Posted in Questionnaire on January 10th, 2022 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: Florent Sicard of Stone From the Sky
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I play guitar with my friends. When I was young, a friend gave me his old guitar, I thought it was the best thing to do all day and I still think that way after 20 years.
Describe your first musical memory.
Music video for Jamiroquai’s “Deeper Underground” song, from the 1998 Godzilla soundtrack. The bass synth line blown me away instantly.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
The first time I saw Neurosis live in 2007 at the Hellfest Festival. It completely change my perception of music.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
I thought it was normal to eat animals and use animals products but after talking with people and self reflection, I’ve been vegan for 6 years now and that’s cool!
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
To being self confident about your music and happy in what you’re doing.
How do you define success?
When people listen to your music just because they love it, not because it was on a playlist or radio.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
A video of a dog tortured for the Yulin Festival. That thing shouldn’t exist.
It popped up one day on my feed on a social network, it was a very bad day.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
My own brand of effect pedal. I love make them for me but there are already thousands of brands on the market.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Bring joy and gather people together.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Posted in Reviews on December 15th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Okay. Day Three. The halfway point. Or the quarter point if you count the week to come in January. Which I don’t. Feeling dug in. Ready to roll. Today’s a busy day, stylistically speaking, and there’s two wolf bands in there too. Better get moving.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
Duel, In Carne Persona
Duel seem to be on a mission with In Carne Persona to remind all in their path that rock and roll is supposed to be dangerous. Their fourth album and the follow-up to 2019’s Valley of Shadows (review here) finds the Austin four-piece in a between place on songs like “Children of the Fire” (premiered here) and “Anchor” and the especially charged gang-shout-chorus “Bite Back,” proffering memorable songwriting while edging from boogie to shove, rock to metal. They’ve never sounded more dynamic than on the organ-inclusive “Behind the Sound” or the tense finale “Blood on the Claw,” and cuts like “The Veil” and the particularly gritty “Dead Eyes” affirm their in-a-dark-place songwriting prowess. They’re not uneven in their approach. They’re sure of it. They turn songs on either side of four minutes long into anthems, and they seem to be completely at home in their sound. They’re not as ‘big’ as they should be by rights of their work, but Duel serve their reminder well and pack nine killer tunes into 38 minutes. Only a fool would ask more.
Fading in like the advent of something wicked this way coming until “The Hiss” explodes into “Fail,” Hull exports Mastiff tap chug from early ’00s metalcore en route to various forms of extreme bludgeonry, whether that’s blackened push in “Beige Sabbath,” grind in “Midnight Creeper” or the slow skin-crawling riffage that follows in “Futile.” This blender runs at multiple speeds, slices, dices, pummels and purees, reminding here of Blood Has Been Shed, there of Napalm Death, on “Endless” of Aborted. Any way you go, it is a bleak cacophony to be discovered, purposefully tectonic in its weight and intense in its conveyed violence. Barely topping half an hour, Leave Me the Ashes of the Earth knows precisely the fury it manifests, and the scariest thing about it is the thought that the band are in even the vaguest amount of control of all this chaos, as even the devolution-to-blowout in “Lung Rust” seems to have intent behind it. They should play this in art galleries.
Melody and a flair for the grandeur of classic NWOBHM-style metal take prominence on Wolftooth‘s Blood & Iron, the follow-up to the Indiana-based four-piece’s 2020 outing, Valhalla (review here), third album overall and first for Napalm Records. As regards trajectory, one is reminded of the manner in which Sweden’s Grand Magus donned the mantle of epic metal, but Wolftooth aren’t completely to that point yet. Riffs still very much lead the battle’s charge — pointedly so, as regards the album’s far-back-drums mix — with consuming solos as complement to the vocals’ tales of fantastical journeys, kings, swords and so on. The test of this kind of metal should ALWAYS be whether or not you’d scribble their logo on the front of your notebook after listening to the record on your shitty Walkman headphones, and yes, Wolftooth earn that honor among their other spoils of the fight, and Blood & Iron winds up the kind of tape you’d feel cool telling your friends about in that certain bygone age.
Another argument to chase down every release Prophecy Productions puts out arrives in the form of Illudium‘s second long-player, Ash of the Womb, the NorCal project spearheaded by Shantel Amundson vibing with emotional and tonal heft in kind on an immersive mourning-for-everything six tracks/47 minutes. Gorgeous, sad and heavy in kind “Aster” opens and unfolds into the fingers-sliding-on-strings of “Sempervirens,” which gallops furiously for a moment in its second half like a fever dream before passing to wistfully strummed minimalism, which is a pattern that holds in “Soma Sema” and “Atopa” as well, as Amundson brings volatility without notice, songs exploding and receding, madness and fury and then gone again in a sort of purposeful bipolar onslaught. Following “Madrigal,” the closing “Where Death and Dreams Do Manifest” finds an evenness of tempo and approach, not quite veering into heavygaze, but gloriously pulling together the various strands laid out across the songs prior, providing a fitting end to the story told in sound and lyric.
Ascia takes its name from the Italian word for ‘axe,’ and as a solo-project from Fabrizio Monni, also of Black Capricorn, the 20-minute demo Volume 1 lives up to its implied threat. Launched with the instrumental riff-workout “At the Gates of Ishtar,” the five-tracker introduces Monni‘s vocals on the subsequent “Blood Axes,” and is all the more reminiscent of earliest High on Fire for the approach he takes, drums marauding behind a galloping verse that nonetheless finds an overarching groove. “Duhl Qarnayn” follows in straight-ahead fashion while “The Great Iskandar” settles some in tempo and opens up melodically in its second half, the vocals taking on an almost chanting quality, before switching back to finish with more thud and plunder ahead of the finale “Up the Irons,” which brings two-plus minutes of cathartic speed and demo-blast that I’d like to think was the first song Monni put together for the band if only for its metal-loving-metal charm. I don’t know that it is or isn’t, but it’s a welcome cap to this deceptively varied initial public offering.
France’s Stone From the Sky, as a band named after a Neurosis singularized song might, dig into heavy post-rock aplenty on Songs From the Deepwater, their fourth full-length, and they meet floating tones with stretches of more densely-hefted groove like the Pelican-style nod of “Karoshi.” Still, however satisfying the ensuing back and forth is, some of their most effective moments are in the ambient stretches, as on “The Annapurna Healer” or even the patient opening of “Godspeed” at the record’s outset, which draws the listener in across its first three minutes before unveiling its full breadth. Likewise, “City/Angst” surges and recedes and surges again, but it’s in the contemplative moments that it’s most immersive, though I won’t take away from the appeal of the impact either. The winding “49.3 Nuances de Fuzz” precedes the subdued/vocalized closer “Talweg,” which departs in form while staying consistent in atmosphere, which proves paramount to the proceedings as a whole.
Whenever you’re ready to get weird, The Brackish will meet you there. The Bristol troupe’s fourth album, Atlas Day brings six songs and 38 minutes of ungrandiose artsy exploration, veering into dreamtone noodling on “Dust Off Reaper” only after hinting in that direction on the jazzier “Pretty Ugly” previous. Sure, there’s moments of crunch, like the garage-grunge in the second half of “Pam’s Chalice” or the almost-motorik thrust that tops opener “Deliverance,” but The Brackish aren’t looking to pay homage to genre or post-thisorthat so much as to seemingly shut down their brains and see where the songs lead them. That’s a quiet but not still pastoralia on “Leftbank” and a more skronky shuffle-jazz on “Mr. Universe,” and one suspects that, if there were more songs on Atlas Day, they too would go just about wherever the hell they wanted. Not without its self-indulgent aspects by its very nature, Atlas Day succeeds by inviting the audience along its intentionally meandering course. Something something “not all who wander” something something.
Formerly known as Wolfgang, Elverum, Norway’s Wolfnaut offer sharp, crisp modern heavy rock with the Karl Daniel Lidén mixed/mastered III, the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Kjetil Sæter (also percussion), bassist Tor Erik Hagen and drummer Ronny “Ronster” Kristiansen readily tapping Motörhead swagger in “Raise the Dead” after establishing a clarity of structure and a penchant for chorus largesse that reminds of Norse countrymen Spidergawd on “Swing Ride” and the Scorpions-tinged “Feed Your Dragon.” They are weighted in tone but emerge clean through the slower “Race to the Bottom” and “Gesell Kid.” I’m going to presume that “Taste My Brew” is about making one’s own beer — please don’t tell me otherwise — and with the push of “Catching Thunder” ahead of the eight-minute, willfully spacious “Wolfnaut” at the end, the trio’s heavy rock traditionalism is given an edge of reach to coincide with its vitality and electrified delivery of the songs.
Having released their debut full-length, TTBS, earlier in 2021 as their first outing, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Lincoln, Nebraska’s Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships still seem to be getting their feet under them in terms of sound and who they are as a band, but as the 34-minute-long Rosalee EP demonstrates, in terms of tone and general approach, they know what they’re looking for. After the thud and “whoa-oh” of “Core Fragment,” “Destroyer Heart” pushes a little more into aggression in its back end riffs and drumming, and the chugging, lurching motion of “URTH Anachoic” brings a fullness of distortion that the two prior songs seemed just to be hinting toward. It’s worth noting that the 16-minute title-track, which closes, is instrumental, and it may be that the band are more comfortable operating in that manner for the time being, but if there’s a confidence issue, no doubt it can be worked out on stage (circumstances permitting) or in further studio work. That is, it’s not actually a problem, even at this formative stage of the project. Quick turnaround for this second collection, but definitely welcome.
Their persistently irreverent spirit notwithstanding, Closet Disco Queen — at some point in the process, ever — take their work pretty seriously. That is to say, they’re not nearly as much of a goof as they’d have you believe, and on the quickie 16-minute Stadium Rock for Punk Bums, the Swiss two-piece-plus, their open creative sensibility results in surprisingly filled-out tracks that aren’t quite stadium, aren’t quite punk, definitely rock, and would probably alienate the bum crowd not willing to put the effort into actively engaging them. So the title (which, I know, is a reference to another release; calm down) may or may not fit, but from “Michel-Jacques Sonne” onward, bring switched-on heavy that’s not so much experimentalist in the fuck-around-and-find-out definition as ready to follow its own ideas to fruition, whether that’s the rush of “Pascal à la Plage” or the barely-there drone of “Lalalalala Reverb,” which immediately follows and gives way to the building-despite-itself finisher “Le Soucieux Toucan.” If these guys aren’t careful they’re gonna have to start taking themselves seriously. …Nah.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on September 18th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
Fair enough that Le Mans, France-based instrumental trio Stone From the Sky should be premiering a video for the live-in-studio version of their song “Animal” ahead of the release of their Live in La Grange, since they did the same thing with the original version of the track as well. Call it promotional symmetry. Stone From the Sky issued Break a Leg (review here) — the full-length from whence “Animal” came — in May 2019, about 16 months and an entire lifetime ago. The new offering, which, as the title tells you was indeed recorded live at La Grange studio, is being released as a sort of glimpse at what could’ve been if the band was able to tour this Fall. They are, of course, not. So even though they followed 2017’s Fuck the Sun with a first live album in the crowd-mic’ed Live in Agger that same year, both the context and circumstances for Live in La Grangeare different. See also: everything.
And what can you really say at this point? “Yeah, those probably would’ve been some cool shows.” Well, they probably would”ve been. Stone From the Sky sound on their game with the 36-minute/six-song set they present, from the opening My Sleeping Karma-ism of “Vena Cava” from the last album to the expansion on the same ideas and the consuming post-heavy lead that rises in the second half of “Godspeed,” a new song set to release on the band’s next LP presumably due out on More Fuzz Records once life magically returns to “normal” sometime next year. Whether or not that happens, the peak at things to come from the dynamic three-piece is welcome as it arrives through Live in La Grange, which perhaps doesn’t quite have the same physicality a live show might — that is, nobody’s thrashing out — but does carry through a palpable sense of the people behind the performances and is still graceful enough to build an atmosphere from the aforementioned opener onward.
The setlist, as it were, focuses on Break a Leg, and fairly enough so as the band’s latest work, and “Agger,” “Animal” and “Atomic Valley” indeed represent the album well, with the latter appearing as the bridge between “Godspeed” and the finale “Welcome to Trantor” from Fuck the Sun. Again, there’s a bit of the tantric tension in the early guitar and bass interplay on the closer, but Stone From the Sky careen through scorching solo work and fervent rhythmic push in kind before they return to ground ahead of their last build. It’s a satisfying cap to a satisfying set, which brings me back around to the original point of, “Yeah, those probably would’ve been some cool shows.” And hey kids, someday they might still be. At least in Europe. At some point. Ever.
If I sound hopeless, I’m sorry, but I am.
But maybe not completely so, because the lesson to take away from Live in La Grange aside from that Stone From the Sky are a good live band, is that creative expression finds a way. Sometimes that’s bands setting up a camera in a rehearsal space, and sometimes that’s a band booking a little studio time, putting to tape what would’ve been their tour set, and putting it out as a name-your-price download, like Stone From the Sky. That persistence, like grass popping up through cracks in highway pavement, is nothing if not admirable.
Enjoy the premiere of “Animal” from Live in La Grange below. And if you’re curious, I included the video for the original studio version at the bottom of this post as well.
Dig:
Stone From the Sky, “Animal” official live video premiere
Stone From The Sky – Animal Recorded live in La Grange Studio / FR
Camera: Pierre Posnic, Renaud Tessier, Jospeh Smalley, Solal Boutoux Montage: Renaud Tessier Editing: Solal Boutoux Record and mix: Jordan Jupin Mastering: Role at Die Tonmesterei / DE
Stone from the Sky release their third album, Break a Leg, through More Fuzz Records on May 3. And once their video for the song “Animal” from the record gets to the point where the plane lands near the field of elephants in the African countryside, you immediately get a sense of where things are headed. They’re headed to dead elephants. Break a Leg is comprised of six tracks and runs 45 minutes of exploratory heavy post-rock instrumentalism, and yet there’s nothing standing in the way of its blatantly emotional expression, and where so much in the style seems to get lost in its own head — one could argue that’s the nature of it — and winds up cerebral to the point of emotional sterility.
Working its way in on a long fade of backwards guitar, animal noises and sparse percussion, “Vena Cava,” the opener and longest track (immediate points) of Break a Leg, readily counteracts that stereotype. Like Red Sparowes before them, Stone from the Sky take a personal approach to greater issues of environment and humanity’s place within it, but their sound isn’t always half as blatant as the video for “Animal” makes it seem, and as “Vena Cava” winds through loud/quiet tradeoffs with airy guitar and earthy bass working to fluidly counteract each other while serving the larger purpose of crafting the spaces in which the rest of the album plays out. “Agger,” which follows, is faster and more active in its forward push — also less than half the runtime at 4:17 — but still works with a similar tonal resonance that the leadoff lays bare and which becomes a running theme throughout the entire LP.
There’s some psychedelic reconciliation in “Therapsida,” the side A closer and second of three inclusions over nine minutes long — the last is closer “Rataxès” at 9:07 — but its percussive opening and turns to and from a fuller, fuzzier style of riffing tie it to a heavy rock that sits well alongside the floating notes in the quieter stretches. They have no trouble moving back and forth between them, and make their way in the second half of the song through a lysergic meander and back to the central “chorus” riff that has served them ably to that point, more slowed-down Karma to Burn than anything that might be called post-rock, but still consistent in tone and mood.
“Animal” leads off side B with another patient opening and does a particularly effective job of bringing together a harsher sense of noise and drifting guitar, like a more biting My Sleeping Karma, but distinct for how far into the wash Stone from the Sky are willing to go. They work from shortest to longest on the second half of the record, letting “Animal” lead into “Atomic Valley” (7:38) and the aforementioned “Rataxès” with a suitable feeling of moving farther and farther out, the former resolving in a massive wall-of-fuzz nod and the latter taking a jammier-sounding approach initially but revealing its linear course later as it works to payoff its own stretch and that of Break a Leg as a whole; a task in which it is ultimately successful.
I don’t think anyone will accuse the Le Mans, France, trio of revolutionizing heavy post-rock, but neither should they be discounted for whatever elements of their work might prove otherwise familiar. Their ability to evoke a sense of purpose in their material alone is a distinguishing factor, let alone the manner in which they put those otherwise familiar elements to use, and they maintain a balance between the head and the heart in their work that is malleable while also being very much their own. A deep-dive conscious listen or two will unveil some of Break a Leg‘s more subtle individualism, and prove all the more rewarding for those willing to engage with the record on the level it demands.
Clip for “Animal” is below. Heads up if you don’t want to see dead elephants.
Otherwise, enjoy:
Stone from the Sky, “Animal” video premiere
Stone from the Sky on “Animal”:
Stone From The Sky stands against this cruel and useless practice that is hunting. Elephant poaching for the ivory trade is one of its most vile expressions. Getting together the exaltation of our dirtiest instincts, the murder of animals, the pleasure of the ultra-rich and the exploitation of local populations only to destroy their own environment.
When one of the most majestic species of this planet will have been annihilated, what gadget are we gonna invent to justify the murder of other rare wild animals?
Stone From The Sky is proud to reveal its new clip in anticipation of the release of their upcoming 3rd album, “Break A Leg” which will be out on More Fuzz Records on May 3rd.
Even if Stone From The Sky is a pure instrumental band, this doesn’t avoid them to transmit their opinion about our current society in their music. And with this clip of the song “Animal”, they’re clearly stating they’re against what is currently happening in Africa with the killing of thousands of Elephants to get their tusks and after sell them on the Chinese market.
Most of the footage you’ll see in this clip has been taken from a Netflix documentary called “Ivory Game” which depicts this horrible situation. Don’t hesitate to watch it entirely to get a sense a of the problem, and how some people are trying to protect those endangered species.
“Break a Leg” is currently available to pre-order on LP & CD on More Fuzz Records webshop and on Digital on Bandcamp.
