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.
Posted in Radio on September 2nd, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Two weeks ago I was at Psycho Las Vegas, and so didn’t get to post the playlist for episode 91. For posterity’s sake and because I plainly love looking at lists of band names, it’s below along with the playlist for the episode airing today, which is #92. The march to 100 continues.
The esteemed Dean Rispler (who also plays in Mighty High and a bunch of other bands) is in charge of putting the shows together on a practical level from the lists I send, and to him I extend my deepest appreciation. I’m constantly late. I suck at this in general, and worse, I know it. So yeah. Dean does a bit of hand-holding and I am thankful. He emailed me this week and asked if I was thinking yet about episode 100 and would I be doing anything special?
Well… yes. I have been. And I’d like to make it a blowout or some such, but you know what the truth is? I’m more about the work. When it comes to something like that, the most honest thing I feel like I can do is keep my head down, do another episode and then do one after that two weeks later. I’d rather feel good about a thing in myself and move on. I’m not sure I can get away with that. So maybe I’ll hit up Tommi Dozer and see if he wants to chat sometime in the next few weeks.
Thanks if you listen and thanks for reading.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 09.02.22 (VT = voice track)
Elephant Tree
Aphotic Blues
Elephant Tree
Might
Abysses
Abyss
Author & Punisher
Misery
Kruller
VT
Lord Elephant
Hunters of the Moon
Cosmic Awakening
Swarm of the Lotus
Snowbeast
The Sirens of Silence
Big Business
Heal the Weak
The Beast You Are
The Otolith
Sing No Coda
Folium Limina
VT
Elder
Halcyon
Omens
Gaerea
Mantle
Mirage
London Odense Ensemble
Sojourner
Jaiyede Sesssions Vol. 1
Northless
What Must Be Done
A Path Beyond Grief
Conan
A Cleaved Head No Longer Plots
Evidence of Immortality
VT
Forlesen
Strega
Black Terrain
And #91, which was a pretty damn good show:
Dozer
The Flood
Beyond Colossal
Orange Goblin
Blue Snow
Time Travelling Blues
Monster Magnet
King of Mars
Dopes to Infinity
Red Fang
Fonzi Scheme
Arrows
VT
Slift
Citadel on a Satellite
Ummon
Russian Circles
Gnosis
Gnosis
Faetooth
Echolalia
Remnants of the Vessel
Caustic Casanova
Lodestar
Glass Enclosed Nerve Center
Brant Bjork
Trip on the Wine
Bougainvillea Suite
Josiah
Saltwater
We Lay on Cold Stone
Blue Tree Monitor
Sasquatch
Cryptids
VT
Torche
Tarpit Carnivore
In Return
Telekinetic Yeti
Rogue Planet
Primordial
Mezzoa
Dunes of Mars
Dunes of Mars
Thunderbird Divine
Boote’s Void
The Hand of Man
Omen Stones
Burn Alive
Omen Stones
1000mods
Vidage
Super Van Vacation
VT
Truckfighters
Con of Man
Mania
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Sept. 16 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
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 October 7th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
Day three of the Quarterly Review. Always a landmark. Today we hit the halfway point, but don’t pass it yet since I’ve decided to add the sixth day next Monday. So we’ll get to 30 of the total 60 records, and then be past half through tomorrow. Math was never my strong suit. Come to think of it, I wasn’t much for school all around. Work sucked too.
Anyway, if you haven’t found anything to dig yet — and I hope you have; I think the stuff included has been pretty good so far — you can either go back and look again or keep going. Maybe today’s your day. If not, there’s always tomorrow.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
Hum, Inlet
One has to wonder if, if Hum had it to do over again, they might hold back their first album in 23 years, Inlet, for release sometime when the world isn’t being ravaged by a global pandemic. As it stands, the largesse and melodic wash of the Illinois outfit’s all-growed-up heavy post-rock offers 55 minutes of comfort amid the tumult of the days, and while I won’t profess to having been a fan in the ’90s — their last studio LP was 1997’s Downward is Heavenward, and they sound like they definitely spent some time listening to Pelican since then — the overarching consumption Inlet sets forth in relatively extended tracks like “Desert Rambler” and “The Summoning” and the manner in which the album sets its own backdrop in a floating drone of effects make it an escapist joy. They hold back until closer “Shapeshifter” to go full post-rock, and while there are times at which it can seem unipolar, to listen to the crunching “Step Into You” and “Cloud City” side-by-side unveils more of the scope underlying from the outset of “Waves” onward.
Oslo’s Hymn answer the outright crush and scathe of their 2017 debut, Perish (review here), with a more developed and lethal attack on their four-song/38-minute follow-up, Breach Us. Though they’re the kind of band who make people who’ve never heard Black Cobra wonder how two people can be so heavy — and the record has plenty of that; “Exit Through Fire”‘s sludgeshuggah chugging walks by and waves — it’s the sense of atmosphere that guitarist/bassist/vocalist Ole Rokseth and drummer Markus Støle bring to the proceedings that make them so engrossing. The opening title-track is also the shortest at 6:25, but as Breach Us moves across “Exit Through Fire,” “Crimson” and especially 14-minute closer “Can I Carry You,” it brings forth the sort of ominous dystopian assault that so many tried and failed to harness in the wake of Neurosis‘ Through Silver in Blood. Hymn do that and make it theirs in the process.
Carried across with excruciating grace, Atramentus‘ three-part/44-minute debut album, Stygian, probably belongs in a post-Bell Witch category of extreme, crawling death-doom, but from the script of their logo to the dramatic piano accompanying the lurching riffs, gurgles and choral wails of “Stygian I: From Tumultuous Heavens… (Descended Forth the Ceaseless Darkness)” through the five-minute interlude that is “Stygian II: In Ageless Slumber (As I Dream in the Doleful Embrace of the Howling Black Winds)” and into the 23-minute lurchfest that is “Stygian III: Perennial Voyage (Across the Perpetual Planes of Crying Frost and Steel-Eroding Blizzards)” their ultra-morose procession seems to dig further back for primary inspiration, to acts like Skepticism and even earliest Anathema (at least for that logo), and as guttural and tortured as it is as it devolves toward blackened char in its closer, Stygian‘s stretches of melody provide a contrast that gives some semblance of hope amid all the surrounding despair.
As it clocks in 27 minutes, the inevitable question about Zyclops‘ debut release, Inheritance of Ash, is whether it’s an EP or an LP. For what it’s worth, my bid is for the latter, and to back my case up I’ll cite the flow between each of its four component tracks. The Austin, Texas, post-metallic four-piece save their most virulent chug and deepest tonal weight for the final two cuts, “Wind” and “Ash,” but the stage is well set in “Ghost” and “Rope” as well, and even when one song falls into silence, the next picks up in complementary fashion. Shades of Isis in “Rope,” Swarm of the Lotus in the more intense moments of “Ash,” and an overarching progressive vibe that feels suited to the Pelagic Records oeuvre, one might think of Zyclops as cerebral despite their protestations otherwise, but at the very least, the push and pull at the end of “Wind” and the stretch-out that comes after the churning first half of “Rope” don’t happen by mistake, and a band making these kinds of turns on their first outing isn’t to be ignored. Also, they’re very, very heavy.
It’s all peace and quiet until “Psionic Static” suddenly starts to speed up, and then like the rush into transwarp, Kairon; IRSE!‘s Polysomn finds its bliss by hooking up a cortical node to your left temple and turning your frontal lobe into so much floundering goo, effectively kitchen-sink kraut-ing you into oblivion while gleefully hopping from genre to cosmic genre like they’re being chased by the ghost of space rock past. They’re the ghost of space rock future. While never static, Polysomn does offer some serenity amid all its head-spinning and lobe-melting, be it the hee-hee-now-it’s-trip-hop wash of “An Bat None” or the cinematic vastness that arises in “Altaïr Descends.” Too intelligent to be random noise or just a freakout, the album is nonetheless experimental, and remains committed to that all the way through the shorter “White Flies” and “Polysomn” at the end of the record. You can take it on if you have your EV suit handy, but if you don’t check the intermix ratio, your face is going to blow up. Fair warning. LLAP.
The second 2020 offering from Hurst, Texas’ Slow Draw — the one-man outfit of Mark “Derwooka” Kitchens, also of Stone Machine Electric — the four-song Quiet Joy is obviously consciously named. “Tightropes in Tandem” and closer “Sometimes Experiments Fail” offer a sweet, minimal jazziness, building on the hypnotic backwards psych drone of opener “Unexpected Suspect.” In the two-minute penultimate title-track, Kitchens is barely there, and it is as much an emphasis on the quiet space as that in which the music — a late arriving guitar stands out — might otherwise be taking place. At 18 minutes, it is intended to be a breath taken before reimmersing oneself in the unrelenting chaos that surrounds and swirls, and while it’s short, each piece also has something of its own to offer — even when it’s actively nothing — and Slow Draw brims with purpose across this short release. Sometimes experiments fail, sure. Sometimes they work.
It took all of a week for the married duo of Ana Muhi (vocals, bass) and Sven Missullis (guitars, vocals, drums) to announce Might as their new project following the dissolution of the long-ish-running and far-punkier Deamon’s Child. Might‘s self-titled debut arrives with the significant backing of Exile on Mainstream and earns its place on the label with an atmospheric approach to noise rock that, while it inevitably shares some elements with the preceding band, forays outward into the weight of “Possession” and the acoustic-into-crush “Warlight” and the crush-into-ambience “Flight of Fancy” and the ambience-into-ambience “Mrs. Poise” and so on. From the beginning in “Intoduce Yourself” and the rushing “Pollution of Mind,” it’s clear the recorded-in-quarantine 35-minute/nine-song outing is going to go where it wants to, Muhi and Missullis sharing vocals and urging the listener deeper into doesn’t-quite-sound-like-anything-else post-fuzz heavy rock and sludge. A fun game: try to predict where it’s going, and be wrong.
Following a stint on Metal Blade and self-releasing 2018’s What Was and What Shall Be, West Virginia’s Brimstone Coven issue their second album as a three-piece through Ripple Music, calling to mind a more classic-minded Apostle of Solitude on the finale “Song of Whippoorwill” and finding a balance all the while between keeping their progressions moving forward and establishing a melancholy atmosphere. Some elements feel drawn from the Maryland school of doom — opener the melody and hook of “The Inferno” remind of defunct purveyors Beelzefuzz — but what comes through clearest in these songs is that guitarist/vocalist Corey Roth, bassist/vocalist Andrew D’Cagna and drummer Dave Trik have found their way forward after paring down from a four-piece following 2016’s Black Magic (review here) and the initial steps the last album took. They sound ready for whatever the growth of their craft might bring and execute songs like “When the World is Gone” and the more swinging “Secrets of the Earth” with the utmost class.
Take the brutal industrial doom of Author and Punisher and smash it together — presumably in some kind of stainless-steel semi-automated contraption — with the skin-peeling atmosphere and grueling tension of Khanate and you may begin to understand where All Are to Return are coming from on their debut self-titled EP. How they make a song like four-minute centerpiece “Bare Life” feel so consuming is beyond me, but I think being so utterly demolishing helps. It’s not just about the plodding electronic beat, either. There’s some of that in opener “Untrusted” and certainly “The Lie of Fellow Men” has a lumber to go with its bass rumble and NIN-sounding-hopeful guitar, but it’s the overwhelming sense of everything being tainted and cruel that comes through in the space the only-19-minutes-long release creates. Even as closer “Bellum Omnium” chips away at the last remaining vestiges of color, it casts a coherent vision of not only aesthetic purpose for the duo, but of the terrible, all-gone-wrong future in which we seem at times to live.
I saved this one for last today as a favor to myself. Originally released in 2016, Los Acidos‘ self-titled debut receives a well-deserved second look on vinyl courtesy of Necio Records, and with it comes 40 minutes of full immersion in glorious Argentinian psicodelia, spacious and ’60s-style on “Al Otro Lado” and full of freaky swing on “Blusas” ahead of the almost-shoegaze-until-it-explodes-in-sunshine float of “Perfume Fantasma.” “Paseo” and the penultimate “Espejos” careen with greater intensity, but from the folksy feel that arrives to coincide with the cymbal-crashing roll of “Excentricidad” in its second half to the final boogie payoff in “Empatía de Cristal,” the 10-song outing is a joy waiting to be experienced. You’re experienced, right? Have you ever been? Either way, the important thing is that the voyage that, indeed, begins with “Viaje” is worth your time in melody, in craft, in its arrangements, in presence and in the soul that comes through from front to back. The four-piece had a single out in late 2019, but anytime they want to get to work on a follow-up LP, I’ll be waiting.
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 1st, 2020 by JJ Koczan
How’s your lockdown been? Productive? Might‘s has. The German two-piece who got together in January after the dissolution of the punkier Deamon’s Child managed to record a self-titled debut and they’ll release it on July 17 through no less than Exile on Mainstream Records. Plenty of people have been writing, but this is the first made-in-quarantine album release I’ve heard about, though one can only imagine more are coming over the next however-many months, and Might had a distinct advantage in this regard because, well, they live together. Not so much with the social distancing in that case.
Preorders and a teaser are up now for the partaking, and the mood is prevalent.
Have at it:
MIGHT sign with Exile On Mainstream Records
MIGHT sign with Exile On Mainstream Records – Album up for preorder.
The self-titled album will be released on the 17th of July as a vinyl with CD bundle and also digital on all platforms.
Empty streets, contact restrictions, breathing masks – a situation, we all would have considered completely absurd just a few months ago adds a new kind of dismalness to our daily life, which turns a sombre vision into some new normality. For a band whose inauguration falls into these times it’s a self-evidently influence on their artistic creation. Two days before the planned start of recording the world comes to a grinding halt with lockdowns implemented all over Europe. The married couple Ana Muhi (vocals, bass) and Sven Missullis (guitars, vocals, drums) moves into their own studio in March 2020 to record the self-titled debut album. The raw energy, subtleness and fragility of the written songs get pulled into a wake deeply influenced by the state of the outside world. Under circumstances and opportunities of a new level of concentration the tracks begin to form.
During the recording and now, throughout the album one can read out different questions and approaches relating to the state of the world as of today: a dichotomy between emotional safety and discomfort, between rage, despair and esperance becomes the common theme. While the world discusses topics such as ‘Flatten The Curve’, MIGHT create their own sine wave built from emotional interferences and amplification between music and personal experience, resulting in an album full of ethereal intensity. The record comes across like a soundtrack for the emotional movie we all seem to be acting in: depression, way outs, light and darkness, instrumental furor and acoustic reflection create a debate taking in arguments from several musical genres such as Black Metal, Doom and Sludge, PostRock and Shoegaze. This all happens organic and natural, taking the focus away from pure effects towards an emotional efficiency: the power of love as an answer to questions relating to death and live as fragments thrown into the lyrics.
Tracklisting: Side A 1 Introduce Yourself 2 Pollution Of Mind 3 Vampire 4 Possession 5 Warlight
Side B 1 Weirdo Waltz 2 Flight Of Fancy 3 Mrs. Poise 4 Zero
Might is: Ana Muhi – Vocals, Bass Sven Missullis – Vocals, Guitar, Drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 22nd, 2020 by JJ Koczan
True to their word, two of the three now-former members of German noise rockers Deamon’s Child, who announced their breakup just last week, have now made their new project known to the public. Ana Muhi and Sven “Missu” Missullis will share vocal duties in the new band, MIGHT, who would seem to prefer their moniker in all-caps and would seem as well to be taking on a more atmospheric kind of sound than that of Deamon’s Child. Working as a duo with Missullis pulling double-duty on drums and guitar for the time being — shows will be tricky, but I suppose not impossible — and Muhi on bass, the two players are giving a quick glimpse of what MIGHT may be about in a video teaser of some apparently-already-recorded material.
And I know it’s already recorded, because it exists. Fancy that.
No doubt some of the punkier aspects of Deamon’s Child will bleed into MIGHT as well, but even from the brief look and listen they give in the clip at the bottom of this post, it’s understandable why they might see fit to embark on MIGHT as an outfit distinct from their former band together — shifting from a trio to duo of course is also part of that. I don’t know what MIGHT‘s plans are going forward, or just what kind of release the teaser might be teasing, but there’s a definite sense of aesthetic at work here and if you happen to have a space 30 seconds in your busy day, it’s a fair enough way to be introduced.
So say hello:
Hello, we are MIGHT
Only a few days after they quitted their old band, Deamon’s Child, Ana Muhi and Sven Missullis founded a new band, called MIGHT.
Like in Deamon’s Child, Muhi will sing and play the bass. Missullis will play guitar, but also the drums and will also sing on a few songs.
There is already a short teaser online where you can hear some first tunes.
And there is also a Facebook page where you can check out what is coming next.
Might is: Ana Muhi – Vocals, Bass Sven Missullis – Vocals, Guitar, Drums