Summer Winter (IMP 48, July 2009)

July’s IMP mix concludes my Summer Trilogy on the bleakest of notes. Somewhat predictably of me I realise, but it’s a kind of predictable I can live with especially given the premise of the series – the soundtrack to my summer split into 3. The final part is 70 minutes of black metal, ranging from the claustrophobic through the ambient to feral punk, doom, back-yard and downright (read subterranean) dirty. All that and more. 12 individual caustic/beautiful entities to climax this triptych.

Sounds just right for long summer days lazing around the beach right? Yep.

Fuck off.



Summer Winter (IMP 48, July 2009)
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Tracklist:

01. De Silence Et d'Ombre - From The Dark Unknown Space
02. Carrion Wraith - Vers Une Nouvelle Ère
03. 1349 - Maggot Fetus... Teeth Like Thorns
04. Woe - Alone With Our Failures
05. Weapon - Cacophony! Black Sun Dragon's Tongue!
06. Bone Awl - Make For Yourself A Last Vision
07. Al Namrood - Atba'a Alnamrood
08. Bone Ritual - Attend To The Signs
09. Darkcell - II
10. Urfaust - Unter Töchtern Der Wüste
11. Teitenblood - Infernal Dance Of The Wicked
12. Cobalt – Two Thumbed Fist



MxBx

USBM DNLD

“This thread, and the other one about the PlanB article, are the best things on the music board since the minimal techno thread.”
marckee

http://drownedinsound.com/community/boards/music/4181610

In response and in addition to Plan B’s article on USBM and my reply post on Drowned in Sound I made my own compilation of US Black Metal to illustrate a whole range of styles of black metal that will hopefully reveal the many different facets and angles to what can be done with this genre of music - or more specifically, what American artists are doing with it, how they are interpreting the templates that already exist and how they are mutating them. I think that it is evident that even the more traditionionally indebted tracks still display a sense of progression and flair for interpretation while the out and out progressive shows scant regard for what went before other than it simply being the style of music the artists enjoy most.

No compilation will ever be complete, exhaustive, succinct or get into all the niches and dark little corners that exist and I can only ever be subjective in my selection, but what I tried to do here is cover as wide a range of sound and influence as possible, from original Heavy Metal, through traditional Scandinavian BM, to post-rock, prog-folk, doom-drone and power-electronics.

In reducing this selection down to something fairly concise and focused instead of the enormous compendium I was tempted to do I have ended up compiling 21 tracks of US Black Metal recorded since the year 2000 – in alphabetical order. It comes in at 2:22:23, which I think is nice and tidy. Shame it wasn't 22 tracks and 22 seconds, but never mind., I don't think it means too much anyway.

Also worth noting – because of the unique way black metal is recorded, the sound levels and qualities between songs are unpredictable, if nothing else.

Brace yourself.


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Agalloch - Limbs (Ashes Against The Grain, The End)
Ash Pool - Origin Of Man (Saturns Slave, Hospital Productions)
Black Witchery - Holocaust Summoning (Upheaval Of Satanic Might, Osmose Productions)
Bone Awl - Culture Denied (By Ropes Through Dirt, Demo-Worship Him-Klaxon)
Brown Jenkins - Forever Funerals (Angel Eyes, Moribund)
Chaos Moon - Illusions of Dusk and Dawn (Origin of Apparition, Wraith Productions - Ars Magna Recordings)
Cobalt - Pregnant Insect (Gin, Profound Lore)
Draugar - Dust Chains Idiots (From Which Hatred Grows, tUMULt)
Enbilulugugal - Slicing The Blood Clotted Cunt Of The Rotting Virgin Angel Slut (Nun Twat Armageddon, Dipsomaniac)
Inquisition - Of Blood & Darkness We Are Born (Magnificent Glorification of Lucifer, No Colours)
Krallice - Forgiveness In Rot (Krallice, Profound Lore)
Leviathan - Fucking Your Ghost In Chains Of Ice (The Tenth Sublevel Of Suicide, Moribund Cult)
Lurker Of Chalice - Granite (Lurker Of Chalice, Southern Lord)
Servile Sect - Into The Bloom (Stratospheric Passenger, Sounds Of Battle & Souvenir Collecting)
The Angelic Process - We All Die Laughing (Weighing Souls With Sand, Profound Lore)
Velvet Cacoon - 1 (Genevieve, Full Moon Productions)
Weakling - This Entire Fucking Battlefield (Dead As Dreams, tUMULt)
Wolves In The Throne Room - Behold The Vastness And Sorrow (Two Hunters, Southern Lord)
Wormsblood - A Wolf In The Night (Mastery of Creation, Barbarian)
Wrath Of The Weak - Journey Of Many Days (Wrath Of The Weak, Bastardised)
Xasthur - Soul Abduction Ceremony (Nocturnal Poisoning, Blood Fire Death)

Baphometic Goat Worship (IMP 43, February 2009)

Every once in a while I need to purge myself of some filthy bestial black metal. I have done it twice before and each time I pity the recipient, because in all likelihood they really aren’t going to like it. Fuck ‘em. For this mix I picked only the most goatly Satanic bands I could find and tempered them with both black rituals and evangelical preaching. In many ways, this is the most coherent, complete and self contained mix I have ever made, and despite the restrictive nature of the subject matter I think there is a real broad range of sounds. I tried to keep it down to an hour and then realised too late that I should have gone for a 66 minute 6 second running time. Instead it is 63:54 which looks like one of the least significant numbers ever. Enjoy. or not, as the case may be.













Baphometic Goat Worship (IMP 43, February 2009)
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Tracklist:

Anton Szandor LaVey - Black Mass Opening Hymn (Lords of Chaos)
Aosoth - Rebirth By Fire (Aosoth)
Akercocke - He Is Risen (The Goat Of Mendes)
Archgoat - Rise Of The Blackmoon (Angelcunt (Tales of Desecration))
Rev Emmet Dickenson - Hell And What It Is (Goodbye Babylon)
Baphomets Horns - Attack Annihilate Desecrate (Satanic War Command)
Beastcraft - Unholy Blood Ritual (Into The Burning Pit Of Hell)
Blasphemy - Fallen Angel Of Doom (Fallen Angel Of Doom)
Bestial Warlust - Satanic (Vengeance War Til Death)
Rev AW Nix - Black Diamond Express To Hell Pt. 1 (Goodbye Babylon)
Beherit - Werewolf (Drawing Down The Moon)
Aleister Crowley - The Pentagram (The Great Beast Speaks)
Akercocke - Zulicka (Rape Of The Bastard Nazarene)
Mystifier - An Elizabethan Devil Worshippers Prayer Book (Göetia)
Sarcofago - Desecration Of Virgin (INRI)
Rev AW Nix - Black Diamond Express To Hell Pt. 2 (Goodbye Babylon)
Teitanblood - Ultimate Revelation Descend (Black Putrescence of Evil)
Impaled Nazarene - Sadogoat (Goat Perversion)
Revenge - By Force (The Only Option) (Infiltration.Downfall.Death)
Rev TE Weeins - God Is Mad With Man (Goodbye Babylon)
Black Witchery - Baphomet Throne Exaltation (Upheaval of Satanic Might)
Anton Szandor LaVey - Black Mass Closing Hymn (Lords of Chaos)

Where to now?

How's your 2009 going? Animal Collective have brought on a heatwave pretty early on in the year huh? Merriweather’s where it’s at, properly sunny and free-spirited and a bleak-month mood-lifter. Those dual Crippled Black Phoenix albums are pretty special, really. If you weren’t quite sure of A Love Of Shared Disasters, then this might be the thing that really sucks you in to this band. Spreading their massive post-rock vistas over a wider area that brings in a bit more country, a bit more found sound sampling, a bit more of a groovier riff, a bit of stoned Doorsy pulse. The Doors have cropped up in Golden Animals Free Your Mind and Win a Pony, which is pretty much a Morrison/Manzenera tribute, but respectably so. More throwback action from The Dutchess & The Duke who have produced an heroically rocking Rolling Stones record of their very own. The Blank Dogs The Fields cassette on Fuck It Tapes is way way cool, all the surfy garage psych(o) rock’n’ roll you could ask for (Plus De Stijl just re-released Wavves that Fuck It put out last year which Blank Dogs jump off the back of, but a bit slicker like a helicopter drop on to an even bigger wave in deeper waters….meh, that’s an analogy that not going much further than Long Beach). Speaking of deep, The Hospitals Hairdryer Peace deserved it’s Wire number 3 spot in their EOY list (could/should even have been number 1 over the Bug). I have been playing that a lot and getting more out of it each time, swapping between paying attention to the groove and the backdrops they’re set against – both of which constantly switch focus anyway. Grampall Jookabox are my other pretty essential what-the-hell?! Album band of the moment - Ropechain on Asthmatic Kitty is a real melting pot of surrealism, absurdism and down right screaming soul-jacked rock and roll brilliance. They call it Jungle-Folk. It’s a good a name as any. Also been playing a lot of These Feathers Have Plumes, which Syd really loves too – baby boys can really get into that heavy heady flowing liquid murk and phosphorescent eddies of that tape. Hakobune has also been a pretty effective ambient nursery brew of pretty pretty homeostatic Japanese contours and electronic chanting. Incredibly, Persistent Repetition Of Phrases, the album from V/VM’s new incarnation The Caretaker is another hit with little boy; not sure whether grainy, spectral 40’s instrumentals were intended to be the soundtrack to an 18-week-old’s sleep, but it really works.

Things of a grimmer nature that have darkened the skies over Chez Meat is Fauna – temperate climate black metal from the US – warm, wet, humid misty guitars. So-long frostbite, hello heatstroke – it’s all as blurry and overwhelmingly crippling. Szarlem, another in a long-line of outfits from Varghkoghargasmal’s Avenger, tears it up in suitably lone-ranger fashion. Lots of utterly oppressive sustained claustrophobia from bands like these: Brulvahnatu, Lyrinx, Ashtoreth Incesti, Darkspace, Exitus Letalis, Hopeless and Paranomia. Mutant BM is likely to get even weirder this year, thanks to the January release by Den Saakaldte that features vaudeville and Arabian flourishes, trumpet and….woahwoah…yeah? I think we can leave it on BLACK METAL TRUMPETS and ponder that for some long time.

…..Black metal trumpets. Where to now?

Oh yeah – Old Mayor release their debut ep on London based Paradigms Recordings. Should be due February or March. Awesome news.


MxBx