Quarterly Review: Negative Reaction, Fuzz Evil, Cardinal Point, Vlimmer, No Gods No Masters, Ananda Mida, Ojo Malo, Druid Fluids, Gibbous Moon, Mother Magnetic

Posted in Reviews on November 27th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

The-Obelisk-Quarterly-Review

Don’t ask me if the ‘quarter’ in question is Fall or Winter, and I’m still planning another QR probably in early January or even December if I can sneak it, but I was able to sneak this week in while no one was looking at the calendar — mostly, that is, while I wasn’t filling said calendar with other stuff — and I decided to make it happen. I even used the ol’ Bing AI to make a header image for it. I was tired of all the no-color etchings. It’s been a decade of that at this point. I’ll try this for a bit and see how I feel about it. The kind of thing that matters pretty much only to me.

This might go to 70, but for right now it’s 50 releases Monday to Friday starting today, 10 per day. I know the drill. You know the drill. Let’s get it going.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

Negative Reaction, Zero Minus Infinity

Negative Reaction Zero Minus Infinity

Holy fucking shit this rips. You want sludge? Call the masters. There are two generations of bands out there right now trying to tap into the kind of slow and ultra-heavy disaffection — not to mention the guitar tone — of Negative Reaction, and yet, no hype whatsoever. This record didn’t come to me from some high-level public relations concern. It came from Kenny Bones, who founded Negative Reaction over 30 years ago in Long Island (he and thus the band are based in West Virginia now) and whose perpetual themes between crushing depression and the odd bit of Star Wars-franchised space opera have rarely sounded more intentionally grueling. Across six songs and a mood-altering 46 minutes, Bones, bassist KJ and drummer Brian Alien bludgeon with rawness and volume-worship weight that, frankly, is the kind of thing riff-dudes on social media should be tripping over themselves to be first to sing its praises, the lurch in “Back From the Sands” feeling sincere in its unconscious rifference (that’s a reference you make with a riff) to Saint Vitus‘ “Born Too Late,” and maybe Negative Reaction were, or maybe they were born too early, or whatever, but it’s not like they’ve been a fit at any point in the last 30-plus years — cheeky horror riff chugging in “Space Hunter,” all-out fuckall-punker blast in “I’ll Have Another” before the 13-minute flute-laced (yes, Bones is on it) cosmic doom finish of “Welcome to Infinity,” etc., reaffirming square-peg status — because while there’s an awful lot of sludge out there, there’s only ever been one Negative Reaction. Bones‘ and company’s angry adventures, righteous and dense in sound, continue unabated.

Negative Reaction on Facebook

Negative Reaction on Bandcamp

Fuzz Evil, New Blood

fuzz evil new blood

Arizona brothers Wayne and Joey Rudell return with New Blood, the first Fuzz Evil full-length since High on You (review here) in 2018, and make up for lost time with 53 minutes of new material across 13 songs from the post-Queens of the Stone Age rock at the outset in “Suit Coffin” to the slow, almost Peter Gabriel-style progressivism of “Littlest Nemo,” the nighttime balladry of “Gullible’s Travel” or the disco groove of “Keep on Living.” Those three are tucked at the end, but Fuzz Evil telegraph new ideas and departures early in “My Own Blood” and even the speedier “Run Away,” with its hints of metal, pulls to the side from “Souveneers,” the hooky “G.U.M.O.C.O.,” a cut like “Heavy Glow” (premiered here) finding some middle ground between attitude-laced desert rock and the expansions thereupon of some New Blood‘s tracks. Shout to “We’ve Seen it All” as the hidden gem. All Fuzz Evil have ever wanted is to write songs and maybe make someone — perhaps even you — dance at a show. With the obvious sweat and soul put into New Blood, a little boogieing doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

Fuzz Evil on Facebook

Fuzz Evil on Bandcamp

Cardinal Point, Man or Island

Cardinal Point Man or Island

A second full-length from Serbia’s Cardinal Point, Man or Island asks its central question — are you a man or an island — in the leadoff title-track. I’m not sure what being one or the other delineates, but masculinity would seem to be preferred judging by the Down-style riffing of “Stray Dog” or the heavy-like-1991 “Right ‘n’ Ready,” which feels like it was written for the stage, whether or not it actually was. “Sunrise” borders on hard country with its uber-dudeliness, but closer “This Chest” offers tighter-twisting, Lo-Pan-style riffing to cap. The tracks are pointedly straightforward, making no pretense about where the band is coming from or what they want to be doing as players. The grooves swing big and the choruses are delivered with force. You wouldn’t call it groundbreaking, but the Vranje-based four-piece aren’t trying to revolutionize heavy so much as to speak to various among those traditions that birthed it. They succeed in that here, and in making the results their own.

Cardinal Point on Facebook

Cardinal Point on Bandcamp

Vlimmer, Zersch​ö​pfung

vlimmer zerschopfung 1

Voices far more expert than mine have given pinpointed analyses of Vlimmer‘s goth-as-emotive-vehicle, semi-electronic, sometimes-heavy post-punk, New Dark Wave, etc., stylistic reach as relates to the Berlin-based solo artist’s latest full-length, Zersch​ö​pfung, but hearing The Cure in “Makks” and “Fatalideal” taken to a place of progressive extrapolation on “Platzwort” and to hear the Author & Punisher-informed slow industrial churn of the penultimate “Todesangst” become the backdrop for a dreamy vocal like Tears for Fears if they stayed up all night scribbling in their notebook because they had so much to say. Vlimmer (né Alexander Leonard Donat) has had a productive run since the first numbered EPs started showing up circa 2015, and Zersch​ö​pfung feels like a summation of the style he’s established as his own, able to speak to various sides of underground and outsider musics without either losing itself in the emotionalism of the songs or sublimating identity to genre.

Vlimmer on Facebook

Blackjack Illuminist Records on Bandcamp

No Gods No Masters, Torment

No Gods No Masters Torment

Dutch sludge metallers No Gods No Masters may seem monolithic at first on their second full-length, the self-released Torment, but the post-metallic dynamics in the atmospheric guitar on lead cut “Into Exile” puts the lie to the supposition. Not that there isn’t plenty of extreme crush to go around in “Into Exile” and the four songs that follow — second track “Towering Waves” and closer “End” on either side of the 10-minute mark, “Such Vim and Vigor” and “A God Among the Waste” shorter like “Into Exile” in a five-to-six-minute range — as the band move from crawling ambience to consuming, scream-topped ultra-doom, leave bruises with elbows thrown before the big slowdown in “Such Vim and Vigor” and tear ass regardless of tempo through the finale, and while they never quite let go of the extremity of their purpose, neither do they forget that their purpose is more than extremity. Torment sounds punishing superficially — certainly the title gives a hint that all is not sunshine and puppies — but a deeper listen is met by the richness of No Gods No Masters‘ approach.

No Gods No Masters on Facebook

No Gods No Masters on Bandcamp

Ananda Mida, Reconciler

Ananda Mida Reconciler

Italian psych rockers Ananda Mida are joined by a host of guests throughout their third full-length, Reconciler, including a return appearance from German singer-songwriter Conny Ochs on the extended heavy psych blueser “Swamp Thing” (14:52) and the four-part finale “Doom and the Medicine Man (Pt. V-VIII)” (22:09), which draws a thread through the history of prog and acid rocks, kraut and space applying no less to the 12-minute “Lucifer’s Wind” as to the surf-riffing “Reconciling” after — the latter gets a reprise on platter two of the 83-minute 2LP — as Ananda Mida dig deep into the shining thrust in the early verses of “Never Surrender” that give over to thoughtful jamming in the song’s second half, finding proto-metallic resolve in “Following the Light” before reconciling “Reconciling (Reprise)” and unfurling “Doom and the Medicine Man” like the lost ’70s coke-rock epic it may well be in some other universe, complete with the acoustic postscript. It’s two records’ worth of ambitious, and it’s two records’ worth of record. This is exploratory on a stylistic level. Searching.

Ananda Mida on Facebook

Go Down Records website

Ojo Malo, Black Light Fever Tripping

ojo malo black light fever tripping

Lumbering out of El Paso, Texas (where folks know what salsa should taste like), with seven tracks across a 23-minute debut EP, Ojo Malo follow a Sabbathian course of harder-edged doom, thick in its groove through “Crow Man” after the “Intro” and speedier with an almost nu-metal crunch in “Charon the Ferryman.” There’s Clutch and C.O.C. influences in the riffing, but there are tougher elements too, a tension that wouldn’t have been out of place 28 years ago on a Prong record, and the swing in “Black Trip Lord” has an undercurrent of aggression that comes forward in its chugging second half. The penultimate “Grim Greefo Rising” offers more in terms of melody after its riffy buildup, and “Executioner” reveals the Judas Priest that’s been in the band’s collective heart all the while. Bookended with manipulated sounds from the recordings in “Intro” and “Outro,” Black Light Fever Tripping sounds exactly like it doesn’t have time for your bullshit so get your gear off stage now and don’t break down your cymbals up there or it’s fucking on.

Ojo Malo on Facebook

Ojo Malo on Bandcamp

Druid Fluids, Then, Now, Again & Again

druid fluids then now again and again

Druid Fluids — aka Adelaide, Australia’s Jamie Andrew, plus a few friends on drums, piano, and so on — inhabits a few different personae out of psychedelic historalia throughout Then, Now, Again & Again, finding favorites in The Beatles in “Flutter By,” “Into Me I See” (both with sitar), and “Layers” while peopling other songs specifically with elements drawn from David Bowie and the solo work of Lennon and McCartney, all of which feels like fair game for the meticulously-arranged 11-song collection. “Sour’s Happy Fantasy” offers sci-fi fuzz grandeur, while “Timeline” is otherworldly in all but the central strum holding it to the ground — a singularly satisfying melody — and “Out of Phase” swaggers in like Andrew knows he was born in the wrong time. He might’ve been, but he seems to have past, present and future covered either way in this material, some of which was reportedly written when he was a teenager but which has no doubt grown more expansive in the intervening years.

Druid Fluids on Facebook

Druid Fluids on Bandcamp

Gibbous Moon, Saturn V

Gibbous Moon Saturn V

The years between their 2017 self-titled three-songer EP and the forthcoming 11-track debut full-length, Saturn V, would seem to have found Philly heavy rockers Gibbous Moon refining their approach in terms of craft and process. “Blue Shelby” has a turn on guitar like Dire Straits as vocalist Noelle Felipe (also bass) drops references to Scarface in “Blue Shelby” and brings due classicism to Mauro Felipe‘s guitar on “Ayadda.” That song, as well as “Everything” and closer “Peacemaker,” tie the EP to the LP, but Noelle, Mauro and drummer Michael Mosley are unquestionably more confident in their delivery, whether it’s the bass in the open reaches of “Sine Wave” or the of-course-it’s-speed-rock “Follow that Car” and its punker counterpart “Armadillo.” Space rock is a factor in “Indivisible,” and “Inflamed” is almost rockabilly in its tense verse, but wherever Gibbous Moon go, their steps are as sure as the material itself is solid. I’m not sure when this is actually out, if it’s 2023 or 2024, but heads up on it.

Gibbous Moon on Facebook

Gibbous Moon on Bandcamp

Mother Magnetic, Mother Magnetic

mother magnetic

Arranged shortest to longest between the ah-oo-oo-ah-ah hookiness of “Sucker’s Disease” (3:03), the nodder rollout of “Daughters of the Sun” (5:47) and the reach into psych-blues jamming in “Goddess Land” (7:03), Mother Magnetic‘s self-titled three-song EP is the first public offering from the Brisbane four-piece of vocalist Rox, guitarist James, bassist Tim and drummer Danny, and right into the later reaches of the last of those tracks, the band’s intentions feel strongly declarative in establishing their melodic reach, an Iommi-circa-’81 take on riffmaking, and a classic boozy swagger to the vocals to match. There was a time, 15-20 years ago, when demos like this ruled the land and were handed to you, burned onto archaic CD-Rs, in the vain hope you might play them in your car on the way home from the show. To not do so in this case would be inadvisable. There’s potential in the songwriting, yes, but also on a performance level, for growth as individuals and as a group, and considering where Mother Magnetic are starting in terms of chemistry, that’s all the more an exciting prospect.

Mother Magnetic on Facebook

Mother Magnetic on Bandcamp

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The Obelisk Questionnaire: Alexander Donat of Vlimmer & Blackjack Illuminist Records

Posted in Questionnaire on November 8th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

Alexander Donat of Vlimmer

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: Alexander Donat of Vlimmer & Blackjack Illuminist Records

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

What I do is fully dedicating my life to music and everything that comes with it. In 2007 I founded my own label, Blackjack Illuminist Records, because no label reacted to my music submissions. I literally had to create my own musical home for my musical projects which would become numerous and diverse, perfect to unite them under the label’s name. In 2015 I also started to release bands I liked, bands I wasn’t part of. It now is a place for atmospherical music of many genres which somehow share a certain indie background. Oh, if someone on the streets asked me what I do in the more traditional sense of the question: I am an elementary school teacher in Berlin Neukölln. It’s what makes me absolutely independent, it pays the label’s bills as well as everything else I need.

Describe your first musical memory.

Me, aged four, playing the violin in Berlin-Mitte (GDR) in the 15th story of my teacher’s apartment. Okay, it might have been the 10th story as well, I don’t know. Anyways, after the lesson my mother would pick me up and hand me a couple of cold Wienerwürstchens in the backseat of our car and we would drive back to the outskirts of the city.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

That’s a tough one. As a music listener the moment I first heard My Bloody Valentine’s “When You Sleep” (playing through the P.A. of Kesselhaus, Berlin before a Trail of Dead show) was equally as mind-blowing as listening to Converge’s “Jane Doe” closer for the first time. Especially through headphones and being half asleep, the final minutes felt like I was obducted by aliens or something. The goosebumps. THE GOOSEBUMPS!! As a musician, the first time I held a vinyl record of one of my projects in my hands was overwhelming. Also, when people tell me how much my music means to them, or that I inspired them to found their own label or start projects, it fills me with immense joy. I’m a happy and thankful guy most of the time.

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

Seriously tested? Luckily, never. When my parents broke up and later decided to get a divorce it was pretty sad. I thought my family would be the sole sane and happy family around, the only foundation nobody could shatter, ha! Luckily, I was 30 years old already and happily married. If I had been 15 years younger it might have crushed me.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

Artistic progression is the thing that keeps me going, it’s what I dedicate my life to. Before I create, I might have a more or less vague idea of what I want to make in mind, but it never turns out exactly the way I originally planned, and that’s the most beautiful thing because that way it manages to surprise and overwhelm you. If you make art in a very analystic way, you probably won’t experience as much joy because you somehow get what you expected anyway. For me it’s the opposite, I follow my gut. If you combine that with the aim to never repeat or imitate yourself and if you try out new stuff with every release, it leads to a fulfilled life. Fulfilled doesn’t mean that you’re happy and satisfied every day. In the end it’s the ups and downs, it’s struggling, falling, losing yourself, winning, finding yourself, rising from the ashes of self-doubt. There’s no progression without pain. Man, that does sound a bit… death metal-ish.

How do you define success?

Success is finding the right balance between your own aspirations as a single existing person and recognition by the outside world. At first I make music for myself, but I’d lie if I said I don’t give a shit if anyone likes it. It’s a success when the listener has as much of an emotional reaction listening to my finished product as I had while creating it.

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

When I was in my early twenties a friend of mine showed me a video he had found on the internet, it showed how during WWII a soldier slit another soldier’s throat. The image of that and the gurgling noise of the dying man was something that haunted me for some time.

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

I’d love to create brutal, disturbing music with the means of fragile tones and minimalism. Brutal beauty. Beautiful brutality. I don’t know what it’d sound like, but I’ll try in 2022.

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

Art gives life a purpose.

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

Seeing my daughters growing up, wondering what they might become.

https://facebook.com/VlimmerMusic
https://facebook.com/Blackjack.Illuminist/
https://www.instagram.com/blackjackilluminist/
https://twitter.com/illvminist
https://blackjackilluministrecords.bandcamp.com/

Vlimmer, Nebenkörper (2021)

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