Posted in Whathaveyou on September 2nd, 2021 by JJ Koczan
I’ve heard this. It’s bliss. If you know what 3rd Ear Experience get up to as regards desert-weirdo jams, then yeah, you probably have a decent foundation upon which to look forward, but Danny Frankel — who I’m guessing has done time as a session guy and is therefore insanely talented — brings a percussive A-game and everybody else likewise steps up. Folky, but exploratory, jazzy but tripped out; the sense of adventure is palpable, and while it was the worst of times as they made it, they made the best of the worst times.
Space Rock Productions — whose Scott “Dr. Space” Heller has been in alignment with the Robbi Robb-led outfit for some time and who also appears on this record — has the release and it’s out Oct. 1. I’ve already put in a request to line up a stream. Hopefully that comes together and, of course, I’ll keep you posted either way.
3rd Ear Experience are excited to announce the release of our 9th album on Oct 1st. 2021 on Space Rock Productions.
The new album is a collaboration with legendary drummer Danny Frankel (Lou Reed, John Cale, Nels Cline, Laurie Anderson, Marianne Faithful, Beck, a.o.)
Recorded during lock-down in 2020 the year of 6 feet apart, the music is a diverse and innovative psychedelic rock experience, totally 3rd Ear Experience but with fresh new faces!!
Danny Frankel’s 3rd Ear experience. Label: Space Rock Productions cat. no.: SRP074CD release date: 1st October 2021 formats: 1CD CD / ltd. edt: 300 copies
November 11th, 2020 the year of six feet apart, a brutal summer behind us, the desert haboob’s dust long settled, the big lying brat in the white house won’t let go, an icy wind blowing soft and low, vaxxers and anti vaxxers, masked bandits and shopping carts, all the stages gone dark, all eyes wide open and shut six feet apart.
On a cool but sunny winters day we gathered at the FurstWurld Gallery, each in his own bubble reflecting, dreams six feet apart, Hutch from Joshua Tree setup the studio with great mics and methods of placements, you see, Hutch was Kyuss’s live sound man since the beginning.
This was Danny Frankel’s first time having a 3rd Ear Experience. We had ideas, but no maps, we brought in Trevor Madison who had never played keys before, never played in a rock band, we counted in the first jam, not in numbers, but in colors, and so began the collaboration with Danny, and the ghosts of Covid roamed far from the haunted house, and we, warmly safe and sealed in by the desert, filled the great silver quonset hut of the world with music, far from the madding crowd, six feet apart. – go!
Cover Art: James Hammons Music Mixed by Eric Ryan Recorded by Hutch of Joshua Tree Mastered by Mark Fuller
3rd Ear Experience was formed by AmritaKripa and Robbi Robb as a means of sharing their experimental psychedelic space jams held at various locations in the Mojave Desert, featuring different players, friends and musicians of like mind.
The players: Jorge Bassman Carrillo – Bass Danny Frankel – Drums and Percussion Scott Heller – Spacey Synths Becca Byram – B3 Organ Troy Page _ Didgeridoo Trevor Madison – Keys Teddy Quinn – Lead Vox
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 2nd, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Of course, associated names like Slabdragger, Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats and Telepathy are going to draw eyes to Suffolk, UK’s Toom — also stylized all-caps: TOOM — and fair enough. The 2007-2010 three-piece no question has gone on to do some cool stuff. One that caught my eye as well though was Shrine 69, an apparently short-lived continuation of the partnership between Toom bassist Justin Smith and guitarist Teddy James Driscoll that I just happened to catch live at Desertfest London in 2012 (review here). They were pretty cool as I recall. I think I might still have a CD around somewhere. I have a couple Uncle Acid and Slabdragger records too, for what it’s worth. Ha.
Toom never had a release out during their time, but Behold the Basilisk was tracked over the course of an evening in 2010 and is set to see issue through APF Records on Oct. 1.
The PR wire has the story to tell:
APF RECORDS TO RELEASE TOOM’S ‘BEHOLD THE BASILISK’ EP
OUT 1ST OCTOBER / LISTEN TO ‘MANDARK’ NOW
Back in 2007 three long-haired teenage stoner doom fans naturally drifted towards each other in the depths of rural Suffolk. Hoping to avoid drowning in the sea of mediocre-metalcore and emo-misery that surrounded them, Teddy-James Driscoll, Jus Smith and Jack Newnham formed TOOM. This band was a short-lived and unproductive beast, but a beast nonetheless; a heavy, growling, riff-laden beast.
TOOM drew influence from Sleep, Iron Monkey, Mastodon, High on Fire, Acid King, Floor and Black Sabbath. In the months before the trio parted ways, they entered SAE Studios in London and in a single night recorded a monstrously heavy EP titled ‘Behold The Basilisk’. It was never released.
Following TOOMs messy divorce, Justin and Ted went on to form a band called Shrine 69 while Jack kept busy with his other project Meadows.
Since then, the members have joined or started a few other bands worthy of note. Ted went on to join Telepathy and has recently formed Cobra Lucha; Justin found fame with psych-rockers Purson and is currently a member of Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, whilst Jack went on to form Old Man Lizard and join the mighty Slabdragger. Commenting on the EP Jack states, “For us this release is a time capsule back to a long weekend, just over a decade ago. January 2010; one of the last months of a band we had formed as teenagers. It was the coldest January since the mid-80s and on the night we recorded it was -8° overnight in London, meaning that even the canals just outside the studio had totally frozen.
We smashed out all the tracks in one evening, at the studio which was part of the Uni our friend Jason (who recorded us) was studying at. I recall we had to dodge the security guards to crash in the studio overnight. The next day, we had rehearsals for a show, the day after that, at the legendary Crobar in Soho. My memory of that evening is a blur, but apparently it involved us getting a bus full of people getting kicked off of the bus because we managed to break the doors, Christ knows how.
We also ended up at the opening party for the, now equally legendary, Black Heart and at some point in the night Ted, our guitarist, got headbutted outside a corner shop. Exciting times.”
APF Records will be releasing TOOM’s EP for the first time on 1st October. Four massive tracks from the archives which have stood the test of time, and represent a time capsule of the nascent UK sludge / stoner / doom scene.
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 2nd, 2021 by JJ Koczan
This announcement of September tour dates for Skraeckoedlan was actually made earlier this month — and scrolling back through the band’s Facebook page, I remember why the dates haven’t been posted here already. It was a Friday, and I was doneski. By the time I got around to Monday when they might’ve been posted, it had slipped my mind. No, it’s not like I’m so awash in tour announcements that I can’t get a handle on them — though I expect if I was, you know, better at life, that would be the case — but it doesn’t take much for me to get distracted these days. Moderately loud noises. Blinking lights. Nothing. What were we talking about?
Fortunately for me, Fuzzorama Records included the tour in their latest email newsletter, which if you’ll recall also brought word the other day (yesterday?) that Skraeckoedlan were among the bands announced as taking part in the Truckfighters Fuzz Festival 2 in Stockholm this November. You wanna go? I do. And if you’re saying, hey, didn’t Skraeckoedlan just put out the anniversary edition of their debut album, Äppelträdet (review here), on The Sign Records back in June? Yes, they did. Remember too that Fuzzorama issued the third Skraeckoedlan album, Eorþe (review here), in 2019. Also that Skraeckoedlan and Truckfighters have worked together all along on production, shows, etc. Specific to the festival, Skraeckoedlan played it in 2019. So yeah. Buds.
Here’s dates from that newsletter:
Skraeckoedlan to tour Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Belgium in Sept!
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 1st, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Philadelphia-area heavy psych rockers Ruby the Hatchet will release their next album in 2022 on Magnetic Eye Records. Even half a decade later, a follow-up to 2017’s Planetary Space Child (review here) will be more than welcome when it arrives, and whether that’s 2022 or 2023 — which sounds like it’s so far into the future surely it’ll be issued as some kind of data-stealing flying car/virtual reality air fryer — I’ll take it. It’s far enough off either way that hopefully there’s some semblance of what used to be normal reestablished across the planet — though that never seems to be how it goes ever, for anything, ever — but whatever. I’m gonna just take a second and yell at my brain for being Debbie Downer here when new Ruby the Hatchet is good news. Bonus: a new live EP will be out early next year.
They had quickly become a staple of the Tee Pee Records roster, and signing with Magnetic Eye makes them labelmates with fellow Phanatics Heavy Temple. If Magnetic Eye honcho Jadd Shickler is looking for one or two more Philly bands to chase down, I’ve got names.
News follows:
RUBY THE HATCHET sign with Magnetic Eye Records
New Album and Live In-Studio EP coming in 2022
RUBY THE HATCHET have signed a deal with Magnetic Eye Records, joining the label as its biggest signing yet. The meteoric rising psychedelic rockers from New Jersey will release scorching new material in 2022 via the label.
Singer Jillian Taylor describes what’s ahead for RUBY THE HATCHET: “Our next album is going to encapsulate 5-plus years of musical growth. Multiple members have become singers and songwriters within the band, and listeners will hear new voices and directions picking up right where ‘Planetary Space Child’ left off and expanding upwards. Ruby has evolved a lot through our touring years, and there has been much to reflect on over the last year specifically. Our first foray with MER is going to be a major ear tease for what’s to come with the upcoming full-length. On our last US tour supporting Kadavar, we stopped into Earthquaker HQ in Akron, Ohio, for a session before our show that night. It was the dead of winter and we were trying out two new songs throughout the tour that the band was super excited about. At this point, we had been road-dogging for a few years straight and felt very much in the pocket. When we listened back to the session after returning home, we couldn’t believe it was live… Jeff France and the Earthquaker crew had captured us in the height of our tour tightness, and as soon as we brought it to MER, they agreed that this live session deserved a special release of its own. We like to take our time and truly try to challenge ourselves with every release, so thank you to everyone for waiting. It always feels as if we first embark by writing outside of our abilities, like trying to lasso wild horses in the dark, but now we’re saddled up and ready to ride.”
On the signing, Taylor continues: “This next group of songs really scratch the itch of rock and roll progression for us, and taking them to Magnetic Eye Records is something we are incredibly excited about. The gang had such a good feeling upon initially working with Jadd and MER several years back for our contribution to their Pink Floyd Redux releases. They were one of the first labels we saw doing curated cover compilations and reaching out to bands organically to get involved. Ruby has been in the game for a while now, but we keep it pretty simple and centered around the craft, something MER picked up on and made easy… no frills, just people digging music. Ideas and communication flow freely with them, and we are really looking forward to all the fun collaborations this partnership will bring.”
MER’s Jadd Shickler welcomes RUBY THE HATCHET: “Magnetic Eye took some big steps in 2020, and started to think about bands we’d always loved to imagine on our roster but hadn’t felt ready to approach previously”, reveals the label director. “Ruby the Hatchet immediately leapt to my mind. They’re masters at taking inspiration from decades of rock history and creating fresh, progressive, captivating songs. And live, there’s just no one and nothing like them onstage in this century. I couldn’t have been happier to find them excited at the prospect of working together, and I’m really stoked at the ways Magnetic Eye’s scope is expanding thanks to the arrival of bands like Ruby, Heavy Temple and Besvärjelsen. I can’t wait to see this all reach critical mass in 2022, and hope the fans of what we do are just as excited!”
RUBY THE HATCHET’s “Live at Earthquaker” 7-inch EP will arrive near the beginning of 2022. Their new full-length album will be released later in 2022 as well, and is being recorded with PAUL RITCHIE (The Parlor Mob, gods) at New Future Studio in Belmar, NJ.
The band have announced the following upcoming performances:
9/18/21 – Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s • with Heavy Temple, Grave Bathers & Leather Lung 9/24/21 – Seaside Heights, NJ – EJ’s for Cheap Thrills • with Wreaths and Castle Rat 10/3/21 – Princeton, NJ – Terrace F Club 10/29/21 – Asbury Park, NJ – The Saint • with Deathchant 10/30/21 – Brooklyn, NY – Union Pool • with High Reeper & Deathchant 10/31/21 – Boston, MA – The Middle East • with Sasquatch, Lo Pan & Deathchant
Posted in Questionnaire on September 1st, 2021 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Zach Germaniuk of Pillärs
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I define what I do as trying my best to help people and do something meaningful with my time here. That attitude came directly from exposure to DIY underground heavy music and hardcore punk that laid the blueprint for my life out at a fairly young age, like 14-15. I know that sounds cliché, because our society demands that our identity be solely determined by how we earn a living. I reject being put in that box. The core driving force of all the things I’m involved in now, which include bands and touring, working at a nonprofit that helps people with housing issues, teaching at Cleveland State University – it all stems back to that initial exposure to a different view of how things could or ought to be, as envisioned by the community of bands and activists that blazed the DIY path. Having that music in my life really helped me to stay grounded and focused on my goals. Playing, touring, all of it helps me to stay connected with this path that I’m on. It guides my work and I’m grateful to have it in my life.
Describe your first musical memory.
I must have been about 3 years old: my first musical memory was a music box my Mom had. Every time it played, the music sounded just so sad, so lonely. It was a haunting song and it kind of freaked me out as a kid. I would love to find it again, it’s probably buried in her house somewhere. I think it might be interesting to re-record it and put it on an album at some point.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
The spring 2017 tour I did playing guitar with the Cleveland noise-punk band Rubber Mate and our buddies Nag is the BEST that sticks out, out of a lot of good ones and a few bad ones. It was just an absolute blast every single night, which is rare because usually on tour there is at least one or more nights where something fucks up: van issues, gear trouble, personality conflicts, burnout, whatever. But that tour was flawless from first show to last, and was a really memorable time.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
There was a moment when the whole belief of music being a positive experience and driving force in my life stopped being real for me. My Dad died on the last day of the Pillärs 2018 tour, literally just hours before we were set to play; at the same time work stress pushed me to a place therapists sometimes describe as ”the call of the void” – as I understand it from my own journey that means not thinking about the “how” of suicide directly, but starting to think about the concept. Would it really be that bad? What would that be like to just not exist? It was a dark place to be, and I stayed there for a long time, almost two years. I divorced in that same time period, and as I peeled back the layers of where I was in my own life through those moments it revealed a level of toxicity in my life that made music, and everything that flowed out of that, seem like it was no longer a worthwhile activity or a meaningful part of my existence. I guess you could say I got hollowed out by it all. Without a doubt the time from his passing in April 2018 to just before the start of COVID lockdown in March 2020 was the worst period of my life. I didn’t even touch a musical instrument from November 2019 to April 2020. My musical life fell apart, and I was in a pretty bleak place. Then about a year ago, right around April into May 2020, ironically just as shit was really shutting down and it seemed like the musical world was collapsing, my longtime friend Chadd B. (Mockingbird, Cultist, Enhailer, among others…) reached out asking if I wanted to jam. Then another friend reached out, and another, and before I knew it not only was Pillärs writing a new record but I found myself in a gnarly DIY punk band called TV Drugs with another longtime friend. As I kept cutting the toxicity out of my life, I found work stress became more manageable. I was blessed to find myself in a much healthier relationship with my partner, who is also an active artist and performer. If I have to look for bright spots on the otherwise bleak canvas that has been the last few years, this whole period has been a huge test for my belief about music really truly being something that gives me meaning and purpose.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
For me, artistic progression (and that includes music, visual art, film, theatre, etc.) should lead to an understanding of this thing we call life and how to communicate ideas and experiences. It’s like the difference between listening to a piece of music that you just appreciate as well executed versus a song or album that makes your hair stand up or give you some kind of emotional response, if that makes sense. I think just like kids learn how to speak, then make words, then move forward to be able to articulate themselves, that’s kind of how I look at artistic progression. I always remember the story about Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address: There was a speaker before him at the battlefield who spoke at great lengths, using all this complex vocabulary, etc. OK fine, great. Then Lincoln got up and spoke for 3 minutes. Nobody remembers the dude who gave the long-winded exhortation, but Lincoln’s simple words are universally recognized as one of the greatest speeches of all time. So I mean, as that relates to artistic progression, it just tells me that it’s not always about technical complexity. It’s about expressing an idea. Some ideas might take whole symphonies full of intricacies to express. Some ideas can be expressed in ninety seconds using two chords.
How do you define success?
Having the personal freedom to do what you love to do; and make the area around you a better place while having a way to pay your bills that doesn’t kill your creativity.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
The “two girls one cup” video. That was fucking gross.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
We need more DIY spaces, especially in the Rust Belt, and I would love to be a part of some project that makes DIY spots in Cleveland more permanent and protected from gentrification. These places are incredible incubators for awesome music, art of all kinds, and largely responsible for creating the community and network that keeps our little alternate universe running. We’ve lost so many spaces over the last 20 years due to the fact that the people doing amazing things in those spaces had no control over the buildings. We need to own the spaces where we create, or else we are going to be forever on the losing end of battles with landlords and the powers that be, and having to constantly rebuild from scratch every time some developer wants to put up $500k condos and kick out all the freaks and weirdos who are creating the very art and music that these gentrifying motherfuckers try to appropriate and then colonize.
Ownership of land is the first step towards fighting back and drawing that line in the sand. And helping to build spaces that are protected from or resilient in the face of those kinds of forces; that’s a dream I would love to have a hand in creating.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
The expression of some idea and emotion that leads essentially to some shared understanding between the creator of the artistic piece and the audience. Art is the vehicle for the creation of empathy.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Since saying the end of COVID is almost cliché now I will instead say getting through the last few years of public service loan forgiveness at my job to wipe out these student loans and then hopefully be in a position to start helping to build something.
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 1st, 2021 by JJ Koczan
I have the next Ghost:Hello album as their second behind 2019’s The Sound of Color in Space (review here) and the PR wire below says it’ll be their third, though it may be including their late-2020 split with Nightgoat as part of that. Maybe it’s just early and my brain is fuzzy. So be it. One way or the other, the Ohio heavy rock weirdos have a new one in the works, from where I sit the world needs more weirdo heavy rock, so that little bit of information suits me just fine. I’m not sure what “in production” means in terms of timing, but my policy on release dates these days is until I see them I assume it’s gonna be a while, and even then I assume stuff is going to get pushed back. Science and eyeball-it-science are both on my side there.
There’s more of interest, however, since Ghost:Hello are also set to embark on a series of live dates over the course of the next few months. They’ll play mostly in their native Ohio, but in various towns and venturing into West Virginia on a long weekender as well, so getting out in a cautious, increasingly familiar way. They hit the East Coast two years ago, and in a universe of infinite possibilities might do so again some day.
For now, the aforementioned PR wire brings word:
GHOST:HELLO Announce Fall Tour
Synthesized stoner rock outfit GHOST:HELLO is kicking off their fall tour starting in their home state of Ohio. The full run of dates can be found below!
GHOST:HELLO is a synthed up stoner rock family affair from Northeast Ohio. Made up of a husband/wife duo and their long time friend, the band members have been playing in bands for decades. With extensive individual histories touring around the US and in other DIY bands, GHOST:HELLO just feels like a natural continuation. It’s a growth on what the individual members have done throughout their history. It seems logical for a band who seem destined to take the world of rock and roll by the horns.
Bringing in all sorts of unorthodox elements into their fuzz rock assault, this three piece counterbalances stoner sludge with trip hop grooves. While certainly unexpected, the group has never been afraid to experiment, and GHOST:HELLO is completely a slave to their various muses. This leads to an elegant fusion of influences of bands like TYPE O NEGATIVE to FATSO JETSON by way of QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE. Since their inception, the band has amassed an impressive social media following, with their third release in production. Like their debut release, the upcoming record has been engineered and produced by a friend through the company 8th Day Sound who has worked with such bands as SLAYER, MARILYN MANSON, and the SMASHING PUMPKINS.
Now as they double down for the release of their new record it seems like GHOST:HELLO are set to take on bold new vistas. Having played around the Midwest since 2013, the local crowd is hungry for what they are about to deliver. DIY til death, these fuzz rockers are looking forward to all they will unleash with this new record. GHOST:HELLO are planning everything from shows in new places to an animated video. A band who are no stranger to hard work, and who constantly push to innovate, GHOST:HELLO are a breath of fresh air in a crowded scene!
GHOST:HELLO Fall Tour Dates: 9/11 femme fest, Buzzbin, Canton OH 9/16 Musica, Akron OH 9/17 The Empty Glass, Charleston WV 9/18 Blind Bobs, Dayton OH 9/25 Westside Bowl, Youngstown OH 10/1 Buzzbin, Canton OH 11/19 Buzzbin, Canton OH 11/26 Westside Bowl, Youngstown Oh 11/27 Spacebar, Columbus OH
Posted in audiObelisk on September 1st, 2021 by JJ Koczan
This Friday marks the release of the debut EP Coma (review here) from Welsh newcomers Lurcher through Trepanation Recordings. And thinking of a band’s first short release as showcasing their initial forward potential, the release of Coma is an occasion worth marking. Produced and mixed by guitarist/vocalist Joe Harvatt with engineering by Owain Fleetwood Jenkins and mastering by the esteemed Jaime Gomez Arellano, with Harvatt joined by bassist Tom Shortt and drummer Simon Bonwick, the four-song outing runs 26 minutes — one more track would make it an album, really — and works outward from the immediacy of its opening title-track into more spacious proceedings, its successively longer pieces each giving a more complex picture of the whole.
Harvatt leads the way, and not just on the shred-fest that emerges in the second half of the penultimate “All Now is Here” before the song gives way to about a minute and a half of quiet, sustained tone (though I suppose he’s leading the way there too, since it’s just guitar), but Shortt‘s bass and Bonwick‘s all-in drumming are crucial from the outset. “Coma” itself is a relatively straight-ahead riffer of the Sasquatchian tradition — in the prior review I likened the opener to Cave In for some of its punk-born melodic aspects and I stand by that as well — but it’s the quite-insistent snare of the verse that both tips it over into a more progressive mindset and provides the tension to be contrasted and paid off in the chorus, making the whole track work.
Likewise, the density of low end in “Remove the Myth From the Mountain” is where it gets its crunch, and while the Hendrixy vibe that launches and eventually comes back around in “All Now is Here” is obviously a focal point, it’s Shortt, especially in the hook, that adds the corresponding grunge feel and holds the song together as the guitar goes on its merry, impressive this-fret-and-this-one-and-this-one bluesy jaunt. That’s the stuff of classic power trios, but it’s a formula that isn’t close to being broken as used by Lurcher, and forms just part of what they present on Coma, which transitions smoothly into “All Now is Here” with the aforementioned coda drone, and at nearly nine minutes long, has plenty of room to give each element a chance to shine — multi-channel guitar solo included as keyboard wash adds drama — while emphasizing the songwriting that unites them.
As part of that summary, the heft of “Remove the Myth From the Mountain” returns as part of “Cross to Bear”‘s crescendo as well, but they end with a brief reprise of the softer guitar figure from earlier in the song, offering a more complete picture of the whole. I’ll be frank: I like spending money. And I like spending your money too. But even if you don’t take the jump and preorder one of the woefully limited CDs (50 of them) or tapes (20, with three left as of this writing), take a listen to the stream below, because where one can hear Lurcher have room to grow in terms of chemistry as bands hopefully do with time, the fact that they not only establish an aesthetic here — quickly — but begin to toy with the balance of the characteristics that comprise it is remarkably encouraging. Band to watch in the future? Maybe. Definitely a band to listen to now though.
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 1st, 2021 by JJ Koczan
I wish I could properly emphasize for you what a pain in the ass it has been to put this post together. Doesn’t look like much, I know. Another news post, another day, another one of the few black metal bands whose work I enjoy who I don’t often write about because no one else who reads this seems to care. Fine.
However, on the back end, this ties into a problem I’ve had with how this site works since its inception 12 years ago, and that is getting accents beyond the usual Western-Euro-style Latin characters — your ‘é’ and so on — to show up in the text. UTF-8 is what I need and what I can’t seem to make happen with my theme. I spent 90 minutes yesterday trying to make the words ‘Negură Bunget Zău’ happen and not have the band’s name or the album title show up with a question mark where the accent should be. If you look back over years of posts, you’ll see those question marks where accent characters should be. Even right now, in switching between the visual editor and the raw HTML, right this second, I’ve undone all the work I put it already this morning putting the code, helpfully given to me my June No (credit where it’s due) on FB, which was so fucking frustrating that I actually had to get up and walk away from the computer because of the time I’ve lost on this bullshit.
Could I just write Negura Bunget? Yup. Would anyone care? Nope. Would anyone remark on it? Nope. If I started this post with the standard-issue informational sentence “Romanian progressive/folk black metallers Negura Bunget will release their final album, Zau through Prophecy/Lupus Lounge on Nov. 26 and there’s a new video up now,” would anyone even blink? Nope. Why does it matter? I don’t know. I’ve even had to do it in the header.
And here we are.
The struggle is… stupid?
All of this for a single called — wait for it — “Brad.” And I know it’s in another language, and the translation is right below –BELIEVE ME I’VE READ THE PRESS RELEASE — but still. “Brad.” But yeah, the real version of the song is 15 minutes long and it’s glorious.
I can’t even get the characters to stay when I save. I might’ve wasted this entire time for nothing. Oh god damn it.
From the PR wire:
NEGURĂ BUNGET unveil details of their final album “Zău” and release video single ‘Brad’
NEGURĂ BUNGET are now unveiling the video ‘Brad’ (“fir tree”) as the first single taken from the Romanian black metal pioneers’ final album and conclusion of their “Transylvanian trilogy”, which is entitled “Zău” (“Old God”). “Zău” has been slated for release on November 26.
“Zău” is the legacy of drummer and mastermind “Gabriel “Negru” Mafa, who tragically passed far too early at the age of 42 years on March 21, 2017. This album has been completed and respectfully created upon Negru’s original drum-track recordings by the last line-up of NEGURĂ BUNGET.
Tracklist 1. Brad 2. Iarba Fiarelor 3. Obrăzar 4. Tinerete Fără Bătrânete 5. Toacă Din Cer
Release date: November 26, 2021
Line-up Gabriel “Negru” Mafa – drums, percussion Tibor Kati – vocals Adrian “OQ” Neagoe – guitars, keyboards Petrică Ionutescu – kaval (flute), nai (pan flute), tulnic (alphorn), duduk
Guest musicians Manuela Marchis – vocals on ‘Brad’
Visual design by Daniel Dorobantu
Mixing and mastering by Attila Lukinich All music and lyrics by Negură Bunget
