Cave Evil - KVVL Radio Mixtape (Rotten Shape, 2013)

I was never a RPG guy. Tried my hand at a couple one summer back in '92 but I just wasn't nerdy in that particularly way. What I am nerdy about to this day, is anything dark ambient or black metal. If you like either / both of these, boy oh boy, do I have a treat for you.

A really creative subgenre is black metal presented as if it were being made in the middle ages (Wolfmangler, Dead Raven Choir, etc.). The music presented here is the soundtrack to some ridiculous "Necro-Demonic Dungeon Brawl Boardcame", and it contains a sort of black subgenre, mixed with some sound effects and ritual electronic blackness.

Even if you scoff at RPG's, try the tunes. Fun stuff. The ninety minute mixtape features tracks from Night of Ultraviolence, Wizard333, Swordsect, Abandoned Places, Manifester, Cex, MarderIII, Muroc, Hatred, Crypt Enforcer, Whispers of Dead Gods, Tres Quatro, Mammal, OoznDmrr, Indignant Senility, and Khand. Uh huh, laugh until you listen.

Thanks to Justin Farrar for the heads up on this one. Listen on the completely over the top radio station website HERE

Or at Bandcamp:

Torn Birch - Effigy (VAALD, 2013)

Earlier this year, Grant Evans, of Hooker Vision, unleashed a beast that wouldn't be conducive to his primary label. VAALD is his new venture, one that documents the lower depths of sound exploration.

Torn Birch, an anonymous project released as part of Evans' first batch of cassettes, is a mindbending listen. This is a narrative pastiche that surpasses music and noise, moving into pure emotion. Beginning in a vein reminiscent of the earliest Abruptum recordings, there are pangs of anguish in the vocals. Things later alternate between ambient, drone and noise, relaying a perfectly experimental bedroom black metal aesthetic. "Effigy" is a paradox of beauty and horror.

Annalium Desparatio, Third Wave Part 1 (Mixtape, 2012)

Annalium Desparatio: A Fronte Praecipitium, A Tergo Lupi, Third Wave Part 1 by The Nomadic Subject on Mixcloud

Last winter, I handmade a cassette boxset for five friends of mine. The four cassettes contained a chronological history of black metal. First, second, and third wave. Here, I've mixed the first part of the third wave. Eventually, I'll mix the remainder and post those as well. Enjoy the Darkness...

Spektr - Mescalyne (Moribund, 2007)

This entire album is frantically sharp and steeped in hollowed layers of tattered atmosphere. The French black metal duo present the four song ep Mescalyne with full electronic voracity of brightly distorted, melodic guitar hiss and meticulous drumming that often slips into a rhythmic dichotomy, enhancing a sense of depth. I would almost venture to say that this album is seemingly gray rather than black in it's tone. This album is far too taken care of, as an important representation of it's creator's art to be thought of as low-fi or cold recorded. Though it's feeling brings a chill, it doesn't remind me of damp viking crawl spaces, looming heavy moans. Mescalyne is reflective of the Gothic shadows of the ages and the intellectual horrors that emerge from progress, holy faith and validity. Or it sounds like broken glass has been inserted behind your eye sockets while waking up in a wind tunnel, which ever translation you prefer.

--Sean Dail

Get It Here

Korperschwache - Evil Walks (2010, Crucial Blast)

This Texas mysterioso is really doing it for me right now. Noisy creepy crawlie blackened psychedelic Industrial mayhem containing warm tones and textures. There are obvious elements of Swans and Godflesh. However, nothing does their sound a just description more than the fact that the label describes them as Loop meets Abruptum.

Chew on that idea for a minute. That's what I thought, nothing else need be said.

Get It Here

Or:

Moevot - Abgzvoryathre (1993) DEMO tape

Moevot (Vordb from Les Legions Noires) makes the blackest metal without a hint of Black Metal. This is pure Ambient darkness. From a clean and beautiful vocal chanting an inverted Lord's Prayer to deathly gurgling over simple organ repition, this is spine-tingling music. A world of very real paranoia envelopes me as I listen to this on headphones while sitting in the dark. This is no joke. Utterly bleak and minimal guitar strumming performed in the cultish context presented here is disturbing and extremely uncomfortable. This feels like the score to a silent 1920's black mass snuff film. Definitive Black Ambient.

Get It Here

Learn more about Les Legions Noire here

Chaos Moon - Languor into Echoes, Beyond (2007, Ars Magna Recordings)

This band is primarily the project of Esoterica. The fact that these guys hail from Nashville, Tennessee surprises the hell out of me. For all I knew this could have been someone in his bedroom in the Eastern Bloc.

The first half of the record is chock full of blast-beats and second wave familiarity that most Black Metal fans will enjoy. However, in the middle of the fourteen minute epic "Simulacrum of Mirrors", things shift in the favor of those who enjoy Atmospheric Black Metal. I'm just implying some similarity. I do not intend to lump this band into the Wolves in the Throne Room category. What I find most interesting about this album is the use of standard blast-beats and the use of ethereal keyboards almost in opposition to each other culminating in its own cohesive sound.

This results in Ambient AND Black Metal, not Ambient Black Metal. Many elements presented here will be familiar to those who enjoyed Leviathan's "Lurker of Chalice" project. Also in contrast is the romantic sound of Chaos Moon. I have no idea what the lyrics are but little of this recording feels suicidal or even self-loathing to me. There is more than a sliver of light seeping through in "The Palterer" and in "Hymn to Iniquity" where there are obvious hints of 4AD and Shoegaze.

If you are open to synthesizers with your Black Metal, I'd be shocked if you didn't enjoy this one.

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Locrian - The Crystal World (2010)

Chicago based duo (now trio) Locrian are the epitome of the current Avant Metal Scene. Devising a brilliant pastiche of Noise, Doom, Drone and Black Metal, the result is a highly intriguing journey.

Based on the 1964 novel by J.G. Ballard about a doctor specializing in the treatment of leprousy, the caustic overtones make for an intense scenario. The compositions feel loose and improvisational and that's a format I'm consistently fond of. This is a nearly stream of consciousness aesthetic that is extremely dismal and chaotic yet pleasant and mature amidst the build-up and deconstruction.

Minimal synthesizer/keyboard drones and sometimes agressive sometimes buried growling vocals lead into quiet tribal drumming and patient guitar swells. The desperate and apocalyptic tension gives way to a crescendo of noisy blackened doom. The e-bowed guitar is reminiscent of Nachtmystium's album "Instinct:Decay" (Blake Judd has actually joined them on a previous outing). The second movement of this double length record is an epic single track of nearly an hour.

After seeking a tasteful merger of Black Metal and Drone for quite a while, I've stumbled upon it here. Experiencing the intensity of this group's live show earlier this year was quite an experience as well. In fact, it was one of the best I've ever had.

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