German duo Zement issue their third full-length, Rohstoff, on July 9 through Crazysane Records. “Entzücken,” as it happens, is the longest song on it, running 10:53 and typifying the two-piece’s synth-led, drum-inclusive mostly-instrumentalist krautrock syle. Too prog for the planet, so they left it far behind earlier in the album, say, right around 30 seconds into opener “Goa” when the robot voice checks in. Now, they could’ve made a video for “Entzücken” with space scenery, or with archive footage from the public domain, set up a mirror effect to trip it out, and let it go for 10 minutes. Nothing against that. A lot of bands do it and it’s fine. Gets the word out, puts the material on another algorithm, blah blah. And certainly “Entzücken” is hypnotic enough that they would have pulled it off just fine and no one would blink, partially because their brains would shut down and their autonomic response would slip.

Zement — comprised of Philipp Hager and Christian Büdel — don’t go that way with “Entzücken.” They go the other way, which is to chronicle a faux hot-ramen eating competition through multiple stages of what seems to be a championship scenario until a victor is crowned. Are the noodles really hot? I don’t know. Is hot-ramen really a thing in competitive eating? I don’t know. I don’t care. The clip is brilliant. True, it pushes the song to a backing position, but hell’s bells, in trade you get to watch 10 minutes of hilarious noodle consumption with German-language commentary over the top — mind you I have zero idea what they’re saying — and witness the genius of a group willing to serve the piece by using as that, a piece, of a larger presentation. In this case, a soundtrack. You’re gonna enjoy it, that’s all I’ll say.

Rohstoff unfolds long and short-form krauty weirdness, texturing psychedelia into “Soil” and “Seine” — by different means, but psychedelia nonetheless — no less easily than they do soft jazz saxophone into “Kleiner 3” and the dancier “Zunder.” “Atem” caps with a dream drone and looped speech, but only after “Ecke 54” has manifested a folk dance for a folk who never existed, playful and strange in kind. “Entzücken” is a part of the procession of this 47-minute/eight-song entirety rather than a summary of its whole, but one could hardly ask a better entry point than Zement offer with the video, which is premiering below.

PR wire info follows.

Please enjoy:

Zement, “Entzücken” official video premiere

The third video clip “Entzücken” for Zement’s new album „Rohstoff”, stands in a tradition with Air’s “All I need” and Daft Punk’s “Da funk”. It’s all there: Talking over the song, check. Dump jokes, check. A good concept, yes indeed! Totally bananas! Nobody’s gonna watch an eleven minute long music video (so they say) but, everybody is watching an eleven minute clip of Hot Nudle Fight World-Championship on YouTube! Especially in combination with hot music. This clip stands for itself. It’s entertainment, underlaid with a super nice psyched krauty Techno song by Zement!

Vinyl/Digital: http://smarturl.it/zement?

The German Neo-Kraut/Psychedelic duo ZEMENT return with their third LP sounding better and more focused than before! Combining the wonder of the autobahn with intelligent nods to techno and free jazz, Rohstoff constitutes an endless meditation on the architecture of mind and the movement of bodies.

Tracklisting:
1. Goa (6:23)
2. Soil (3:23)
3. Seine (9:41)
4. Kleiner 3 (4:46)
5. Zunder (2:38)
6. Entzücken (10:53)
7. Ecke 54 (2:51)
8. Atem (6:46)

All songs written and performed by Zement.
Saxophone on “Kleiner 3” and “Zunder” by Martin Pirner.
Produced by Zement & Florian Helleken.
Recorded by Florian Helleken at Hersbrooklyn Recordings.
Mixed by Lolo Blümler at Iron Bar Studios.
Mastered by Chris Hielscher at Subsounddistortion.
Artwork by Complex Pleasures and Hannah Gebauer.
Zement is Philipp Hager & Christian Büdel.

Zement, Rohstoff (2021)

Zement on Facebook

Zement on Instagram

Zement website

Zement preorder at Crazysane Records

Crazysane Records on Facebook

With CD and LP due out through Moment of Collapse Records and cassettes through Sludgelord Records and Hand of Death Records, there’s plenty of backing for Cranial‘s new album, Alternate Endings, which is bound to immediately draw some comparisons to the Hydra Head-style pastiche of post-metal, if only for its cover art. The band have a new trailer posted now that captures some of the ambient sensibility that Alternate Endings will have on offer, but if one goes back and listens to their 2017 outing for Moment of Collapse, Dark Tower / Bright Lights, there’s plenty of churn and crush to go along with that atmospheric reach. I’d expect no less of the upcoming full-length, though it’s always possible they’ve gone all-out drone as well. Something in the tension of that YouTube clip makes me think there’s a payoff lurking there though. Or maybe it’s the song title “Burning Bridges.”

Either way, one imagines harsh things await in the darkness, and that’s just fine. The PR wire brought the info and the aforementioned trailer:

Sludgy post metal heavyweights CRANIAL reveal album details!

“Alternate Endings” coming September 27th on Moment of Collapse Records

Sludge metal heavyweights CRANIAL return with their sophomore album to be released September 27th by capable Moment of Collapse Records! Risen from the ashes of almighty OMEGA MASSIF, CRANIAL took the best ingredients, created their own sound and developed it even further. Powerful and earth shattering, apocalyptic and destructive, melodies as uplifting as they are depressive – once again the band pushed themselves forward and re?ned their songwriting. Working together with Ghost City Recordings and no one else than Magnus Lindberg (Cult of Luna) they found the perfect team for setting up their most crushing sound to date!

“Alternate Endings is our most personally output so far. It is about loss, fear and desperation but also about rise and hope. Within these four songs we captured and encapsulated these strong feelings. Working with Ghost City Recordings and Magnus Lindberg was the perfect match for the new album. They helped us with our vision.” the band comments.

Seeing the light of day September 27th on LP, CD via Moment of Collapse Records and tapes on Sludgelord and Hand of Death Records – a glimpse of what to expect can already be heard and seen in a first teaser at THIS LOCATION!

Alternate Endings tracklisting:
1. Faint Voice
2. Unceasing Lack
3. Burning Bridges
4. Holistic Figure

CRANIAL is:
Michael Melchers (guitar)
Julian Weidhaus (bass, vocals)
Cornelius Merlin (drums)
Sebastian Kröckel (guitar)

www.facebook.com/cranialband
www.facebook.com/momentofcollapse
www.momentofcollapse.com

Cranial, Alternate Endings album trailer

Touring to support their third album, Stellar, German black metallers Der Weg einer Freiheit will come to American shores for the first time next month. The tour focuses on the East Coast and hits into the Midwest, but the roundout gig at the Saint Vitus Bar in Brooklyn has to be a focal point. They’ll be joined for the run by labelmates Barishi, and there’s still one date yet to be announced, so I guess if you’re somewhere between Chicago and Rochester, NY — here’s looking at you, Pittsburgh — it might be a good time to reach out.

The PR wire brings details:

DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT announce first-ever US tour

German underground black metal visionaries DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT have announced their first-ever US tour. The tour, which begins on September 24 in Allentown, PA will see the band travel throughout the American east coast before concluding on October 7 in Brooklyn, NY. The tour sees the band joined by newly-signed label mates BARISHI. A full list of confirmed tour dates can be found below.

DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT are touring in support of their ambitious new album, ‘Stellar’.

Established in 2009, DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT have since made waves across the underground black metal scene in Germany with the release of two full length albums and well-received Eps in between. In their short time as a band, DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT has already toured alongside SHINING, ENSIFERUM, THE OCEAN, and more, and already performed at several festivals in Europe including Graspop, Summer Breeze Open Air, Hellfest, Blastfest, With Full Force Open Air, Barther Metal Open Air and Wolfszeit Festival.

“[DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT is] the future of German Extreme-Metal” – Mille Petrozza, Kreator

DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT tour dates:
9/24 Allentown, PA @ Good Weekend
9/25 Chesapeake, VA @ Riffhouse Pub
9/26 Raleigh, NC @ The Maywood
9/27 Charlotte, NC @ Tremont Music Hall
9/28 Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
9/29 Nashville, TN @ The End
9/30 St. Louis, MO @ Fubar
10/01 Madison, WI @ Willy Street Bar and Grill
10/02 Chicago, IL @ Reggie’s Rock Club
10/03 TBA
10/04 Rochester, NY @ Bug Jar
10/05 Burlington, VT @ Nectar’s
10/06 Allston, MA @ O’Brien’s Pub
10/07 Brooklyn, NY @ Saint Vitus Bar

http://www.derwegeinerfreiheit.de/
https://www.facebook.com/derwegeinerfreiheit
https://www.facebook.com/events/1648815962029459/
http://derwegeinerfreiheit.bandcamp.com/album/stellar
http://www.season-of-mist.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stardustnyc

Der Weg einer Freiheit, Stellar (2015)

According to the numbers — and you’d best believe I go by the numbers rather than my own memory of such things — this is the 150th Wino Wednesday post. In a few short weeks we’ll celebrate three full years of the feature, and I’m glad to say that I think I’ve only missed one week in that time. It’s become a staple in my consciousness, which band, what song, live or studio, what’s out there to find, what’s new, etc., and I’ve enjoyed trying to chase down something different each time out, even if it’s just another live version of “Born too Late” or something like that, bound to be familiar no matter what the source is.

This week we dip back to 2012 for some Wino & Conny Ochs. They were on tour in Europe that spring, having played Roadburn in the all-too-appropriate church setting of Het Patronaat (review here), and it was as comfortable on stage as I saw them, though by the time they got around to doing US dates afterward (review here), the collaboration seemed no less fluid. Supporting their Exile on Mainstream debut, Heavy Kingdom (review here), they offered a look at raw folkish troubadour traditionalism, of course tempered with Ochs‘ bleeding emotionalism and Wino‘s inescapable heavy rock edge.

It might be the folk that comes most to the fore on “Isolation.” A cover of Joy Division, “Isolation” comes from that band’s 1980 swansong, Closer, and aside from extending it, Wino and Ochs take the British outfit’s post-punk/pre-New Wave melancholy and replace it with a righteous acoustic strum, so that “Isolation” sounds more like a public domain railroad song than something Ian Curtis penned before taking his own life. The build at the end is true to the original, but there’s room made for a solo that extends into a jam with the two guitars before bridging back to the chorus and finishing out, making “Isolation” — which also appeared on the Wino & Conny Ochs Latitudes release, Labour of Love — all the more distinctive in this interpretation.

The clip was recorded in Würzburg, Germany on April 3, 2012 at Cairo. Hope you enjoy:

Wino & Conny Ochs, “Isolation” Live in Germany, April 2012