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Steve Von Till Announces US Tour with Helen Money

Posted in Whathaveyou on March 1st, 2022 by JJ Koczan

Steve Von Till (Photo by James Rexroad)

Steve Von Till of Neurosis touring his solo material in the company of Chicago-based experimental cellist Helen Money is killer news. They’d be a great duo, and Helen Money (aka Allison Chesley) delivers solo too. But, that Von Till is also bringing a backing band that includes Dave French (Brothers of the Sonic ClothYOB) and Sanford Parker (Buried at SeaCorrections House, produced probably 40 percent of your favorite records, etc.) and will indeed collaborate with Chesley as well, yeah, that’s a significant win and a significant lineup. I hope somebody out there, somewhere, records some of it from these shows.

Von Till goes supporting 2020’s No Wilderness Deep Enough (review here) and, inherently, its 2021 instrumental counterpart, A Deep Voiceless Wilderness (review here), and to mark the announcement, a video for “Indifferent Eyes” has been posted as taken from Von Till‘s Roadburn Redux performance, titled ‘A Remote Wilderness.’ You’ll note the video also includes French among its players, and if you didn’t see the full thing when it streamed last Spring, keep an eye out for other clips no doubt to follow. If you need to know why, watch the one at the bottom of this post.

Among the slew of dates on both coasts, note the inclusion of the Fire in the Mountains festival in Wyoming, which seems like a particularly idyllic setting for, well, almost anything, I guess. But certainly this too.

The PR wire brought particulars:

steve-von-till-tour

STEVE VON TILL ANNOUNCES U.S. SUMMER TOUR

REVEALS FIRST EPISODE OF FORTHCOMING LIVE SERIES “A REMOTE WILDERNESS”

The Neurosis frontman hits the road for the first time since the release of his lauded 2020 album ‘No Wilderness Deep Enough’, last year’s ambient ‘A Deep Voiceless Wilderness’ and his debut book Harvestman: 23 Untitled Poems and Collected Lyrics.

Steve Von Till has announced a full North American Summer tour in support of his recent releases which include 2020’s No Wilderness Deep Enough, last year’s ambient A Deep Voiceless Wilderness and his debut book ‘Harvestman: 23 Untitled Poems and Collected Lyrics’. The tour starts in Minneapolis on July 1, covers both coasts, Chicago, Texas and includes a performance at Wyoming’s Fire in the Mountains festival. Tickets go on sale this Friday, March 4 at 10AM Local. For a full list of dates see below.

Tickets and updates are available here: https://www.vontill.org/tour

“It brings me great joy to announce that this summer I will be heading out to 27 cities across the country to perform my ‘No Wilderness Deep Enough’ album with a wonderful group of musicians including Helen Money on cello, Dave French on synths, guitar and percussion, and Sanford Parker on keys and synths. Helen Money will also be performing a full set of her own emotionally deep and heavy cello compositions. I cannot wait. It has been too long. Tickets go on sale this Friday, March 4th at 10:00am.”

Last year, Von Till joined forces with the highly esteemed Roadburn Festival to broadcast a performance for their 2021 online festival. He brought in filmmaker Bobby Cochran as the videographer and Chris Rahm as the audio engineer – together they captured an emotional performance in the legendary Robert Lang Studios outside of Seattle, WA.

Von Till explains, “’No Wilderness Deep Enough’ was new territory for me sonically, emotionally, and vocally, that I had been intently looking forward to the challenge of gathering a small group of musicians capable of interpreting it and putting myself out there in that uncomfortable but exciting realm of self-growth. It wasn’t to be. Our live musical universe had been put on pause. Not wanting to lose the moment, I dreamt of having the set filmed professionally in a beautiful location with a nice piano and great sound. The answer came in the form of Roadburn Festival from Holland and their commitment to having a high quality online festival in 2021. I recruited Dave French on synthesizers, percussion, and guitar, Lori Goldston on cello, David Lutz on synthesizers, Eric Padget on french horn, and Oli Eshlemen on pedal steel.”

“The end result, ‘A Remote Wilderness’ is something I am very proud to have been a part of and I am grateful to all the people and their hard work to make it happen.” Since its initial private viewing for those that attended Roadburn Redux online last year, this film has been awaiting a new audience.

Steve Von Till Live Dates:
Tickets On-sale March 4 at 10AM Local Here: https://www.vontill.org/tour
07/01: Minneapolis, MN – Turf Club
07/02: Milwaukee, WI – Back Room at Colectivo
07/03: Chicago, IL – Empty Bottle
07/05: Detroit, MI – The Sanctuary
07/06: Columbus, OH – Rumba Cafe
07/07: Rochester, NY – Bug Jar
07/08: Boston, MA – Sinclair
07/09: Queens, NY – TV Eye
07/11: Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s
07/12: Washington, DC – DC9
07/13: Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle – Back Room
07/15: Atlanta, GA – The Earl
07/16: New Orleans, LA – Gasa Gasa
07/17: Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall
07/18: Austin, TX – The Ballroom
07/20: Denver, CO – Bluebird Theatre
07/22: Moran, WY – Fire in the Mountains
08/05: Spokane, WA – Lucky You Lounge
08/06: Seattle, WA – Neumos
08/07: Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios
08/09: Oakland, CA – Starline Social Club
08/10: San Jose, CA – The Ritz
08/11: Los Angeles, CA – Zebulon
08/12: San Diego, CA – Casbah
08/13: Tucson, AZ – Club Congress
08/15: Salt Lake City, UT – Urban Lounge
08/16: Boise, ID – Neurolux

https://www.facebook.com/SteveVonTill
https://www.instagram.com/stevevontill/
https://www.vontill.org/
http://www.neurosis.com
http://www.neurotrecordings.com
http://www.facebook.com/neurotrecordings
https://neurotrecordings.bandcamp.com
neurotrecordings.merchtable.com/

Steve Von Till, “Indifferent Eyes” from ‘A Remote Wilderness’

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Quarterly Review: Papir, Kosmodemonic, Steve Von Till, Sex Blender, Déhà, Thunder Horse, Rebreather, Melmak, Astral Magic, Crypt Monarch

Posted in Reviews on July 6th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

the-obelisk-fall-2016-quarterly-review

Day two already, huh? It’s a holiday week here in the States, which means people are on vacation or have at least enjoyed a long weekend hopefully without blowing any body parts off with fireworks or whatnot. For me, I prefer the day on rather than the day off, so we proceeded as normal yesterday in beginning the Quarterly Review. “We now return to our regularly scheduled,” and so on.

There’s a lot of good stuff here, as one would hope, and since we’re still basically at the start of this doublewide edition of the Quarterly Review — 10 down, 90 to go — I won’t delay further. Thanks for reading.

Quarterly Review #11-20:

Papir, Jams

papir jams

Two sessions, three days apart, three pieces from each, resulting in six tracks running just about 80 minutes that Papir are only within their rights to have titled simply as Jams. With this outing, the Copenhagen-based psychedelic trio present their process at its most nakedly exploratory. I don’t know if they had any parts pre-planned when they went into the studio, but the record brims with spontaneity, drums jazzing out behind shimmering guitar and steadily grooving basslines. Effects are prevalent and add to the spaciousness, and the sessions from whence these songs came, whether it’s the key-led four-minute “20.01.2020 #2” or the 20-minute opener “17.01.2020 #1” — all tracks sharing the same date-and-number format as regards titles — feel vibrant and fluid in a way that goes beyond even the hazy hypnotics of “20.01.2020 #3.” Papir‘s instrumental dynamic is of course a huge part of what they do anyway, but to hear their chemistry come through in freer fashion as it does here can only be refreshing. I hope they do more like this.

Papir on Facebook

Stickman Records website

 

Kosmodemonic, Liminal Light

Kosmodemonic Liminal Light

Brooklyn outfit Kosmodemonic exist almost exclusively within genre border regions. Their second album, Liminal Light, fosters an approach that’s too considered not to be called progressive, but that owes as much to the cosmic doom of YOB as to black metal as to noise rock as to Voivod as to any number of other various ores in the metallic sphere. In their sprinting moments or in the consuming dark grandeur of centerpiece “Ipomoea,” they are pointedly individual, and cuts like “Drown in Drone” and the later slammer “Brown Crown” owe much to sheer impact as to the cerebral underpinnings of their angularity. Liminal Light is vicious but methodical, and feels executed with a firm desire to catch the audience sleeping and then blindside them with a change, be it in moving from one song to another or within one song itself, like when the penultimate “Chains of Goddess Grove” rears back from its lurching movement and spews thrashier fire in its final minute. Put these moments together and you get a record that challenges on multiple levels and is unflinchingly worth the effort of close engagement.

Kosmodemonic on Facebook

Transylvanian Tapes on Bandcamp

 

Steve Von Till, A Deep Voiceless Wilderness

Steve Von Till A Deep Voiceless Wilderness

The sixth solo offering from Neurosis guitarist/vocalist Steve Von Till is a first for being completely instrumental. The narrative — blessings and peace upon it — goes that Von Till wrote the music for 2020’s No Wilderness Deep Enough (review here) late during jetlagged nights alone on his wife’s family’s property in Germany, where her family has lived for 500 years, only to later be convinced by producer Randall Dunn to write lyrics and record vocals for the songs. A Deep Voiceless Wilderness, as the title hints, pulls those vocals back out of these re-named pieces, allowing elements like the quiet textures of keyboard and piano, horns and mellotrons to shine through in atmospheric fashion, layers of drone intertwining in mostly peaceful fashion. It is the least guitar-based record Von Till has ever done, and allows for a new kind of minimalism to surface along with an immersive melodic hum. Subdued, meditative, exploratory, kind of wonderful.

Steve Von Till website

Neurot Recordings store

 

Sex Blender, Studio Session I

Sex Blender Studio Session I

Based in Lviv, Ukraine, instrumentalist krautrock bizarros Sex Blender have two full-lengths behind them, and Studio Session I takes the consumingly fuzzed “Diver” from 2018’s Hormonizer and three cuts from 2020’s The Second Coming and turns them into a stirring 44-minute set captured on video for a livestream. Reportedly some of the arrangements are different, as will certainly happen, but as someone being introduced to the band through this material, it’s easy to be struck by the palpable sense of glee with which Sex Blender present their songs. “Crimson Master” is the shortest of the bunch at just over six minutes — it’s the only one under 11 — but even there, the manipulated keyboard sounds, drum fluidity and undercurrent of rumbling distortion push Sex Blender into a place that’s neither doom nor prog but draws from both, crawling where the subsequent “Rave Spritz” can’t help but bounce with its motorik drums and intertwined synth lines. May just be a live session, but they shine all the same.

Sex Blender on Facebook

Drone Rock Records website

 

Déhà, Cruel Words

Déhà Cruel Words

Déhà‘s third long-player Cruel Words was originally issued in 2019 and is seeing a first vinyl pressing on Burning World Records. The Brussels solo outfit has released no fewer than 17 other full-length outings — possibly more, depending on what counts as what — in the two years since these songs initially surfaced, but, well, one has to start someplace. The 2LP runs 75 minutes and includes bonus tracks — an acoustic version of opener “I Am Mine to Break,” a cover of The Gathering‘s “Saturnine” and the piano-into-post-metal “Comfort Me II” — but the highlights are on the album itself, such as the make-Amenra-blush 12-minute crux of “Dead Butterflies,” wherein a lung-crushing weight is given patient drama through its prominent keyboard layers, or the goth early going of “Pain is a Wasteland,” which seems to brood until it finally can’t take it anymore and bashes its head (and yours) into the wall. Surprisingly methodical for the manic pace at which Déhà (né Olmo Lipani) works, it makes artistry of its arrangement as well as performance and is willfully overwhelming, but engaging in that.

Déhà on Facebook

Burning World Records website

 

Thunder Horse, Chosen One

Thunder Horse Chosen One

Big riffs, big grooves, big hooks, Thunder Horse‘s second long-player, Chosen One, sees the San Antonio, Texas, outfit inherit some aspects from the members’ past outfits, whether it’s the semi-industrial vocal style of Stephen Bishop on “Among the Dead” or the classically shredding solo work of Todd Connally. With Dave Crow on bass and Jason “Shakes” West on drums, Thunder Horse elbow their way into a nod quickly on Chosen One and hold their ground decisively, with Dehumanizer-esque tones and flourish of keys throughout that closes in lead position on the outro “Remembrance” in complement to the strumming, whistling “Texas” a short while earlier. Even when they shuffle, as on the second half of “Song for the Ferryman,” Thunder Horse do it heavy, and as they did with their 2018 self-titled debut (review here), they make it hard to argue, either with the atmosphere or the sheer lumber of their output. An easy record to dig for the converted.

Thunder Horse on Facebook

Ripple Music website

 

Rebreather, Pets / Orange Crush

Rebreather Pets Orange Crush

Heads up children of — or children of children of — the 1990s, as Youngstown, Ohio’s Rebreather effectively reinterpret and heavy up two of that decade’s catchiest hooks in Porno for Pyros‘ “Pets” and R.E.M.‘s “Orange Crush.” Taking songs that, if they ever left your head from rock radio, will certainly be right back in there now, and trying to put their own spin on them is ambitious, but Rebreather have no trouble slowing down the already kinda languid “Pets” or emphasizing the repetitive urgency of “Orange Crush,” and the tonal weight they bring to both honors the original versions as well as who Rebreather are as a band, while showcasing the band’s heretofore undervalued melodies, with call and response vocal lines in both cuts nodding to their sludge/noise rock roots while moving forward from there. They chose the songs well, if nothing else, and though it’s only about 10 minutes between the two cuts, as the first new Rebeather material since their 2018 self-titled EP (discussed here), I’ll take the two covers happily.

Rebreather on Facebook

Aqualamb Records website

 

Melmak, Down the Underground

Melmak Down the Underground

Spanish duo Melmak — guitarist/vocalist Jonan Etxebarria and drummer/vocalist Igor Etxebarria — offer an awaited follow-up to their 2016 long-player Prehistorical (review here) and demonstrate immediately that five years has not dulled their aggressive tendencies. Opener “Black Room” is a minute-long grindfest, and though “Scum” finds its way into a sludgy groove, it’s not far behind. “Poser” starts out as a piano ballad but turns to its own crushing roll, while “The Scene” rumbles out its lurch, “You Really Don’t Care” samples a crying baby over a sad piano line and “Ass Kisser” offers knee-to-the-face bruiser riffing topped with echoing gutturalism that carries the intensity into the seven-minute, more spacious “Jaundiced,” which gives itself over to extremity in its second half as well, and the closing noise wash of “The Crew.” What we learn from all this is it would seem Melmak find the heavy underground wanting in violent terms. They answer that call in bludgeoning fashion.

Melmak on Facebook

Melmak on Bandcamp

 

Astral Magic, Visions of Infinity

Astral Magic Visions of Infinity

Ostensibly a solo-project from Dark Sun bassist Santtu Laakso, Astral Magic‘s debut LP, Visions of Infinity, features contributions from guitarist Martin Weaver (Wicked Lady, Doctors of Space) and Scott “Dr. Space” Heller (Doctors of Space, Øresund Space Collective), as well as Samuli Sailo on ukulele, and has been mixed and mastered and released by Heller, so perhaps the plot thickens as regards just how much of band it is. Nonetheless, Astral Magic have all the cosmos to work with, so there’s plenty of room for everybody, as Visions of Infinity harnesses classic Hawkwindian space rock and is unafraid to add droning mysticism to the ever-outward procession on “Ancient Mysteries” or “Onboard the Spaceship,” to grow playful on “I Was Abducted” or bask in cosmic serenity on “Winds of Time” and “Wizards.” Off we go, into the greater reaches of “out there.” It’s a fun ride.

Astral Magic on Facebook

Space Rock Productions website

 

Crypt Monarch, The Necronaut

Crypt Monarch The Necronaut

Costa Rican trio Crypt Monarch offer their debut full-length in the form of the three-song/36-minute The Necronaut, the sound of which makes the claim on the part of the band — bassist/vocalist Christopher De Haan, guitarist Jose Rodriguez, drummer/vocalist J.C. Zuñiga — that it was made live in a cabin in the woods easy enough to believe. Though mixed and mastered, the 15-minute opener “Morning Star Through Skull” (15:41) and ensuing rollers “Rex Meridionalis” (10:12) and “Aglaphotis” (10:08) maintain a vigilant rawness, laced with noise even as De Haan and Zuñiga come together vocally on the latter, clean singing and gurgles alike. It is stoner metal taken to a logical and not entirely unfamiliar extreme, but the murk in which Crypt Monarch revel is dense and easy to get lost within. This, more than any single riff or lumbering groove, speaks to the success of the band’s intention in crafting the record. There is no clearly marked exit.

Crypt Monarch on Facebook

Electric Valley Records website

 

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Roadburn Redux Announces 55 New Additions to Virtual Lineup

Posted in Whathaveyou on April 1st, 2021 by JJ Koczan

roadburn redux banner

What, you thought because Roadburn was going virtual this year it wouldn’t find a way to be completely overwhelming? Behold 55 new additions to Roadburn Redux, set for just over two weeks from now — shit I need to get on WCD copy — and staggering in its scope as Roadburn consistently manages to be. Find me checking out Steve Von Till, Body Void, Astrosoniq, Doctors of Space, Nadja, Year of No Light, SÂVER and a ton of others, and yeah, fucking a. You know it’s Roadburn when all you can really do is throw your hands up and give in to it.

The full announcement follows here. I don’t even know what to say anymore.

From the PR wire:

roadburn redux steve von till

ROADBURN REDUX: Steve Von Till, Aaron Turner and 53 more names confirmed

Redefining heaviness with exclusive performances and premieres – wherever you are in the world.

Roadburn Redux has confirmed an enormous 55 new names that will be participating in the online event taking place between April 16-18. They will be joining the already-announced line up that includes Hexvessel, Die Wilde Jagd, Inter Arma, Mizmor, Primitive Man, Wolvennest and many, many more.

Artistic Director Walter Hoeijmakers comments: “Roadburn has always been a gathering of kindred spirits; shining a light on varying creative corners of our beloved underground and beyond. This year is no different. We’re beyond elated to announce that a vast number of inspiring bands and artists – from Roadburn luminaries such as Steve Von Till and Aaron Turner to young, to upcoming hopefuls like Knoll – have been added to our final, virtual lineup. We’re honoured to provide a platform in these trying times, whether they will bring you exclusive sets or present their debut albums. Together they will give us hope, inspiration, and most of all, the opportunity to reconnect with each other and keep our thriving community going for bands and fans alike. Despite the fact that Jo Quail and several musicians working with her on ‘The Cartographer’ can’t make it to Tilburg due to the travel restrictions – she’ll still be a part of the festival this year, whilst the commissioned performance will take place in 2022. Such is the communal vibe of Roadburn, and we can’t wait to welcome you to Roadburn Redux – wherever you are in the world.”

Roadburn Redux will take place online between April 16-18. Roadburnredux.com for more information.

New Additions

STEVE VON TILL presents A Remote Wilderness
Steve Von Till has performed at Roadburn as part of Neurosis, as a curator, as a solo artist, and a guest musician – and now he will be performing for us within a digital realm as part of Roadburn Redux.

Filmed and recorded live at the legendary Robert Lang Studios in Seattle, we’re delighted to be able to present to you a Steve Von Till performance titled A Remote Wilderness. Joined by a dynamic group of Seattle based musicians Von Till will perform his latest album, No Wilderness Deep Enough, in its entirety – with a few older songs woven throughout.

PERFORMANCES
As well as Steve Von Till’s amazing contribution to Roadburn Redux, we’re thrilled to bring a huge swathe of exclusive, specially recorded performances to Roadburn audiences, including a special solo set from Aaron Turner, a short set from Jo Quail to tide us over until The Cartographer performance next year, the unveiling of two new Dawn Ray’d songs via an exclusive performance video, a very special improv set from Blanck Mass, a psychedelic freakout courtesy of Doctors of Space and much more. Click the artist names below to find out more about each of their performances.

Aaron Turner
Amulets
Svart Sessions: Doodswens
Blanck Mass
Body Void
Dawn Ray’d
Doctors of Space
Drowse
Jo Quail
Jonathan Hulten
Knoll
Nadja
Nero Di Marte
Sula Bassana
Wesenwille

COMMISSIONED:
Also performing for us will be two further artists commissioned specifically by Roadburn for the occasion.

BADA
BADA was created in 2019 by Anna Von Hausswolff and fellow Gothenburg musicians David Sabel, Gianluca Grasselli, Filip Leyman and Hannes Nilsson – some of whom also perform as part of Von Hausswolff’s solo project. Through cinematic drone, tribal rhythms, heavy distortions and a shared desire to “reunite the essential bonds between music and physical worlds”, BADA is a captivating and constantly evolving force of creativity that demands to be witnessed.

TAU PRESENTS DREAM AWAKE
Tau are bringing their transcendental visions to Roadburn Redux, with an exclusive two-part set entitled Dream Awake, that will include a special guest appearance from Clannad’s Pól Brennan. Led by Dubliner Seán Mulrooney, Tau’s hypnotic neo-folk transports listeners on a meditative voyage, taking in shamanic chants, psychedelic flourishes and traditional folk elements, from Irish to Mongolian.

PELAGIC PRESENTS
We’ve joined forces with Germany’s Pelagic Records to showcase artists on the label’s roster under the banner ‘Pelagic Presents’. With no indication of slowing down, this positively prolific label is churning out stellar release after stellar release, even during the last twelve challenging months. Join us as we team up to bring you an exciting collection of premiers, exclusive performances and we’ll even be unveiling some brand new signings to the label over the Redux weekend.

The following artists will be participating in the Pelagic Presents showcase:

Blessings
Briqueville
Crown
Johan G. Winther
LLNN
Lustmord & Karin Park
Oslo Tapes
Psychonaut
Sâver
SOM
The Ocean performing Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic
Year of No Light

ALBUM PREMIERES
In addition to already announced full album premieres, we’re delighted to confirm three more – including Spill Gold performing their album Highway Hypnosis, broadcast live from the 013 venue.
Might performing Might
Spill Gold performing Highway Hypnosis
Trialogos performing Stroh Zu Gold

THE SONGS OF TOWNES VAN ZANDT
The installment of The Songs of Townes Van Zandt is on the horizon during Roadburn Redux the artists involved with the latest album will be unveiled. With previous participants including John Baizley, Scott Kelly and Mike Scheidt, the pedigree of the artists is in no doubt. To find out more click here – and tune in April 16-18 for the big reveal. Click here for more info.

AUDIO/VIDEO PREMIERES:
Roadburn Redux will also be the proud host of a number of audio and visual premieres over the festival weekend. Ranging from previously recordings from previous editions of the festival through to brand new a material from upcoming albums, there’s a feast for both the eyes and ears planned this April courtesy of the following artists:

Acid Rooster
Algiers
Alora Crucible
An Autumn For Crippled Children
Astrosoniq
Blodet
Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou
Hand Model
Hante
Kayo Dot
Midwife
Noctule
Obsidian Kingdom
Of Wolves
Sunrot
Talea Jacta Meets Electric Moon
Tesa
Thy Catafalque
Witch Mountain
Wolf King
Wolves In The Condo

VIRTUAL PIT STOP
We are partnering up with a brand new as yet un-released to public virtual social gathering platform called Bramble to bring you a daily place to hang out with fellow Roadburners virtually – just like the real life Pit Stop in Tilburg.

Anyone who has ever played video games will feel right at home in Bramble, where conversations happen inside of a psychedelic venue. Guests walk around a trippy world as an avatar – connecting with your long lost community. As you move your avatar around, the people you see and hear change depending on who you’re close to, like moving around a physical space.
There will be four separate spaces – The Grass Company, 8.6 Bar, The Weirdo Canyon, and The Skate Hall – open from 5pm CET til 3am CET each day of Roadburn Redux.

Bramble was invented by Artery, a global community for intimate culture and social infrastructure. Its unique gathering platform has been used for everything from open-mics to an album listening party celebration, as well as birthday parties, family gatherings and dozens of companies establishing virtual spaces for their remote workforce.

TICKETS & INFO
Roadburn Redux will be available to access between April 16-18 with a full programme of content online for free (or pay what you like).

Already announced is commissioned projects from Mizmor, Primitive Man Die Wilde Jagd, Dirk Serries, GOLD, Jo Quail, Neptunian Maximalism, Of Blood And Mercury, Radar Men From The Moon, Solar Temple, TDC Inc, and The Nest, plus album premieres from Autarkh, Die Wilde Jagd, Emptiness, Plague Organ and Wolvennest, and a series of sets recorded under the banner of The Svart Sessions – highlighting the best of the Finnish label’s roster.

Roadburn Redux has been made possible due to the support from Brabant C, Gemeente Tilburg, Fonds Podiumkunsten, Provincie Noord-Brabant, Bavaria 8.6, Ticket to Tilburg.

https://www.roadburnredux.com/
https://www.facebook.com/events/1081424195382564/
https://www.facebook.com/roadburnfestival/
http://www.instagram.com/roadburnfest
http://www.roadburn.com

Steve Von Till, A Deep Voiceless Wilderness (2021)

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Quarterly Review: Steve Von Till, Cyttorak, Lambda, Dee Calhoun, Turtle Skull, Diuna, Tomorrow’s Rain, Mother Eel, Umbilichaos, Radar Men From the Moon

Posted in Reviews on October 5th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

THE-OBELISK-FALL-2020-QUARTERLY-REVIEW

Oh hi there. It’s Quarterly Review time again, and you know what that means. 50 records between now and Friday — and I may or may not extend it through next Monday as well; I think I have enough of a backlog at this point to do so. It’s really just a question of how destroyed I am by writing about 10 different records every day this week. If past is prologue, that’s fairly well destroyed. But I’ve yet to do a Quarterly Review and regret it when it’s over, and like the last one, this roundup of 50 albums is pretty well curated, so it might even be fun to go through. There’s a thought. In any case, as always, I hope you find something you enjoy, and thank you for reading if you do or as much as you do.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

Steve Von Till, No Wilderness Deep Enough

steve von till no wilderness deep enough

Neurosis guitarist/vocalist Steve Von Till seems to be bringing some of the experimentalism that drives his Harvestman project into the context of his solo work with No Wilderness Deep Enough, his fifth LP and first since 2015’s A Life unto Itself (review here). Drones and melodic synth backs the deceptively-titled “The Old Straight Track,” and where Von Till began his solo career 20 years ago with traditional folk guitar, if slower, on these six tracks, he uses that meditative approach as the foundation for an outward-reaching 37-minute run, incorporating ethereal strings among the swirls of “Shadows on the Run” and finishing with the foreboding hum of “Wild Iron.” Opener “Dreams of Trees” establishes the palette’s breadth with synthesized beats alongside piano and maybe-cello, but it’s Von Till‘s voice itself that ties the material together and provides the crucial human presence and intimacy that most distinguishes the offerings under his own name. Accompanied by Von Till‘s first published book of poetry, No Wilderness Deep Enough is a portrait of the unrelenting creative growth of its maker.

Steve Von Till on Thee Facebooks

Neurot Recordings on Bandcamp

 

Cyttorak, Simultaneous Invocation of Apocalyptic Harbingers

Cyttorak Simultaneous Invocation of Apocalyptic Harbingers

Take a breath before you hit play only to have it punched right out from your solar plexus by the brutalist deathsludge Cyttorak cleverly call “slowerviolence.” Dominated by low end and growls, screams, and shouts, the lumbering onslaught is the second standalone EP for the three-piece who hail from scenic Pawtucket, Rhode Island (former home of the PawSox), and throughout its six-track run, the unit conjure an unyieldingly punishing tonal morass set to aggressive purpose. That they take their name from the Marvel Universe character who controls X-Men villain Juggernaut should not be taken as coincidence, since their sound indeed seems intended to put its head down and smash through walls and/or anything else that might be in its path in pursuit of its quarry. With Conan-esque lyrical minimalism, the songs nonetheless give clues to their origins — “Royal Shokan Dismemberment” refers to Goro from Mortal Kombat, and finale “Domination Lord of Coldharbour” to Skyrim (which I still regret not playing) — but if you consider comics or video games to be lighter fare, first off, you’re working with an outdated mentality, and second, Cyttorak would like a bit of your time to smother you with volume and ferocity. They have a new split out as well, both on tape.

Cyttorak on Thee Facebooks

Tor Johnson Records website

 

Lambda, Heliopolis

lambda heliopolis

Also signified by the Greek letter from which they take their moniker, Czech four-piece Lambda represent a new age of progressive heavy post-rock. Influences from Russian Circles aren’t necessarily surprising to find coursing through the instrumental debut full-length, Heliopolis, but there are shades of Elder as well behind the more driving riffs and underlying swing of “Space Express,” which also featured on the band’s 2015 EP of the same name. The seven-minute “El Sonido Nuevo” did likewise, but older material or newer, the album’s nine-song procession moves toward its culminating title-track through the grace of “Odysea” and the intertwining psychedelic guitars of “Milkyway Phaseshifter” with an overarching atmosphere of the journey to the city of the sun being undertaken. And when they get there, at the closer, there’s an initial sense of peace that gives way to some of the most directly heavy push Heliopolis has to offer. Payoff, then. So be it. Purposeful and somewhat cerebral in its execution, the DIY debut brings depth and space together to immersive effect.

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Dee Calhoun, Godless

dee calhoun godless

Following his 2016 debut, Rotgut (review here) and 2018’s Go to the Devil (review here), Godless is the third full-length from former Iron Man and current Spiral Grave frontman Dee Calhoun, and its considerable 63-minute runtime finds him working in multiple directions while keeping his underlying roots in acoustic-based heavy metal. Certainly “To My Boy” — and Rob Calhoun has appeared on his father’s releases before as well — has its basis in familial expression, but its pairing with “Spite Fuck” is somewhat curious. Meanwhile, “Hornswoggled” cleverly samples George W. Bush with a laugh track, and “Here Under Protest,” “The Greater Evil,” “Ebenezer” and “No Justice” seem to take a worldly view as well. Meanwhile again, “Godless,” “The Day Salvation Went Away” and “Prudes, Puritanicals and Puddles of Piss” make their perspective nothing if not plain for the listener, and the album ends with the two-minute kazoo-laced gag track “Here Comes the Bride: A Tale From Backwater.” So perhaps scattershot, but Godless is nonetheless Calhoun‘s most effective outing yet in terms of arrangements and craft, and shows him digging further into the singer-songwriter form than he has up to now, sounding more comfortable and confident in the process.

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Argonauta Records website

 

Turtle Skull, Monoliths

Turtle Skull Monoliths

Melodic vocal lines weave together and float over alternately weighted and likewise ethereal guitars on Turtle Skull‘s second album, Monoliths. The percussion-inclusive (tambourine, congas, rain stick, etc.) Sydney-based heavy psychedelic outfit create an immersive wash that makes the eight-song/55-minute long-player consuming for the duration, and while there are moments of clarity to be found throughout — the steady snare taps of “Why Do You Ask?” for example — but the vast bulk of the LP is given to the overarching flow, which finds progressive/space-rock footing in the 11-plus minutes of finale “The Clock Strikes Forever” and is irresistibly consuming on the drifting wash of “Rabbit” or the lysergic grunge blowout of “Who Cares What You Think?,” which gives way to the choral drone of “Halcyon” gorgeously en route through the record’s back half. It’s not the highest profile heavy psych release of 2020, but neither is it to be overlooked for the languid stretch of “Leaves” at the outset or the fuzz-drenched roll in the penultimate “Apple of Your Eye.”

Turtle Skull on Thee Facebooks

Art as Catharsis on Bandcamp

Kozmik Artifactz website

 

Diuna, Golem

diuna golem

In some ways, the dichotomy of Diuna‘s 2019 sophomore full-length, Golem, is set by its first two tracks, the 24-second intro “Menu” and the seven-minute “Jarmark Cudów” that follows, each longer song throughout is prefaced by an introduction or interlude, varying in degrees of experimentation. That, however, doesn’t cover the outsider vibes the Polish trio bring to bear in those longer songs themselves, be it “Jarmark Cudów” devolving into a post-Life of Agony noise rock roll, or the thrust in “Frank Herbert” cut into starts and stops and shouting madness. Heavy rock, noise, sludge, post-this-or-that, it doesn’t matter by the end of the 12-track/44-minute release, because Diuna establish such firm control over the proceedings and make so clear the challenge to the listener to keep up that it’s only fun to try. It might take a couple listens to sink in, but the more attention one gives Golem, the more one is going to be rewarded in the end, and I don’t just mean in the off-kilter fuckery of closer “Pan Jezus Idzie Do Wojska.”

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Diuna on Bandcamp

 

Tomorrow’s Rain, Hollow

tomorrows rain hollow

“Ambitious” doesn’t begin to cover it. With eight songs (plus a bonus track) and 11 listed guest musicians, the debut full-length, Hollow, from Tel Aviv-based death-doomers Tomorrow’s Rain seems to be setting its own standard in that regard. And quite a list it is, with the likes of Aaron Stainthorpe of My Dying Bride, Greg Mackintosh of Paradise Lost, Fernando Ribeiro of Moonspell, Mikko Kotamaki of Swallow the Sun, and so on, it is a who’s-who of melodic/gothic death-doom and the album lives up to the occasion in terms of the instrumental drama it presents. Some appear on one track, some on multiple tracks — Ribeiro and Kotamaki both feature on “Misery Rain” — and despite the constant shifts in personnel with only one of the eight tracks completely without an outside contributor, the core six-piece of Tomorrow’s Rain are still able to make an impression of their own that is bolstered and not necessarily overwhelmed by the extravagant company being kept throughout.

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AOP Records website

 

Mother Eel, Svalbard

mother eel svalbard

Mother Eel‘s take on sludge isn’t so much crushing as it is caustic. They’re plenty heavy, but their punishment isn’t just meted out through tonal weight being brought down on your head. It’s the noise. It’s the blown-out screams. It’s the harshness of the atmosphere in which the entirety of their debut album, Svalbard, resides. Five tracks, 33 minutes, zero forgiveness. One might be tempted to think of songs like “Erection of Pain” as nihilistic fuckall, but that seems incorrect. Nah, they mean it. Fuckall, yeah. But fuckall as ethos. Fuckall manifest. So it goes through “Alpha Woman” and “Listen to the Elderly for They Have Much to Teach,” which ends in a Primitive Man-ish static assault, and the lumbering finish “Not My Shade,” which assures that what began on “Sucking to Gain” half an hour earlier ends on the same anti-note: a disaffected malevolence writ into sheer sonic unkindness. There is little letup, even in the quiet introductions or transitions, so if you’re looking for mercy, don’t bother.

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Mother Eel on Redbubble

 

Umbilichaos, Filled by Empty Spaces

Umbilichaos Filled by Empty Spaces

The four-song/39-minute atmospheric sludge long-player Filled by Empty Spaces is listed by Brazilian solo outfit Umbilichaos as being the third part of, “the Tetralogy of Loneliness.” If that’s the emotion being expressed in the noise-metal post-Godflesh chug-and-shout of “Filled by Empty Spaces Pt. 02,” then it is loneliness viscerally presented by founding principal and multi-instrumentalist Anna C. Chaos. The feel throughout the early going of the release is plodding and agonized in kind, but in “Filled by Empty Spaces Pt. 01” and “Filled by Empty Spaces Pt. 03” there is some element of grim, crusted-over psychedelia happening alongside the outright dirge-ism, though the latter ultimately wins out in the four-minute instrumental capper “Disintegration.” One way or the other, Chaos makes her point through raw tonality and overarching intensity of purpose, the compositions coming across simultaneously unhinged and dangerously under control. There are many kinds of heavy. Filled by Empty Spaces is a whole assortment of them.

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Sinewave website

 

Radar Men From the Moon, The Bestial Light

radar men from the moon the bestial light

Fueled by avant grunge/noise impulsion, Radar Men From the Moon‘s latest foray to Planet Whothefuckknows arrives in the eight-song/41-minute The Bestial Light, a record alternately engrossing and off-putting, that does active harm when the sounds-like-it’s-skipping intro to “Piss Christ” comes on and then subsequently mellows out with psych-sax like they didn’t just decide to call the song “Sacred Cunt of the Universe” or something. Riffs, electronics, the kind of weirdness that’s too self-aware not to be progressive, Radar Men From the Moon take the foundation of experimentation set by Astrosoniq and mutate it via Swans into something unrecognizable by genre and unwilling to compromise its own direction. And no, by the time “Levelling” comes on to round out, there is no peace to be found, though perhaps a twisted kind of joy at the sheer postmodernism. They should score ballets with this stuff. No one would go, but three centuries from now, they’d be worshiped as gods. Chance of that anyway, I suppose.

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Fuzz Club Records on Bandcamp

 

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The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal Playlist: Episode 40

Posted in Radio on August 21st, 2020 by JJ Koczan

the obelisk show banner

I frontloaded this one with heavy. Heavy heavy heavy heavy. Heavy enough across the first three that by the time you get to Wren having already made it through JupiterianHymn and Primitive Man, their crushing post-metal feels like a break. I felt in putting the playlist together like I wanted to kind of wash away the last two weeks. “Sonic catharsis” is how I put it in the voice track I recorded the other day. That’s still as good as anything else I can come up with to explain it.

From there, we rock and trip out a bit, going from Athens-based Honeybadger into Nashevillian psych rockers Oginalii ahead of the hypnotic riffs of Slow Green Thing and Black Helium and the ever-moody experimental neo-folk of Neurosis‘ own Steve Von Till, whose new record, unsurprisingly, is gorgeous. The show closes with AXIOM9, a newer Madrid-based psych-jam outfit I got put onto last week and have been digging. That’s a 45-minute sample-laced ride right there, but no regrets for including it. Sometimes I like weirding out the Gimme listenership. People are usually pretty open-minded about it.

This is the 40th episode of The Obelisk Show, so let me give my heartfelt appreciation to Gimme Metal/Gimme Radio for continuing to give me time on their bandwidth to do this silly thing. And of course, thank you for listening if you can.

The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at http://gimmeradio.com

Full playlist:

The Obelisk Show – 08.21.20

Jupiterian Mere Humans Protosapien*
Hymn Exit Through Fire Breach Us*
Primitive Man Consumption Immersion*
Wren Chromed Groundswells*
VT
Honeybadger The Wolf Pleasure Delayer*
Oginalii Scapegoat Pendulum*
Slow Green Thing Dreamland Amygdala*
Black Helium Death Station of the Goddess The Wholly Other*
Steve Von Till Shadows on the Run No Wilderness Deep Enough*
VT
AXIOM9 The Space Bong Witch The Acid Wizard and the Space Bong Witch*

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Sept. 4 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.

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Steve Von Till to Release Poetry Book & No Wilderness Deep Enough LP Aug. 7; New Single Streaming

Posted in Whathaveyou on May 7th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

steve von till (Photo by Bobby Cochran)

The world needs a new Steve Von Till album right now. — this is an actual thought, from my actual brain (such as it is), that I had not one week ago. True, by “the world,” I mean me, but still. I need a new Steve Von Till album right now.

Aug. 7 is the release date for Steve Von Till‘s new LP, No Wilderness Deep Enough, and though I recognize literal millions of people are recently unemployed I’ll still go ahead and note that preorders are open now for both the album itself, and for Von Till‘s first book of poetry, titled similarly to one of his many projects, Harvestman: 23 Untitled Poems and Collected Lyrics. You’ll note in the PR wire info below that the collected lyrics are all from the title-tracks of his solo records, and that No Wilderness Deep Enough brings that tally to five, following behind 2015’s A Life unto Itself (review here) and coming some 20 years after his first, 2000’s As the Crow Flies.

Listening to the first single from No Wilderness Deep Enough, the opener “Dreams of Trees,” I’m particularly intrigued to read below that the album started out instrumental and it was none other than Randall Dunn who encouraged Von Till to add vocals. The depth of the arrangement on “Dreams of Trees,” from the far-back howls of what I probably incorrectly presume are effects to the cello up front, there’s a spaciousness that’s been in Von Till‘s work since his more minimalist early efforts, but as the song unfolds, the piano and electronics come to bear and fill out that space in fascinating ways. I can only wonder and anticipate how that might play out and further develop over the course of the album as a whole.

And it’s been a while since I’ve had something good to read.

The PR wire has all the details:

STEVE VON TILL Announces New Album No Wilderness Deep Enough

Alongside First Book – Harvestman: 23 Untitled Poems and Collected Lyrics

Both Available August 7, 2020 via Neurot Recordings

Reveals New Single “Dreams of Trees”

Uncertainty abounds, and Steve Von Till’s No Wilderness Deep Enough provides a voice of existential wisdom and experience to offer comfort and perspective in an era of uncharted territory. The album’s six pieces of music shape a hallucinatory landscape of sound that plumbs the depths of the natural world’s mysteries and uncertainties—questions that have vexed humanity since the dawn of time asked anew amidst a backdrop that’s as haunting as it is holistic. It’s music to lose yourself in. Swirling and iridescent blends of ambient, neo-classical and gothic Americana unfold on album opener, “Dreams of Trees” which was released today.

No Wilderness Deep Enough arrives alongside Von Till’s first published work of original poetry, Harvestman: 23 Untitled Poems and Collected Lyrics. The book is a collection of new poetry and lyrics from Von Till’s solo career over the past 20 years. It’s a work of rich text that showcases his deeply felt ruminations on the myriad beginnings and endings of life itself, offering another medium of which to experience his singular artistic perspective. See below for more info and artwork.

Von Till’s charted an extraordinary musical path over the last several decades, from his main duties as singer and guitarist of the boundary-breaking Neurosis, to the psychedelic music of his Harvestman project and the unique folk songs he’s released under his own name. But No Wilderness Deep Enough is truly like nothing you’ve ever heard from him before—an album that’s devastatingly beautiful and overwhelming in its scope, reminiscent of the tragic ecstasy of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ recent work as well as the borderless ambient music pioneered by Brian Eno, late composer Jóhann Jóhannsson’s glacial compositions, and the electronic mutations of Coil.

With a foundation of simple melancholy piano chord progressions that came to fruition during jetlagged nights in his wife’s childhood home in Germany, No Wilderness Deep Enough was further embellished with mellotron and electronic treatments in Von Till’s home studio in North Idaho. Viewing the emerging result as an ambient instrumental album, he consulted friend and engineer Randall Dunn (Marissa Nadler, Earth) about adding live cello and french horn and piano in a proper studio. After enlisting Brent Arnold on cello and Aaron Korn on french horn, he challenged Von Till to sing over the music and make it his next solo album — which is exactly what happened, with final work being completed at Tucker Martine’s (the Decemberists, Neko Case) Flora Recording and Playback in Portland.

Lyrically, No Wilderness Deep Enough touches on themes essential to living in the world around us, as well as co-existing with ourselves and others. “It’s about personal longings and loss, and the loves and insecurities we all feel combined with meditations on humanity as a whole,” Von Till explains while discussing his main artistic aims behind the album, as well as his poetic expressions captured in Harvestman. “I’m exploring the great disconnect: from the natural world, from each other, and ultimately from ourselves—trying to find meaning and depth in re-establishing those connections, to find a resonance in purpose and acknowledging the past while looking towards the future and still being in the moment.”

With No Wilderness Deep Enough and Harvestman, Von Till has achieved a sense of mass resonance through his restless artistic exploration—providing art that journeys into the heart of fear and uncertainty in a world where we’ve often known little else. He swan-dives into the darkness of modern life, with the resulting emergence a sonic document of rural psychedelia that transcends the physical world—towards a greater spiritual acceptance that connects naturalism, spiritualism, and the corporeal form.

No Wilderness Deep Enough and Harvestman: 23 Untitled Poems and Collected Lyrics arrives August 7, 2020 via Neurot Recordings. Further information and pre-order details are available here.

No Wilderness Deep Enough Track Listing:

1 – Dreams of Trees
2 – The Old Straight Track
3 – Indifferent Eyes
4 – Trail the Silent Hours
5 – Shadows on the Run
6 – Wild Iron

Harvestman: 23 Untitled Poems and Collected Lyrics
by Steve Von Till

First printing: Limited hardback edition
Beautifully illustrated with linocuts by Mazatl
Published by Astrophil Press at the University of South Dakota

Table of Contents:
23 Untitled Poems
As The Crow Flies
If I Should Fall to the Field
A Grave is a Grim Horse
A Life Unto Itself
No Wilderness Deep Enough

https://www.facebook.com/SteveVonTill
https://www.instagram.com/stevevontill/
https://www.vontill.org/
http://www.neurosis.com
http://www.neurotrecordings.com
http://www.facebook.com/neurotrecordings
https://neurotrecordings.bandcamp.com
neurotrecordings.merchtable.com/artists/harvestman

Steve Von Till, “Dreams of Trees”

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Steve Von Till’s Harvestman to Release Music for Megaliths May 19

Posted in Whathaveyou on February 22nd, 2017 by JJ Koczan

It’s been seven years since last we heard from Harvestman, the could-go-anywhere, tripped-out experimentalist alter-ego of Neurosis guitarist/vocalist Steve Von Till. That outing was a Hawkwind tribute three-way split with U.S. Christmas and Minsk (review here), and the project’s last proper album was In a Dark Tongue (review here), which preceded in 2009. Of course, Von Till has been plenty busy in the interim, with two Neurosis albums in 2012’s Honor Found in Decay (review here) and last year’s Fires Within Fires (review here) — and perhaps even more crucially, that band’s return to prominence as a touring act — as well as his 2015 solo outing, A Life unto Itself (review here), but that’s all the more reason to think he wouldn’t be reviving Harvestman at all if there wasn’t something he specifically wanted to say with it as his vehicle.

One more reason to look forward to Music for Megaliths, the new Harvestman full-length, which is due out May 19 on Neurot Recordings. Self-recorded and mixed with a guest appearance by Neurosis drummer Jason Roeder (also of Sleep), it may be a long while coming, but I’ve no doubt the album’s resonance will be something taking place far outside of time.

The PR wire brings the available details:

steve-von-till-photo-niela-von-till

HARVESTMAN: Neurosis Frontman Steve Von Till’s Exploratory Project Returns With Music For Megaliths

Neurot Recordings presents the fourth full-length recorded document from HARVESTMAN – one of Neurosis vocalist/guitarist Steve Von Till’s solo ventures – with the impending release of Music For Megaliths.

As with prior HARVESTMAN and other solo releases by Steve Von Till, Music For Megaliths sees the artist handling a wide array of instruments and approaches, including vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, bass, synthesizers, hurdy gurdy, effects, and more, fully performed, recorded, and mixed at his own The Crow’s Nest studio in Northern Idaho. Neurosis’ Jason Roeder also provides drums to the album’s fifth track, “Levitation.” The seven sonically and mentally expansive tracks were mastered by James Plotkin, and the album completed with artwork by Thomas Hooper.

Confirming the album for release on May 19th, Neurot has unveiled the artwork, track listing, and more for the exploratory new album, with audio samples and more to be released in the coming weeks.

Music For Megaliths Track Listing:
1. The Forest Is Our Temple
2. Oak Drone
3. Ring Of Sentinels
4. Cromlech
5. Levitation
6. Sundown
7. White Horse

“Ruins, monuments, and ancient sites of worship are multi-sensory experiences – at once residues of the sacred, the parchment on which the passage of time has been inscribed and templates for imaginative reconstruction, spaces in which to invest and immerse, to trade your bearings for an inexhaustible state of transition.

Over the course of three albums, Steve Von Till has, under the guise of HARVESTMAN, provided the sonic analogue, casting his net for what might have been and yet still be. Both a personal meditation and a tuning fork for the most ancient and enduring of resonances, his latest album, Music For Megaliths, further expands his journeys along the sonic ley lines that run between folk, drone, psychedelia, the “kosmische” outposts of krautrock and noise: not as an act of eclecticism, but of divination, giving voice to an underlying continuity that binds them all.

Recorded over a period of several years in the dawn hours of creation, Music For Megaliths is an aggregation of moments and recordings that have allowed themselves to spell out a greater whole. Utilizing repetition, manipulation, and modulation, it’s a hallowed frequency dial that ranges across the pulse-regulated drone of “The Forest Is Our Temple,” revving up like a generator powered by arcane currents, the blissful gaze of “Ring Of Sentinels,” “Sundown”‘s ominous waves of interference and “White Horse”‘s rite of dissolution and regeneration, nomadic and devout. Music For Megaliths is a crossing over, whose multiple routes are testament to a singular and sensuously dilated vision.” – words by Jonathan Selzer, 2017

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https://harvestman.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/SteveVonTill
http://www.neurosis.com
http://www.neurotrecordings.com
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https://neurotrecordings.bandcamp.com
https://twitter.com/OfficialNeurot
neurotrecordings.merchtable.com/artists/harvestman

Harvestman, In a Dark Tongue (2009)

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Friday Full-Length: Steve Von Till, If I Should Fall to the Field

Posted in Bootleg Theater on September 2nd, 2016 by JJ Koczan

Steve Von Till, If I Should Fall to the Field (2002)

As we eagerly anticipate the arrival of Neurosis‘ new album, Fires Within Fires, later this month, it seems worthwhile to go back 14 years and revisit one of the best and most underrated Neurot releases. Steve Von Till‘s If I Should Fall to the Field was his second solo outing behind 2000’s As the Crow Flies, and found the Neurosis guitarist/vocalist boldly and honestly exploring textures within and without of what might commonly be thought of — particularly at the time — as his main outfit’s reach. With its roots in neofolk, dark country and experimental singer-songwriterism, If I Should Fall to the Field‘s tracks retained a sense of depth in no small part thanks to Von Till‘s gravely vocals and the varied, sometimes sparse arrangements that surrounded them. A song like “To the Field” definitely showed some of the sway one finds in Neurosis in its second half, but from the quiet “Breathe” onward, Von Till is by no means beholden to those ideas, and when the album does feature drums or electric guitars, it’s more of an accent role, as on the Germanic-themed “The Wild Hunt,” a cornerstone example of the intensity Von Till is able to bring to bear even in this relatively subdued context. From the minimalist take on the traditional “My Work is Done” to the brighter flourish in the guitar of “Hallowed Ground” — met head-on by a particularly grim chorus — and down through “Dawn” and the cover of Neil Young‘s “Am I Born to Die,” there isn’t a letup in mood, and so while not at all abrasive, If I Should Fall to the Field should still rightly be considered a challenging listen, but what Von Till channels in these songs is something really special, and I can’t think of another way to put it beyond that.

The year before, Neurosis had released A Sun that Never Sets, which while less a defining moment for the band itself after pivotal stylistic accomplishments in 1996’s Through Silver in Blood and 1999’s Times of Grace, was nonetheless a solidification of their processes and became the record that launched a thousand post-metal ships. Scott Kelly, also guitar/vocals for Neurosis, put out his solo debut, Spirit Bound Flesh, also in 2001, so this was a particularly vibrant creative period for the band, and it would lead to Neurosis‘ 2003 collaboration with former Swans vocalist Jarboe and their 2004 album, The Eye of Every Storm, which to my ears remains one of its kind within their catalog for its patience and atmospheric breadth. Their subsequent offerings, 2007’s Given to the Rising and 2012’s Honor Found in Decay (review here), would continue to expand outward even as they reignited a more furious churn. Likewise, Von Till‘s solo follow-ups, 2008’s A Grave is a Grim Horse and last year’s A Life unto Itself (review here), as well as his work with the dark, space-infused Harvestman project, seemed to build on a foundation that If I Should Fall to the Field dug by hand.

I don’t mind telling you this record and I have been through some shit together. It has yet to let me down on any level, and it is a work to which I continue to feel a strong emotional connection — to the point that I’ll rarely put it on these days for the vivid and sometimes exhausting feelings it stirs. Nonetheless, I’m happy to have put it on today as I continue to prepare the ground (and by “the ground” I mean “my skull”) for the arrival of Fires Within Fires on Sept. 23, and of course I hope you enjoy as well.

 

Heck of a week, Brownie. I told off two out of the three medical professionals I saw this week, ho-hummed my way through some of the slowest-moving work days since I took my new job and committed myself to driving to New Jersey this weekend to see family, which, since there’s the extra day with the Labor Day holiday, should actually be something of a pleasure to do in not-rushed fashion. Doesn’t make the traffic less draining, but at least I don’t have to hurry to get back in it and head north to go to work on Monday.

I’ve also got posts slated through Tuesday already, so look out for stuff like an Asteroid interview, an Akris video premiere, a review of the new Yawning Man, a new Kadavar video, a stream of the full Thermic Boogie record, which is being reissued, and a stream and review for the Hifiklub vs. Fatso Jetson & Gary Arce collaboration who had a video premiere earlier today. Kind of a quick follow-up on that, but whatever. It’s gonna be awesome.

Also, really starting to wonder if anything’s going to beat the SubRosa for album of the year. We’ve got a few good months ahead — Sept. 30 is the craziest release day I can remember — but yeah, that record is fucking fantastic. If I can find time this week, I’ll post their set from Psycho Las Vegas as well. I feel like it’s the kind of thing that should be shown in schools.

Today kind of wound up being a day where I never even checked in mentally to check out. Exhausted, mentally, physically, emotionally, etc. Just exhausted. Got home from work a bit ago and though I was going to head south immediately, I decided I didn’t have it in me. I’ll be curled up on the couch watching tv for the rest of the day/night. Cook something stupid for dinner. Don’t even care.

I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Back here next week for much more, and please check out the forum and the radio stream.

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