half — something the groove prefaced earlier — and making its way into a plotted psychedelic flow around the chorus as the vocals return and give over to electronic noise before a more singer-songwriter spirit takes hold in “Black Tar and Silver,” not at all minimalist in reality, but subtle, with echoing lines of keys, backing vocals at its peak and guitar in there somewhere, but seemingly able to drop it all and rely just on the vocals and guitar at its core.
Structurally, it’s a song Hendriks could do anything with, and as the penultimate piece before the five-minute finale “November Moon,” with its memorable repetitions of the title and resumption of some of the march of prior cuts, its contemplative feel is well placed. The acoustic guitar holds over to the closer, and stays at the song’s foundation even as the vocals move into whispers and a bluesy line of electric guitar emerges, soon enough to howl at the moon in the song’s title, a more resolved crash of drums alongside in what’s clearly the big finish for The Last Black Flower as a whole, but stays somewhat understated in keeping with the spirit of the collection it wraps. Both of the last two songs represent the most recently recorded Soothsayer Orchestra material, exclusive to the digital edition of the record.
Throughout this second offering from Soothsayer Orchestra, the most prominent abiding element, apart perhaps from Hendriks‘ vocals, which provide an appreciated human aspect, is the obvious care that’s been put into crafting and arranging this material no matter how an individual song manifests it. As an auteur, Hendriks (also a former drummer of the more metalcore-minded Born From Pain) is able to create a sense of scope and rough-edged grace, creating momentum from one song to the next like an underwater current by which the individual immersed doesn’t even realize they’re being moved. That image, being drawn away from shore, is perhaps antithetical to some of the bleak plains-sprawl throughout — grey-sky overhead, vast and mostly barren sepia-toned lands below, a place where people used to be before nature took the land back; grass grown over the road — but maybe that’s what happens when an album creates an entire world instead of part of one. So much the better.
The Last Black Flower is streaming in its entirety below, followed by more info on the album from the PR wire.
Please enjoy:
Soothsayer Orchestra, The Last Black Flower album premiere
Pieter Hendricks on The Last Black Flower:
This album is musically a journey with heavy industrial fueled riffing and electronic vibes flowing into small fragile songs and darkblues rocking roadtrip horizon gazers. It is truelly a trip through the brain, as if reading a diary written by a person digging through the deepest vaults of their soul losing himself but also rediscovering themselves and griefing the loss of love and scared of losing control. A moodswing that paints the times we are living in perfectly. A very deep and personal record that people can relate to and find a piece of themselves in, hope and destruction mix with love and death. This is a record that had to be made to stay sane and build a bridge crawling out of darkness longing for light.
The Last Black Flower the new album from Soothsayer Orchestra, the one-man project of Dutch experimentalist Pieter Hendriks, out today via Lay Bare Recordings.
Pieter is a musical solitudinarian who has enough gumption to leave the commonplace behind and only take with him what can enrich his music and performance. There is a certain weight of tragedy in his music. Pieters gravelly voice possesses an uneasy moodiness that reflects doom and despair, which immerses you in the dark side of life. Then, amidst this darkness Hendriks shifts his compositions to newfound hope, warm and flowing, creating a longing, yet bold mood.
In his brand-new studio, fittingly named The Dungeon, Hendriks crawled back into writing mode for new album The Last Black Flower and explored new territory, always looking for new influences. Elements of electronic industrial music and psychedelic vintage rock blend with the dark bluesy foundation on which Soothsayer Orchestra is firmly built. Lyrically and conceptually this album can be seen as a documentation of self-reflection that Hendriks went through during the often hopeless and haunting years of the pandemic. What came out of this is a beautiful and very honest album that lays bare one’s soul and takes the listener on a musically dynamic journey through Hendriks his mind.
