Bohren & Der Club of Gore - Piano Nights (Ipecac, 2014)

One of my favorite bands of all time has returned with their eighth album. Have they changed the formula? Have they reinvented the wheel? Have they altered course for new destinations in uncharted regions? No on all counts. Nothing is different. Their concoction of ambient doom and jazz meets lounge need not change. The adagio / requiem is a perfectly haunting and romantic melancholy to soothe the thinker's soul. With sax, keys, bass and drums so flawlessly executed and painstakingly slow, the patience required to play this music seems an other worldly talent. These German masters win me over yet again. Timeless.

Listen to the full album here or on Spotify below:

Corrupted - El Mundo Frio (HG Fact, 2005)

Corrupted are quite possibly the most patient band in the world. They are the epitome of doom: near infinite intros, slowly plodding downtuned riffs, ambient space, growling vocals, and minimal delivery. Amidst all this, they even somehow succeed in incorporating a harp, proving to be as equally delicate and lush as they are heavy. Many of their albums are single tracks that pass the hour mark, reinforcing the unending bleakness of content.

The veteran Japanese act offers some of the most beautifully dystopian sounds I've ever heard. In keeping with the depressing aesthetic, in its twenty year existence, the band has never given an interview and does not do photos. Although they tour the west, they dismiss general interest in mass appeal. One esoteric factor is the use of Spanish as the choice of language for lyrics. Its a fascinating niche they've carved for themselves, and the abundance of fan posted live footage on youtube shows that it is working very well.

The Stranger - Watching Dead Empires in Decay (Modern Love, 2013)

James Leyland Kirby is, without question, one of my most listened to artists of the past few years. His work as The Caretaker is akin to the static background music of my mind. Whereas that work invokes the ghosts of the Overlook Hotel ballroom, with its chopped and screwed 78's, his new work as The Stranger has a different cinematic feel.

This is like the bleakest scenes from Eraserhead. This is what it would sound like if Raime and Demdike Stare were proles working in a  factory at night. The graveyard shift crew haggard and miserable, overworked and delirious. The ambience is their hallucinations, horrors fit for the dungeon they're in. The percussive elements are the proverbial whips to the back demanding the completion of this sixteen hour task. There is also a bit of Lustmord's "Metavoid" record, like plodding through a marsh knee deep in the muck, as in a nightmare when you have trouble walking. If you find beauty in masochistic doom and gloom, you'll love this one.

Check this new video for one of my favorite bands:

Video by Kyle Tompkins

Stream the album HERE

Purchase the vinyl HERE

Thou - The Archer and the Owle (Sweat Lode Guru, 2012)

One of the best cassette purchases I've ever made. This is refined doom / sludge / dirge / metal. Absolutely gorgeous material here. In the spirit of Mournful Congreation and Warning. Modern doom not quite as depressing as Loss or Ocean, but definitely comparable. I say that only because the the Nirvana cover softens everything up. They treat "Something in the Way" with patience Kurt Cobain would've been proud of.

You can stream the album HERE



Download the album HERE

Thanks to Chad Layton.

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.

Get it Here