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:

Listening Mirror - What's Wrong with Miracles? (Twice Removed, 2012)

Crawley, UK artist Jeff Stonehouse has just released one of the most compelling records of his genre in recent memory. With an impressive sense of patience, he offers three eerie yet elegant twenty minute tracks of dark ambient / minimal soundscapes.

Showing a tenacious grasp of sound sculpture, Stonehouse's delivery is reminiscent of music that might be composed for film score and recorded by a perfectionist engineer. Sparse guitar and striking piano chords are bathed in reverb, creating a feeling that would be just as at home in a long Tarkovsky take as it would in a bleak sci-fi or quiet horror film.

This is heavy and lovely material. Fans of Vidna Obmana, Lustmord, and the darker side of Steve Roach take note.

Listen / Download Here

Xambuca - Joulupukki (Erototox Decodings, 2011)

The Sami, Europe's northernmost inhabitants, are an indigenous arctic culture inhabiting Fennoscandia (the Scandinavian Peninsula, the Kola Peninsula, Karelia and Finland). There, underneath the Baltic Sea, lies the Baltic Shield, the exposed Precambrian northwest segment of the East European Craton. It is composed mostly of volcanic rock belts which have undergone numerous deformations through tectonic activity. This region contains the oldest rocks of the European continent. During the Pleistocene epoch, great continental ice sheets scoured and depressed the shield's surface, leaving a thin covering of glacial material and innumerable lakes and streams. The Baltic Shield is still rebounding today following the melting of the thick glaciers during the our current ice age, the Quaternary Period.

This first full-length from Xambuca states dedication to the Saami people and the nation of Sapmi. The music here seems to equate not only to the 3 billion year old geological history of this icy multi-cultural region, but to the ancient pre-christian shamans, cult images and animal ceremonies so important to its people. Unfortunately, and much like the rest of Scandinavia, Swedish priests eventually refuted and abolished anything they deemed heathenism, superstition or witchcraft.

Joulupukki is cerebral electronic music fueled by dark ambience and introspection. These are soundscapes that are at once glacial and volcanic, driven by minimal beats that feel post-industrial and post-techno. There is a consistently somber mood presented here. Certain pieces hint at martial percussion and there are even sounds that invoke concepts of science fiction and Marinetti's retro-futurism that are all shrouded in Orwellian discontent. Later there is a track of doom-laden electric guitar that ever so slowly cuts through the breakers of the Baltic Sea.

Under this monumental weight, the Atlas that is Joulupukki manages to attain catharsis. The latter pieces over-driven, the beats big, brutal and nasty, the record seems to therapeutically expunge itself of all emotion, culminating in a final cut that is a defiant ship lost in a storm, battered by rogue waves yet faithfully waiting for the calm. In this state of mind, devoid of all concern, there is nothing left but a meditative stasis.

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Ensemble Economique - Psychical (Not Not Fun, 2010)

I know this fantastic artwork is just making you think "Witch House" but don't be deceived, Brian Pyles from California project Starving Weirdos has succeeding in bypassing that cliche and making an incredibly original campy shlock horror score that will impress any skeptic with the most discriminating tastes.

This selection of percussive drones and psychedelic loops has a tongue in cheek aesthetic that actually delivers a worthwhile product that may just stand the test of time. It creeps me out without any campy routine. Tracks flow seamlessly creating a meditative state of horror, sex and drug use in a way that I've never experienced. Try lumping this work into the Goblin worship category and you've got another thing coming.

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Coil presents: Black Light District - A Thousand Lights in a Darkened Room (Eskaton,1996)

Following a very quite few years in the early 90's Coil released many re-issues and the wonderful Elph project "Worship the Glitch" in '95. That record showed that the acid house era was complete for ol' Jhon and Sleazy, with somber ambient song structures. The follow up project, which they called Black Light District, saw them fully embracing the next phase in their musical history. This is grown up Coil. The presented us with magickal, alchemical sound-sculpture in the creepiest environments conceivable. Reminiscent of the post-rave movement in the UK, it seems like that acid house psyche is recognizing the impact of all the amphetamines and accepting the reality of deplenished neurotransmitters. Often, the depressive introspection brought on by this physiological state causes beautiful yet oppressively emotional and intimate music. Coil was not afraid to let us in. Coil was never afraid of anything.

Long live Coil.

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Nurse With Wound - Soliloquy for Lilith (Idle Hole, 1988)

Stephen Stapleton is one of my music gods. He's one of those artists with an unbelievably prolific output over many years that never really disappoints. Often touted as an industrial artist, much of his dark ambient and drone work seems to fall by the wayside for most. This is his magnum opus. Its quite simply 106 minutes of meditative creepiness. I forget what an impact music like this can make on the psyche. I was just out for a late night stroll through the neighborhood with my dogs while listening to this one, and succeeded in spooking myself a bit. The frequencies in these drones really did a number on me. For those of you a little disillusioned by goth or black / death metal or horror scores, try a bit of the drone. It can cure your desensitized ears and give you the creeps you thought were a lost cause. A big hit if you're a fan of Coil's "Time Machines" record.

"The album was recorded by Steven Stapleton and his wife Diana Rogerson in May 1988. The only sound source was a number of effects units which he had set up to operate in a feedback loop - there was no original input signal being processed, simply the feedback hum generated by plugging the original chain of pedals back into itself. However, when Stapleton went near the pedals he found the sound changed in accordance with his proximity to the various pedals and units. Stapleton told author David Keenan (in the book England's Hidden Reverse) that he had created the album by gently moving his fingers above the various units to create the slow, subtle changes in the sound. As this shouldn't happen, Stapleton has put the album down to an electrical fault of some sort in the studio. This was acknowledged on a later reissue with the credit "our thanks to Electricity for making this recording possible". He remains proud of the album, describing it to Keenan as "fucking brilliant". The album title refers to Stapleton and Rogerson's daughter Lilith who was born that year." -- from Wikipedia

Get pt. 1 here
Get pt. 2 here
Get pt. 3 here

The Caretaker - Persistent Repetition of Phrases (Install, 2008)

Remember the feeling you had when you were watching Stanley Kubrick's The Shining and Jack enters the Gold Room, the ballroom of the Overlook Hotel? There is a definitive emotion that occurs when the first notes of that 1920's jazz begins to play. Its ominous, creepy, spectral and unrelenting. That sequence in the bathroom with Delbert Grady, the previous caretaker, is quite possibly the most brilliantly frightening experience I had as a young person ingesting art of any kind.

Electronic musician James Kirby recreates these feelings with this project. Cutting and pasting jazz from the 1920's and 1930's, he reduces the tempo and adds effects, resulting in an alien transmission as beautiful as it is psychotic. These soundscapes are unmatched in their simplicity and elegance.

"No sir, YOU are the caretaker. You've always been the caretaker. I ought to know: I've always been here."

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Leviathan - A Silhouette in Splinters (2005, Profound Lore)

Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.

Justice the founder of my fabric mov'd:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.

Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.

Such characters in colour dim I mark'd
Over a portal's lofty arch inscrib'd:
Whereat I thus: Master, these words import.

--Dante Alighieri "Divine Comedy, 1321

Wrest is one of the most complex and fascinating characters in Black Metal today. Barring all the controversy about his personal life, he remains a prolific and competent artist in multiple realms. He is the force behind not only Leviathan but Lurker of Chalice (my favorite album of 2006) and a contributor to Twilight, Nachtmystium and Sunn O))).

I can't praise this album enough. Whereas Leviathan is typically a project that emulates classic washed out and lo-fi depressive black metal recordings that always sound like demo tapes, you'll find no blastbeats here. This is a purely ambient venture that rivals the likes of early Lustmord. Droning layers of electric guitar slink across our conscious mental processes, navigating dark and untouched hemispheres of repressed memories. Meditative and patient, these environments quietly shriek of malevolence, misanthropy and discontent.

Without resolution, this album eloquently leads us down a road toward hopelessness. Listening to this record is akin to watching the apocalypse unfold before your eyes after ingesting an overdose of sedatives.

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Demdike Stare - Forest of Evil (Modern Love, 2011)

Don't worry. Keep reading. This one is not a black metal review. Although, from the album title and cover, it's surprising that its not.

Demdike Stare is one of the most original sounds I've heard in a long time. Created as an act to produce imaginary horror films, they've separated the wheat from the chaff, and disregarded the current Goblin revivalism. The result is a highly intelligent blend of spooky dark ambient, Basic Channel / Chain Reaction inspired minimal dub techno and a just a tasteful dash of industrial.

DS know how to build lush atmospheres. Jarring, spastic piano stabs give way to horrific ritualistic dark ambience. This blends into a 4/4 Neubauten-fueled metallic percussion track that finishes with a monumentally cinematic synth line.

This is the first of three LP's they released in 2011. All three are available on a compilation called Tryptych.

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Arcane Device - Also Sprach Zarathustra (1990, Anckarstrom)

Consider the fact that Drone is a buzz word these days. Now, consider the fact that some hipster kids are into it. Now, consider the fact that I was made fun of for listening to Steve Roach at 18 years old, in 1992. Everything that used to be made fun of is now cool. Well, somehow, David Lee Myers remains under the hipster radar as well as mine until recently.

This recording is flooring me. I listened to it because it came to me amidst a mass mp3 swap. Yep, hooked into the matrix and assimilated a hard drive. I do that often and I do it unabashedly. However, over the years its become increasingly rare that I'm shocked and amazed. I began listening to this 50 minute album because it was next in my alphabetized itunes after choosing the genre "ambient". When it breached the wall of background music I thought to myself "hmm... I wonder which dark ambient superstar this is? Side project of Lustmord or Raison D'etre or Sephiroth?". Wrong. No one I'd ever heard of and recorded in 1990? Impossible but true.

David Lee Myers used the Arcane Device moniker from 1987 to 1993. He collaborated with musicians such as Asmus Tietchens, Tod Dockstader, Marco Oppedisano, and Kim Cascone. He was drawn to the feedback possibilities and various effects boxes associated with electronic music. After grasping the concepts behind Frippertronics and Eno's ambient music, he built a system that would produce feedback to be manipulated by numerous dials, knobs, and buttons, all rigged together. The results sound nothing like feedback as we have come to know it -- depending on Myers' treatments, the sounds produced feel like synthesizers, rhythm boxes, industrial noise, and ambient drones.

Steve Roach meets Fripp meets Lustmord. Fucking weird and goooooood.

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Lustmord - Metavoid (2001)

This was my introduction to Dark Ambient music. A crucial experience that slightly altered my perception, as if I'd found an answer that had previously eluded me.

Brian Williams has been recording as Lustmord for 30 years. He IS Dark Ambient. After a stint in SPK in 1982, he delved deeper and deeper into a distinct horror / Sci-fi soundscape formula culminating in a successful career as a film sound artist in Hollywood.

Metavoid is rather different than most of his work, as it is quite symphonic. A most accessible work that could easily have been a film score. Gently unsettling, its more the fog of darkness as opposed to his usual terror and confusion as though actually being in the belly of the beast. Don't misunderstand, with titles like "The Ambivalent Abyss", "Blood Deep In Dread" and "A Light That is Darkness", this is no cakewalk but simply a good place to start for anyone interested in the genre.

The bulk of his discography is extremely demonic and unsettling. Though rarely abrasive, his work is so dense with corrupted tones, incantaions, tibetan horns, bullroarers, and chanting that it makes me feel as if I'm about to be sacrificed at some evil mass. Incidentally, His first live performance in 25 years was at The Church of Satan's high mass observance on (06-06-06). So lets go plodding through the viscous aural crimson waters like in that dream you had once where you were being chased by a specter but couldn't get off your knees. Creeped out yet?

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