Torino-based sludgers Tons have the distinction of being the first band to sign to Heavy Psych Sounds in 2018, and considering the Italian label’s swath of pickups last year, from Cachemira to The Lords of Altamont, Turn Me on Dead Man, Avon, Mother Engine and High Reeper (did I forget anyone? probably), one sincerely doubts they’ll be the last. Still, the four-piece will offer up their second album, Filthy Flowers of Doom, via the respected imprint this Spring, with an April ballpark date listed ahead of a tour set to begin in May.

Though Tons first got together in 2009, their only full-length to-date was 2012’s Musineè Doom Session Vol. 1, which you can hear in its entirety at the bottom of this post. They also had a split with Lento in 2013, but the forthcoming LP will be the debut for a new lineup and their first outing in half a decade.

The PR wire brings background and the promise of more details to follow:

Heavy Psych Sounds Records & Booking is really proud to present the signing of TONS

The band is coming back with a great new album that will be released in April 2018 via Heavy Psych Sounds.

More info coming soon.

BIOGRAPHY:

TONS is an italian doom sludge band formed in Turin in October 2009 from the ashes of three popular hardcore bands of the city. The band consists of Steuso on guitar (rock poster artist and guitarist of The Redrum) Marco on drums (drummer of Noinfo and Medusa) and Paolo on bass/vocals (singer of Lamatematica). The aim of the band is to remain close to the hardcore influence of the city where they were born but they decided to move on to sludge and doom. In June 2009 with the help of Danilo Bottocchio (Last Minute to Jaffna guitarist and a closer friend of the band) they recorded a first demo of four songs in which we can find the first features of the band: a powerful stoner rock trio, sludge riffs, psychedelic landscapes and doom sessions.

The atmosphere around the band is devilish, but ironic as we can see from some song titles such as “The Rime of the Ancient Grower”, “Tangerine Nightmare”, or “Once Upon a Tentacle…”, that suggest the passion of the guys for H.P. Lovecraft and in a more general way for esotericism. The mystery of the city of Turin and the magical and esoteric places around it fascinate the band as we can notice from the title and the cover of the first album “Musineè Doom Session Volume 1”. Mount Musinè is situated in Val Susa and has always been surrounded by local myths such as witchcraft and alien life.

In July 2011 the band recorded the six songs on the album “Musineè Doom Session Volume 1” (CD – CD LTD screenprinted – LP) with the help of Danilo and Paolo Paganelli (Woptime, Linea 77, Muddy Mokes, Rock-a-Hula) and the master session has been done by Lorenzo Stecconi (sound engineer for Ufomammut, Lento, ZU, Grime, Amen Ra). The album includes the four songs of the old demo and two more new songs “Ketama Gold” and “At War with Yog-Sothoth” that clearly suggest the direction of the band. The album, released by Heavy Psych Sounds and Escape from Today, is available from March 2012. In 2013 the band recorded a couple of songs for a split-album with Lento, released by Heavy Psych-Sounds, with the help of Danilo and Paolo Paganelli, while the master session has been done by Lorenzo Stecconi. Luca T. Mai, member of ZU, Mombu, played baritone saxophone with Tons on “Dark Medieval Skunk”.

They shared the stage around Europe with bands like Bongzilla, Weedeater, Church Of Misery, Unsane, Napalm Death, Karma To Burn, Big Business, Kylesa, Lesbian, Pentagram, Naam, Fatso Jetson, Yawning Man, between Italy, Austria, Netherland, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, France and Switzerland. In 2014 Tons played at Duna Jam festival in Italy and at Incubate Festival in Tilburg (NL). In 2016 Marco left Tons and Andrea Peracchia (Slaiver, Dogs for Breakfast) joined the band as a new drummer; in the same year Paolo Paganelli, a longtime friend, who already collaborated with the band, became a permanent member too.

In 2017, with the new line-up, Tons finally recorded the second full length album “Filthy Flowers of Doom”, which will be released by Heavy Psych Sounds in April 2018. In May 2018 Tons will be on tour across Europe.

https://www.facebook.com/TONSBAND/
https://soundcloud.com/tonsofeedback
https://www.youtube.com/user/tonsband
https://www.facebook.com/HEAVYPSYCHSOUNDS/
http://www.heavypsychsounds.com/
https://heavypsychsoundsrecords.bandcamp.com/

Proffering noise-infused sludge ritualism over the course of its four extended tracks, Nibiru‘s forthcoming Qaal Babalon is a chamber of horrors worthy of headphone-and-closed-eye immersion. Its 57-minute stretch begins with the engulfing drone extremity of “Oroch” (19:07) and unfolds from there in manners deathly and churning, whether it’s the hammering “Faboan” that follows or the feedback-laden crashing recesses of “Bahal Gah” and the Ramesses-style altar-building of the instrumental “Oxex” that finishes out, all expansive guitar and echoing thud and ultra-creeper moodiness. It’s a weight as much ambient as it is tonal, but rest assured, it’s a weight all the same, and the Torino trio wield it in the manner of some kind of obscure medieval weaponry. Not that I’ve heard it or anything.

Qaal Babalon is available now to preorder via the near-ubiquitous Argonauta Records and follows a 2017 special edition of Nibiru‘s 2013 debut, Caosgon, that the same label released just earlier this month. No substitute for keeping busy.

From the PR wire:

NIBIRU – Qaal Babalon

(Argonauta Records) Italian Ritual Sludgers new album! Their best to date, the natural continuation of the very first works CAOSGON and NETRAYONI. PREORDER NOW AND SAVE 20% – RELEASE DATE SEPT 22nd, 2017.

After their latest full length PADMALOTUS (2015), the impressive EP TELOCH (2016) and the Roadburn Documentary (2017), NIBIRU are today a consolidated strength of the international underground scene, thanks to their inexhaustible attitude both in composition and in live performances, a physically and mental experience.

QAAL BABALON is “the exact continuation of our first opus CAOSGON (2013, re-released in 2017) and NETRAYONI (2014)” the band says “Anger, uncontrolled psychedelia, and now the most sick, intense and suffering creation. ‘Qaal Babalon’ is the lacerating scream of a lost soul.”

TRACK LISTING
1 Oroch
2 Faboan
3 Bahal Gah
4 Oxex

Nibiru is:
Ardath | Guitars, Percussions and Vocals
Ri | Bass, Drones and Synthesizers
L.C. Chertan | Drums

https://www.facebook.com/nibiruritual/
https://nibiru666.bandcamp.com
http://www.nibiruritual.com/
http://www.argonautarecords.com/
https://www.facebook.com/ArgonautaRecords/

Nibiru, Caosgon – 2017 Edition

Italian hypnotists Nibiru released their Caosgon album in 2013 as their first outing. It’s a work of darkened swirl that doubtless owes some of its pulsating cosmic intensity to synth-sludge countrymen forebears Ufomammut but that set the three-piece on a course toward their own identity within atmospheric extremes that they’d continue to develop across offerings like 2015’s Padmalotus and last year’s Teloch, working as part of the diverse and perpetually-growing lineup of Argonauta Records. That same label has stepped forward and will reissue Caosgon next month in an expanded “2017 Edition” with a new tracklist, cover and master, including an unreleased song from the original sessions, “Invokation III : L.S.D.”

You can hear the original version of the record at the bottom of this post. It’s trippy as hell, and one expects the update wouldn’t be any less so given the work the band has done since. You’ll also pardon me, I hope, if as I take the time to dig into the blackened swirl of “Invokation IV: Heru, Khentan, Maati” I also pause to reflect in horror at the fact that the “next month” referred to in the headline above is July, and the implications of that for how quickly this year is going by so far. Doom is slow, time is fleeting. The madness is a lot to keep up with.

Speaking of madness:

Thrilled to announce Argonauta Records will release an extended edition of the stunning 2013 album by Italian psychonauts Nibiru.

CAOSGON is actually a milestone of the ritual sludge scene, been praised by awesome reviews and by massive feedbacks all across the board.

Now the album will benefit of a completely new artwork, new master and a bonus track from the original recording sessions, previously unreleased!

NIBIRU “Caosgon – 2017 Edition” will be released in CD/DD and available from July 7th, 2017. Preorders run here: http://bit.ly/2rfb3su

TRACK-LIST:
1) Invokation I: the Acid skull
2) Smashanam, the Crematorium Ground of Kali
3) Aster Argos
4) Invokation IV: Heru, Khentan, Maati
5) Umbra Venefica
6) Invokation III : L.S.D

Argonauta Records | NeeCee Agency

Nibiru is:
Ardath | Guitars, Percussions and Vocals
Ri | Bass, Drones and Synthesizers
L.C. Chertan | Drums

https://www.facebook.com/nibiruritual/
https://nibiru666.bandcamp.com
http://www.nibiruritual.com/
http://www.argonautarecords.com/
https://www.facebook.com/ArgonautaRecords/

Nibiru, Caosgon (2013)

I still count the last Shabda record, Pharmakon / Pharmakos (review here), as one of the most pleasant surprises that hit my ears in 2015, so the news that the Italian ritual drone outfit are working on a follow-up is definitely well received. Whenever it lands, Vishnu Sahasranama – 10 STUDI — they’ve apparently got a real thing for complex names — might not have the same surprise factor this time from the Torino-based group, but if the difference is I can look forward to hearing what they’ve come up with this time, that seems like a fair trade for not being blindsided. And who knows? They’re weird enough that I might just end up blindsided anyway.

The new Shabda, like Pharmakon / Pharmakos, will be issued through Argonauta Records when it’s ready. The band and the label both posted the following on the subject, listing it as an early autumn release:

Shabda working on new album!

After the 2 tracks long celebration of Pharmakon / Pharmakos, released a year and half ago by Argonauta Records, Shabda are back in the studio recording their fourth album which will see the light in early autumn 2017. “Vishnu Sahasranama – 10 STUDI” – this is the title – is inspired by the traditional Indian Vaishnava text commented by Sankara and representing the model of the garland of a thousand names, the practice of meditation on the metaphysical qualities of god Visnu conceived as the absolute principle.

A group of exceptional musicians and friends plays the ten compositions written by Anna Airoldi and Marco Castagnetto, painting a fresco that encompasses Western classical music and kosmische musik, Eastern tradition and psychedelia, pursuing and cultivating the exploration of the link between East and West, between continuity and innovation.

An album living of contrasts among contemplation and instinct, composition and improvisation, between electronic and acoustic music, leaving it open to interpretation and diversity of listening experience. Traveling from Europe to Varanasi and back, with an ear to the legacy of Popol Vuh, Dead Can Dance and Nils Frahm.

Deep listening and repetition are the keys around which the identity of the project is built, and the channel to direct the search for timeless and spaceless dimension of being. Ideally channeling Marco Castagnetto and Anna Airoldi spiritual research, supported by a bunch of talented musicians and friends, Shabda explores the fil rouge that holds the Tradition in its Western and Eastern currents, primarily referring to Hermeticism, Vedanta, Taoism and Sufism.

https://www.facebook.com/shabdaofficial/
http://shabdahq.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/ArgonautaRecords/
http://www.argonautarecords.com/

Shabda, Pharmakon / Pharmakos (2015)

I’m not entirely sure what a ‘super looper groover’ is or what one does, but that shit is catchy and No Good Advice seem to know it. The Italian four-piece seem to toe the line between stoner and more aggro fare on their debut album, From the Outer Space — as opposed to the Innerspace, lest we have to call up Dennis Quaid, Martin Short and peak-era Meg Ryan (actually, come to think of it, 1987 was “peak-era” all three) — at least if “Super Looper Groover” is anything to go by, but golly they sound like they’re having a good time doing so.

Argonauta Records will have From the Outer Space released on April 28 and preorders are up now if that’s your thing. The posted word that the hook-laden “Super Looper Groover” is available now for public consumption, and you’ll find it below along with the album art and more info on the band.

Have at it:

No Good Advice – From the Outer Space

Italian Stoner Rockers No Good Advice reveal cover artwork and first single from their highly anticipated new album. The song “Super Looper Groover” is available here.

The album “From the Outer Space” will be available from April 28, 2017. The CD edition is enriched by an extensive 24 pages booklet with high quality sci-fi illustrations and themes. Preorders run here: http://bit.ly/2neQfxZ

TRACK-LIST:
1 The Great Dawn
2 Space Surfers
3 Black Monolith
4 Napalm
5 Suicide Inside
6 Stoned Jesus
7 Super Looper Groover
8 Astronaut Superstar
9 Mother of the Void
10 Tears of the Universe
11 Into Your Grave
12 Between the Earth and Space

No Good Advice begin their journey in Turin (Italy) in autumn 2012, from an idea of the founders Livio “Rozzy” Cadeddu (guitar and vocals), Giacomo “Jack Daniel’s” Passarelli (drums) and Enrico “Mr. Reeno” Paternò (bass). After a line-up change Lorenzo “Big Muff” Moffa (guitar) joins the band in the end of 2014.

The result is the creation of songs that embrace the compositional style of “Stoner Rock” with a massive use of persistent and powerful riffs where fast rhythm sections accompany a “seventies” touch.

www.facebook.com/nogoodadvice1
https://twitter.com/nga_band
http://www.argonautarecords.com/shop/music-/193-no-good-advice-from-the-outer-space-cd.html

No Good Advice, “Super Looper Groover”

Italian drone ritualists Shabda release their third album, Pharmakon / Pharmakos, on Sept. 7 through Argonauta Records. Comprised entirely of two tracks each on the north side of 20 minutes long, it is a two-sided full-length of gripping texture and atmospheric impressionism informed by Eastern-style scale work and instrumentation — sitar, tabla, etc. — and vocalized in similar fashion where and when it is at all. Both “Pharmakon” and “Pharmakos,” the two extended pieces that make the album up and from which it derives its title, function in this general methodology, and yet there are differences between them as well, Shabda uniting them with a sense of overall fluidity of motion, and an exploratory honesty that makes on think even if they got lost along the way — they don’t — they’d still put that on the record because it’s the journey they as a band and the listener both take that matters, not how it all ends up. Richly evocative, peaceful in its early going and tumultuous at its finish, one could just as easily say there’s a linear course throughout the two tracks/41 minutes, but that’s an oversimplification, and along with the stylistic boldness displayed by Anna Airoldi (sitar, vocals, synths), Marco Castagnetto (laptop, percussion, vocals) and Riccardo Fassone (guitar, bass, vocals), there’s very little about Pharmakon / Pharmakos one would be right in calling simple.

“Pharmakon” unfolds gracefully amid drones, subtle percussion, sinewy sitar and an obscure, vaguely religious chant, and it’s not until about the 12-minute mark that the first distorted guitar rises to prominence. This changes the course and focus gradually, but about two minutes later, the sitar drops out, there’s a fade and a thick riff takes hold complemented by drums and other percussion — cymbals, bowls — and “Pharmakon” takes on a surprising lurch, like a heavier early Earth or something deep in the recesses of Queen Elephantine‘s subconscious. A march is underway, and the track shifts patiently, always patiently, toward an experimentalist’s apex that seems to boil over just as it tops out, devolving quickly into fading noise. Of the two, “Pharmakos” is the more… grounded? I’m not sure if that’s the right word, because it’s all pretty earthy. Either way, a low-end drone opens the first two minutes and rises backed by deep-mixed swirling echo vocals and a sense of foreboding. The volume swell continues and gains a rhythm almost deceptively, the ritual happening before the listener’s ears, and right at the moment where this wash of drone turns abrasive, Shabda add vicious one-off crashes. One after another. A plod. A lumber. If a riff could be a temple — and I think we all know it can — then “Pharmakos” constructs a pyramid out of these crashes, this nodding repetition. Vocals arrive, chants and incantations either in conversation with each other or not, and it becomes clear that this grueling pilgrimage is the course to be held for the duration. Gone are the pastoral sitarisms of “Pharmakon,” and arrived is a consuming, unsettling swell in their places. A lead is added to the charge as the 15-minute mark of “Pharmakos” is passed, and it becomes one more layer of an engrossing, massive wall of noise that cuts out in minute 19 but keeps the same rhythm in long-fading percussion, a shaker maybe and a bowl of some sort, the shaker being the last noise, ending cold at about 20:20.

And even those with that for vision will likely take a time or two through Pharmakon / Pharmakos before its breadth has really sunk in. Shabda released their debut, The Electric Bodhisattva in early 2013 and their sophomore outing, Tummo, in early 2014, but each of their full-lengths seems to be pushing toward a more realized take on their avant approach, and whatever they might be seeking, Pharmakon / Pharmakos would seem to be the closest they’ve come yet. The farther out they go, the closer they come.

Today I have the deep pleasure of hosting “Pharmakos” as a track premiere to herald the album’s arrival in Sept. — which will be here sooner than you think. Thanks to Argonauta and to Shabda for the permission. If you have headphones handy, you’ll want them.

Go ahead and wrap your head around this:

Pharmakon / Pharmakos is the third album by Shabda, a year after the highly acclaimed psychic journey of Tummo. Voluntary hermits established in the rural countryside of Canavese, Piedmont, they fulfill, with this work, a rite of foundation, emanating their blanket of dense droning sound to link distant yet compatible musical mythologies. The two suites forming the album shape time, space and repetition building a sound that drives West and East to confront in the field of pure sound: it’s not doom, nor folk, nor drone in strict sense, but the heavy golden thread that structures the homogeneity of compositions draws a monolithic identity, simultaneously saturnine and solar.

Stylistically, Pharmakon is based on Raga Kafi, tinging it in Middle Eastern shades before crashing on the obsessively guitar oriented drift of its climax. Pharmakos gives off its textural essentiality on the vocal and rhythmic cells of Tibetan mantric music, pushing tension towards the void: then its features are stripped to the bones of an overloaded metal behemoth to investigate pre-existence, life, death and continuity.

Also, Shabda in partnership with Argonauta Records will actively support Nepal populations affected by the earthquake by donating 10% for each copy sold of Pharmakon/Pharmakos album to Nepalese children through Save the Children.

Preorders: http://shop.pe/U2z9B – http://shop.pe/pfWzY

Shabda on Thee Facebooks

Shabda on Bandcamp

Argonauta Records

Argonauta Records on Thee Facebooks

Today, Italian trio Stearica announce the April 2015 arrival of their sophomore full-length, Fertile, on the UK’s Monotreme Records. For the progressive, mostly-instrumental three-piece, it’s a record based on unrest and the hope that uprising can bring. Francesco Carlucci (guitar, bass, synth, programming, etc.), Davide Compagnoni (drums, percussion, samples) and Luca Paiardi (bass) took inspiration from the Arab Spring in the Middle East and Spain’s political unrest in 2011, when the band was there to play Primavera Sound.

One might think that, as a result, there would be an element of chaos to Fertile, but that’s not really the case. Even the later “Siqlum,” which kind of devolves in its midsection only to reignite with insistent rhythm and starts and stops of heavy-riffed thrust, Stearica are never out of control. It’s not a riot, in other words. The nine tracks of Fertile have a full-breadth of sound, clear tonality and a forward drive. If they’re a political movement, then they’re organized. A brooding midsection groover like “Geber” is brash in its swing where a cut like “Tigris” winds up more in Russian Circles territory of heavy post-rock (or is it post-heavy rock?), but wherever they take their sound, Stearica remain consistently adventurous enough that the listener has no trouble moving with them, even when the first whispered vocals of the penultimate “Amreeka” kick in, barely there, then building in their momentum as the song heads for its apex, or when 11-minute closer “Shah Mat” rises from a ultra-quiet guitar line to a wash of heavy noise and back down to a minimalist drone to close out.

“Halite” is the second cut on Fertile after the opener “Delta” and packs enough heft that fans of Pelican should find something to grasp onto, but is ultimately steered somewhere else, a sweet guitar melody overlaid on top of dense rhythmic turns. Stearica are never far from this kind of ambience, and their tonal resonance speaks to the central political theme of progress, which clearly they see as a cause worth fighting for.

Please find “Halite” on the player below, followed by some comment from the band in the announcement of the album release, and enjoy:

“Upon arriving in Barcelona to perform at Primavera Sound during the 2011 Indignants protests was the spark that ignited the inspiration for this record, and the Arab Spring revolutions unfolding across the Middle East as we wrote the album further fuelled our inspiration,” issues the band’s Francesco Carlucci. Both the concept of “fertile” as “life-giving” and the revolutionary impulses of the Arab Spring and the Indignants protests in Barcelona provided inspiration for this latest work from STEARICA, who begin their creative process by freely improvising for several hours. The ensuing torrents of sound give birth to finished songs, just as a receding flood leaves behind fertility-bringing silt. Produced by the band’s Francesco Carlucci, Fertile captures the primordial nature of the sound that the trio creates in their dynamic live performances. At times brutal, chaotic, mysterious, tranquil; Fertile is music born of our time: instinctively revolutionary.

Fertile will be released in Europe on April 13th and in North America April 14th, on CD and digital download formats, as well as a deluxe 180-gram 2xLP double gatefold edition of 500 with a free poster and album CD included inside: 300 copies on red and black vinyl and 200 copies on black. The artwork, by Albanian artist Moisi Guga, beautifully reflects the symbolic imagery of the concept of Fertile. Physical product preorders from the Monotreme Records web shop will also receive free STEARICA pins and stickers while supplies last. Preorders can be placed HERE. More info on the album will be issued in the coming days.

Stearica’s website

Stearica on Thee Facebooks

Monotreme Records

Monotreme Records on Thee Facebooks