Posted in Questionnaire on March 10th, 2023 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: Ana Muhi and Sven “Missu” Missulis of MIGHT
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
Ana: I decided to allow myself the luxury of doing what I love. Sounds cheesy, but that’s the way it is. Making music is a self-determined space for me. It’s a way to give kind of shape to my woolly thoughts. And as a matter of course I wanted to be loud.
Sven: My father had a guitar on which he played maybe once in every six months or less and as a kid I liked sitting beside him and listen. Later, when I was 14 years old, some of my friends had instruments and we started a punk band. That was the time when I began to play the guitar. 2,5 months later we had our first concert. You can imagine how it sounded. Luckily it was filmed. The guy who filmed that concert back in 1991 uploaded it on YouTube a few years ago.
Describe your first musical memory.
Sven: One of my first musical memory as a small child is sitting with our little dog Snoopy on the backseat of my mom’s Citroen 2CV listening to a best of ABBA tape while she was driving us three somewhere. We have done that very often and in my memories it is always summer.
Ana: I was hanging around with my little sister on a lazy Sunday afternoon. We had some of the best pancakes ever and listened to a radio show. I recorded our beloved songs on audio tapes and we sang perfectly out of tune in kiddy fantasy English.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Ana: One of the first concerts from our former band was in a very close and airless underground vault. A wonderful location, but I must have fainted for a few seconds, after my scream split the air. It was a sort of sweaty full-body-mission, I don’t want to miss.
Sven: There are so many good musical memories in my life. It is not easy to chose just one. At the age of 11 or 12 I combed through my parents vinyl collection and discovered “The Wall” by Pink Floyd. That was a massive experience.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
Sven: When I realized that I am really getting old.
Ana: It’s hard to keep hope that stupid egomaniacs will not rule the world. The abuse of power from megalomaniac narcissists makes me sick.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Ana: Artistic progression leads to confrontation with yourself in your surrounding world. It’s a naked encounter with truth. Sometimes painful, but always the opposite from death.
Sven: I would say it is a constant changing, a little less here, a little more there, something new, another thing is through. I think it does not lead anywhere, it just changes the direction sometimes.
How do you define success?
Sven: Being satisfied.
Ana: To leave the competition by your own choice, just to go ahead with yourself.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
Ana: Hate.
Sven: I’d thought about this question for a while and of course there are things I wish I have not seen, like destroyed nature f.e., but if I think in this direction there is nothing that I wish I have not seen, because even if I haven’t seen it, it would happen. So it is important to see what is happening to act the right way.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
Sven: The third MIGHT album.
Ana: Maybe I’ll have the patience to write something longer than a song once. When I was a child I loved to write theatre plays and the first pages for novels. But I always ripped it to pieces and I still do so today.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Ana: Art should work up the courage we lose in our daily routines.
Sven: Art connects people around the world.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Sven: Spring and summer.
Ana: I’m looking forward to embrace my 80-year-old dad and my beloved old life at all. Nothing is to take for granted and I’m thankful to join the game for a while.
Hanover, Germany, two-piece Might will release their second full-length, Abyss, on Friday, Aug. 26. It is their sophomore outing to be issued by respected purveyor Exile on Mainstream behind their 2020 self-titled debut (review here) and bears the marks of a purposeful creative progression, as Ana Muhi and Sven “Missu” Missulis steadily work themselves into a varied succession of genres across the included 11 songs/38 minutes, from the piano-into-rumbling-post-doom of the intro “Naked Light” and the tense chug and groove of the subsequent “Lost,” trading vocals already in refuse-to-make-it-a-pattern fashion and continuing through the semi-title-track “Abysses” with a dug-in atmospheric grunge before “Circles” breaks out the pop-punk to start a procession of three two-and-a-half-minute cuts, the subsequent “Who’s Ahead” and “Tightrope Walk” delving between modern post-Jarboe-ist piano avant — one might think of Lingua Ignota, but that’s only part of it — and acoustic contemplation, respectively.
Presumably that’s side A of Abyss, and there are a few lessons to be gleaned from it. First, Might are a band suited to any and all expanded definitions of what’s ‘heavy.’ That is, while “Naked Light,” “Lost” and “Abysses” might serve as early representation for distorted tones and harder-hitting ideologies, mourning what’s lost in environment and innocence, trying to find some way through if not out. The answer to that, of course, is the music itself is the way out, but one still has to write the songs, which obviously Might do or you and I wouldn’t be sitting down having this nice chat about them. But after this initial sweep comes the swap-swap-swap of “Circles,” “Who’s Ahead” — the lyrics to this are likewise minimal and evocative; that line about changing an activation code; what a sense of place and feeling and time conveyed through such a mundane image; where are they when this is happening, I wonder; who’s picking those dead flowers at the side of the road?; where are they going? — and the centerpiece “Tightrope Walk,” which taps into indie folk with a showcase for Muhi‘s vocals in less theatrical form than “Who’s Ahead” just before while remaining no less expressive. And it’s not that the ‘other stuff’ is richer somehow than the ‘heavier stuff’ — let me be clear: it isn’t — but that’s precisely the point. Wherever Might go on Abyss sound-wise is secondary to the weight of intention and conveyance that comes through in the material. The second lesson, then, is that Might are going to do whatever they feel and no less. Righteous.
“How Sad a Fate” repeats obscure lines around ranging tones and a looming sense of threat, is somehow punk in its point of view but not at all in the delivery, which moves in its later reaches into as genuine a lurch as Might have yet produced. But their attentions don’t stay in one place too long, ever, on Abyss, and “Shrine” picks up directly to answer the punk waiting to burst out in the song before with a verse led by Missulis and turns into guttural intensity for just a moment before it spaces out and thrusts into extreme metal, turning again to its rolling verse, like Might decided to find out what might’ve happened if Darkthrone went to an art school taught by Sonic Youth. Oh and the song’s also under three minutes long. So yes, there’s a fair amount packed in there. But as ever, Might carry it through with a smoothness that seems counterintuitive to their willing lack of precision — Abyss flows despite its stylistic complexities and part of that stems from the organic, playing-live (though it’s impossible with just the two of them and the amount of instruments they use; see the videos below with a projected Missulis on drums) feel of the songs; it’s not that they’re not tight, they’re just not tight-assed — and which speaks to their history together, personal as well as their time together in Deamon’s Child, whose dissolution in 2020 led to the starting of this newer outfit.
The subsequent “Lucky Me” picks up on the brutal letting-loose of “Shrine” before it and is grander in the unfolding. It, “How Sad a Fate” and “Abysses” are the only pieces that run longer than either side of 2.5-3.5 minutes, and they provide landmarks throughout, but “Lucky Me” is the nastiest of the bunch, with a forward stomp of kick drum and snare behind sharp riffing and vocal barks from Muhi initially that move into uptempo-but-still-weighted chugs and twists before a drop at the midsection recalls the ambience from which the song burst forth without actually bringing it back, instead exploring an open field of remaining-anxious pastoralia before resuming its relative onslaught. One last recitation of the title, and birdsong provides a transition into the returned piano balladry of “Dear Life” in a purposeful-seeming resonant echo of “Who’s Ahead” and before capping with a wash of nasty noise, “Holy Wars” rings out a kind of longing in its guitar and Missulis‘ vocals, a kind of heavy-indie vibe persisting into the heavier movement that follows, which in turn unfurls into the aforementioned some-say-fire-some-say-ice-we-say-feedback ending of the record, which feels very much like the punctuation at the end of the sentence of the proceedings in their entirety.
Would it be a surprise to call Abyss immersive? I mean, they titled the album Abyss. In any case, one can’t and won’t argue with either their mournful, angry, curious or disappointed points of view here, as well as the varied means through which those are brought to bear. This band isn’t going to be for everybody and they’re not trying to be. But maybe they’re for you, and I know of one sure way to find out.
Accordingly, enjoy:
Abyss will be released through Exile On Mainstream on August 26th, pressed on LP and CD and available on all digital services. Find preorders HERE:https://shop.mainstreamrecords.de/product/eom103
Ana Muhi on Abyss:
“I am grateful that we have the chance to release our new album called Abyss. This world is a beautiful place. But we’re all standing on the edge of an abyss. Human rights violations, racism, climate change. It’s an individual decision not to be part of that hate. Everyone can contribute to stop this absolute madness. That’s what it’s all about. Music is a way to get in touch and jump over that damned fucking abyss. At least to have a blast before we die in pain.”
Sven Missullis on Abyss:
“We are very happy to work again with Exile On Mainstream and our good friend Andreas. For us it was never a question, and it may not have been for him either, because he had not heard a single tone until we sent the finished master for pressing. Using the artwork was a dream come true, especially for me. I am a huge fan of Zdzisław Beksiński. I dreamed about using his painting – the one we used for our album – and showed it to Ana. She also fell in love with it. So, I got in contact with the Historical Museum in Sanok which owns the rights of all works of Beksiński, who sadly was murdered in 2005. The director of the museum, Jarosław Serafin, is a very nice person. He gave us the license for using the painting. Bam!
“The recording process was intense but also stress-free, which doesn’t mean there was no chaos, but we have our own studio and so time doesn’t matter. We can record whenever we want and how long we want. In the middle of the recording process there were these Exile On Mainstream Roadshows with Confusion Master, Gaffa Ghandi, and MIGHT. At that point we didn’t want to play any of the new songs live, so we had to rehearse our first album in the middle of recording a new album. That was a bit strange but also refreshing and we made a two-week break from the studio. Besides the release, I am very much looking forward to the next shows in September where we will play those new songs for the very first time.”
MIGHT’s Abyss was entirely recorded, mixed, and mastered by the band. The album’s cover is fitted with a 1976 oil painting by Polish artist Zdzisław Beksiński. The impression of the painting, as oppressive as it may seem at first glance, nevertheless radiates a warming confidence and security. This makes the image a fantastic visualization of MIGHT’s music.
Delicate piano sounds are being buried under thick, viscous lava of distorted guitars and a mean bass. Hovering above it, Ana’s subtle, yet haunting voice connects tragedy with hope in a world gone haywire. Or seems like it. Sometimes she must scream. MIGHT is a must-hear band for fans of Chelsea Wolfe, Emma Ruth Rundle, Jarboe, Dolch, Treedeon, Neurosis, Ides Of Gemini, and Black Mare.
MIGHT Live: 9/02/2022 KuFa – Braunschweig, DE 9/09/2022 South Of Mainstream Festival – Berlin, DE 11/05/2022 – Bei Chez Heinz – Hannover, DE
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 11th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
German spousal duo Might — Ana Muhi on bass, vocals, keys, and Sven Missullis on drums, guitar and more vocals — made their self-titled debut (review here) in 2020 through Exile on Mainstream, surfacing after a split of their former, more punk-leaning trio Deamon’s Child. There’s a teaser that came in with the press release below that runs all of — wait for it — 13 seconds, and somewhat incredibly, it’s actually a pretty solid tease. Atmospheric and volatile, it may not give you as much of an idea of what’s coming as, say, a whole track, but it’s got me intrigued at least.
Plus, theirs was a first album that seemed like they could go anywhere from it, so to read below that maybe that’s how it’s happening is kind of exciting. Like damn near everything Andreas Kohl puts out on Exile on Mainstream, I feel like you can approach without knowing exactly what’s up and still find something satisfying when you get there.
All of which I guess is to say I already put in the request to stream the album the day before it comes out. And I didn’t do it on the strength of the artwork alone, but I could’ve.
From the PR wire:
MIGHT: German Doom/Post-Rock Duo To Release Second LP, Abyss, Through Exile On Mainstream In August; Cover Art, Track Listing, Teaser, And More Posted
Exile On Mainstream presents Abyss, the second album from Hanover, Germany-based atmospheric doom/post-rock duo MIGHT, confirming the album for late August release, and issuing its cover art, track listing, a teaser, and more.
Founded in January 2020 by Ana Muhi (vocals, bass, piano) and Sven Missullis (vocals, guitar, drums), MIGHT’s eponymous debut LP was recorded in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, the album introducing the band’s blend of elements from various musical genres fused in their very own intoxicating, organic sound. Between instrumental frenzy and gentle, fragile acoustic parts, an exchange takes place that musically brings together different genres: black metal, sludge, doom, post-rock, shoegaze. The whole thing happens without any showmanship, loud and quiet in perfect complement, the power of love as an answer to life’s questions. As large as the steps may seem at times, they always remain comprehensible. The common thread consists of the consistent and honest handwriting of the two – an uncompromising couple.
Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, MIGHT could not play live as much as they wanted to in support of the debut LP, but they have made waves with some very special performances over the past year or more. Highlights so far include the 2021 Roadburn Redux Festival appearance, where MIGHT played their second concert ever, the 2022 Exile On Mainstream Roadshows, as well as support for Wiegedood and the 2022 Rotormania Festival appearance. Live, the couple takes a unique approach, with Missullis performing drums while broadcasting video projections of him also performing the guitar parts, doubling his appearance, and thus becoming a trio.
MIGHT’s Abyss was entirely recorded, mixed, and mastered by the band. The album’s cover is fitted with a 1976 oil painting by Polish artist Zdzisław Beksiński (February 24, 1929 – February 21, 2005). The impression of the painting, as oppressive as it may seem at first glance, nevertheless radiates a warming confidence and security. This makes the image a fantastic visualization of MIGHT’s music.
Delicate piano sounds are being buried under thick, viscous lava of distorted guitars and a mean bass. Hovering above it, Ana’s subtle, yet haunting voice connects tragedy with hope in a world gone haywire. Or seems like it. Sometimes she must scream.
Abyss will be released through Exile On Mainstream on August 26th, pressed on LP and CD and available on all digital services. Fans of Chelsea Wolfe, Emma Ruth Rundle, Jarboe, Dolch, Treedeon, Neurosis, Ides Of Gemini, and Black Mare should not pass MIGHT by.
Abyss Track Listing: 1. Naked Light 2. Lost 3. Abysses 4. Circles 5. Who’s Ahead 6. Tightrope Walk 7. How Sad A Fate 8. Shrine 9. Lucky Me 10. Dear Life 11. Holy Wars
MIGHT Live: 9/09/2022 South Of Mainstream Festival – Berlin, DE 11/05/2022 – Bei Chez Heinz – Hanover, DE
Posted in Reviews on December 14th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Day two, huh? Don’t know about you, but I’m feeling positively groovy after yesterday’s initial round of 10 records en route to 50 by Friday, and maybe that’s all the better since there’s not only another round of 10 today, but 50 more awaiting in January. Head down, keep working. You know how it goes. Hope you find something cool in this bunch, and if not, stick around because there’s more to come. Never enough time, never enough riffs. Let’s get to it.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Khemmis, Deceiver
Denver’s Khemmis are everything an American heavy metal band should be in 2021. The six-song Deceiver is the fourth LP from the band — now comprised of guitarist/vocalist Ben Hutcherson, guitarist/vocalist Phil Pendergast and drummer Zach Coleman — and it soars and crushes in kind. It is no more doom than thrash or epic traditional metal, with sweeping choruses from opener “Avernal Gate” onward, and yet it is intense without being boorish, accessible without being dumbed-down, dynamic in presentation. It commits neither to genre nor structure but is born of both, and its well-timed arrangements of more extreme vocalizations on “House of Cadmus” and “Obsidian Crown” are no less vital to its sonic persona than the harmonies surrounding. Even more here than on 2018’s Desolation (review here), Khemmis sound like masters of the form — the kind of band who’d make a kid want to pick up a guitar — and are in a class of their own.
Somebody in Toronto’s Low Orbit likes Dr. Who, as signaled by inclusions like “Tardis” and “Timelord” on the trio’s third album, Crater Creator. Also huge riffs. Working with their hometown’s house helmer Ian Blurton (Rough Spells, Future Now, Biblical, etc.), guitarist/vocalist Angelo Catenaro, bassist Joe Grgic and drummer Emilio Mammone proffer seven songs across two-sides bent toward largesse of chug and spaciousness of… well, space. The opening title-track, which moves into the lumbering “Tardis” and the driving side-A-capper “Sea of See,” sets an expectation for massive tonality that the rest of what follows meets with apparent glee. The fuzz-forward nature of “Monocle” (also the cowbell) feels straightforward after the relative plod of “Empty Space” before it, but “Wormhole” and “Timelord” assure the mission’s overarching success, the latter with aplomb fitting its finale position on such a cosmically voluminous offering. Craters accomplished, at least in eardrums.
One assumes that the Cthulhu figure depicted breaking a lighthouse with its cthrotch on the cover art of Confusion Master‘s Haunted is intended as a metaphor for the coming of the German four-piece’s engrossing psychedelic doom riffery. The band, who made their debut with 2018’s Awaken (review here), owe some debt to Electric Wizard‘s misanthropic stoner nihilism, but the horrors crafted across the six-song/56-minute sophomore outing are their own in sound and depth alike, as outwardly familiar as the lumbering central riff of “The Cannibal County Maniac” might seem. It’s amazing I haven’t heard more hype about Confusion Master, with the willful slog of “Jaw on a Hook”‘s 11 minutes so dug in ahead of the sample-topped title-track you can’t really call it anything other than righteous in its purpose, as filthy as that purpose is on the rolling “Casket Down” or “Under the Sign of the Reptile Master.” Shit, they don’t even start vocals until minute six of 10-minute opener “Viking X.” What more do you want? Doom the fuck out.
Sludge metal punishment serves as the introductory statement of Los Angeles’ Daemonelix, whose Devil’s Corkscrew EP runs just 18 minutes and four songs but needs no more than that to get its message across. The band, led by guitarist Derek Phillips, are uniformly brash and scathing in their composition, harnessing the punkish energy of an act like earlier -(16)- and bringing it to harsher places altogether, while still — as the motor-ready riff of “In the Name of Freedom” demonstrates — keeping one foot in heavy rock traditions. Vocalist Ana Garcia Lopez is largely indecipherable in her throaty, rasping growls on opener “Daemonelix” and the subsequent “Raise Crows,” but “In the Name of Freedom” has a cleaner hook and closer “Sing for the Moon” brings in more atmospherics during its slower, more open-feeling verses, before crushing once more in a manner that’s — dare I say it? — progressive? Clearly more than just bludgeoning, then, but yes, plenty of that too.
While I’ll admit that Wooden Fields had me on board with the mere mention of the involvement of Siena Root bassist Sam Riffer, the Stockholm trio’s boogie-prone seven-song self-titled debut earns plenty of allegiance on its own, with vocalist/guitarist Sartez Faraj leading the classically-grooving procession in a manner that expands outward as it moves through the album’s tidy 38 minutes, taking the straight-ahead rush of “Read the Signs” and “Shiver and Shake” into the airier-but-still-grounded “Should We Care” before centerpiece “I’m Home” introduces a jammier vibe, drummer Fredrik Jansson Punkka (Witchcraft, etc.) seeming totally amenable to holding the track together beneath the extended solo. The transition works because no matter how far they go in “Don’t Be a Fool” or “Wind of Hope,” Wooden Fields never lose the thread of songcraft they weave throughout, and the melodies of closer “Endless Time” alone establish them as a group of marked potential, regardless of pedigree and the familiarity of their stylistic foundation.
Surging forth with lush progressive heavy psychedelic rock, Plaindrifter‘s debut full-length, Echo Therapy, showcases an awareness of the context in which it arrives — which is to say the German three-piece seem to be familiar with the aesthetic tropes they’re working toward. Still, although their emphasis on bringing together melody and heft may result in flashes of Elder in the extended “Prisma” or the closer “Digital Dreamcatcher” or Elephant Tree in “New World,” with opener “M.N.S.N.” making its impression as much with ambience as tonal weight and centerpiece “Proto Surfer Boy” sneakily executing its linear build in space-creating fashion before its long fadeout, there’s an individual presence in the material beyond a play toward style, and from what they offer here, it’s easy to imagine their forward-thinking course will lead to further manifest individualism in subsequent work. That may be me reading into the possibilities cast by the melodies of “M.N.S.N.” and in the quieter break of “Proto Surfer Boy,” but that’s plenty to go on and by no means the sum of Echo Therapy‘s achievements.
The kind of release that makes me want to own everything the band has done, Spawn‘s Live at Moonah Arts Collective enraptures with four tracks of meditative psychedelic flow, beginning with “Meditation in an Evil Temple” and oozing patiently through a cover of “Morning of the Earth” — from the 1971 Australian surf film of the same name — before “Remember to Be Here Now” issues that needed reminder to coincide with the drift that would otherwise so easily lead the mind elsewhere, and the 13-minute “All is Shiva” culminates with a spiritually-vibing wash of guitar, sitar, bass, drums, keyboard, tabla and tantric vocal repetitions. Based in Melbourne, the seven-maybe-more-piece outfit released a studio EP in 2018 on Nasoni Records (of course) and otherwise have a demo to their credit, but the with the sense of communion they bring to these songs, studio or live doesn’t matter anymore. At just under half an hour, it’s a short set — too short — but with the heavier ending of “All is Shiva,” there’s nothing they leave unsaid in that time. This is aural treasure. Pay heed.
Formed as a solo-project for Sterling DeWeese, the lo-fi experimentalist psych of Ambassador Hazy‘s Glacial Erratics first showed up in 2020 after four years of making, and with a 2021 vinyl release, the 14-track/39-minute offering would seem to be getting its due. DeWeese — sometimes on his own, sometimes backed by a full band or just drummer Jonathan Bennett — delights in the weird, finding a place somewhere between desert-style drift (his vocals remind at times of mellower Mario Lalli, but I doubt that’s more than coincidence), folk and space-indie on “Ain’t the Same No More,” which is somehow bluesy while the fuzzy “Lucky Clover” earlier taps alterna-chic bedroom gaze and the subsequent “Passing into a Grey Area” brings in full backing for the first time. Disjointed? Yeah, but it’s part of the whole idea, so don’t sweat it. No single song tops four minutes — the Dead Meadowy “Sleepyhead” comes closest at 3:51 — and it ends with “The World’s a Mess,” so yeah, DeWeese makes it easy enough to roll with what’s happening here. I’d suggest doing that.
A wildly ambitious debut — to the point of printing up a novella to flesh out its storyline and characters — The Birth of Billy Munro follows a narrative spearheaded by Mocaine guitarist/vocalist Amrit Mohan and is set in the American South following its title-character through a post-traumatic mental decay with material that runs a gamut from progressive metal to psychedelia to classic Southern heavy rock and grunge and so on. In just 43 minutes and with a host of dialogue-driven stretches — also samples like Alec Baldwin talking about his god complex from 1993’s Malice in the soon-to-be-churning “Narcissus” — the plot is brought to a conclusion on “The Bend,” which touches lighter acoustics and jazzy nuance without letting go entirely of the ’90s flair in “Psylocybin” a few tracks earlier, as far removed from the swaggering “Pistol Envy” as it seems to be, and in fact is. However deep the listener might want to explore, Mocaine seems ready to accommodate, and one only wonders whether the trio will explore further tales of Billy Munro or move on to other stories and concepts.
Toronto riffers Sun Below would like to be your entertainment for the evening, and they’d probably prefer it if you were also stoned. Their 71-minute self-titled debut long-player arrives after a series of three shorter offerings between 2018-2019, and after the opening “Chronwall Neanderhal,” the 14-minute “Holy Drifter” lets you know outright how it’s gonna go. They’re gonna vibe, they’re gonna jam, they’re gonna riff, and your brain’s gonna turn to goo and that’s just fine. Stoner is as stoner does, and whether that’s on a shorter track like “Shiva Sativa,” the shuffling “Kinetic Keif” and the rumbling “Doom Stick,” or the 18-minute “Twin Worlds” that follows ahead of the 12-minute closer “Solar Burnout,” one way or the other, you get gargantuan, post-Pike riffage that knows from whence its grooves come and doesn’t care it’s going to roll out an hour-plus anyway and steamroll lucidity in the process. Is that a bongrip at the end of “Solar Burnout” or the end of the world? More to the point, can’t it be both?
Posted in Reviews on September 30th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Today we pass the halfway point of the Fall 2021 Quarterly Review. It’s mostly been a pleasure cruise, to be honest, and there’s plenty more good stuff today to come. That always makes it easier. Still worth marking the halfway point though as we move inexorably toward 70 releases by next Tuesday. Right now, I just wish my kid would take a nap. He won’t.
That’s my afternoon, I guess. Here we go.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
Sons of Alpha Centauri, Push
Never ones to tread identical ground, UK outfit Sons of Alpha Centauri collaborate with Far/Onelinedrawing vocalist Jonah Matranga and Will Haven drummer Mitch Wheeler on Push, their material given relatively straight-ahead structural purpose to suit. I’m a fan of Sons of Alpha Centauri and their willingness to toss out various rulebooks on their way to individualized expression. Will Push be the record of theirs I reach for in the years to come? Nope. I’ve tried and tried and tried to get on board, but post-hardcore/emo has never been my thing and I respect Sons of Alpha Centauri too much to pretend otherwise. I admire the ethic that created the album. Deeply. But of the various Sons of Alpha Centauri collaborations — with the likes JK Broadrick of Godflesh or Gary Arce of Yawning Man — I feel a little left out in the cold by these tracks. No worries though. It’s Sons of Alpha Centauri. I’ll catch the next one. In the meantime, it’s comforting knowing they’re doing their own thing as always, regardless of how it manifests.
The programmed drums do an amazing amount to bring a sense of form to Doctors of Space‘s ultra-exploratory jamming. The Portugal-based duo combining the efforts of guitarist/programmer Martin Weaver (best known for his work in Wicked Lady) and synthesist/keyboardist Scott “Dr. Space” Heller of Øresund Space Collective (and many others) have been issuing jams by the month during a time largely void of live performances, and their get-together on July 30 resulted in seven pieces, four of which make up the 62 minutes of Studio Session July 2021. It’s hard to pick a highlight between the mellower, almost jazzy flow and cosmic wash of the 19-minute “Nighthawk,” and the more urgent setting out that “They Are Listening” provides, the more definitively space-rocking “Spirit Catcher” closing and “Bombsheller” with what feels like layers upon layers of swirl with keyboard lines cutting through, capping with a mellotron chorus, but any one of them is a worthy pick, and that’s a good problem to have.
In its readiness to go wherever the spirit of its eight included pieces lead, as well as in its openness of arrangement and folkish foundation, River Flows Reverse‘s first offering, the semi-eponymous When River Flows Reverse, reminds of Montibus Communitas. That is a compliment I don’t give lightly or often. The hour-long 2LP sees issue as part of the Psychedelic Source Records collective — Bence Ambrus and company — and with members of Indeed, Lemurian Folk Songs, Hold Station, on vocals and trumpet and banjo, etc., and a variety of instruments handled by Ambrus himself, the record is serene and hypnotic in kind, finding an outbound pastoralism that is physical as much as it’s swirling in mid-air. “Oriental Western” taps 16 Horsepower on the shoulder, but it’s in a meditation like “At the Gates of the Perennial” or the decidedly unraging “Rain it Rages” that the Hungarian outfit most seem to find themselves even as they get willfully lost in what they’re doing. Beautiful.
Even amid the lumbering noise rock extremity of the penultimate “Heroin,” Kite manage to work in a willfully lunkheaded Melvins riff. Cheers to the Oslo bashers-of-face on that. The second long-player from the Oslo-based trio featuring members of Sâver, Dunderbeist, Stonegard and others sets out in moody form with “Idle Lights” building to a maddening tension that “Turbulence” hits with a brick. Though not void of atmosphere or complexity in its construction, the bulk of Currents is harsh, a punishment derived from sludge-thickened post-hardcore evidenced by “Ravines” stomping into the has-clean-vocals centerpiece title-track, but it’s also clear the band are having fun. Closer “Unveering Static” brings back the non-screaming shouts, but it’s the earlier longest track “Infernal Trails” that perhaps most readily encapsulates their work, variable in tempo, building and crashing, chaotic and raging and lowbrow enough to be artsy, but still given an underpinning of heft to match any and all aggression.
A sophomore full-length from the Chicago-based four-piece of guitarist/vocalist Jessie Ambriz and Jon Slusher, bassist/vocalist Alan Strathmann and drummer/vocalist Quinn Curren, Starless‘ Hope is Leaving You runs a melancholy gambit from the prog-metal aggression of “Pendulum” to “Forest” reimagining Alice in Chains as a post-rock band, to soaring escapist pastoralia in “Devils,” to the patient psychedelic unfurling of “Citizen,” all the while remaining heavy of one sort or another; sonic, emotional, whatever it might be. Both. Cellist Alison Chesley (Helen Money) guests on “Forest” and the devolves-into-chaotic-noise closer “Hunting With Fire,” and Sanford Parker produced, but the band’s greatest strengths are the band itself. Hope is Leaving You isn’t going to be the feel-good hit of anyone’s summer in terms of general mood or atmosphere, but it’s the kind of release that’s going to hit a particular nerve with some who take it on, and I think I might be one of them.
Some 15 years on from their landmark first album, Olympia, Washington’s Wolves in the Throne Room make their debut on Relapse Records with duly organic stateliness on Primordial Arcana, bringing their particular and massively influential vision of American black metal to bear across tracks mostly shorter than those of 2017’s Thrice Woven (review here) — exceptions to every rule: the triumphant 10-minute “Masters of Rain and Storm” — as drummer/keyboardist/vocalist Aaron Weaver, guitarist/vocalist Nathan Weaver, guitarist/vocalist Kody Keyworth and guest bassist/vocalist Galen Baudhuin readily draw together ripping blasts with cavernous synth, acoustic guitar, percussion and whatever the hell else they want across eight songs and 49 minutes (that includes the ambient bonus track “Skyclad Passage,” which follows the also-ambient closer “Eostre”) for an immersive aesthetic victory lap that’s all the more resonant for being the first time they’ve entirely produced themselves. One hopes and suspects it won’t be the last. Their sixth or seventh LP depending on what one counts, Primordial Arcana sounds like the beginning of a new era for them.
London heavy rockers Oak perhaps ultimately did themselves a disservice by not putting out a full-length during their time together. Fin, like the end screen of a fancy movie, arrives as their swansong EP, their fourth overall in the last six years, and is made up mostly of two five-plus-minute tracks in “Beyond…” and “Broken King,” with the minute-long intro “Bells” at the start. With the soaring chorus of “Beyond…” led by vocalist Andy Valiant with the backing of bassist/mellotronist Richard Morgan and guitarist/synthesist Kevin Germain and the shove of Alex De La Cour‘s drums at their foundation, the clarity of production by Wayne Adams at Bear Bites Horse (Green Lung, Terminal Cheesecake, etc.) and the gang shouts that rouse the finish of “Broken King,” Oak end their run sounding very much like a band who had more to say. If their breakup really is permanent, they leave a lot of potential on the proverbial table.
By the time Los Angeles’ Deep Tomb get into the stomp of the 12-minute finishing track on their four-song/29-minute self-titled, they’ve already well demonstrated their propensity for scathing, harsh sludge. Opener “Colossus” has some percussion later in its seven minutes that sounds like something falling down stairs — maybe those are just the toms? — but it and the subsequent “Ascension From the Devoured Realm” aren’t exactly shy about where they’re coming from in their pummel and fuckall, and even though “Endless Power Through Breathless Sleep” starts out mellow and ends minimalist, in between it sounds like a they’re trying to use amps to remove limbs. And how much of “Lord of Misery” is song and how much is noisy chaos anyway? I don’t know. Where’s the line from one to the other? When does the madness end? And what’s left when it does? The broken glass from tube amps and soured everything.
A band that, sooner or later, somebody’s going to refer to as “heavyweights.” Perhaps it’s happened already. Justifiably, in any case, given the significant heft Poland’s Grieving bring to their riff-led fare on their first LP, built on a foundation of traditionalist doom but not necessarily eschewing modern methods in favor thereof throughout its six component tracks — the three-piece of vocalist Wojciech Kaluza, guitarist/bassist/synthesist Artur Ruminski and drummer Bartosz Licholap are willfully Sabbathian even in the shuffle of “This Godless Chapel” but neither are they shy about engaging more psychedelic spaces on “Foreboding of a Great Ruin,” however grounding the clear-headed melodies of the vocals might be, and the riff at the core of the hard-hitting “A Crow Funeral” would in another context be no less at home on a desert rock record. Especially as their debut, Songs for the Weary sounds anything but.
Heavy blues is at the core of Djiin‘s second album, Meandering Soul, but the Rennes, France, four-piece meet it head-on with both deeper weight and broader atmospherics, and lead vocalist Chloé Panhaleux owes as much to grunge as to post-The Doors brooding, her voice admirably organic even unto cracking in “Red Desert.” With the backing of guitarist Tom Penaguin, bassist Charlélie Pailhes and drummer Allan Guyomard, Djiin are no less at home in the creeping lounge guitar stretches of “Warmth of Death” than in the bursts of volume in opener “Black Circus” or the what-the-hell-just-happened-to-this-song prog jam out that caps the erstwhile punk of finale “Waxdoll.” Clearly, Djiin go where they want, when they want, from the folkish harmonies of “The Void” to the far-less-hinged crushing aggro “White Valley,” each piece offering something of its own on the way while feeding into the immersion of the whole.
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 22nd, 2021 by JJ Koczan
German four-piece Confusion Master made it plenty easy to dig their 2018 debut, Awaken (review here), and based entirely on the all-of-one-minute I’ve heard of the follow-up, Haunted, I expect no less from it. The ever-significant backing of Exile on Mainstream is, of course, part of that, but I think if you take a look at the cover art, a look at that upside-down cross serving as the ‘t’ in the band’s logo, a look at the Cthulhu art — on theme with the debut, as it happens — and then either listen to the first record or just take on that minute as it is streaming below, you can probably use some context clues to figure out where these dudes are coming from. They’re coming from riff church. Mass just let out.
Insert some clever line about Tony Iommi as the one true god here.
In any case, check out the fan edition of the impending, which not only brings the four-track full-length itself, but an extra 12″ single and a live album on tape. I don’t know if that’s a fan edition or a make-you-a-fan edition, but it’s a pretty killer package anyhow. But don’t listen to me. I’m biased in favor of cool shit. I’m sure someone out there will find something to complain about with it. “Ugh, why you gotta riff so heavy?” and so on.
From the PR wire:
CONFUSION MASTER: German Doom Quartet To Release Second LP, Haunted, Through Exile On Mainstream In November; Teaser, Cover Art, And More Posted
Exile On Mainstream presents Haunted, the second album from German doom/sludge metal quartet CONFUSION MASTER. Confirming the album for November release, the label has posted its cover art, track listing, a brief teaser, and other details.
Uniting four musicians drawn together from across varied punk and metal circuits, unified through their shared love for sound, misanthropy, DIY values, and vintage gear, the members of CONFUSION MASTER have earned merits in underground stalwart outfits such as Cyness, Wojczech, Bad Luck Rides On Wheels, and Aequatorkaelte.
CONFUSION MASTER’s debut album, Awaken, was released through Exile On Mainstream in 2018, and having earned raving feedback from the international doom and stoner rock crowd, the group proved itself as a veritable touring machine. They provided support for Like Rats, Dopethrone, Crowskin, Bongzilla, Beehoover, and labelmates Black Shape Of Nexus, while conquering the 2019 edition of the mighty Roadburn Festival, all in one strike. Now it’s time for the next chapter.
After excessive touring on their debut album, CONFUSION MASTER again exchanged daylight for practice room jams and crafted four new tracks rooted in thundering groove, odd percussion breaks, and psychedelic swing. The Baltic Sea-based quartet once again delivers a crushing blow with forty-one minutes of raging intensity for your turntable, reminding you that the dead cannot die while they are still hungry. Recorded during the comprehensive Winter desolation of 2020, Haunted was captured by Lutz Baumann at various live sessions in multiple rooms and practice studios, after which it was mastered by James Plotkin (Khanate, Sunn O))), Pelican). Clearly not to be mistaken for a love and peace affair but channeling hardcore anger in its purity, the result is a bonafide gain in horror cosmic doom with a strong Lovecraftian existential swirl, as reflected in the stunning cover illustration by Antonio Ilievsky/Pig Hands.
Haunted will see release through Exile On Mainstream on November 19th through all digital services as well as 12” vinyl with a bundled CD. The CD features one bonus track not on the vinyl. Additionally, a special fan’s edition of the record contains an additional 12” single containing two more tracks, a patch, a sticker, and a cassette release, Live At Fusion Festival.
Watch for preorders, audio and video previews, and more on the album to be issued over the weeks ahead. Fans of Ufomammut, Electric Wizard, Yob, Goatsnake, and Black Shape Of Nexus should not miss CONFUSION MASTER.
Haunted Track Listing: 1. Viking X 2. The Cannibal County Maniac 3. Casket Down 4. Jaw On A Hook 5. Haunted (digital/CD/limited fan’s edition bonus track) 6. Under The Sign Of The Reptile Master (digital/limited fan’s edition bonus track)
CONFUSION MASTER: Mathias Klein – bass Stephan Gottwald – drums Gunnar Arndt – guitars/effects Stephan Kurth – guitars/effects/vocals
UK four-piece Sons of Alpha Centauri are that rare band who are more comfortable outside their comfort zone. Released last week through Exile on Mainstream, their new album, Push, sees the Swale-based outfit’s to-this-point-instrumental approach cast off in favor of working with San Diego-based vocalist Jonah Matranga, whose career spans three decades in bands like Far and Onelinedrawing in the vast realm of post-hardcore and emo/indie. They also, as founding bassist Nick Hannon describes in the interview below, saw drummer Stevie B. decide to sit out the record owing to creative differences on the direction of the songs, which are weighted but indeed in more of a post-hardcore vein, certainly than the band’s 2019 Buried Memories (review here) 12″ EP/remix (which found the band collaborating with Justin Broadrick of Jesu/Godflesh) or the prior 2018 album, Continuum (review here), let alone their 2008 self-titled debut or work alongside Karma to Burn (discussed here) and Treasure Cat and their eventual collaboration with guitarist Will Mecum (R.I.P. 2021) in Alpha Cat, or their work alongside Yawning Man guitarist Gary Arce as Yawning Sons, who earlier this year issued an awaited sophomore full-length, Sky Island (review here), through Ripple Music in answer to that project’s 2009 debut, Ceremony to the Sunset (review here, reissue review here). It is, as Hannon tells it, a manifestation of another part of what makes Sons of Alpha Centauri the band they are.
Sitting in with Hannon, founding guitarist Marlon King, singly-named soundscaper Blake and Matranga is drummer Mitch Wheeler, who has been in Will Haven for the better part of 20 years and also played with The Abominable Iron Sloth. Together, this incarnation of Sons of Alpha Centauri — and it’s worth underscoring the choice to release Push under their own name in terms of how they’re thinking about it stemming from their own earliest ’90s influences — offer nine tracks of crunch riffs that still bear a hallmark atmosphere drawn from their prior work on songs like “Saturn” or maybe the lumbering closer “Own,” but are simply in another direction from what one might’ve expected them to do after Buried Memories or Continuum. I’m sure they could have and may yet produce another LP of instrumental atmospheric and exploratory heavy progressive rock, but as is noted in the conversation that follows, they don’t make it easy on themselves. Whether it’s reconstructing the band and a significant portion of their methodology for Push or the logistical nightmare of bringing in guest vocalists like Dandy Brown, Wendy Rae Fowler, Scott Reeder and Mario Lalli to perform on Yawning Sons tracks when Marlon King both can (and does!) sing on the second record, the Sons of Alpha Centauri guys don’t really seem to be into an idea if they can’t somehow make it what at very least seems like it would be a pain in their own ass.
If it needs to be said I’ll be blunt in saying it: Pushisn’t really my thing. It’s not where I come from musically, I’ve never been a huge fan of Matranga‘s vocal style. I do, however, deeply admire the band’s willingness to completely throw a wrench in the gears of expectation, to be honest about their own sonic origins, and to realize those in the way they do throughout the songs. One way or the other, this was an album I wanted to talk about, and while we’re telling truths, Hannon and I have been talking for most of this year about setting up a video chat, first for Yawning Sons and then as we got closer to the announcement for the new Sons of Alpha Centauri as well. The unexpected and tragic April 29 passing of the aforementioned Will Mecum provided a third major topic of discussion, as Hannon pays homage to someone who was obviously a close friend over many years. As he tells it, Mecum gifted him with the statue that appeared on the self-titled Karma to Burn album cover. It’s true. I’ve seen a picture to prove it, and hearing Hannon talk about what that record has meant to him over time and how Mecum‘s gonna-do-what-I-want-no-matter-what attitude toward creativity has influenced Sons of Alpha Centauri gives another context in which to engage with Push and the band’s work in general, their openness to collaboration with artists they admire, and their efforts in doing what it takes to make that happen.
Long in the making, this was a good talk, and I thank Hannon for taking the time.
Please enjoy:
Sons of Alpha Centauri & Yawning Sons Interview with Nick Hannon, Aug. 26, 2021
Sons of Alpha Centauri‘s Push and Yawning Sons‘ Sky Island are both out now through Exile on Mainstream and Ripple Music, respectively. More info at the links.
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 24th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Between you and me and the deepest microgenre recesses of the internet, I’ve been in a holding pattern waiting to interview Nick Hannon from Sons of Alpha Centauri for a while now, to talk about the new Yawning Sons release among other things. He’d said there was a big announcement coming, and, well, this would just about have to be it. For the always-up-to-collaborate UK outfit’s new offering, Push, they’re joined by Jonah Matrenga of Far on vocals and Mitch Wheeler of Will Haven on drums.
Some surprising new members of the band, whose post-rocking side has more recently been to the fore on their generally-instrumentalist tracks? Yes. But that’s also pretty much how Sons of Alpha Centauri operate, and if you don’t want to take my word for it, let the fact that Push is coming out on Exile on Mainstream tell you the rest of whatever you need to know.
Release date is in August, as the PR wire tells it:
SONS OF ALPHA CENTAURI: Post-Hardcore Quartet Inducts Members Of Far And Will Haven For Push LP Set For Release Via Exile On Mainstream
Exile On Mainstream announces the signing of UK-based alternative/post-hardcore quartet SONS OF ALPHA CENTAURI for the August release of their third album, Push. With the album’s details and preorders, the lead single “Buried Under” has been premiered.
A radical departure from instrumental approach the band has maintained for the past twenty years, Push marks SONS OF ALPHA CENTAURI’s first collaboration with musicians from two of the biggest and most respected bands in the Sacramento music community, as the act welcomes Jonah Matranga of Far and Gratitude and Mitch Wheeler of Will Haven.
The follow-up to their previous album Continuum, SONS OF ALPHA CENTAURI’s Push is a powerhouse of searing post-hardcore, alternative metal, and progressive dreamy riff rock, with an ideology rooted in the ‘90s hardcore scene. The hypnotic pulsing riffs and the soaring emotional power of Matranga’s raw vocals provide his first heavy performance since the critically acclaimed Far reunion album At Night We Live. Push is an album that blends the instantly recognizable sonic landscape of SONS OF ALPHA CENTAURI with the emotional tone of Far and the epic backbone of Will Haven. Matranga uses his return to post-hardcore, and his subtle, almost subliminal delivery to challenge some of the core topics with a reignited fire of passion and emotional persuasion.
Push was recorded by Lance Jackman of EightFourSeven in Sacramento, engineered and mixed by Dan Lucas, and mastered by the legendary Nick Zampiello (Cave In, Converge, ISIS).
Founding bassist Nick Hannon offers, “SOAC has a split personality; this is most certainly our darker and heavier side. We grew up on ‘90s alternative rock and to harness our vision with the purveyors of the Sacramento post hardcore sound will make this a true landmark release and we have taken it to the extreme collaborating with Mitch and Jonah!”
On embracing the spirit of collaboration, Hannon continues, “We’ve always been interested in working in a collaborative manner, so despite the epidemic, we’ve continued building and expanding our spectrum of musical genres that we want to experiment with. This is an exciting phase for us and integrating the guys from Sacramento and their heritage is phenomenal. We have worked to sculpt the instrumental rock dexterity of SOAC and provided a hardcore backbone by integrating Mitch and Jonah that has breathed a whole new spirit into the vessel. It still has an element of mysticism but comes with a more direct connection to the audience.”