Posted in Whathaveyou on December 31st, 2025 by JJ Koczan
This is one of those pairings that’s an absolute head-slapper; so obvious once it’s said out loud, like duh, how could you not see that coming? The Mon, which is Urlo from Ufomammut‘s let’s-get-even-weirder experimentalist outfit, and semi-solo atmospheric singer-songwriter Kariti pairing up for a tour makes rare sense, especially right now.
The Mon‘s 2025 release, Songs of Abandon (review here), may only have been one piece of a two-parter still to be concluded, but its being based around acoustic songwriting makes the material well-suited to complement Kariti, whose Still Life (review here), retained a singular identity while conjuring ambient depth to coincide with the emotional weight of the expressive voice at its center. You’re telling me these two are gonna end up doing songs together?
Well, uh, that sounds awesome. Here’s where it’s gonna happen:
In Spring 2026, I’ll finally bring Embrace The Abandon on the road.
After having to cancel the December shows with a heavy heart, being able to announce these dates now feels like a quiet victory, a return to something that needed time to grow.
I’ll join forces with kariti, an artist I deeply admire and a friend for many years, to present our new records: Embrace The Abandon, my two-part journey out on Supernatural Cat, and Still Life by kariti, out on Lay Bare Recordings.
Two different voices, two personal paths moving in parallel, meeting on stage each night.
A shared space where sound, silence, vibration, and emotion can unfold freely, shaping each performance in a unique and unrepeatable way.
This tour exists thanks to months of work, trust, and genuine human connection, and to all the promoters, venues, and people who believed in this idea from the very beginning. I’m deeply grateful to finally make this happen, and I truly look forward to sharing these moments with you.
We’re currently working on the final dates and confirmations.
If you’re a promoter or venue curator and feel this journey could resonate with your space and audience, I’d be very happy to hear from you and explore the possibility of building something together.
THE MON + kariti – European Tour 2026
18/3 — HR — Zagreb — Mochvara 19/3 — AT — Vienna — Arena 22/3 — DE — Berlin — K19 24/3 — DE — Halle — Hühnermanhattan 25/3 — DE — Bremen — TBA 26/3 — DK — Copenhagen — Lygtens Kro 27/3 — SE — Stockholm — Nalen Klubb 28/3 — NO — Oslo — Mausoleum Vigeland 31/3 — DE — Hannover — Stumpf 01/4 — BE — Kortrijk — The Pit’s 02/4 — BE — Leuven — Chapel Of Our Lady Of Fever 03/4 — NL — Eindhoven — Effenaar at ’t Rozenknopje 04/4 — NL — Utrecht — Black Earth at Moira 05/4 — DE — Karlsruhe — P8
Posted in Reviews on November 19th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
I was gonna do this whole week, happy Monday, happy Tuesday, happy Wednesday, but I happen to feel like an asshole typing the words “happy Wednesday,” so I’m going to refrain. Hope your week isn’t awful, in any case.
Or if it is, I hope music can help make it better. This Quarterly Review has been a breeze thus far and looking at the lineup for today I expect the trend to continue. Thanks for hanging in with it. We pass the halfway mark today and will wrap up on Friday, with 50 releases covered throughout the week.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
Amorphis, Borderland
Yeah, okay, you can go ahead and cancel the rest of the review. Yup, I know. I’d love to sit here and talk about how Finland’s Amorphis, some 35 years and upwards of 16 full-lengths later, are still refining their processes, conjuring melodic intricacy, and celebrating death metal in kind. I’d love to talk about the progressive strains in Borderland, or about how as recognizable as Amorphis are, they’re still able to find new ways to balance the keys and guitar, or to switch up the vocals, or even just to chug proggier on “Light and Shadow” and “Fog to Fod,” whatever it might be. I’d love to talk about all of that, but you see, the thing is… “Bones.” Specifically, the riff thereof, swept into with crushing majesty and rolled forth with knows-what-it-has certainty of the type one would expect from a long-established pro-shop genre-innovating band like Amorphis. I could go on about all the other stuff, but that riff is gonna be all you need to know ahead of time. I’ll hope to have it in my head for the next year or so.
One could spend the rest of this space recounting Joe Hasselvander‘s pedigree, from Death Row to Pentagram to Raven to The Hounds of Haseelvander, with stints in countless others including Blue Cheer besides, but that doesn’t tell you much about the doom of Fire on the Mountain. Hasselvander‘s third solo outing under his name and first in 25 years follows a traditional pattern of Doom Capitol blue-collar riffing that, it has to be acknowledged, Hasselvander had a part in establishing, while the man himself plays all instruments and handles vocals, at time with a bit of a lounge-singer edge with spoken lines, but when he reaches for the higher note in third cut “Holy Water,” a big moment in the song, it’s there for him. “Prodigal Sun” is one of several images taken from the bible and would seem to be autobiographical, and he ends with a fitting apex of nod and shred in “Darkest Before the Dawn.” He’s said he has plans for more, and indeed, Fire on the Mountain sounds more like a beginning than an end.
A current of crackling, tube-heating distortion begins in “Spine,” which introduces Kariti‘s third album, Still Life, and indeed even amid the The Keening-esque piano of “Nothing” and the title-track a short time later, that hard-toned drone becomes a backbone for the material. It’s not always there — arrangements are fluid around the central guitar/keys/voice — but for an artist working in a style so intentionally mindful of aesthetic, the My Bloody Valentine-esque noise swell of “Suicide by a Thousand Cuts,” the emergence of the static in “Naiznanku” and the rumble behind the closing prayer “Baptism” bring dark avant garde experimentalism to traditionalist melodies. This is what Kariti has been developing since 2020’s Covered Mirrors (review here), working with guitarist Marco Matta on a deepening collaboration. While retaining folkish intimacy thanks to the quiet stretches around this distorted crunch (looking at you, “Purge”), Kariti has never sounded farther-reaching.
They don’t make ’em like Burning Sister anymore, and listening to Ghosts, I’m less sure they ever did. Because as much as the Colorado now-twosome of bassist/vocalist/synthesist Steve Miller and drummer Alison Salutz continue to foster a druggy ’90s-type slackerism amid all the crash in opener “Brokedick Icarus” and the drawling march of “No Space or Time,” they’ve also never quite sounded as much themselves. There’s psychedelic shimmer in the noise swirling in the later reaches of “Stellar Ghost,” and “Lethe//Oblivion” (premiered here) is made all the more a ceremony with the thread of synth and/or amplifier hum. Meanwhile, “Swerve (Dead Stars)” would work as a new wave arrangement, I can feel it, and the longest-song-by-a-second “Dead Love” (7:20) closes with a thrilling roll and languid procession, reinforcing the downerism that’s been essential to Burning Sister since their outset. Whatever comes in the future, being a duo suits these songs.
A quick turnaround third full-length from London’s The Lunar Effect will be nothing to complain about for those who (like me) got on board with the London heavy rock outfit via last year’s Sounds of Green and Blue (review here). Also on Svart, the follow-up brims with cohesion in its songwriting and purpose in its twists, with the opener “Feed the Hand” establishing the command that proves unwavering through “Watchful Eye,” the brash speed-shuffler “Five and Two” and the lonely sway of “My Blue Veins” before “Stay With Me” modernizes Graveyardian soul en route to the grunge-riffed centerpiece “Settle Down.” The dynamic continues to expand with the piano-led “I Disappear” speaking to a burgeoning reach in songwriting, while “A New Moon Rises” regrounds and “Scotoma” smoothly finds a niche in desert rock that probably hundreds of bands wish they could make their own, and “Nailed to the Sky” rounds out by going big on tone and emotionality alike. So far, these guys are a better band than people know. They inject a little drama to these proceedings, and it sounds like there’s more to come.
While the closing title-track has a thread of prog metal that reminds of mid-period Devin Townsend, Auckland, New Zealand’s King Cruel back their 2023 Creeper three-song EP with a marked sense of atmosphere, the melodies of careening lead track “Haunting Time” calling to mind Boston’s Worshipper in their metallic underpinnings, shred and thoughtful melody. Sky Eater is my first exposure to the band, whose style balances mood and impact smoothly, and whose hooks are inviting without being cloying, as in “Diamond Darya,” which digs in and rides its central riff with a stoner rocker’s dedication and a poise that comes from knowing why they’re doing it. The aforementioned capper is the catchiest of the bunch, but King Cruel, goal-wise, have more in their sights than catchiness, and given the sprawl they lay out here, one can’t help but wonder if a debut album won’t be next.
I won’t claim to know how it was made, between what’s improvised, layered in, overdubbed, conjured from ethereal planes beyond the limits of understanding, and so on, but Angad Berar‘s eight-track/50-minute Sundae is indeed a sweet dish of psychedelic immersion. The Berlin-based solo artist made it in collaboration with guitarist/synthesist/bassist Kartik Pillai, while drummer Siddharth Kaushik sits in on the 10-minute penultimate cut and vocalist Chrisrah guests on the only song that isn’t a numbered jam, the moody mellow liquefier “Driving With You” before “Jam #3” and the horn sounds of “Jam #4” re-immerse the listener in slow-churning fluidity. “Jam #6,” with the live drums and extended runtime, is pointedly hypnotic in its first half, but has some Endless Boogie-type rock angularity later that makes it fun, while the closing “Jam #7” offers a seven-minute drone meditation before handing the listener back over to reality. Serenity abounds if you know where to find it.
Trevor’s Head, Fall Toward the Sun // Majesty and Harmony
Admirably celebrating their 15th anniversary in 2025 with touring and new music, UK melodic heavy rockers Trevor’s Head bring the Abbey Road-recorded “Fall Toward the Sun” and “Majesty and Harmony” together, not quite to encapsulate their sound or everything they’ve accomplished in their time, but to typify the ethic of marking the occasion by doing the thing itself; that is, they’re writing music because it’s what they love to do. “Fall Toward the Sun” and “Majesty and Harmony” both have an edge of aired-out ’90s-type noise rock — nothing new for Trevor’s Head in terms of style — but where they hit you with it up front in the first song, the latter holds its payoff in reserve for when they depart the titular harmonies and get to the surge of crunch in the midsection. Running seven minutes total, you wouldn’t accuse Trevor’s Head of overindulging, but instead, they give their fans and followers something new to dig into that in ethic and realization can only serve as a reminder of their appeal in the first place.
Burl, crunch, lumber, crush, groove and sprawl — the Rob Wrong (Witch Mountain)-recorded debut full-length from Portland, Oregon, riffchucking five-piece Ravine knows from whence it hails. There are some flashes of cosmic intention, but sludgier, earthbound nods pervade the five-track/47-minute outing, which holds its ambition not in a performative stylistic overreach — that is to say, Ravine are who they are musically; there’s no pretense here as they hit you with it straight forward — but in the course each of these tracks takes. Their heaviest onslaught might be in the willfully, almost gleefully grueling “Ennui,” of course the centerpiece, but even there Ravine aren’t content just to doom, or rock, or sludge out, etc., instead working to create a sense of momentum within the songs as each follows its own path, marking out its own place while adding to the whole. They’re not done growing, and I don’t think the balance of their approach is settled, but given what they already lay out, that’s a strength in their favor. This is the kind of debut that makes friends.
Sweden’s Malgomaj aren’t through the opening title-track (a bookending two-parter) of Valfiskens Buk before they’ve put forth primo hard boogie and inventive Sabbathry, classic in influence, modern in production/execution, and continuing to brim with movement as “Rembrants Skugga” and the softshow-ready “Hej Hej Malgomaj” back it. I suppose the elephant in the room here is Graveyard, but “Värddjur” has more Motörheaded foundations, and the instrumental “Itera Mot Solnedgången” hints toward Westernism before the seven-minute “Cyklopisk Betong” flattens with its early riff only to redirect to ’60s-ish garage jangle, so one wouldn’t accuse Malgomaj on this apparent debut of being singleminded, but neither are they lacking cohesion or flow between songs. “Stöttingfjället Rämnar” answers the heft of the track prior and “Det Är Nåt Fel På Solen” sets a languid march before “Valfiskens Buk Del 2” reprises the opener to make the album sound all the more complete, whether you speak the language or not.
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 18th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
On Sept. 27, the still-mostly-solo-I-think-but-these-things-are-nebulous-sometimes dark/heavy/neo-folk outfit Kariti will take part in Lay Bare Recordings‘ first-ever Lay Bare Fest, taking place in London at Camden Town’s famed The Black Heart venue, alongside Mrs. Frighthouse, The Answer Lies in the Black Void, Coltaine and others. That Kariti will also be heralding her third album, Still Life, with that performance, is so much the better.
The album is out Nov. 7 through Lay Bare (duh), and the title-track serves double-duty as the lead single which you can hear at the bottom of the post. Like early 2024’s Dheghom (review here), the new song finds again broader textures to the material, with Marco Matta once more contributing drones and backing soundscapes.
Preorders are up and the PR wire has context, which hell yeah I friggin’ love context! Have at it:
KARITI: Atmospheric/Ambient Sound Alchemist To Release Still Life Full-Length On November 7th Via Lay Bare Recordings; Title Track Now Streaming + Preorders Available
KARITI (карити) – meaning “to mourn the dead” in church Slavonic – is the emotional and creative outlet of Ekaterina, a Russian-born poet and songwriter based in Italy. On November 7th, KARITI will release her latest full-length, Still Life, through Lay Bare Recordings.
KARITI’s 2020 debut Covered Mirrors, released by the cult Italian label Aural Music (Negură Bunget, Imperial Triumphant, Messa), represented a “cathartic peregrination through bereavement.” KARITI’s second offering, Dheghom, released in February 2024 by the forward-thinking Dutch label Lay Bare Recordings (Frayle, Thief, Yawning Man), saw a development in sound, songwriting, and instrumentation: apart from electric guitars, Ekaterina performed various synthesizers and the analogue piano.
By September 2023, a self-titled, industrial/trip-hop/shoegaze EP was released under the moniker Néant – a collaboration between KARITI and Void of the anonymous Parisian industrial sludge collective Non Serviam. KARITI is frequently asked to compose vocal lines (and often lyrics) and to be a guest singer for extreme death/black metal bands, including 2024 releases by Bedsore (20 Buck Spin) and Limbes.
Of third full-length Still Life, she notes, “These songs are the aftermath of being galvanized into a disillusioned reflection on human life and the way it is lived by most of us in the world in its current state.”
In advance of the release of Still Life, KARITI offers up the record’s first single and title track. KARITI comments, “Inspired by a dream and the product of a cherished bittersweet synchronicity, ‘Still Life’ was one of my first poems of this new cycle. At the same time, it was the last song I composed the melody for and was still largely unfinished when we began recording. It owes its final form to a spontaneous voyage outside the comfort zone, please enjoy this trip with me, wherever it’ll take us.”
Still Life was recorded by Lorenzo Della Rovere in Corno di Rosazzo, Italy, produced and mixed by Della Rovere and Ekaterina, mastered by John “Spud” Murphy in Dublin, Ireland, and includes additional guitar/noise/drone machine by Marco Matta. The record comes swathed in the cover art image of Ashley Tofu and Laura Sans Gassò, with layout, lettering, and design by Strxart.
