Should it strike you as an ambitious undertaking for Darsombra to assemble a full visual album around their pandemic-themed, finding-freedom-in-lockdown 2LP, Dumesday Book (review here), well, it is. But the truth is that the Baltimorean experimentalist two-piece of guitarist/noisemaker Brian Daniloski and keyboardist/sparse-vocalist/video-artist Ann Everton are already well on their way. “Everything is Canceled,” which is premiering below, is the fifth clip they’ve unveiled around the 10-track record, even if “Call the Doctor” (premiered here) and “Nightgarden” predate the release itself and were for those songs as singles.

They DIY it with Everton directing, always manage to come up with something fun and/or visually interesting, and by now seem pretty comfortable applying their abstract approach in a multimedia context. Plus they did one in 2020 for their last album, Transmission (review here), so they’ve got practice at it as well. It’s Darsombra, folks. They may sound as weird as the day is long, but you can trust that whatever shenanigans they’re getting up to has genuine heart behind it because they pour everything they have into everything they do and they never fail to express a feeling, mood, or atmosphere or evoke a thought, even if it’s by putting Daniloski in a lizard mask and running the footage of him noodle-shredding backwards in one of the various domestic and foreign castles that serve as a visual backdrop.

“Everything is Canceled” (the filming wasn’t) was mostly captured on July 13, which was about a month after Darsombra‘s 2024 European tour ended — the 2025 dates with Stinking Lizaveta are below, with TBDs; help if you can. The casting call for it read in-part as follows:

“…all you need to do is to pretend to be a scholar who is driven to temporary hysterics/distraction/mania/religious fervor/anger/annoyance/strong-emotion-that-is-unpleasant by looking at/through a book on a lectern in a great hall setting. Dress is “scholarly”, especially medieval scholarly, whatever that means. Bonus points if you have your own graduation/scholar’s robe! Think many-sheets-of-paper-flying-through-the-air pandemonium. (Double bonus points if you have many sheets of paper with writing on them to throw around and recycle afterwards.)…”

You can see in the video, they did manage to get folks out for it, paper and robes and all, and they’d have had a good deal of recycling to do. Fair enough. In addition to that motif, Daniloski‘s delightfully over-the-top solo and the chants of vocals less often featured in Darsombra‘s work up to now, watch out near the end as there’s a quote that appears on screen. It reads like Chaucer, but I couldn’t trace it directly. In any case, it becomes one more part of the absurdity overarching and whatever the source, the fact that you don’t get to know feels like part of the artistic statement.

Darsombra have a southbound January run along the Atlantic Seaboard coming up in addition to the aforementioned European stint in Spring with Stinking Lizaveta — again, help out if you can; no, it’s not surprising they’d have two tours announced and the year hasn’t started yet — and all of those dates follow the “Everything is Canceled” premiere below and some words from the band that includes the reveal of the visual-album plan they’ll work on over the course of this year. Keep an eye out for casting calls.

And please enjoy:

Darsombra, “Everything is Canceled” video premiere

Darsombra on “Everything is Canceled”:

“Everything Is Canceled” is a more unusual offering for us, both in sound and vision — but also in how it came together. As part of our 2023 album, Dumesday Book, the song’s sound is enveloped in the energy of the pandemic. Ann wrote the lyrics and their melody while turning the compost in mid-March 2020, shortly after quarantine was announced, and Brian poured out the guitar solo in an inspired moment after days of having nothing to do but jam — the raw recording is featured on the track, digital glitches, a sneeze, and all. You’d think these were pretty ideal conditions for songwriting, but as we all remember, any superficial gift of time in 2020 was accompanied by a profound sense of grief for a lost reality and longing for the “before times”. Everything was canceled.

The storyboard to the video came to Ann in a dream in 2023 — one of those really vivid dreams that keeps you living in its world even after you wake up. She realized her subconscious vision by shooting on location in castles both near (in Baltimore) and far (in the EU and UK). The video also serves as a scene from a larger work, which is a feature film to our 75-minute album “Dumesday Book”. The film is about 60% finished; we expect to have it out in 2025 or 2026.

DARSOMBRA WINTOUR 2025
JAN 4 – Philadelphia PA @ Johnny Brenda’s w/ Stinking Lizaveta, Eye Flys
JAN 8 – Durham NC @ Rubies w/ Dazzling Durham Dancers Burlesque, Berry Bueno Brigade
JAN 9 – Wilmington NC @ Reggie’s w/ Street Clones, ARKN
JAN 10 – Jacksonville FL @ The Walrus w/ Severed+Said, Ian Chase, Ducats
JAN 11 – Miami FL @ The Club w/ Erratix, Dania Sixto, Robert King, DJ Nuke Em All
JAN 16 – Orlando FL @ Lil Indies w/ Bryan Raymond, Dougie Flesh and the Slashers
JAN 17 – Savannah GA @ Wormhole w/ Bathsh3ba
JAN 18 – Greenville NC @ Alley Cat Records w/ Paper Skulls, Bitter Inc., Faith Kelly, Caswyn Moon, HYPER-VCR

DARSOMBRA / STINKING LIZAVETA EUROPE TOUR
May 25 – Berlin GERMANY @ Desertfest Berlin
May 29 – Wroclaw POLAND @ Kalambur
May 30 – Krakow POLAND
May 31 – Kosice SLOVAKIA @ Collosseum
June 3 – Vienna AUSTRIA @ Arena
June 5 – Nuremberg GERMANY @ Kunstverein Hintere Cramergasse e.V.
June 6 – Potsdam GERMANY @ Archive
June 7 – Dresden GERMANY @ Veränderbar
June 11 – Brno CZECH REPUBLIC @ Kabinet Muz
June 12 – Berlin GERMANY @ Schokoladen
June 13 – Brandenburg GERMANY
June 20 – Herzberg GERMANY

More dates TBA – Please get in touch if you can help.

Darsombra is Brian Daniloski and Ann Everton.

[Live photo by Madeline Bilan.]

Darsombra, Dumesday Book (2023)

Darsombra, “Shelter in Place” official video

Darsombra, “Gibbet Lore” official video

Darsombra, “Call the Doctor” official video

Darsombra, “Nightgarden” official video

Darsombra on Facebook

Darsombra on Instagram

Darsombra on Bandcamp

Darsombra website

Pnictogen Records on Instagram

Crucial Blast on Facebook

Crucial Blast on Instagram

Crucial Blast website

When you think about, how could Darsombra not announce January touring? Wouldn’t it kind of be counter to the exploratory ethic of the band in the first place? They go everywhere, and the experience of going is part of the thing. It becomes part of their music, not just on the next record when Brian Daniloski and Ann Everton transpose their nomadic and freaked-out adventures onto expansive slabs of synth-soaked psych-drone. And at heart is always a willful experimentalism, so yeah, Darsombra heading out on Jan. 4 (my mother’s birthday) for a round of shows spread out across the Southeast, at a time when most people are home tucked under their snuggies or whathaveyou, makes a very particular kind of sense. If you let it. You should let it.

Of course, Everton and Daniloski are never too far from the road either way. A couple weeks ago, they wrapped a Fall tour that started at the end of August and covered both US coasts, points between and stops in Mexico. Earlier this year, they were in Europe, where I was fortunate enough to see them spreading joy in the Netherlands at Roadburn Festival (review here). They don’t really ever come off touring for more than a month or two, so don’t be surprised when more is announced for their 2025.

For now, though here’s where they’ll be. Note Stinking Lizaveta and Eye Flys on the Philly date. Nice one:

Now announcing Darsombra’s next tour! We’re heading south for the winter!

DARSOMBRA WINTOUR 2025 DATES

JAN 4 – Philadelphia PA @ Johnny Brenda’s w/ Stinking Lizaveta, Eye Flys
JAN 8 – Durham NC @ Rubies
JAN 9 – Wilmington NC @ Reggie’s
JAN 10 – Jacksonville FL @ The Walrus w/ Severed+Said, Ian Chase, Ducats
JAN 11 – Miami FL @ Miami Music Archive
JAN 16 – Orlando FL @ Lil Indies w/ Bryan Raymond
JAN 17 – Savannah GA @ Wormhole
JAN 18 – Greenville NC @ Alley Cat Records

Along with all of the show announcements this week, I also want to let you know that we are booking a European tour for Darsombra and Stinking Lizaveta for May/June 2025 around several confirmed festival appearances (more details of that TBA). We are looking for contacts in Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, and Denmark. Please get in touch if you can help! ROCK ON!!!

Darsombra is Brian Daniloski and Ann Everton.

http://facebook.com/darsombra
https://www.instagram.com/darsombra/
https://darsombra.bandcamp.com
http://www.darsombra.com/

Darsombra, Dumesday Book (2023)

I’ve seen a decent number of bands play so far this year and Darsombra are among those whose sets I least regret watching. The mostly-nomadic experimentalist drone/noise/joy purveying two-piece are headed out once more in continued support of both 2023’s Dumesday Book (review here) and the betterment of the universe more broadly, and starting this weekend, they’ll voyage across the United States and head into Mexico for a few shows.

Some particularly notable ones here. The [DM for address] in Joshua Tree — well that’s bound to be a good time. And golly it would be awesome to see Darsombra sharing the stage with Alma Sangre, which is Antonio Aguilar and Meg Castellanos of Totimoshi and All Souls, in Los Angeles or anywhere else in the cosmos. A stretch through Texas and Oklahoma with Cortège is a likewise righteous pairing, and meeting up with JD Pinkus in Asheville, North Carolina, is bound to be rad as well, though I guess you could say the same of all these dates, which kick off in earnest later in August after a fest appearance in the band’s native Baltimore, and run through October with a few days’ break here and there intermittently. Very much a Darsombra tour. Get to a place, maybe weird-out for a couple days, continue on. Righteous unto themselves, both in concept and the on-stage reality of what they do. If they’re coming to your neighborhood — and there’s a genuine possibility they might be; DM for address — you should go.

From the PR wire:

DARSOMBRA: Baltimore Transapocalyptic Galaxy Rock Duo Announces Dumesday Book 2024 US/Mexico Tour Running From August Through October

Following several other expansive tours throughout North America, Europe, and the UK – including performances at Roadburn Festival, Exile On Mainstream 25 Festival, Desertfest London – in support of their Dumeseday Book album, Baltimore, Maryland-based transapocalyptic galaxy rock duo DARSOMBRA will embark on another massive tour this year.

The Dumesday Book 2024 US/Mexico Tour will be led by a performance at Subscape Festival in the band’s hometown on August 3rd, and the full tour will kick off on August 29th in Lexington, Kentucky. They’ll traverse Southwesterly across the country and into Baja Mexico for three shows, after which they’ll wind back up through the Southwest, Southeast, and up the East Coast, ending the tour on in Littleton, New Hampshire on October 26th. See the confirmed routing below, and, as always, stand by for additional updates to post.

DARSOMBRA – Dumesday Book 2024 US/Mexico Tour:
8/03/2024 Subscape Festival – Baltimore, MD
8/29/2024 Green Lantern – Lexington, KY w/ Jeanne le Fou, Whomp That Sucker
8/30/2024 Platypus – St. Louis, MO w/ Graeme Ronald, Radiator Greys, Eric Hall
8/31/2024 miniBar – Kansas City, MO w/ The Philistines, The Moose
9/01/2024 Replay – Lawrence, KS
9/03/2024 Squirm Gallery – Denver, CO w/ Witch Baby, Graveyard People, Equine
9/04/2024 What’s Left Records – Colorado Springs, CO
9/06/2024 Revolt Gallery – Taos, NM w/ Daily Winter Crow, DJ Bonehead
9/07/2024 Guild Cinema – Albuquerque, NM w/ Train Conductor
9/12/2024 The Eagle – San Francisco, CA w/ Veils
9/13/2024 Satellite Of Love – San Luis Obispo, CA w/ Frequent Weaver
9/14/2024 [DM for address] – Joshua Tree, CA
9/15/2024 The Redwood – Los Angeles, CA w/ Alma Sangre
9/19/2024 Tower Bar – San Diego, CA
9/20/2024 Moustache Bar – Tijuana, BN w/ Astral Azif
9/21/2024 Black Dog Bar – Ensenada, BN w/ Astral Azif
9/22/2024 Malgro Cervecería – Mexicali, BN w/ Astral Azif
9/24/2024 Groundworks – Tucson, AZ
9/26/2024 13th Floor – Austin, TX w/ Cortège
9/27/2024 Paper Tiger – San Antonio, TX w/ Cortège, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy
9/28/2024 The 101 – Bryan, TX w/ Cortège, Mutant Love
9/29/2024 Black Magic Social Club – Houston, TX w/ Cortège, Unified Space
10/01/2024 Rubber Gloves – Denton, TX w/ Cortège
10/02/2024 Whittier – Tulsa, OK w/ Cortège
10/04/2024 White Water Tavern – Little Rock, AR w/ DOT
10/06/2024 Fred Hampton Free Store – New Orleans, LA w/ FatPlastik
10/07/2024 The Kelly – Wetumpka, AL
10/08/2024 Ciné Theater – Athens, GA w/ Rat Babies
10/09/2024 The Spaze – Columbia, SC w/ Burrito Wolf
10/11/2024 The Odd – Asheville, NC w/ JD Pinkus, Bad Authors
10/12/2024 Monstercade – Winston-Salem, NC w/ Emceein Eye
10/24/2024 Mama Tried @ Mama Tried – Brooklyn, NY w/ Polly Vinylchloryd
10/25/2024 Myrtle – Providence, RI w/ Dyr Faser, Wooll, Small Pond
10/26/2024 Loading Dock – Littleton, NH w/ Wave Generators, Haunting Titans

Darsombra is Brian Daniloski and Ann Everton.

http://facebook.com/darsombra
https://www.instagram.com/darsombra/
https://darsombra.bandcamp.com
http://www.darsombra.com/

Darsombra, Dumesday Book (2023)

Maryland genre destroyers High Noon Kahuna will loose their second album, This Place is Haunted, on the unknowing ether May 17 with the 25-years-strong backing of Crucial Blast behind them. And as their debut, 2022’s Killing Spree (review here), willfully united the disparate worlds of black metal and surf rock, it seems only fitting that the 12-song/54-minute follow-up should go someplace else. Based in Maryland’s doom capitol, Frederick (home to Maryland Doom Fest, where the trio will celebrate this release on June 23) the pedigreed three-piece of vocalist/bass-VI-ist Paul Cogle, guitarist Tim Otis (also backing and other vocals throughout) and drummer Brian Goad present a sound that feels simultaneously broader and more solidified than on the first record, touching on a darker, heavier post-punk at the outset with “Atomic Sunset” that meets its semi-goth vibe and Otis‘ first lead vocal head-on with a wash of noise at the end, before “Lamborghini” — the first of three sub-three-minute instrumentals spread throughout the tracklisting, each with its own character, with the bassy stonerjazz meander of “The Devil’s Lettuce” and the thicker noise-rock riffing of “Midnight Moon” offsetting/bolstering some of the stylistic turns surrounding and giving preface to side B’s outward push in the drifting “Flaming Dagger” and the echoes emerging from the crashing void of seven-minute finale “Et Ita Factum Est” — redirects toward a more straight-ahead, riffer charge.

Returning producer Kevin Bernsten at Developing Nations Studio in Baltimore does well in not so much corralling High Noon Kahuna‘s various whims and impulses, but in highlighting the multifaceted dynamic and tonality that draws their material together. That is to say, while This Place is Haunted doesn’t linger in any particular aural locale for too long and with 12 cuts included there’s no shortage of jumping around from place to place — to wit, “Prehistoric Love Letter” picking up after “Lamborghini” with Torche-style uptempo heavy rock reimagined as Chesapeake emo/post-hardcore with shared vocals from Otis and Cogle and the subsequent “Good Night God Bless” (premiering below) burning the ground with feedback before slamming into its densely-weighted roll with shouts cutting through, angular twists of effects and whatever else that is, and a bombast that gives over to residual noise, drone and buried voice(s) to lead into the aforementioned addled sway of “The Devil’s Lettuce”; or, you know, the rest of the thing — when taken as a whole, in a single dose, the album’s cohesion comes in part from its willingness to be itself apart from outside expectation, the imaginary limits of style, and, in the true spirit of Maryland’s doom underground, the direction of trend.

“Brand New Day” finds a Josh Homme-style vocal topping more gothic-ish proceedings, this time led by Cogle‘s bass, and leads one to wonder if it and “Atomic Sunset” aren’t intended to be complements; i.e., the morning of the next day. Certainly “Good Night God Bless,” “Midnight Moon,” and “Tumbleweed Nightmare” could be read into this theme as well, and given the nature of the project, that they aren’t necessarily in linear go-to-bed-dream-and-wake-up order hardly matters. That doesn’t account for cuts like “Sidewalk Assassin” though, with its alarm of feedback screech and tense intro drumming unfolding into a barrage of low noise riffing and shouting that turns to more spacious and less voluminous fare before it’s done without letting go of that tension, or the amalgam of chug-punk and atmospherics that arrive with “Mystical Shit,” which follows.

The lesson there, perhaps, is that it’s a mistake in the first place to try and find rules where for the most part there aren’t any, and that High Noon Kahuna‘s sundry divergences throughout This Place is Haunted are most of all linked by the fact that it’s all part of the band’s overarching scope. And as in the best of scenarios, it works because they make it work in pieces that aren’t trying to be defined as weird or outside this or that common ‘heavy’ expectation so much as they are a realization of the personalities behind the songwriting. A good bit of instrumental chemistry and breadth of production don’t hurt either, and This Place is Haunted benefits from those as well.

Airy in the high end, storytelling in its lyric and dense in its bassy fluidity, “Tumbleweed Nightmare” comes apart at the crunching staticky finish to give a fresh start to “Flaming Dagger,” which feels at least part-improvised around its core bassline — Otis is on a journey here — before the wash of guitar gradually consumes the bass and drums in the mix, leading to another noisy end that lets “Et Ita Factum Est” stand on its own. Fair enough. The closer’s title translates from Latin as “And So it Was Done,” and it is correspondingly declarative in the execution, from the pattern-setting onset to the howls of guitars that bookend the cacophony and lost-in-space echoing voice calling out (in Latin, though it’s hard to tell) near the end of its middle third.

The drums are first to depart as Cogle holds to the progression he set at the beginning and Otis channels animalian feedback, but soon the bass is gone as well and High Noon Kahuna cap with a suitable wall of amplified residual drone. It’s not as harsh as it could be, in terms of the noise offered elsewhere on This Place is Haunted, but I wouldn’t call it a gentle goodbye either. Like the rest of what surrounds, it is a moment defined mostly by being the band’s own. This is doubly impressive when one considers that two years ago their debut set a largely different context for its own definition.

As to what that means for High Noon Kahuna going forward — the question being if they’ve found ‘their sound’ in the reaches here or if whatever they do next will embark on another stylistic course — it would be useless, stupid, and not the least in the spirit of This Place is Haunted to speculate. Given what they do here and what Killing Spree wrought, they’re somewhat less madcap than they were two years ago, but that has clearly allowed them to find poise in the control over what for many bands would be a chaos either too encompassing to wield or result in something outright unlistenable.

This Place is Haunted doesn’t bow to notions of accessibility, but it does leave room for the listener to find a place for themselves in the world the trio are making. Sometimes it even feels safe there after a while, in that maybe-ghost-ridden fray, which makes the procession across these songs all the more special to behold for those who can meet the band on their own, deeply individualized level.

“Good Night God Bless” premieres below, followed by more background, the invite to a Bandcamp listening party next week, live dates and such from the PR wire.

Please enjoy:

High Noon Kahuna, “Good Night God Bless” track premiere

High Noon Kahuna is a power trio of veteran heavy musicians from Frederick, Maryland, with Tim Otis on guitar (Admiral Browning), Brian Goad on Drums (Internal Void / The Larrys / Nagato), and Paul Cogle on Bass VI and Vocals (Black Blizzard / Vox Populi / Nagato / Slagstorm). These three gents have known each other for years and have always supported each other in their respective bands.

High Noon Kahuna is back in 2024 to present their second album, This Place is Haunted. This collection of songs captures the raw vibe of their last album, Killing Spree, while expanding on the band’s diverse corners of influence. Spanning the genre sphere across Surf, Western, Deathrock, Noiserock, Punk, and Psych, these songs show HNK at their most aggressive… as well as most ethereal, spacey, and gothic.

All the songs on the album came from unrestricted jamming over the last 20 months. In fact, the very first notes and beats the three members ever played together was an instantly exciting song that is captured on this album (Brand New Day). In that time, the band has toured and played many shows, continuing to hone their unhinged live performances. This Place is Haunted is an evolution of the unique HNK sound and sees them at new creative heights.

Before entering the studio, roughly 80% of the songs were solidified, and most were played out live; the other 20% were based on free-form jams in the HNK archive and re-created on-the-fly, pseudo improv style. The band partnered with Kevin Bernsten and Developing Nations for recording, as they did with Killing Spree. His studio provided a vibe that sparked their creativity and gave them freedom to work at another level. Working with Kevin on this album was a creatively liberating experience; his knowledge, gear, recording space, and ear allowed the band to get wild.

Final mastering for This Place Is Haunted was completed by the ever-inventive James Plotkin at Plotkin Works. The album’s stirring cover art was created by HNK’s own drummer, Brian Goad.

The album is set for release on May 17th, 2024, on CD, cassette, and digital (vinyl TBA).

This Place Is Haunted – Tracklist:
01. Atomic Sunset
02. Lamborghini
03. Prehistoric Love Letter
04. Good Night God Bless
05. The Devil’s Lettuce
06. Brand New Day
07. Midnight Moon
08. Sidewalk Assassin
09. Mystical Shit
10. Tumbleweed Nightmare
11. Flaming Dagger
12. Et Ita Factum Est

Crucial Blast just announced a listening party for This Place Is Haunted:

The event is scheduled for:
Wednesday, May 15, 2024 at 7:00 PM EDT

RSVP: https://crucialblast.bandcamp.com/merch/high-noon-kahuna-this-place-is-haunted-listening-party

Come and join Crucial Blast and the members of MD/WV noise rock / occult desert rock / phantasmagorical psychedelic punk power-trio HIGH NOON KAHUNA as we hang out next Wednesday (7pm EST) and listen to the upcoming full-length album “This Place Is Haunted”. We will all be in the chat, and would love to hear from you and blab with ya! We will also be doing an online raffle + trivia question for free HIGH NOON KAHUNA shirts and copies of the new album, only for participants in the listening party chat. Come and get it!

Upcoming Live Dates:
May 23 – Asheville, NC @ The Odd
May 24 – Richmond, VA @ Another Round
May 25 – Staunton, VA @ The Brick
May 26 – Lexington, KY @ Green Lantern
May 28 – Washington, DC @ The Pie Shop
Jun. 23 – Frederick, MD @ MARYLAND DOOM FEST (Local Release Party)

High Noon Kahuna:
Tim Otis: Guitar / Vocals
Brian Goad: Drums
Paul Cogle: Bass / Vocals

High Noon Kahuna, This Place is Haunted (2024)

High Noon Kahuna linktr.ee

High Noon Kahuna on Bandcamp

High Noon Kahuna on Instagram

High Noon Kahuna on Facebook

Crucial Blast linktr.ee

Crucial Blast on Bandcamp

Crucial Blast website

Crucial Blast on Facebook

Crucial Blast on Instagram

Darsombra released their plague-chronicle 2LP Dumesday Book (review here) last August — Crucial Blast has a double-tape out as of March — and, well, maybe it’s time to start thinking of the go-forth-from-Maryland two-piece as more of a longform art project than a band. If they were more pretentious, less inclined to roam and had more money, they’d probably be able to cast themselves as ‘arthouse,’ but the fact is their work isn’t really meant for gallery walls or any other kind. It’s too open in itself to be so contained. Free-drone.

From the sirens of “Call the Doctor (Pandemonium Mix)” and the chants of “Everything is Canceled,” from the drumless guitar prog and oddball vocals repeating the title of “Gibbet Lore” as it comes to a head to the serene reaches where the near-18 minutes of “Azimuth” end up, there’s not much that feels off limits to the duo of Ann Everton and Brian Daniloski. Synthesized, organic, programmed or pulsed, the material is defined in part by the whims it chooses to follow, and while that can at times lead to a kind of willful disjointedness — because not everything connects and not everything is supposed to; you’re not in an ’80s sitcom — Dumesday Book is an encompassing memoir of a time that at least many would rather forget than learn from. They’re not much for percussion and never have been, but neither do pieces like the empty-space strum and blown-out preach of “Plague Times” or the foreboding reprise “Still Canceled” lack movement. As they do, Darsombra are just tracing the patterns of their own math.

I won’t lie to you and say it isn’t helpful having a stated and discernible theme to latch onto in listening to Dumesday Book — the tracks themselves more ‘of the time’ than ‘about’ it — but their keys-and-guitar-based explorations have rarely been unwelcoming in the past, at least to those able to let go of expecting things like verses and choruses in their music. As regards the video premiering below for opening track “Shelter in Place,” the visual fluidity of movement of wind through the dark fabric that becomes ghostly, cosmic, colorized, and so on, is somewhat ironic given the title’s inherent stillness, but I’m not sure that isn’t the idea or that the spectral figure reminiscent of Death itself isn’t the story of the covid pandemic arriving at the shores of humanity’s collective helplessness at the outset of this downhill decade. And you know what? It’s Darsombra, so it’s also okay to not be sure. Not like they’re judging.

Everton and Daniloski begin their next European tour at Roadburn 2024 this Friday, and they’ll hook up with Stinking Lizaveta for the UK portion of the run to hit Desertfest London after playing the anniversary party for Exile on Mainstream in Germany. They’re abroad through the end of May and into June, and it likely won’t be long before they announce the next month-plus tour after this one because that’s how it goes with Darsombra‘s have-noise-will-travel nomadic tendencies. No coincidence that comes paired with such a resonant sense of sonic adventurousness.

“Shelter in Place,” at just three minutes, is the opening to the world portrayed throughout Dumesday Book. On its own, it provides a sample of Darsombra‘s aural dimensionality without necessarily encapsulating the whole. It leads you in, in other words.

Please enjoy:

Darsombra, “Shelter in Place” video premiere

Music by Darsombra
Video directed and edited by Ann Everton
Camera work by Brian Daniloski

“Shelter In Place” is the first track on Darsombra’s 2023 double album, “Dumesday Book”, available at darsombra.com.

Shot on location at Assateague Island, USA. No ponies were harmed in the making of this film.

The latest video from Dumesday Book arrives with “Shelter In Place,” the album’s opening track. “Shelter In Place” is an ominous, majestic introduction to the album’s uncertain journey of the deep range of human emotions characteristic during plague times. The track is quaking, vast, and full of portent; the video, filmed and edited by Everton, gives the tsunami of precarious fear a doleful, baleful visage. Welcome to the trip.

Dumesday Book is available on CD, 2xLP, and digitally on DARSOMBRA’s Pnictogen Records. Physical formats include a twelve-page booklet, a sticker, and a download code with access to bonus material.

Place orders at the band’s webshop HERE: https://www.darsombra.com/

Bandcamp orders HERE: https://darsombra.bandcamp.com/album/dumesday-book

Additionally, Crucial Blast just released the record in a limited double-cassette box set, available HERE: https://crucialblast.bandcamp.com/album/dumesday-book

This week, DARSOMBRA will make their return to the Roadburn Festival alongside The Jesus And Mary Chain, Chelsea Wolfe, Khanate, Blood Incantation, and dozens more. Roadburn is followed by shows across Germany, Poland, Holland, and Belgium, on their way to play Exile On Mainstream 25 Festival dates in both Berlin and Leipzig – the 25th anniversary of the diverse label for which DARSOMBRA is an alumni act – with Ostinato, A Whisper In The Noise, Caspar Brötzmann Massaker, Conny Ochs, and many others also on the four-day/two-city bill.

In the wake of EOM25, they’ll join up with their allies Stinking Lizaveta for shows across the UK, including Desertfest London with Godflesh, Suicidal Tendencies, Ufomammut, Bongripper, Acid King, Monolord, and many more. DARSOMBRA will then make their live debut in Ireland, playing three shows across the country. See all confirmed dates below and watch for additional tour dates for the Summer and Fall months to be announced.

DARSOMBRA Tour Dates:
4/19/2024 Roadburn Festival – Tilburg, NL
4/24/2024 Kunstverein Hintere Cramergasse e.V – Nuremberg, DE
4/25/2024 Kalambur – Wroclaw, PL
4/26/2024 Lot Chmiela – Poznan, PL
4/27/2024 Awaria – Krakow, PL
4/28/2024 Mlodsza Siostra – Warsaw, PL
5/03/2024 Het Alternatief – Nijmegen, NL
5/05/2024 De Loft – Herent, BE
5/09/2024 Exile On Mainstream 25 Fest – Berlin, DE
5/10/2024 Exile On Mainstream 25 Fest – Leipzig, DE
5/14/2024 The Gryphon – Bristol, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta
5/16/2024 Puzzle Hall Inn – Sowerby Bridge, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta
5/17/2024 The Cellar – Cardigan, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta
5/19/2024 Desertfest – London, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta
5/22/2024 The Lubber Fiend – Newcastle, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta
5/23/2024 BLOC – Glasgow, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta
5/24/2024 St. Vincent’s Chapel – Edinburgh, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta
5/25/2024 Tooth & Claw – Inverness, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta
5/30/2024 Coughlan’s – Cork, IE
5/31/2024 Kasbah/Dolan’s – Limerick, IE
6/01/2024 Saturday Anseo – Dublin, IE

Darsombra, Dumesday Book (2023)

Darsombra on Facebook

Darsombra on Instagram

Darsombra on Bandcamp

Darsombra website

Pnictogen Records on Instagram

Crucial Blast on Facebook

Crucial Blast on Instagram

Crucial Blast website

The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions inteded 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: Tim Otis of High Noon Kahuna

—

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

Make sounds with the intention of accentuating, enhancing, or supporting other sounds around me. It all happened very organically. In high school I played guitar… a lot. Then I became very interested in drumming and started jamming on drums about 5 years later. It was a very organic transition from drumming by myself, to free-form jamming (mostly with Matt LeGrow and our brothers), then those free-form jams evolved into Admiral Browning.

About nine years ago I got back into guitar big time. Revisiting old riffs I had, learning new stuff. Exploring tones, pedals, amps, different pickups and stuff like that. Started jamming on guitar with a neighbor who drummed, shortly Paul joined us on Wednesday nights to jam. It was also very organic, we never “constructed” a song as much as we honed free-form jams into songs.

Describe your first musical memory.

My zeroth musical memory is piano lessons as a young kid, I remember not liking my piano teacher at all. Hahah! Beyond that, mom and dad played guitar, bass, banjo, piano and sang at church, so I had early access to instruments, PA systems and microphones. I have several memories of playing with this stuff, learning about it, and singing in musicals as a young person in church. However my favorite thing to do in those days was to hear Rick Dees weekly top forty. I would rush to the radio on Sunday nights when it
aired. It was the highlight of my week as a young kid. Not only tracking where my favorite artists were on the charts (Duran Duran) but I was equally fascinated by some of the side stories Rick would share when introducing a song or band.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

This is a recent one! Our latest High Noon Kahuna recording with Kevin Bernstein at Developing Nations! We went in with about 80% of the songs fully-baked, done, and dusted. We had sketches and rough drafts of the other 20 percent with enough time booked to fully explore and experiment in the studio. It was liberating and wonderful! Out of this freedom we created what I think is one of the coolest tracks on the new album, “Tumbleweed Nightmare.”

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

Drumming showed me my limits were mental. When I was at my physical limit, the riffs and music drove me to push past those limits. I can run or workout with weights or kickbox or kayak or ride uphill on a bike, but nothing on earth pushes me to my limit and enables me to break past my limits like drumming and more importantly, being a collaborator in the musical sounds of the band.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

Betterment! With any form of art, it starts small, and sometimes it starts bad. As we learn and grow while practicing, our art becomes better. Every time we practice our art is a chance to improve.

How do you define success?

Success, to me, is being happy with yourself, your surroundings, the people in your life, and your work. Society always dangles the carrot in front of us, there will always be something we don’t have. Being motivated and driven enough to keep working hard every single day and on days when the motivation isn’t there, having resiliency to push through the items that need doing, that’s how I’m able to feel successful at the end of the day.

As far as a band setting goes, there are thousands of micro-to-macro successes. Celebrating each one of those can manifest more. Things like, inventing a new part for a song, having a good practice jam, playing a fun show, a successful recording session. Each of these are rewarding and should be seen as successes.

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

The bathroom at the Springwater Supper Club & Lounge in Nashville Tennessee. Love that place, many of my good friends have worked there and booked shows there. Have played several amazing shows there and attended some awesome parties and shows there. But, wow that bathroom was bad! All the things you’d expect from a punk-rock bathroom. Few rival it, however the bathroom at the Meatlocker in Montclair New Jersey and the bathroom at the Milestone in Charlotte North Carolina were contenders.

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

I think everyone who is a true music fan/nerd has developing tastes. I’m thankful that I’ve never reached the end of my musical journey as a fan of music. I’m also thankful for my friends over the years who have showed me new music. As my tastes and preferences evolve I’m thankful that new ideas emerge regularly that challenge my own musical abilities and push me beyond my limits.

As far as non-musical creations, I’ve been getting back into drawing, lettering and calligraphy. There are a few ideas here that I’m working on creating.

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

Expression. Art allows us to convey our attitudes and emotions on different levels. Art can be beautiful, art can be brutal, art can be beautifully brutal or brutally beautiful. I’m thankful for the ability to express these emotions in ways that resonate in ways beyond just talking about them.

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

I’ve been watching every werewolf movie I can find since last Halloween, there are roughly 70 on my list. I look forward to seeing them all. (Suggestions and recommendations welcome!) Some upcoming tattoo work I’m getting. Spending some fun summer time with my wife, hounds, and mother nature.

https://linktr.ee/highnoonkahuna
https://highnoonkahuna.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/highnoonkahuna/
https://www.facebook.com/HighNoonKahuna/

https://linktr.ee/crucial_blast
http://www.crucialblast.bandcamp.com
http://www.crucialblast.net
http://www.facebook.com/CrucialBlast
https://www.instagram.com/crucial_blast/

High Noon Kahuna, This Place is Haunted (2024)

Please know that I’m sincere when I tell you High Noon Kahuna signing to Crucial Blast for their now-announced second long-player, This Place is Haunted, is heartwarming. The label has been supporting the weirder end of underground weird for 25 years now, and in their snagging High Noon Kahuna — whose 2022 debut, Killing Spree (review here), drew together seemingly disparate ends within heavy rock, black metal, surf, jazz and doom — I’m reminded of their long history with noisy bands who didn’t quite fit a mold otherwise, be it Jumbo’s Killcrane or Totimoshi around the turn of the century, Across Tundras, Weedeater, the split between Floor and their offshoot Dove, etc., or bands like Cultic and Gnaw Their Tongues in more recent years. Not every imprint, new or old, has a broad enough background to get what a band like High Noon Kahuna are going for.

Based in Frederick, Maryland, High Noon Kahuna will indeed be at Maryland Doom Fest 2024 this June (info here) for their first appearance, and a May 17 release means This Place is Haunted will be out before they even get there. They’re playing live in the meantime, of course. The other night they were in Martinsburg, West Virginia, for a set that was filmed (credit to Phebography, I think?) that you can watch in its entirety at the bottom of this post.

I’ll hope to have more to come closer to the release, but here’s what’s out there now from socials:

HIGH NOON KAHUNA This Place Is Haunted CD / CS / DL (VINYL TBA) – OUT MAY 17, 2024

Crucial Blast is stoked to announce that we are joining forces with longtime friends HIGH NOON KAHUNA on the release of their second album, This Place Is Haunted.

Harder, darker, but also brimming with haunting melody, the Maryland band features former members of Internal Void, Vox Populi and Admiral Browning, executing an incredibly infectious mix of classic noise rock and psychedelic crunch. The twelve songs on Haunted are on a whole new level from the band; this rumbling riff-beast brilliantly evokes everything from pummeling Am Rep abrasion, soaring Hawkwindian space rock, haunting post-punk, Dick Dale-on-acid licks, doses of massive doom-laden crush, and even wisps of classic Morricone moodiness and some hammering QOTSA-esque groove.

Easily one of the most unique bands ever to emerge from the DC/MD area, KAHUNA is weirder, heavier, and catchier than ever before, and C-BLAST is incredibly excited to bring this banger to your ears.

This Place Is Haunted will be released May 17th, 2024.

Stay tuned for the first single from the album, coming in early March!

High Noon Kahuna is:
Tim Otis: guitar (Admiral Browning)
Brian Goad: Drums (Internal Void / The Larrys)
Paul Cogle: Bass VI and Vocals (Black Blizzard)

https://linktr.ee/highnoonkahuna
https://highnoonkahuna.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/highnoonkahuna/
https://www.facebook.com/HighNoonKahuna/

https://linktr.ee/crucial_blast
http://www.crucialblast.bandcamp.com
http://www.crucialblast.net
http://www.facebook.com/CrucialBlast
https://www.instagram.com/crucial_blast/

High Noon Kahuna, Live in Martinsburg, WV, March 2, 2024

Legion of Andromeda are less of a band and more of a litmus test for your psyche. The Tokyo-based death-doom duo issued their full-length debut, Iron Scorn (review here), earlier this year, and if it tells you anything about the deranged noise quotient in what they do, the record has been picked up for a CD issue via Crucial Blast next month. While one can only marvel at the boldness of one who would undertake bringing Iron Scorn into the physical realm — it’s like that scene in the original Hellraiser; you know the one I mean — Crucial Blast has plenty of experience dealing with audio atrocities of various devastation, so I can only call it a good fit that they’re working together.

Shit is insane:

LEGION OF ANDROMEDA: Crucial Blast To Issue CD Version Of Iron Scorn Album From Tokyo-Based Death/Doom Duo In August

This August, Maryland-based destruction deploying label Crucial Blast will issue a CD version of the recently released Iron Scorn album by Japanese death/doom duo, LEGION OF ANDROMEDA.

Diabolical in its minimalist approach, unleashing a grinding nightmare of violent, industrial doom/death rooted in a barbaric simplicity, moving in endlessly cyclical percussive patterns, the new album from Tokyo-based LEGION OF ANDROMEDA wormed its way deep into the Crucial Blast depot upon first hearing it. The label now prepares to reissue Iron Scorn on a four-panel gatefold jacket digipak CD with a printed inner sleeve, to further the blast radius of this immense debut album, following its vinyl release on vinyl in North America by Unholy Anarchy and At War With False Noise in Europe.

Iron Scorn has a strange effect upon certain listeners; as opener “Transuranic Ejaculation” bellows across the first moments of the record, LEGION OF ANDROMEDA’s combination of primitive bone-crushing riffage and minimal, mechanical tempo seems overly simplistic, even tedious. Each song centers itself around little more than a pair of interchanging riffs that circle endlessly over a non-fluctuating mid-paced drumbeat that rarely deviates from a simple combination of metronomic crash cymbal and rumbling double bass. Keep listening, though, and the band’s seemingly atavistic heaviness begins to reveal a perversely hypnotic quality, the brutal repetition and savage cyclical flow of these seven tracks turning into surprisingly infectious blasts of ravenous, concussive doom/death. And it’s topped off with repulsively bestial vocals that frequently devolve into psychotic gibberish or rabid snarling vocalizations, all of which lend an added unhinged vibe to this rigid, skull-flattened drone-death assault.

LEGION OF ANDROMEDA has hacked out a uniquely vicious sound, and shares as much disgusting DNA with the grinding industrial metal of bands like Dead World, Skin Chamber and Streetcleaner-era Godflesh as it does with the putrescent doom/death of Autopsy, Cianide and Asphyx, brilliantly fusing the devastating down-tuned chug of the latter to the repetitive, belt-driven clangor of the former, each monstrous track churning through the black cosmos like a mechanical warbeast comprised of gnashing teeth and interlocking gears, terrifying and trance-inducing, with equal nods to the heaviest strains of industrial metal and the most primitive depths of black/death violence.

Crucial Blast will disburse Iron Scorn on CD on August 21st. The album is rupturing the planet, streaming in its entirety and available for purchase, at THIS LOCATION.

Iron Scorn Track Listing:
1. Transuranic Ejaculation
2. Cosmo Hammer
3. Overlord Of Thunder
4. Scourge Of Pestilence
5. Sociopathic Infestation
6. Aim At The Starless Sky
7. Fist Of Hammurabi

http://www.facebook.com/legionofandromedaofficial
http://www.legionofandromeda.bandcamp.com
http://www.twitter.com/ovandromeda
http://www.crucialblast.net
http://www.facebook.com/CrucialBlast
http://www.crucialblast.bandcamp.com

Legion of Andromeda, Iron Scorn (2015)